Chapter 48 Week 10

Being able to distinguish between good and bad arguments is vital to being able to be successful in incorporating research into writing. Most good arguments or reasonable arguments I have noticed use strategies and are generally used by drawing analogies, tracing causes and weighing options when making assumptions that are effective in writing. Bad or fallacious arguments are difficult to recognize as Hacker points out in chapter 48 and the strategies that are used to twist your writing into a fallacious one.

Basically chapter 48 main topic is arguments and you first want to make sure your tactics are between reasonable and fallacious by staying away from generalizing. Hacker also shows us how to use inductive reasoning by recognizing whether your evidence is sufficient, representative and relevant. Cause and effect is another good way to argue your point, but Hacker does suggest watching out for the post hoc fallacy which is an approach writer's do to show one event comes from another. You must weigh all options to be fair and then make your assumptions. Lastly, you deduce a conclusion by putting things together using deducive reasoning Hacker explains in this chapter. The three steps in deducive reasoning Hacker informs us about are called: Syllogism and they are: major premise, minor premise and conclusion.

Next Hacker explains when evaluating arguments you want to understand the difference between legitimate and unfair emotional appeals. I really like the idea Hacker shares about writing an argument and that is you will find when someone opposes views it actually helps you gain credibility in your writing to make it better. I learned from this that it is important to quote the opposing viewers because it is accurate and fair, this will definitely be something I will pay attention to incorporating in my writing from now on. I also learned from this chapter to watch out for emotional appeals because you want to use them the right way.

Learning about arguments has been interesting and confusing because it can be so challenging to use them in writing.