- writing
- rock climbing
- web/graphic design
- knot tying
- food labeling
- video games
- construction
- copyright law
- maps
- politics
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Workshop 1 - expertise and interests
Expertise in:
Some Resources on Fallacies
Fallacies in argument represent a host of unethical, sloppy, or inappropriate modes of persuasion or reasoning. But they also have legitimate uses at time. An ad hominem fallacy is usually described as an attack on a person’s character rather than that person’s reasoning. But sometimes a person's character is relevant to the argument being made. Most of these fallacious strategies are unacceptable all the time, but some are acceptable in some cases. This i spart of the reason it is easy to get sucked into using them inappropriately.
Standard List of Fallacies in Argument, categorized by ethics, emotion, and logic - http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/handouts/?q=node/30
Expanded List of Fallacies, including some more specific instances - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
Standard List of Fallacies in Argument, categorized by ethics, emotion, and logic - http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/handouts/?q=node/30
Expanded List of Fallacies, including some more specific instances - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Toulmin Model in Brief
The Toulmin Model shows that arguments are made of three basic parts (the claim, the support, and the warrant), but that real arguments may also contain additional elements (backing, rebuttal, grounds, and qualifiers).
Claim - the main point of the argument; also called thesis, proposition, or conclusion.
Data - the evidence, opinions, reasoning, examples, and factual information that support the claim and make it possible for the reader to accept it; also called proof, evidence and reasons.
Warrant - the assumptions, general principles, the conventions of specific disciplines, widely held values, commonly accepted beliefs, and appeals to human motives that are an important part of any argument, and which enable the audience to accept the data as proof of the claim.
Backing - additional evidence provided to support or “back up” a warrant; often directly addressed if there is a strong possibility that your audience will reject the warrant. Answers the question: how do you know or why do you believe in your warrant?
Grounds – additional evidence provided to support or “back up” the data; often when the audience is likely to challenge the data. answers the question: how do you know your data or how do you know it is good data?
Rebuttal – conditions under which the argument will no longer hold true; exceptions that are outside the scope of your argument
Qualifiers – ways of avoiding presenting your claim as an absolute certainty, allowing for some uncertainty. Limitations you set on your claim.
Claim - the main point of the argument; also called thesis, proposition, or conclusion.
Data - the evidence, opinions, reasoning, examples, and factual information that support the claim and make it possible for the reader to accept it; also called proof, evidence and reasons.
Warrant - the assumptions, general principles, the conventions of specific disciplines, widely held values, commonly accepted beliefs, and appeals to human motives that are an important part of any argument, and which enable the audience to accept the data as proof of the claim.
Backing - additional evidence provided to support or “back up” a warrant; often directly addressed if there is a strong possibility that your audience will reject the warrant. Answers the question: how do you know or why do you believe in your warrant?
Grounds – additional evidence provided to support or “back up” the data; often when the audience is likely to challenge the data. answers the question: how do you know your data or how do you know it is good data?
Rebuttal – conditions under which the argument will no longer hold true; exceptions that are outside the scope of your argument
Qualifiers – ways of avoiding presenting your claim as an absolute certainty, allowing for some uncertainty. Limitations you set on your claim.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Class Notes from Friday, Jan. 9
In this class, we began developing a common vocabulary for describing argument. We began by discussing the difference between "average" and "median" in economic argument, to demonstrate how a small change in vocabulary can conceal a large change in meaning.
Claim - the point you are trying to make
Three standard categories of claims (this may not cover everything, but is a good start):
Arguments introduce various types of evidence to support their claims. This evidence is chosen becuase it appeals to the audience in some way. The three main types of appeals (according to Aristotle) are:
We discussed Journal Entry 1 and discussed possible sources of online arguments to use for it, such as online newspaper or magazine editorials, opinion pieces, or letters to the editor, editorial cartoons, advertisements, or any other site where someone is making an argument.
Claim - the point you are trying to make
Three standard categories of claims (this may not cover everything, but is a good start):
- Claim of fact - states that something is or is not true; can deal with past, present, or future facts (i.e. predictions)
EXAMPLE: "The Steelers will win the playoffs this year"; "Her car was stolen." - Claim of value - tries to attach a subjective value to something, to describe it as being good or bad in some way
EXAMPLE: "Degas is a horrible painter."; "His car is ugly." - Claim of policy - states what one should or should not do; tries to direct one's actions
EXAMPLE: "Smoking should be illegal"; "We should go to Chili's for dinner."
