A little help here!

Since this was an online calss, being able to understand certain concepts were more difficult to do since we wouldn't be able to fully discuss our questions or confusions with each other.  When looking over the material that we have discussed, the most difficult chapter for me would be Epstein's chapter 9 on Concealed Claims.  In this chapter we learned the concepts Euphemism and Dysphemism.  Euphemism is when a word or phrase that makes something sound better than a neutral description and Dysphemism is when a word or phrase that makes something sound worse than a neutral description. Although the text gives examples of these concepts, it does not go into depth or detail in how we can apply these concepts or how to use these concepts in words.  In our daily conversations, story telling, etc. these concepts are shown in the way we speak but we do not notice at all.  A way that we are blinded by these concepts are in commercials.  Advertisements overly exaggerate the greatness in their products and we completely fall for them and believe it.

What I have learned

Honestly before taking this class, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Knowing that the class was about Critical Thinking, I thought that I would be bored by a lot of situations and stumped by a lot of difficult scenarios.  Little did I know, I learned concepts that I could relate to and apply to my daily life.  We learned many concepts and terms, but what stood out to me were the arguments.  I really never thought about analyzing arguments or even being able to determine that they were good, bad, invalid, strong, or weak.  I just thought arguments are arguments and if it wasn't good enough you were going to lose the argument.  From this past semester, I learned that bad arguments can be unrepairable and these bad arguments are called fallacies.  I really enjoyed learning about fallacies simply because of the names that fallacies were called, such as: strawman, and shifting the burden of proof.  These terms are easy to remember and we can easily spot them in arguments that occur in our lives.

A few of my favorite things...and not so favorite

This was my first time taking an online class and it taught me a lot.  My favorite part about the class was being able to work in groups of people from the class. I honestly was not expecting meeting anyone at until the last test, but it was an awesome experience getting to know people instead of being complete strangers taking a final at the end of the semester.  I loved working in groups; despite the fact that it does become difficult due to everyone's different schedules conflicting all the time, I liked getting to know our group from the beginning of the semester to the end.  What made things a lot easier was that we were able to stay with the same group throughout the semester; I became more comfortable and confident in our group.  The least favorite part and something that can be improved is having all of the blogs finished in 12 hour intervals.  I understand that this helps us become disciplined and up to date with our deadlines, but it does become difficult.  I mean, I took an online class because of my time constraints this semester; I wanted to be able to do things on my own time.  And having to turn in things in 12 hour intervals were tough because of my hectic schedule.  I always had to them towards the end of the week. I think it should be up to the students when to do their blogs but still have a due date, just like 11:59pm at the end of the week.  That way, things will still get done accomodation will be up to the student.