Responses 3

Aztec Tat:

I like this summary; it’s concise and brings out the major points. The formatting of the post is also quite interesting. I really like how you point out an important aspect of the chapter and in the following sentence you apply your own thoughts. It is a very direct way of planning and organizing your opinions, compared to my methods of introducing the whole chapter summary in several paragraphs and then all my thoughts of the chapter in the last paragraph. For engineers, I agree that evidence is mostly direct experiments and calculations, as demonstrated with all the labs and calculations we are expected to do for physics and chemistry. I see engineers falling under the category of scientists, and for that our thought processes fall entirely in a different area than, let’s say, churches and poets. Engineers demand proof from statistics, experiments, and logical reasoning through quotes from mathematicians, chemists, and the like. Science doesn’t like personal stories even though there are researchers in the world who quote from others. It’s more or less a game of telephone without all the misinterpretations; however it is a pretty intricate game where each person would have to find a back-up or several data calculations to prove that what that individual says is exactly the same as what the person before said, if you know what I mean? In other words, it is quite difficult to find support or evidence through anecdotes and personal thoughts when it comes to scientific claims which are immune to pathos and ethos. 

danibarn:

It is very true that evidence basically makes up certain arguments. For example, people will most likely not believe me if I make a claim that “we will all die from skin cancer because I said so.” The reason why I put certain arguments rather than any argument is that think back to when people believed in things the nobility would say such as “the Earth is flat” or the geocentric theory, the thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. There was not much evidence to prove the Earth was actually flat or that the Earth was really the center of the universe, however people believed it anyways because they could not prove it themselves until Galileo Galilei used his telescope and saw Venus’s phases. There will be people who will believe you if you bring up something hypothetical that they have never heard or thought of. However, they will need evidence if there is an argument against that thought. In other words, it will most likely take more effort to turn people around in the opposite direction from where they are heading to. I find your analogy to WWII an excellent point to bring up about evidence. Remember the Salem witch trials too? People would believe anyone who is accused of being a witch an actual witch with no evidence. In the modern era, it’s different; there are kids running around and saying “oh yeah, prove it” because they are not as gullible as the world used to be in the old times. As a last note, most, but not all, advertisements use graphs to convince the audience that their product is better. 

Ch 17

Chapter 17 of Everything's an Argument is labeled as "Fallacies of Argument." These argued points are categorized as fallacies, which are arguments that raise questions about themselves. The examples given include "If you don't give me an A in this class, I won't get into medical school," "No blood for oil," and "9/11 changed everything." An A will most likely grant access to medical school, but the fallacy in this argument is that an instructor will not hand easy As or pick favorites, but rather the A is earned through the individual who aims to go to medical school. The incident with September 11 did leave a scar on the people affected by the attack, however it did not "change everything;" the government is still running and the world has not ended... yet. Fallacies are quite common in arguments. The term ad hominem is translated as "to the man" for certain arguments, indicating that these types of reasoning are aimed towards the person making the speech rather than a counter-argument to the statement made by him/her. For example, the text gives the argument "So you think that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a racist, a radical, and an anti-Semite? Well, you're just a white-beard, redneck bigot yourself!" The audience would suppose the rival had intended to argue that the Reverend is not "a racist, a radical, and an anti-Semite" but rather it seems that the discourse got side-tracked. Several times such a fallacy may be needed, such that an individual or group can counterattack using hypocracy exhibited by the opponent.

Fallacies are found in all three types of arguments: Emotional, ethical, and logical. By placing false and extreme points in emotional appeals may cause the audience to lose respect when the argument made can be overdone to the point of which it may "frighten," "provoke tears," or "stir up hatred." A great example for emotional fallacy is the animal cruelty advertisement with Sarah McLachlin's song "In the Arms of an Angel," which have left tears in many people's eyes. 
Second, false arguing can be present in ethos. Fallacies occur when the author claims him or herself or other people to be enough evidence to prove a claim is accurate. Commonly, children would follow their older siblings, family, or friends when the superiors would say "Don't touch my stuff because I said so! You can't eat that cookie because I said so!" (However in this case when the children mature, they would say "but you let Older Sibling A and B do it! But you let your friends do it! So why can't I?") This is found mostly in campaigns, in which politicians are most well-known for citing the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and many other documents, as pastors and priests would cite the Pope's words or religious texts. Scholars do the same for institutions, such as the Department of Education and Wall Street. 
Third and lastly, logical appeals can also contain fallacies. Take the 1+1=0 fallacy:
1+1=
1+sqrt(1^2)=
1+(sqrt(1))^2=
1+sqrt((-1)^2)=
1+(sqrt(-1))^2=
1+(i)^2=
1+(-1)=
0
It is obvious that this logic has a mistake in it, but it almost makes perfect sense that kindergarten teachers have taught addition the wrong way. The example given in the text is of Google and how assumptions can be made that it is "anti-American" because it never decorated its logo for Memorial Day or the well-known American holidays but instead on occasions such as Earth Day, the anniversary of Sputnik, and the Persian New Year. Stereotypes and generalizations are basically what defines logical fallacies. Several examples given in the book include "Women are bad drives; men are slobs; Scots are stingy," and so forth. Faulty causality can also emerge through fallacies of logos. Faulty causality is the assumption of when one incident happens after another, the first action is the cause and the second is the effect, or the result of the first action. However, this is not always correct, hence the faulty in "faulty causality." Other types of logos fallacies include equivocation (a "half-truth" e.g. according to the text, a student plagiarizes but argues that she "wrote it herself"), faulty analogy (when the assumption of a past event causing a reaction implies that a similar event in the future will arouse the same reaction, ex. September 11 and Russia's incursion into Georgia), and non sequitur (reason/s fail to connect with the claim. e.g. That instructor does not like me because s/he did not give me an A on the last test).


