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Chapter 10

For this weeks response, we are discussing Refutation. This is a topic that I have not yet spent a lot of time working with in my other courses, and I am also aware that refuting claims is a personality trait I do not tend to exercise often. Thus, this really is a new area of expertise for me to practice and learn more about.
The portion of this weeks reading that stood out to me most was the "Steps in Critical Decision Making". I want to highlight this section for one reason in particular; I was confused and have some issues with this portion of the text. Let me explain why.
So this chapter begins explaining how the authors plan to "lay a framework" for refutation. While I don't see any blatant misinformation or inaccuracy in the facts provided, I simply do not feel as if this is new information to me. Not in the way that I already now so much about refutation this is just repetition for me, but rather because I feel as if this is a copy pasted generic "steps you take to..." that comes up frequently through a variety of communication topics. For instance, as this chapter even mentions, the process of refutation sounds very similar to the scientific process. It begins with "Identify the Question/Claim". Understand what is being presented to you. Think through it thoroughly from all sides so it is understood. This sounds like the initial observation which gets the scientific process underway. Then, we have "Survey Objectives and Values". This sounds like doing basic research and getting primary questions answered on the issue. Later there is, "Canvass Alternative Decisions", which seems like an inherent part of the scientific process already.
Bottom line, a lot of the instructions for "laying a framework" detail common sense, generalized processes of simple critical thinking. Is it really necessary to explicitly state, "If you have not done your homework you are not ready for refutation"(161)? That sounds pretty base knowledge, if you don't know anything about a subject, you probably aren't ready to have an argument about it. A lot of the instructions given in this chapter are simply redundant and things that we have already heard in other contexts that I feel are easily applied in refutation as well. Overall, I think this chapter was over-explained and made it more difficult for me to understand the concepts, because I felt like I was reading the same copy-paste Comm information I have been viewing for years.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 13, 2018 at 3:16 PM

    Hello, Lucas. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this chapter! I agree with you as well on how this chapter has made some redundant comments about refutation. I do think that it is common sense that if you do not know much about a topic, you probably shouldn't be arguing against anyone about it. One thing that I found helpful from this chapter was the idea of refutation in defending certain organizational concepts. For example, if in an organization there are two parties that want to change certain things within the org, then they can have a place to speak their claims. I find the process of refutation to be helpful because it gives a clear outline of how things should be handled without things getting out of hand. Although, I do agree that most of these things talked about in this chapter have been covered in several other comm courses. Nothing new to the content, just a different way of applying it. Good response! Thanks for being honest.

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