I chose to reflect on chapter 12 about argumentation in law. When reading this chapter, I found that it
was a culmination of almost everything we have learned this semester. There is a lot of talk about the burden of
proof and how when arguing in court both parties need to have enough evidence
to prove that they are innocent/have been wronged. It is up to the judge and/or jury at that
point to decide what the appropriate decision is. This chapter really focused on a specific
case about discriminatory pay. It was
interesting to read about the different perspectives that were taken. It was a good reminder that, when making an
argument, it is incredibly important to be aware of who is going to be most
important when making the decision. In
this chapter, I got a sense of the importance to always fight for what is
right. So, while we learned all of these
things in about argumentation, remember that you need to make things work for
you. For hundreds of years, people have
been manipulating the rules and working around common places to be sure that
they got what they wanted. Today, while
the rules are important, use them to do good, and don’t let other people use
the same rules to stop you.
Chapter five focuses primarily on identifying and developing propositions for problems that people think are relevant. It goes over 6 steps for choosing a valid proposition based on a perceived “feeling of doubt.” While all six steps may not be necessary, the collectively ensure a well thought out and firm proposition. The six steps include identifying the question, surveying implicated objectives (or understanding what is the goal accomplishment in regard to the question), searching for new information, considering alternative options, considering costs and risks of each potential proposition, and then finally choosing one of the propositions. The authors then go on to talk about analyzing and strengthening the proposition chosen. This includes identification and ranking of the issues that the proposition addresses as well as understanding how the decision makers will react to these issues and propositions. In general, with all these methods of critically analyzing the proposition, ...
Hey Kelly!
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about Chapter 12, I thought it was a very interesting chapter because like you stated right away it basically incorporated many important terms that we've previously discussed and did a great job of connecting these terms for us! There was a lot of talk about burden of proof , because I think this is an important term for us in the field of argumentation. Burden of proof is known as the "the obligation to prove one's assertion." This is basically defending your point, your views regarding the issue at hand, and that you must supply proof for your audience to just accept and embrace all of your points. Another key term that you mentioned was commonplaces, I feel like this is important to consider because everyone comes from a different place, and has different feelings towards certain issues.