One Concept

Throughout our summer class I found the truth tables to very difficult to understand. I believe that this topic should be further discussed or explained. To begin with, the tables used a lot of symbols and terminology that required pure memorizations. I did not really believe this concept was important that we might not ever encounter this type of situation in our lives. However, I believe it is something nice to know about for future references. I liked the Aristotelian Logic that was included that section because it showed an old age of reasoning and argument, but for the truth tables. I found them to be more difficult to understand. I can only assume that the symbols were used to make the arguments shorter. A short hand symbol to explain a topic, but I found them to be the opposite and harder to comprehend that if it was written all out.

Class Reflection

During this summer class I learned a great deal of time management and organization. To begin with, we had to submit three responses in a twelve hour interval. Here I learned to organize how much time I take to do the assignment and the ability to make sure I get the assignment in time. I believe these tools will help me throughout my school and career. I am engineering major and these tools are a necessity in the busy high-tech world. But besides learning how to manage time, I also gain a great deal of group work and writing. I am not that good at writing papers and this class dealt with a lot of different type of responses. I liked how we all shared our thoughts about the same topics and even though was required to comment on other people opened up my views to others. I thought a lot of people’s responses were unique and creative. Some I tried to incorporate in my later responses.

Reflections: COMM 41

This was my first online class at San Jose State University and I thought it would be mostly writing essays individually. However, our class took a different approach and used web-blogs to convey our thoughts and feeling about the class. I thought it was easier to share ideas than a regular class room because we did not have to be worried about what people think. In a regular class, we are physically there and we can see our peers, but from my experience people are hesitant to share their thoughts because they don’t want to be embarrassed. Besides being able to share our thoughts easier, the blogs helped me understand difficult concepts. For example, online people used simplified examples versus the book that helped me understand the concepts much quicker. Overall, I thought this class was enjoyable and educational at the same time. I was able to work in groups and learn about blogs on the Internet.

Group Discussion

For my group discussion, I chose to talk how advertisements affect our point of views and the tricks they do to capture the audience attention. To begin with, I explained to them that we do not realize that companies choose specific images and text to make their products appear better. For instance, a drug poster might choose a man in a bar surrounded by beautiful women because he is smoking a cigarette. Now, the tricky part is that the poster might not actually say it’s because he is smoking a cigeratee, but in our head we capture that image. The poster is not lying, but plays tricks to make people believe this product is desirable and cool. My friend did notice this first, but we took a look at our daily newspaper and talked about some of the advertisements we saw. It was pretty impress to see how companies have hidden text by making the fonts smaller. Or that they would choose certain images to make it appear like a really good product.

Mission Critical Website

When I first saw the Mission Critical website, I honestly did not expect it to be very useful. I thought it would not have much information versus the book or any other reference website. The website appeared to be a basic plain HTML website that anyone could make, but as I read the website more I noticed the content of this website was very detailed and well organized. I eventually found out the author of this website was a professor from SJSU who had 20 years of critical thinking. I was impressed that he gave so much information on different concepts. In addition, he placed several quizzes and exercises that can help explain the subject extremely easier. It covers the entire part of an argument and analysis of the subject. Again, this is a website that I would use and recommend to people who want to brush up on critical thinking who don’t have their notes. Or for people who just want to learn more about the subject.

Cause and Effect

I enjoyed reading the Cause and effect website because it had a lot of information on the subject. For instance, the website had very clear and easy definitions that take you step by step. It contained several quizzes and exercises to better grasp the concept. For the exercise I did, it asked me to find the cause and effect and explain the significant difference. Also, it required to test the credibility of the statement. Overall, I thought the website was an excellent source for people who are trying to learn the subject or gain a better grasp of it. I would recommend this website to people who want a wide variety of sources and examples that they can do themselves.

In Chapter 13 of the Epstein handbook, it discussed about misleading claims with numbers an important concept as a student. As a student, we are bombarded with countless statistical data that can be true or wrong. Unlike claims, we do not have strong evidence that a statement is accurate. To make it even more harder, companies or researchers use graphs to support their data. In our fast paced life, we read statements with numbers and on the spot believe they are true. We do not take the time to read how that person researched to come up with that number. We just have to take their word that it is true. However, Epstein shows a solution to this problem. Besides showing graphs in our essays, we can use scientific references to demonstrate the validity of the claim. We can use the mean, median, and mode to show a statement is true. By showing the average of a claim, we can see that the experiment or research was repeated more than once. Also, we can use our personal obervations to help determine whether a statement is true.