I believe that fallacies occur over time. Ever since the beginning of the creation of arguments, there have been people who took it to the next level and found it quite effective. Thus fallacies were born, supposedly. The more arguments evolved, more people began to realize what an argument is supposed to sound like and categorized these false points as fallacies. Fallacies can be seen in all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logos. Emotional ads can be called fallacies when it overdoes the emotion trigger, such as the animal cruelty advertisement featuring McLachlan's song or the Old Spice commercials (which fallacies are purposefully thrown in just for the sake of humor). Ethical fallacies are more of the "Follow-the-Leader" (or more as "Follow-the-Authoritative-Source") game combined with the superiority feeling. Logical fallacies are basically false accusations and generalizations based on facts and logic. I personally tend to have inner fallacies with myself, such as the laptop I bought from the local Costco store over the summer is overly-priced and breaks down quite often at least four times a day, which I blame Costco for its poor selection of electronics. Another one I tend to get is that college students, mostly the guys (no offense), have no patience while driving, as I have seen several students rush through traffic. Sadly, fallacies are everywhere, and don't really think it will ever cease but neither will it really increase much. 

Ch. 13 in Style

Chapter 13 in Everything's an Argument begins its tale in style. Everywhere there is style, as there is mathematics and physics. For example, a student criticizing his bland essay, a speaker turning down another's ironic commenting, a researcher trying to decipher the kind of music teens at a school enjoy listening to, and the like. Style is one of the essentials in a piece of writing that makes it "super effective". Style in writing refers to the uniqueness used to attract the audience and capture their attention. As style in a piece of artwork attracts certain people, style in writing will capture a group of audience. Argument styles can be outlined into three basic types:

1. High - Formal and scholarly

2. Middle -  In between formality and casualty, and very clear.

3. Low - Everyday casualty, informal, or humorous.

Style has its components towards effectiveness. First of all, vocabulary plays a role in style. Would a businessman be more convinced through an essay written in slang or in a scholarly manner compared to an arbitrary high school student? An argument on statistics or a serious issue, such as death and third-world issues, is best not to be written in humorous terms. Also, the intensity of the word choice affects the direction in which the audience is steered towards. Does the author want to veer the public towards enforcing gay rights or banning the use of marijuana? How convincing the argument is depends on the familiarity of the word choice as well. The audience will likely be drawn if they are able to comprehend with simple, brief, or pithy words rather than trying to decipher bombastic terms that only 1 out of 1,000,000 of the public know by heart.


Secondly, sentence structure also affect an argument's style. YouTube celebrity Kevjumba looks at it as a concept of candy and relationships. Men might look at this as "girls are like M&Ms"; you can't just eat the yellow ones (don't just date people from your own race)! Why? Because that's RACIST! Thus, why is the public attracted to these chocolates if they can buy chocolates somewhere else? The simple reason lies in the fact that M&Ms are COLORFUL!!!! No one would like M&Ms if it were all blue or red. People are more attracted to the variety of color in each bag. The same goes with Smarties, Spree, Sweet Tarts, etc. Now apply candy to an argument's style. Sentence length in an argument should vary as M&M color should vary to attract more attention. Not many people would be willing to listen to a speech or read an article if it contained the same color (sentence length).


Third, punctuation strikes style as well. A variation in uncommonly used punctuation can also serve a purpose in uniqueness in an argument. The semicolon is used to signify a stronger pause than a comma, Exclamation marks are meant to translate the author's desperate and strong feelings to the audience. The question mark is mostly used for rhetorical questions to convince an audience to ask the question themselves and provide a stepping stool for a deeper and more profound path of thinking. The colon introduces a list of words, phrases, or sentences and separates one from another. Dashes are a more immediate means to add a comment or a remark to a most recent phrase or sentence. Ellipses are used for transitions, as a fast-forward button is for on a television remote control. Other special effects used in producing style are comparisons (similes, analogies, etc.), anecdotes, hyperboles, symbolism. antonomasia, irony, and schemes (parallelism, antithesis, etc.).


To me, style is all art. Some people like surreal, while others like realistic or comic strips. The same people will prefer humorous arguments over, let's say, professional or casual. Style determines the uniqueness and how much of it can spread throughout a certain region. To put it in Pokemon-ism terms, becoming a Pokemon master is not that you tamed or caught Pokemon, but how you managed to do so.