Apple Polishing

There are many way to manipulate an argument one of them would be apple polishing. Apple polishing is when your flattering or sucking up to the audience to get them to buy your product or side of the argument. With apple polishing you are appealing to the emotions of happiness, vanity, and maybe even insecurity to get the audience to believe that your side of the argument or your product will help or improve on your already well off life. An example of this would be like in the Dodge Charger commercial shown during the Super Bowl where they say all the things men do but don’t want to. The ad says all the things that men do and at the end say because men do all these things they deserve to drive the car they want which is the Dodge Charger. They used apple polishing to say in that ad “you do all these things shouldn’t you drive the car you want?” which flatters you and appeals your happiness and vanity to say “yeah I do, do a lot of things I don’t want I should be able to drive this car.” This ad used apple polishing very well convincing the viewer in a unique and fun way to get this car because they deserve it.

address to the ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyPamyWotM

Appeal to Emotion

Emotions are major factors in an argument. Our emotions affect the way we argument by affecting our points of view and choices in our word we use in the argument. Appeal to Emotion in an argument is the concept of appealing to ones emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness, vanity, ignorance, and even flattery. You can appeal to these emotions to make your point or improve your argument. An example of a argument that involves a appeal to a emotion like sympathy would be “I wanted to recycle every bottle I saw after watching the movie Ocean and seeing all the pollution that the animals in the sea have to deal with.” An example of an organization appealing to emotions would be when an organization uses sympathy to bring attention to there cause such as M.A.D.D or the American Red Cross they appeal to the emotion of sympathy to bring attention to there cause and prove their arguments. Emotions can be a powerful tool to use in a argument, by using emotions you can show your audience your views and how you feel about those views.

Assignments

I really enjoyed both the first and second assignments. My group members made it so it was easy to come together and make the assignment that was well written. I actually enjoyed the second assignment a little more because we did it on an actual organization and had the opportunity to look at it and see the claims they made. We did our paper on the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving or MADD. The organization was founded by two mothers that use the concept of dysphemism to emphasis the problem of drunk driving. The organization also uses emotional claims to help bring attention to their cause such as the two founders daughter being either killed of severely injured because of drunk drivers. The stories as well as the statistics help give credit to their mission statement as well as give the organization a reason to continue in their fight against drunk driving. Overall I enjoy writing this paper and ready for the next one.

Vague Generalities

Vague generalities are when we discuss a part or even all of a group without specifying the precise number (Epstein). An example of this would be when you say all Camaros are fast, almost all Camaros are fast, and a few Camaros are fast. Words like all we can figure out, if we have enough detail to go on. But words like few maybe to vague to be put into an argument. They may not be generalized enough to be said in your argument because we cannot tell if just a few Camaros are fast is a valid statement of not. These words make it so the argument is too vague and unbelievable so it is not valid. You can usually make these arguments stronger by specifying the statement so the audience can understand it this will make your premise better and your argument stronger. Vague statements can weaken your argument and make it more difficult to understand, but if you specify then you can make your argument stronger as a whole.

Chapter 8

All, and, no are words that can that mean more then they imply. These words can specify things in your argument and often missed by others. All means “Every single one, no exceptions.” (Critical Thinking). This means when you say all you mean every single one. So in turn when you say all Ferraris are fast or every Ferrari is fast, you mean that every single Ferrari is fast. The opposite of all would be no. No is defined as “not even one” (Critical Thinking). A example of this would be No Mustang is faster then a Ferrari, or All Ferraris are faster then Mustangs you are saying that no Mustang that can beat any one Ferrari. These are things you must watch out for when you argue you don’t want make a claim that is untrue or one you cant back up, so you must use these words carefully and be sure to think about the meaning of the word.

Counterarguments

Chapter seven taught me about counterarguments and how to properly use them in an argument. One of the concepts I learned in chapter seven is refuting an argument. Refuting a argument directly is” when you show that at least one of the premises is dubious, or you can show that the argument isn’t valid or strong, you can also show that the conclusion is false” (Epstein).   A example of this would be when someone says “Cars are better then motorcycles because they are safer and faster”, you could refute this argument by saying that more riders of motorcycle are aware of they soundings and are more carful compared to drivers who are more careless, and you can also refute the argument by saying that though cars have higher top speeds then motorcycles, motorcycles have faster acceleration and can “split lanes” in and go right through traffic getting to their destination faster. Another thing I learned in chapter seven was refuting indirectly. Refuting indirectly is when you don’t actually have to refute the argument; you just show that their argument leads to an unwanted conclusion. A example would be like when someone says “ you say that we waste electricity and that we need to put up more dams to save the environment, but with more dams more ecosystems would be destroyed and you would ruin the environment just so you would have more electricity. These counterarguments are useful tools that I will use in later arguments.

Claims

Chapter six I learned a lot about the dynamics of claims and how they can help or hinder your argument.  One thing I learned this chapter is compound claims. “A compound claim is composed of other claims but has to be seen as just one claim “(Epstein).  An example of this would be when someone says “Either all cars have four wheels or a moped is now a car”.  It is a compound claim because it has two clams be view as one big claim.  Another concept I learned in this chapter is the concept of a contrapositive. A contrapositive is when a claim is made and you say a statement equal to the claim but in a different way. An example of this would be if someone said “ If you drove a Camaro before your life you are awesome” then the contrapositive would be “ Your life must be awesome you drove a Camaro”. These concepts helped me better understand claims and the types of claims there are witch will be useful in arguments later.