preview

Critical Thinking

Decent Essays

* This assignment will showcase your ability to recognize and examine argument structure. Please be sure to follow all of the assignment guidelines, which your instructor will give to you in class or listed below.

 * In this week's assignment, we are going to take a look at a couple of arguments related to an immensely controversial idea in our society, the idea of same-sex marriage. At the end of Chapter Six you will find two different opinions, Justice Margaret Marshall’s majority opinion on Goodridge v. Department of Public Health and Matthew Spalding’s “A Defining Moment for Marriage and Self-Government. While many of you may have strong opinions on one side or the other of this debate, this week we're asking you to set …show more content…

Explain in your analysis what these key terms actually mean and try your best to relate these concepts to the article.

.
As you go through each sentence, try to identify the specific premises, propositions and conclusions. Look for the issue that the article is focusing on, decide if rhetoric is used in the article, and keep an eye out for potential fallacies, such as ad hominem, slippery slope, fallacy of division or unwarranted assumption. Is the author showing clarity in their reasoning, or are they being too vague and ambiguous? Do they demonstrate credibility by supporting their premises with solid evidence, facts and research or is it based more on opinion and flawed logic? Try to detect the type of language that the author uses: were there any statements of hyperbole, stereotyping or rhetorical devices? Were there any weak or irrelevant statements that could have been eliminated to strengthen the author's argument?
.
You can also support your assignment using the critical thinking concepts from previous chapters with points on evidence, confirmation bias, the author's communication and

Get Access