1). Concerning 221 - 225 Complex Arguments for Analysis: Page 225 contains Exercises on the Structure of Arguments. Please choose one of the 5 exercises and complete the exercise in one post to your blog. After you have completed the exercise, discuss whether or not this exercise was useful.
The exercise I chose is number 2. A person stated:
"1 Las Vegas has too many people. 2 There's not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people. 3 And the infrastructure of the city can't handle more than a million: 4 The streets are overcrowded, and 5 traffic is always congested; 6 the schools are overcrowded, and new ones can't be built fast enough. 7 We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country."
Argument: Yes. I have numbered the parts that might be a claim.
Conclusion: We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country.
Additional Premises Needed: You could make 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 a claim by saying "Las Vegas has too many people because there's not enough water in the desert, the streets are overcrowded, traffic is always congested, and schools are overcrowded and new ones can't be built fast enough." And add the conclusion, "Therefore, we should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country."
Identify and Subarguments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are independent and support the conclusion, 7.
Good Argument: All the premises seem plausible and support the conclusion. So yes, it's a good argument.
I feel the exercise was very useful. It helped me break down different parts of an argument and really analyze it. Usually, when I read a paragraph like the one I chose, I just somewhat try to read through and understand the whole of it. However, this exercise and chapter in the book taught me to break down arguments and really see if what the person is arguing is good or not. I like how this exercise showed me to take each part of it and look at it as a claim and not just a sentence. That way, I can really see how the person led to his or her conclusion. I feel confident I broke down this argument well and made it better and will continue to analyze arguments I am presented with in the future.
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This post was very interesting because of the way things are explained. I like how you used the same style as the book to format the answer to the question because it is much clearer to answer that way. You break down the question and answer well. I agree that it is an argument and that the last part of it is the conclusion. You explained that additional premises part and the part where you needed to identify the subargument very clearly. I thought it was good that you explained additional premises in detail. I thought this exercise was helpful too.
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