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Chapter 5

Arguments have many different parts to them that when you analyze an argument you can see all these different parts. On of these parts is relevance or salience to an argument. Relevance is taking all the issues or evidence of an argument and making sure that they are relevant to the particular topic.

For example, if I'm arguing about not using plastic to save the sea turtles things that would be relevant to the argument would be plastic straws, bags, and forks are the number one killer for sea turtles. Also a statistic of how many sea turtles die a year and how many die from plastic waste. Something that wouldn't be relevant would be how many deer are hit by cars each year or how killer whales are suppressed in aquariums or how dolphins for aquariums are bought on a black market. Even though some of these things talk about animals and even sea animals for that matter it's not relevant to my original topic and argument about not using plastic to save the sea turtles.

In this article about the limo accident in New York there is information that is really not relevant to the topic. The article talks about the accident and all who were killed and then discusses the danger of the intersection at which the accident takes place. All of this information is relevant as it's still on topic of the limo accident however at the end of the article they begin to discuss how converted car limos are not safe. This is irrelevant information because the limo that the people were in was not a converted limo and they never state that it was or wasn't and it's kind of just slapped on at the bottom of the article. This part has no real relevance to the topic and makes the article seem poorly written.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-crash-victim-text-messaged-that-limo-was-in-terrible-condition-before-accident-killed-20

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 10, 2018 at 8:51 AM

    I really enjoyed your explanation involving sea turtles because it is a huge problem that needs to be examined deeply in regards to the relevant changes society can make towards fixing this problem. You made strong points about what problems are most important to the issue and how applicable they are. Once you know this criteria of what is most important to the problem, a person can confidently act on this problem. Also your point about things possibly being related to the topic, but not being relevant is extremely important. People commonly assume they can use evidence in an argument because it is related to a topic, however they sometimes forget whether this is actually applicable. If it is applicable evidence to the problem, it is therefor relevant, but if its related, it should be further analyzed to make sure it is related.

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