How is your week going?
I’ll start with comments on last week’s post. It’s exciting that, 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).
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.
So… the conclusion in the TED Talk is something like: Having too many choices can be paralyzing.
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.
The strongest posts were the ones that stated clearly what the conclusion and what the premises were for the two sources. I deducted points if you didn’t explicitly identify the conclusion and premises for each of the 2 sources, as this was one of the biggest learning goals for this unit: being able to use those key terms when analyzing arguments. Also, some of you used the word “conclusion” in the standard meaning of the word, to sum everything up, but this isn’t what it means in critical thinking, right?
If you completed the extra credit assignment on arguments, I will add up to 50 points on Conversation 5. 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.
Warm wishes,
Prof. Barnes
