Self-study
Mary: Support Computers will make more information available to ordinary people than was ever available before, thus Conclusion making it easier for them to acquire knowledge without consulting experts.
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Speaker 1 Summary
Mary thinks that computers will make it easier for ordinary people to acquire knowledge with no need for experts. Why? Because people will have access to more information than ever before. Mary is assuming that greater access to information will lead to greater ability to acquire knowledge without involving experts.
Speaker 2 Summary
Joyce thinks that computers will increase people’s need for experts. Why? Because in the past, a greater availability of knowledge led to a greater need for experts to explain that knowledge to non-experts. Joyce is assuming that the same thing will happen with computers.
Objective
We’re looking for a point of disagreement. Mary and Joyce disagree about whether computers will decrease or increase the need for people to rely on experts to acquire knowledge.
4.
The dialogue most strongly supports ███ █████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ███████
a
computers will contribute ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████
Neither speaker makes any claim about the overall impact of computers on the dissemination of knowledge in society. Both Mary and Joyce limit their arguments to how experts will be involved.
b
computers will increase ███ ████ ███ ████████ ██████ ███████ █████████ ██ ████ ██ ███████
Mary disagrees with this: her argument is meant to establish that computers will decrease people’s need for experts. Joyce agrees with this: she uses history to claim that people’s need for experts will increase. This is the point of disagreement.
c
computers will make ████ ███████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██████
Mary states this as a premise, so clearly agrees. Joyce also seems to agree, though: her argument implies that computers will make more knowledge available to ordinary people. Joyce certainly doesn’t claim otherwise.
d
dependency on computers ████ ████████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████
Neither speaker talks about dependency on computers or how an increase of knowledge would affect such a dependency.
e
synthesizing knowledge and ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ ██ ████████████ ████ ██ ████████ ███████
Neither speaker says that only computer experts can synthesize and explain knowledge to ordinary people. Joyce indicates that there will be a need for experts to synthesize and explain, but doesn’t say that only experts can do this, and doesn’t specify computer experts.