On a Mission

When I first visited the website, I was a little shocked at all the info I had to go through. As I clicked away at each link I soon realized that its contents was more than just what chapter fifteen of Epstein offered. The Mission Critical website had a lot of good info. It served as a review for me. The exercises were a plus but I feel like it was a little rough around the edges. The exercises part was kind of confusing because if you keep scrolling down it moves on to different questions and I got kind of lost. But other than that part I thought it was a very good summary of what we have been learning throughout the semester. I really liked the way it was organized in an outline form. Each subject even had its own exercise, which was a plus. I will definitely use this website again to study for the final.

So easy a caveman can do it.

At first it was fairly easy to understand the idea of casual claims. The idea of the accident between the illegally parked truck, the bicycle, and the two cars that followed was fairly easy to grasp. However, as I read more and more, it became a little confusing. What was really useful was the exercise it provided after reading through the whole thing. Although I got a little lost trying to navigate the exercise portion of the website, the content about the potato salad really proved useful in helping me learn the concept. I was able to answer all of the questions right the first time around. However I decided to purposely click some wrong answers to see what would happen. Surprisingly, the process of it explaining why an answer was wrong provided me with some extra knowledge on the subject. It helped me understand the material even more. Overall the website worked well in complementing what the book also offered.

Smoke and Mirrors

For this exercise I chose number 3 which asked to find an advertisement that uses an appeal to fear. The advertisement that I found is a picture of a cemetery that has rows of crosses to show where people are buried. However there is an area where there are no crosses which has the phrase “no smoking area.” This is a clever ad that suggests that smoking kills. It strikes the fear in people to stop smoking because if you do, you will die. I believe it is a good argument because it is well known that smoking causes all kinds of health issues, which can ultimately lead to death. What I like about this ad is that it is not as obvious as many other anti-tobacco ads. It does not just plainly state that smoking kills. It makes you think about what it is trying to say which I believe makes it more effective.

Emotional Apeal

It is nearly impossible for a person to not let emotions play a role in reasoning. According to Epstein, “an appeal to emotion is an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way” (191). It is widely used in ads by different types of organizations. Many use it to their advantage to get people to make donations. In this type it is called appealing to pity. The ads make you feel sorry for them thus persuading you to their position. What strikes me the most is when people or organizations use the appeal to fear. Government officials often use it to get votes. Instead of campaigning on what they are good at, they usually attack other opposing candidates to strike fear in voters showing them what could happen if that person wins the election. It is also used to strike fear in people to prevent them from doing things like smoking and drunk driving. I believe this is the best way to use the appeal to fear.