Arguments introduce various types of evidence to support their claims. This evidence is chosen becuase it appeals to the audience in some way. The three main types of appeals (according to Aristotle) are:
- Ethos - appeals based on the credibility of the speaker or a source of evidence
- Pathos - appeals based on emotion
- Logos - appeals based on logic
We discussed Journal Entry 1 and discussed possible sources of online arguments to use for it, such as online newspaper or magazine editorials, opinion pieces, or letters to the editor, editorial cartoons, advertisements, or any other site where someone is making an argument.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Class Notes from Wednesday, Jan. 7
Especially for those who have just signed up for this course, here is a summary of yesterday's class (Wednesday, Jan. 7).
Writing Technologies
The technologies available to us affect how we speak and write, and our attitudes toward speech and writing affect the technologies we embrace. I began class by asking students to think of the five people they speak to on the phone most often, and then asking them who could recite those people's phone numbers off the top of their head. A small percentage of students could do so, and this is understandable, since cell phones store the numbers for us.
This exercise was intended to draw our atttention to memory (and how we use writing and technology to avoid memorizing things nowadays), because memory shaped early Western attitudes about the importance of writing. For instance, Socrates, the 5th-century B.C. philosopher, disliked writing because he felt it would destroy one's memory, and thus make you a poor speaker. He felt if one wrote something down, you wouldn't have to remember it, and then when you were called upon to give a speech in public, you would have nothing in your memory from which to draw on to speak about. Socrates' bias against writing is understandable in the context of Greek culture, which placed heavy emphasis on the ability to speak eloquently and persuasively, but attributed much less importance to writing. Each era has its own definition of what it means to be a literate citizen. In 16th-century Europe, for instance, being literate often meant simply that you knew how to read, for readings texts like the Bible was considered necessary to being a good person. Nowadays, because computers and databases store so much information for us, we do not need to remember much, and being a literate person requires that one has the ability to navigate these databases, searching for and evaluating sources efficiently.
The reason we have writings by Socrates is that his words were written down by his student Plato, who was not fond of rhetoric. Plato associated rhetoric with the sophists, a group of traveling teachers whom he viewed as willing to teach people to win arguments by unethical means. Aristotle, Plato's student, saw a place for rhetoric in one's ethical life. Aristotle was very scientific in his apporach to the world, and his many treatises classify and categorize many things (everything from cloud types to parts of speech). His study of persuasion, called Rhetoric ( or sometimes On Rhetoric, or Art of Rhetoric), classifies the many ways that peoepl organize their arguments, and the types of appeals and evidence they use to persuade people. He identified several koinos topos, or "common places," which are common forms of argument and proof.
There are three definitions of "commonplace" that are important to our work in this class.
Writing Technologies
The technologies available to us affect how we speak and write, and our attitudes toward speech and writing affect the technologies we embrace. I began class by asking students to think of the five people they speak to on the phone most often, and then asking them who could recite those people's phone numbers off the top of their head. A small percentage of students could do so, and this is understandable, since cell phones store the numbers for us.
This exercise was intended to draw our atttention to memory (and how we use writing and technology to avoid memorizing things nowadays), because memory shaped early Western attitudes about the importance of writing. For instance, Socrates, the 5th-century B.C. philosopher, disliked writing because he felt it would destroy one's memory, and thus make you a poor speaker. He felt if one wrote something down, you wouldn't have to remember it, and then when you were called upon to give a speech in public, you would have nothing in your memory from which to draw on to speak about. Socrates' bias against writing is understandable in the context of Greek culture, which placed heavy emphasis on the ability to speak eloquently and persuasively, but attributed much less importance to writing. Each era has its own definition of what it means to be a literate citizen. In 16th-century Europe, for instance, being literate often meant simply that you knew how to read, for readings texts like the Bible was considered necessary to being a good person. Nowadays, because computers and databases store so much information for us, we do not need to remember much, and being a literate person requires that one has the ability to navigate these databases, searching for and evaluating sources efficiently.
The reason we have writings by Socrates is that his words were written down by his student Plato, who was not fond of rhetoric. Plato associated rhetoric with the sophists, a group of traveling teachers whom he viewed as willing to teach people to win arguments by unethical means. Aristotle, Plato's student, saw a place for rhetoric in one's ethical life. Aristotle was very scientific in his apporach to the world, and his many treatises classify and categorize many things (everything from cloud types to parts of speech). His study of persuasion, called Rhetoric ( or sometimes On Rhetoric, or Art of Rhetoric), classifies the many ways that peoepl organize their arguments, and the types of appeals and evidence they use to persuade people. He identified several koinos topos, or "common places," which are common forms of argument and proof.
There are three definitions of "commonplace" that are important to our work in this class.
