logical fallacies

Because my thoughts are focused on nursing school, I am going to focus my logical fallacies on health/nursing ideas.

Rationalization: I could’ve passed my quiz if the person behind me wasn’t making so much noise.  In school, we often find reasons for why we did poorly on assignments. I have heard this argument a time or two, that the people around them were distracting so therefor it took their focus from their test. In reality though, the person may not have studied enough or could’ve asked to move to a different place in the room if they were being distracted.

Straw Man: The public population won’t be satisfied until pharmaceutical companies release their patents so that generic drugs can be made.       

                Although this can be somewhat of a true statement, it isn’t the whole public population that struggles with this idea. In fact, I would say less than half of the population is concerned with the amount of generic drugs on the market, especially because there is an increase. There are however a few medications that still have patents that don’t allow for generics. Yet, many people are pleased with the lower price they pay for monthly medications.

Polarization: Only females can be nurses

I have heard this from many people during my nursing career thus far. In my class we have 4 male students. In classes below us, there are also male students. I think that this is an extreme way of thinking that was introduced in the early 1900’s.  I have had clinical experiences with my male classmates and I still hear people act surprised to see a male nursing student. I am glad that there are male and female nurses and hope that this continues.

                

Topic!

It took me quite a while to decide on a topic. I've had to write many persuasive papers in the past, but that was almost 4 years ago. After thinking about it and reading the blog post on choosing a topic, I have come up with mine.



I have had an Android phone for about a year and a half and am quite addicted to it. That being said, though I've never owned an Iphone, I've used one. I also own an Itouch so I am quite familiar with the Iphone platform. I personally feel that an Android phone is the better choice of the two. I have started to look at articles on the subject to find out what the current research is. There are definitely arguments to be made on why either phone is better. I personally like the usability of the android phone more and find that the applications are easier to navigate. I plan to spend a good couple of hours really diving into my phone and possible find a friend wiling to let me pick apart their Iphone to really find some differences between the two. I am excited to see what I find.

When your opinion matters

In high school I was apart of the debate squad. Although it was required for us to be argumentative to win the rounds, I particularly remember my Junior year of debate. It was during this year that we wrote a case about peacekeeping missions related to the United Nations. For our case we chose the Ivory Coast which is heavily known for blood diamonds. The hours and weeks that were spent on research and writing the case made me truly believe in what I was writing about. The horrific torture that the country's citizens had to endure was terrifying to me. It was clear how money hungry these people were. Our case was rather strong, and even though I was biased to it, our coach and other judges felt it was a strong case as well. My partner and I used the case throughout the season, making the argument stronger as the season progressed. I felt that are passion about the topic really helped the judges see why our team should win each round. We had to persuade the judge that our topic and our plan to fix the problem was the best solution and we had a winning season.

Muddiest point

After reading the assignment sheet, it was hard to really find a muddiest point. I felt the directions were straight forward, making it clearly known that we were to persuade the reader on a specific topic or organization, and not a moral or ethical issue. For me, it is a struggle to decide on a topic to write about. There are so many products on the market these days and also many variations of such products that will make it difficult for me to really decide what to write about. I feel that the assignment criteria and guidelines are clear to the student and I also like the overview sheet. After reading this sheet I feel more comfortable in knowing how to make a claim and assumption and use research to back up both my opinion and what I find in the research. Once I decide on a topic, I am looking forward to completing the assignment.

Notaro post

·  Does the writer provide an introduction that grabs the reader’s attention?

            Yes. I had no idea what the basket was and definitely wanted to find out.

·  Does the writer focus on significant events in his or her life rather than trying to narrate his or her entire life’s story?

            Yes. The writer tells the story of when he was to take his grandpa to the store and instead they found the jackpot of day old bread items.

·  Do the descriptions of the characters or important objects in the memoirs include sensory details that help readers to visualize, hear, smell or feel them?

            Yes. I liked the description of his grandpa. It made me think of my grandpa and how funny he can be sometimes.  

·  Has the writer quoted speech or dialogue so as to reveal some important aspect of a character’s personality?

            Yes. The conversations between the writer and his grandpa help give more depth to the story and show the grandpa’s personality.

·  Does the writer narrate or describe events in a way that allows readers to connect them to experiences or relationships in their own lives?

            Yes. I felt the relationship between him and his grandparents can easily be related to relationships that I have with my grandparents.

·  Has the writer explained the significance of the people, events, places, or objects in shaping who he or she has become? Does this explanation make sense in relation to the events, people, places, and things described throughout the memoir?

            Yes. The writer tells why the characters in the story are there and talks about going to the grocery store but instead finds the cart full of bread products. He tells why they were looking for the bread and includes dialogue of what nana will do because grandpa is bringing home the bread. I chuckled when I read about finding the cart full of bread.

·  Does the writer provide a conclusion that reinforces the point of the story

            Yes. The conclusion tells what nana will do and summarizes the story.

White's story

·  Does the writer provide an introduction that grabs the reader’s attention?

         I liked the introduction. It made me want to know more about the story and about him camping with both his father and his son.

·  Does the writer focus on significant events in his or her life rather than trying to narrate his or her entire life’s story?

        I felt that the writer did focus on a specific time in his life being with his dad and then later on with his son.

·  Do the descriptions of the characters or important objects in the memoirs include sensory details that help readers to visualize, hear, smell or feel them?

        Though the writer did have descriptions, I didn’t feel as if they made me believe I was there seeing the story as it was occurring. I felt that many of the descriptions were too wordy, which took away the ability to be able to visualize what the writer was saying.

·  Has the writer quoted speech or dialogue so as to reveal some important aspect of a character’s personality?

        I felt the use of speech and dialogue was appropriate to help show important conversations with the narrator’s dad and son.

·  Does the writer narrate or describe events in a way that allows readers to connect them to experiences or relationships in their own lives?

        I didn’t feel much of a personal connection to the story. It was rather hard for me to keep reading as I felt the writer focused on specific details too much and others not enough.

·  Has the writer explained the significance of the people, events, places, or objects in shaping who he or she has become? Does this explanation make sense in relation to the events, people, places, and things described throughout the memoir?

        Yes the writer explained the characters in the story and the way they relate to the camp site that was visited. I felt the explanations made sense to relate to what the story was about.

·  Does the writer provide a conclusion that reinforces the point of the story

        The conclusion was left open, not really concluding what the story was about. I didn’t feel as if it reinforced the story.

once more to the lake

1.       I felt the introduction was too much in length and was very wordy. The descriptions in his introduction made me not want to read the rest of the essay as I felt this wordiness would continue throughout the story.

2.       The writer did focus on one significant event, but he kept referring to past events that confused me throughout the story. I felt he put in too many details to make this event be completely significant.

3.       The descriptions of the characters do help them to feel alive and make me feel as I am there with him. I felt the author needs to keep these descriptions in the story to add character.

4.       The writer did quote some speech and dialogue.

5.       I felt the writer included too many details of the event to make it easy for me to relate to. I found it difficult to follow along with the reader, and many of the sentences seemed to be run on sentences. The sentence structure had little to no variance which also made it difficult for me to read.

6.       I felt the writer did explain why he had everyone in the story and that each character played a significant part of the story.

7.       The conclusion seemed out of place for me, but did tie up the story about him taking a camping trip with his son.