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Blog post 5 Chapter 6

Content from Chapter 4 is not persuasive enough, if we want to be persuasive, we should have a “case,” which can be called as presentations, essays, blogs and so on. Just like the author stated, “when people make arguments that they want others to take seriously, they develop more elaborated combinations of claims and support put together in a way that is meant to be persuasive (P.83).”
In this post, I will emphasize the preliminary steps in case building.

The first step is to find your ultimate purpose in your case, what’s your expectation look like. For example, I want to start a cult; my ultimate purpose is making people take me as a god. The second step is to state the proposition. Sating a proposition is to make an expression of judgment and ask decision makers to accept or reject. The proposition should be contributed/have a positive impact on your ultimate purpose. Otherwise, your proposition means nothing. For example, when I want people to worship me as a god, stating a common topic is necessary. Life is so hard outside, come to Yi’s Valley! This is a community ruled by Yi, which infinite approach to the Utopian world. Free ice-cream for everybody, free parking, free shoes. In this case, most people would say yes to Yi’s Valley. However, if I phrase my proposition in another way: Come to Yi’s Valley and make Yi a god! Most people would reject immediately and identify me as an idiot. The Third step is assessing presumptions and burden of proof. According to the author, “Your proposition and introduce the concept of burden of proof to describe the challenge to overcoming presumption (P.86).” Cutting a long story short, assessing presumption and burden of proof is to have a plan b argument. For example, what If someone question that I am starting a cult? A cult leader never called herself/himself a cult leader; I would have a plan b argument which shows that I am not a cult. My community offers free stuff to people, not poisoning people. Cults are toxic, my community is not .

Comments

  1. Sadie WollerOctober 17, 2018 at 8:34 AM

    Yi I like how you use a cult for an example, made me laugh. It however worked well with the steps of case building. I think that you could of also related this to a current event of some sort such as the Kavanaugh Case that the the ultimate purpose for Kavanaugh is to become a Supreme Court Judge and his proposition is that he is a good man and didn't commit sexual assault many years ago. That he's done a lot of good and respectable things. His burden of proof would be along the lines of the it was several years ago, people's perceptions and thoughts change, how could you believe it's true?
    There are probably many other examples as well but that was one that you could of related it too.

    ReplyDelete

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