TFY ch9

The critical reading of arguments is an active endeavor that requires involvement, interaction with questions, and evaluation.What an argument first needs is an objective reading or hearing. Afterwards criticism can begin with five questions:
a) What viewpoint is the source of this argument?
b) What is the issue of controversy?
c) Is it an argument or a report?
d) How is the argument structured in terms of reasons and conclusions?e) What are the argument’s strengths and weaknesses?
The analysis of arguments in terms of their reasons and conclusions applies to both inductive and deductive arguments. Reasons include data, evidence, and premises, while conclusions include those deductively drawn as well as hypotheses.
The following questions can serve as guidelines for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments:
a) Are the reasons adequate to support the conclusion?
b) Are there any hidden assumptions?
c) Are any central words ambiguous or slanted so as to incite prejudice?
d) Are there fallacies of reasoning?
e) Is any important information missing?
f) Is any information false or contradictory?
TfY Chapter 9
Exercise p.259- Argument:
What is Deductive Reasoning?
1. Student who want well-paying careers upon graduation should (R)train themselves to be computer programmers.
(C)Most cities are full of advertisements for computer programmers.

2. By the study of different religions (R)we find that in essence they are one. All are concerned with revelations or breakthrough experiences that can (C)redirect lives and empower them toward good.

3. (R)I am not pro-abortion at all. I think that people nowadays use abortion as an essay from of both control. (C)It's also against my religion.

4. (R)Guns kill people; that's why handguns should be banned.(C)

5. (R)Deep fat frying can greatly increase the calories of foods such as fish, chicken, and potatoes. Therefore, (C)it is better to bake, boil, or steam foods.

6. " It is important that (R)individual citizens equip themselves with a baloney detection kit to determine whether politiciand, scientists, or religious leaders are lying-it's an important part of becoming a citizen of the world."(C)

7. (R)America should put a freeze on immigration. Its first duty is to take better care of its own disadvantaged, poor, and unemployed.(C)

8. (R)America boasts about its wealth and prosperity as the world's most competitive economy. Yet its citizens are told there is not enough money for health care, environmental protection, for parks, safety nets for the poor and elderly, or public funding for the arts(C). Isn't there something wrong with this picture?

9. (R)"If nothing happened, if nothing changed, time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. In fact, time doesn't exist."(C)
10. (R)I don't know drink because alcohol gives me a brief high followed by a longer depression.(C)