Mission Critical

I found the mission critical website to be useful for the amount of information it provided. It when in depth and detail all the key concepts from class this semester. I think I will be using this website as a study guide for the final. I also found the layout to be very convenient to navigate and go to the information that I wanted to read. Here is a little constructive criticism though, by making everything a hyperlink and that lighter blue and underlined it was not so easy to read at first (not reader friendly), everything kind of blended in together. Another part that I found I liked a lot is the interactive questions, you could click on the answer to the question you thought was right and find out if you were correct or not. If you got it wrong it explained why you might think that it was correct but also explain why it was not the correct choice. Always very helpful to explain why it was not correct instead of just saying that was the wrong answer.

Cause and Effect Website

The cause and effect website reading and exercises was useful for me because it helped me to really understand how cause and effect works in real life situations. By taking an example most everyone can relate to, because it is pretty safe to say that everyone has either ridden a bike, driven or at least rode in a car and seen or have been in an accident themselves. It is easy to come up with our own personal opinion on why the accident happened and what or who caused it, but to stop and think about the similarities between the different people involves reasoning is not something I do often. However, no I think I might start more often, because I think it can be a helpful way of forming a good argument by listening to what someone else is saying first. By listening to the other persons argument you may be able to pick up on something that you didn’t observe or a fact that you missed.

A Feel-Good Argument

We touched on feel good arguments in discussion question 2 of this week, but only by briefly answering a question about it. I thought it deserved a little more discussion. A feel good argument is defined by the text by Epstein as “one that appeals to our wanting to feel good about ourselves” (this argument is actually pretty self-explanatory in its name alone). Feeling good about our self’s includes physically, mentally and emotionally, so any argument that is appealing to how you feel about yourself in any of these ways is considered a feel-good argument. If you want to find examples of feel-good arguments a good place to look is cosmetic and beauty product advertisements or Victoria Secret’s ads. Arguments using this appeal are trying to get you to use their product or participate in their organization to make your self feel better. They often have a negative reputation, but these ads don’t always have to be a bad thing. Sometimes they can really help improve the way someone feels about himself or herself.

Page 195 Questions

1. Here is my example of a BAD (and I mean bad) argument in favor of affirmative action: People of minorities don’t have the means to get a job as easily as do those of non-minorities. They are suffering and living on streets. Help change this and support affirmative action today.

2. “Ready to dazzle? This light, oil-free moisturizer contains tiny light reflectors to leave your skin looking naturally brighter. The SPF 15 formula also protects your skin from harmful UV rays. For soft, instantly brighter skin, use MORNING GLOW® Moisturizer every day.”
The ad for Morning Glow Moisturizer from Clean & Clear is an example of apple polishing, because it is saying your face will be brighter (aka prettier) and softer by using this product. It is a good argument, though because it tells why and how it would do this, but to believe it actually works you have to test the product out.

3. See the second advertisement at the top of this post (from www.sacredpursuit.com), it represents an ad appealing to the fear of what will happen to someone who drinks and drives. I would say it is a good example because it is showing proof along with the argument.

6. See the first advertisement image at the top of this post (from the Drug Policy Alliance), it represents am example of an appeal to spite because it is contradicting what many people think about laws against the use of marijuana. It is a good argument because it is giving you facts along with the argument, backing it up.

Appeal to Emotion

The text by Richard L. Epstein defines appeal to emotion in arguments to be “just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel certain way.” Often the entire argument the premise is made in is considered an appeal to emotion. There are multiple types of appeal to emotions such as appeal to spite, appeal to fear, feel good argument and appeal to pity. The one that sticks out the most to me is the appeal to pity. I think it sticks out the most to me because it is the one that I notice the most and can think of the most examples for. One example is from the social organization that my group wrote on for the social organization paper, the ASPCA. They show pictures of sad, and abused animals in need of help and ask you to donate money for these poor helpless animals. These images are intended to make you feel sorry for the animals and send money. Not going to lie, it has worked on me before so appeal to pity strikes me the most.