Something For Further Discussion

I think something that could use further discussion would be the section where the book introduces truth tables. From what I have read, the truth tables are used to determine the validity of a particular claim. However, the truth tables were pretty frustrating to me because there were too many symbols to remember. There are actually four different symbols used to represent the following words: and, or not, and if… then…. Sometimes I would forget which symbols stand for which word and then I had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to look over the symbols again. Also, I had trouble understanding how to read the tables as they can be confusing at times. A specific thing I didn’t really get is the tautology because the explanation and the definition were pretty vague. I think it will be much better if truth tables and how to analyze them could be further discussed.

Like and Dislike?

My favorite thing about this class was being able to read over other students’ blogs because it was pretty interesting to see what they wrote about while leaving actual feedback or comments for them to look at. I also enjoyed the blogging thing because it helps me to improve both my communication and writing skills since everyone has to post at least three times to their blog every week. In addition, we also had to post three comments to different people’s blog. I think that’s a lot of writing to do; in fact, it’s like writing an essay every week but to be honest, I actually enjoyed it. The more I write, the better my writing skills will become! As for my least favorite thing, it would be the group projects. Group projects are very complicated when they are done online because of technical issues and problems with people procrastinating. I’d rather work alone because I can get things done on my own time without having to wait on other group members to send their work in. It’s very frustrating when one member in the group waits until the last minute to get the work done. I think this class can be improved if group projects are canceled so that everyone can do their own work.

What I have learned in this class

One specific thing I have learned in this class is being able to recognize whether a sentence is claim or not. I learned that a claim needs to be either true or false in order for it to be considered a claim. For example, the sentence “Stinky tofu is good” is a declarative sentence that can be either true or false so this is considered a claim. Some people may think stinky tofu tastes bad because of the smell but it is not true for everyone. I actually think it tastes bad but my parents actually do like it. However, some claims are too vague to be taken as claims. According to the textbook, a sentence is vague is “there are so many ways to understand it that we can’t settle on one of those without the speaker making it clear”. For example, the sentence “Men are stronger than women“ is pretty vague because we do not know what the word “stronger” meant. What are men stronger for? Are they stronger physically or for emotionally? (Epstein, 2006). Before I took this class, I had limited knowledge of what a claim is because I thought that every sentence I see is a claim. Thanks to critical thinking, now I can be able to distinguish between certain claims!

Discussion of the First Assignment

I had to wait until Saturday, which is today, to start working on this post because everyone in my family is finally free since my parents do not have to go to work on the weekends. There are only four members in our family which includes me so I only have three people to help me out with this assignment. I wish there was one more person but I don’t want to bother my cousins or my neighbor because they might me having a family vacation. I guess Ms. Perez wanted us to gather a group of no less than four people but I think three is just enough. Anyways, I gave my mom, dad, and my older sister each a copy of my first group essay for them to read over. In return, they each provided me with some feedback on how I could improve. They told me that the essay seem a bit awkward since some of the parts did not fit very well together. They said there were some repetitiveness within the essay which I also have noticed.

Usefulness of the Mission Critical Website

The Mission Critical Website provided a lot of information about some of the concepts that were covered in Epstein’s textbook. In fact, there were actually some pretty interesting concepts I have not really learned about yet since they were never covered in the textbook. A few of them I have not learned about were universal statements, identifiers, statements, and conversions. Moreover, the reading was very easy to follow because everything was pretty much explained in full detail and the examples makes the concept even more easier to understand.. Something I thought was very useful on the website were the exercises at the end of each section; I find the exercises very helpful as it helps me to remember what I have just read by refreshing my memory. It actually helps build up my critical thinking skills and my knowledge of how to apply those skills to my writing in the future.

Usefulness of Cause and Effect Reading

What I found useful about the Cause and Effect reading is that it helps me improve my ability to identify the difference between the cause and effect. I learned that the effect results from the cause so in order for the effect to be true, the cause also needs to be true. Here is an example:

Cause: Mary did not do her essay yesterday
Effect: Mary’s grade dropped

Because Mary did not do her homework, it is very likely that she will receive a lower grade. Both the cause and effect is true. One can see that it’s impossible for the cause to have been true and the effect to be false. It doesn’t make sense if the effect is “Mary’s grade went up” because the essay is always an important assignment of her grade so if she did not do the essay, it had to be true that her grade has plunged. Well, unless she is bribing her teacher to raise her grade, then the effect “Mary’s grade went up” would be true but who would do that ?

Usefulness of Second Group Project

I think the usefulness of the second assignment is that it has actually helped me build up my communication skills by communicating the things learned from the textbook to the assigned paper. For the assignment, our assigned group were supposed to choose a social organization and then write a cohesive paper about it by using ideas and skills we have learned from the textbook. As a group, we came up with the American Red Cross organization. To make things fair, we split the sections up with everyone in charge of at least two sections. Then we have to use what we learned from the textbook and apply those concepts to the paper. I thought the frustrating part about group work is that sometimes people like to procrastinate, which lets the group down. This was what actually happened to our group because everyone kind of waited until the last minute to get things done, making everything rushed at the end. Because of this problem, I prefer to work alone but at times there are actually benefits in working in a group as “two heads are better than one”.