How is your week going? We are living in challenging times, but have to do what we can to stay healthy, sane and well-informed.
I’ll start with comments on last week’s post. It’s exciting that now, on the OpenLab, you can browse through the list of “authors,” and that you are one of them (as long as you posted your enormous post following the new format on our discussion board).
Your debate on happiness is lively and filled with excellent arguments in support of both sides. That said, the assignment was to read 1 of the 2 articles and watch the TEDTalk, then state the author’s conclusion, as well as their premises, and then to compose your own argument about the topic. Most of you did well on the latter, but you did not identify those different parts of the argument. The challenge here was to use the critical thinking jargon when analyzing arguments. Kadiatou says about the conclusion in “the Paradox of Choice:” Maximizing choices does not maximize welfare, more choices make people miserable.” Yes, this is the conclusion—and a few of you added that in addition, more choices leave us less satisfied, and this would be another piece of the conclusion (so you can state it in one sentence but in two parts). In the “You Try to Live on 500K…,” the conclusion is that living on 500k in NYC, if you belong to the upper class, is hard to impossible, and there is a big dose of sarcasm here (should we really feel bad for those who make 500k per year???). In the “From the perfect salary…” article, the conclusion is that: once you reach the “perfect” middle class salary, your happiness may decrease if your salary increases and if you compare yourself with others, you will also feel less satisfied and that having a purpose in life and spending your money on experiences rather than material goods are the key to happiness. So this conclusion really consists of 4 bullet points.
If you completed the extra credit assignment on arguments, you received an extra 50 points on DB 5. A few of you lost 5-15 points for not stating your conclusions clearly or correctly, but still ended up with over a 100 for this post. I also hope the exercise was helpful in processing and practicing evaluating arguments.
Some of you started your posts by saying you agree or disagree with the author, or with something that the author says. This would be confusing to an audience not familiar with the assigned articles, right? This is why it’s best to first state their argument (conclusion and premises), and then transition to your analysis and opinion. I hope that this is the model you will follow in your argumentative essay.
As for the quiz, many of you correctly identified the conclusion and premises in the argument about college education, but several of you also incorrectly stated that the paragraph about JUUL is an argument (it isn’t: no conclusion, just a statement of fact, a report).
I also asked why it’s important to be able to evaluate arguments. Jayme says: “I think we need to learn about arguments, premises, and conclusions because it is important for us to decipher the information in front of us. Ideas can be manipulated and conflated with the right, tightly designed premises, which can lead to legitimate confusion and misinformation, (i.e., pyramid scheme sales pitches, roping someone into a cult, etc.).” Similarly, Jamila writes, “It is important to understand arguments and what they consist of- namely a conclusion and premises because it helps us to catch lies and baseless claims. Without this knowledge, it is easy to be manipulated by a web of nice sounding words that actually hold no real meaning or definition. With this knowledge, it makes picking out an opinion from a claim from a legitimate argument possible.” Thank you all!
Some of you answered the quiz questions but didn’t explain your answer. Be sure to elaborate–your explanation and your examples are your supporting evidence.
Warm wishes,
Prof. Barnes
