Discussion #1 (Cause & Effect website)

1). What was useful about the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises?

The things I found most helpful about the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises was being shown the way one can determine the strength of a causal argument. This website illustrates three ways to determine the strength of the argument. First of all, one has to think of how acceptable the implied comparison is. One must consider if there is a similarity between what has happened now and what has happened before. Secondly, one has to think of how likely the causation might be. One has to interpret the situation and figure out if it is believable. Lastly, one has to determine how credible the claim is about the only significant difference or commonality is. One must think if the certain situation is what caused something to happen that was different from the past. The exercises really helped me by using the simple potato salad example. It allowed me to clearly see the significant difference and significant commonality by illustrating how they all ate the potato salad and then immediately got sick.