- According to Aristotle, topoi are the "places" from which one begins an argument. The common topics (or "common places") are a list of typical ways one goes about writing an essay or speech. Two topoi which students are often asked to use are definition and division. So ,when a teacher asks you to write an essay in which you define a term like "freedom" or "love," or when you are asked to classify the many types of something (i.e. division), you are using some of the common places Aristotle identified.
- The "commonplace tradition" is shorthand for the ways in which people across time have used texts as a supplemental memory. In other words, people have kept things like diaries and journals as a way to remember things, and to help them make use of ideas they have, or things they have seen. Even an artist's sketchbook is a type of commonplace text. One main goal of these texts, especialy in the time before computers, was to store information that could be used at a later time. In this class, we will be keeping blogs, which is a type of commoonplace text that allows you to collect and return to your own writing and links to other people's writing.
- A "common place" can also be a piece of shared culture, or a shared perspective that is used in an argument as evidence that you believe your listeners will recognize or believe in. The example I gave in class is that it is a common place in arguments ovr interpreting the U.S. Constitution that you are trying is interpret the Constitution in "the way the founding fathers intended it to be read."
The class then set up blogs on blogger.com (instructions are available on WebCT under "Course Documents"). These blogs willserve as our own common place books--a place to manage all of the text we will encounter. Students will post their journal entries there, as well as drafts of projects for peer review.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Why Blog in a Writing Course?
Hi all,
You may be new to blogging, or you may be a veteran. Based on what you read online, you might already associate blogs with the partisan discourse of online politics, the narcissistic discourse of online diaries, or with the technical discourse of collaborative professional communities. Blogs are all these things and more. We are not blogging in this class because it is something brand new (it isn't); we are not blogging because you will need to be able to blog to get a job (in some cases, your blog may hurt your career); and we are not blogging because I want to get you to write more personally (this is besides the point).
We are blogging because, no matter how skilled the writer, maintaining a blog is an effective way to improve the author's ability to write effectively (since you will be writing on a regular basis), and on the author's ability to engage critically with texts written by others(since blogging encourages linking to other texts). These are two abilities that any writing class should seek to improve. Writers in past centuries kept what were called"commonplace books"--collections of text drawn from many different sources. Basically, authors wrote down things they read or heard so they could remember them and reflect on them. These passages were copied down to be remembered for future use, to be used as evidence in future arguments, or as models for future writing.
Commonplace books were effective means of improving one's writing because writing is not a skill one can improve by writing occasionally--you really have to make it a habit. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea" should be your motto if you want to improve your writing: "Not a day without a line." Besides encouraging you to write daily, our blogging will also be used to facilitate class discussion and to share resources you can use this semester and in the future. Along the way, we'll be able to explore first-hand the following:
You may be new to blogging, or you may be a veteran. Based on what you read online, you might already associate blogs with the partisan discourse of online politics, the narcissistic discourse of online diaries, or with the technical discourse of collaborative professional communities. Blogs are all these things and more. We are not blogging in this class because it is something brand new (it isn't); we are not blogging because you will need to be able to blog to get a job (in some cases, your blog may hurt your career); and we are not blogging because I want to get you to write more personally (this is besides the point).
We are blogging because, no matter how skilled the writer, maintaining a blog is an effective way to improve the author's ability to write effectively (since you will be writing on a regular basis), and on the author's ability to engage critically with texts written by others(since blogging encourages linking to other texts). These are two abilities that any writing class should seek to improve. Writers in past centuries kept what were called"commonplace books"--collections of text drawn from many different sources. Basically, authors wrote down things they read or heard so they could remember them and reflect on them. These passages were copied down to be remembered for future use, to be used as evidence in future arguments, or as models for future writing.
Commonplace books were effective means of improving one's writing because writing is not a skill one can improve by writing occasionally--you really have to make it a habit. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea" should be your motto if you want to improve your writing: "Not a day without a line." Besides encouraging you to write daily, our blogging will also be used to facilitate class discussion and to share resources you can use this semester and in the future. Along the way, we'll be able to explore first-hand the following:
- How to track your own writing process so you don't lose key insights or resources
- How to enable critical reflection
- How to produce and disseminate writing to the public sphere
- How to establish an appropriate ethos in your writing
- How to network (on the network) with peers
- How to manage a research project
Dr. Mason will maintain this blog as a way to disseminate information and resources useful for this class. During the first week of class, we will discuss policies related to your own blogs, which is how you will keep your journal and where you will post your writing workshop assignments. Once you create your blogs, this site will link to all of them, so that you may easily find the blogs of your classmates.
See you in class.
~ Dr. Mason
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