D3: Leadership

                One concept that I feel can use further discussion is the concept of leadership.  There are many different types of leaderships.  The first type is authoritarian leadership and this leader makes all the decisions without consulting anyone else.  The second type of leadership is consultative leadership.  This leader consults with the group members and figures out what the group wants before making any decisions.  The third type of leadership is participation leadership and this leader works together with the group members to make decisions.  The fourth type is laissez-faire.  This leader does not take the initiative and simply waits for the group to figure things out.  After working on the group projects, I realized how important leadership is.  I feel that there always needs to be a leader in a group of people so that things can get done.  Without a leader, the group members will feel lost and confused as to what to do.  But when someone steps up and takes the role as a leader, the group is then able to properly function.  The most effective leadership and the one that I think occurred in our group project is participation leadership.  I feel that this leadership is the most effective because it allows for everyone to make the decisions altogether.  The leader basically guides the group into the discussion and helps them along the way.

D2:Favorite, Least Favorite & Improvment

My favorite thing about this class was that it was online.  It was my first online class, and I actually really enjoyed it.  The class was very independent and allowed me to work on my own time management.  This class also had me work on being responsible for remembering to check the website, rather than being reminded of assignments by going to class.  Although this class was very independent, I thought the class was very organized.  The organization and clarity of the class and the class instructions allowed for me to be very aware of what needed to be done and when.  My least favorite thing about the class was the group projects.  Working in groups can be difficult especially in an online class. I think a change that would improve the class would be to change the start of the week to Monday and the end to Sunday.  This way the online class would be more in sync with the rest of the students’ school week.  

D1 What I Have Learned

           Over the course of the semester I have learned many concepts and ideas that I will definitely be able to transfer and use in my everyday life.  I have learned how to analyze arguments.  First off, I have learned how to spot the different kinds of arguments, and whether they are good, strong, or valid.  I have learned about the different types of fallacies, how to distinctively spot them, and how to possibly repair them.   An example of a valid form of argument is reasoning in a chain.  Reasoning in a chain is a chain of conditionals that go step by step, for example:

If I go to the mall tomorrow, then I won’t have time to go to tutoring.

If I do not go to tutoring, my tutor will go home early.

If my tutor goes home early, she will get home in time to watch her favorite television show.

So, if I go to the mall tomorrow, my tutor will be able to watch her favorite television show.

          A bad form of reasoning in a chain argument is the fallacy of the slippery slope.  The slippery slope argument is a bad argument that also uses a chain of conditionals, but at least one of which is not true of doubtful.  For example:

Don’t work out today! If you do, you will be sore tomorrow.  You won’t be able to get out of bed, and then you won’t want to work out for the rest of your life!

These are just a few examples of the different concepts that I have learned through this class and can now use to further analyze different arguments.

Tracing the Cause Backwards

                One concept from Chapter 15 that I found interesting was tracing the cause backwards.  Tracing the cause backwards involves recalling the cause of each occurrence in sequence.  It is easiest to trace the cause back at the first step or the initial cause of one effect.  It is easiest to trace only to the first step because tracing back each cause can take forever and the further back you retrace, the harder it is to fill in the normal conditions.  I thought it was silly idea to continue going backwards to find the very beginning cause of an effect because a person could say, “Sue was born, and that caused the protest to occur”.  Going that far back makes it too complicated to fill in the normal conditions.  It is easier to simply go back to the first step and say, “Sue felt passionately about the campaign, and that caused the protest to occur”.

Mission Critical Website

I found the Mission Critical Website to be organized and also very useful for reviewing different kinds of arguments, fallacies, and even  emotional appeals.  The different links had very detailed explanations of what the different concepts were and were easy to comprehend, especially since we learned about most of these already.  There were also exercises in most links that allowed us to test our knowledge and if we happened to get an answer incorrect, it would explain why it was incorrect.  I thought this was really helpful because an explanation isn’t always given to you when you get an answer wrong, which then leaves you in confusion.  This website was useful for strengthening our knowledge on these topics and also served as good review in case we happened to have forgotten about a few concepts.  This website was very helpful to me and I plan to use it for future reference.

Causal Arguments

The Causal Argument website was very useful in helping me to really understand the concept of causal arguments. I learned that one of the most important uses for inductive reasoning is to argue causation.  A causal argument is basically made when something occurs because of something else, like a cause and effect.   The premise and claim of a causal argument have no significant difference, however each causal argument will be different for each party involved.   The website explained that there were three key factors that determine the strength of a causal argument and they are:

1.        How acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is

2.       How likely the case of causation seems to be

3.       How credible the “significant difference” or “only significant commonality” claim is

This website was very helpful in improving my understanding of causal arguments.  Now I feel much more able to identify and analyze causal arguments. 

Analogies in the Law

         In Chapter Twelve, Epstein discusses how Reasoning by Analogy is used in the law.  Reasoning by analogy is used in the law because the law is often very vague and unpredictable situations constantly arise.  Reasoning by analogy allows for detailed and meticulously analyzed arguments in the law.  The most common pattern of reasoning by analogy in law is reasoning by example.  It is a three step process and the steps are: Find similarity between cases, then announce the rule of law in the first case, and then make the rule of law applicable to the second case. An excerpt from Edward H Levi’s An Introduction to Legal Reasoning, discusses how cases set precedence for other cases.  Setting a precedent with any law makes the law become more specific based on the ruling of the judge.  It is important for the judge to look for differences between a case and others so that he or she is able to alter the general principle and make it applicable to the new decision.