I’ve learned that crafting arguments takes a lot of research and you actually need to educate yourself on the topic that you chose. I also enjoy looking at both sides of an argument to give myself a better perspective on how I choose to word it. Conducting academic research involves much reading. You must find the truth and not just the opinions. I always look at the statistics to prove my stance. I chose the controversial topic of why marijuana should be legal and have learned the many positive effects it can have on illnesses like cancer. It also is the most commonly used illegal drug in the US with over 22 million users each month. The only problem I have in writing this paper would be finding the correct information in a sea full of opinionated articles.
October 2020
Response to “For Argument’s Sake”
In this enlightening video, Daniel H. Cohen’s main claim is that war in argument misses out on the real benefits of engaging in active disagreement. He is claiming that there should be new types of arguments that are positive. He supports this claim by explaining that the “loser” in the argument is really the one who gains knowledge so why is he portrayed as the loser. He also explains that war in argument prevents compromise, collaboration, negotiation, and deliberation which all should be things we seek in a good arguments, but war in argument doesn’t allow for this. He says that the only outcome in this type of environment is great triumph or shameful defeat, and this is polarizing. Nothing good can come out of this type of argument, and he rightfully wants to change that.
There were many new ideas that I heard in this Ted Talk. I always believed that the winner in the argument was the one who got the opponent to believe his or her point, but now I see that the opponent or adversary is really the “winner”. They are the winner because they now have gained knowledge and new insight into something they previously did not know. Knowledge is power. I also learned that there are different types of arguments. I never really thought about arguments as performance as a type of discourse, but now that makes a lot of sense for there to be different types of arguments depending on the situation.
I do not have any counterarguments for Cohen, but I do have one question. How would you successfully have an argument without offending someone’s personal beliefs? Because it seems like in many arguments or debates, it is very difficult to have civil discourse with a person who is not willing to even try to believe or listen to anything you are saying. It is especially difficult to argue if they have certain religious or strict beliefs that they have grown up believing.
Ideas from this video certainly have made me think about how to word my argument in my paper so that it does not come off as a “I’m right and you’re wrong” situation. I want it to be a paper that gives new information and knowledge to the person reading who may or may not agree with the topic.
“Project #2 Unit Reflection.”
I felt like my writing skills did improve in project 2. Before college, I had a very hard time at writing something without getting stuck half way through. With the analysis paper, I watched my film so many times and payed such closed attention that I never got stuck in my writing. An0ther improvement was revising my paper throughout the writing process. I used to feel that I could not change my paper until I was finished, but now I feel confident in my decision to change something such as the thesis half way through my paper. I felt very prepared for this paper so everything ran smoothly; I never felt super stressed out which I have in my past papers.
This project did highlight a few areas of weakness in my writing. I noticed that when I feel super confident about a paper, and I’m writing freely, that I make careless mistakes. When I read through my rough draft, I noticed that I had many spelling errors that I missed when I was typing. I also saw punctuation errors as well that I should have fixed. Basically, I became so focused on the deeper meaning of my paper, that I completely looked over the easy components like grammar and spelling.
The most stressful part of dealing with this project was having to dig so deep into my film and constantly feeling like I was missing something. I rewatched the film too many times stressing myself out even more because I felt like I could always add something new to the paper. I successfully dealt with this stress by taking notes and making an outline on what I KNEW needed to be in the paper. I wrote the rough draft and then told myself when I was done that I could decide whether to add more. The paper ended up sounding fine to me, and I’m glad I did not add unnecessary parts of the film to my writing.
For my epilogue post, I want to remember to always check over my paper for mistakes even though I may feel confident. This is my worst habit, and I need to always remember to do it because there are so many times where I could have gotten a better grade if I would have checked for careless mistakes. I decided to check over Project 2s paper, and I am so thankful I did because I had way too many careless errors that I did not notice the first time through typing. This is an important thing I learned about my work in this unit that I want to be sure to remember.