Self-study
A recent survey quizzed journalism students about the sorts of stories they themselves wished to read. █ ███████████ ████████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ █████████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████
Summarize Argument
The argument concludes that trends in publishing are not based on the true interests of the public. This is based on the claim that journalism students are more interested in different stories than the ones that are most commonly published.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a cookie-cutter unrepresentative sampling flaw. Journalism students’ tastes in stories are not likely to represent the general public’s interests: they will probably be more interested in serious political and governmental issues, even if the public is truly interested in trends and gossip. So, this survey does not really support the conclusion that publishing is based on false assumptions about public interests.
3.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ █ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████████
a
It takes what ██ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████████ ██ ██ ███ ██████
The argument never discusses or relies on the idea of cause and effect relationships.
b
It regards the ██████████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ████████████████ ████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████
The argument doesn’t involve any questions of whether an effect was caused intentionally or not.
c
It relies on ███ ████████ ██ █ █████ ████████ ██ ██ ██████████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ███████████
The argument uses the opinions of journalism students to draw a conclusion about the general public’s journalism preferences. This is likely to be an unrepresentative sample.
d
It employs language ████ ████████ ██████████ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███████████
The argument never refers in any way, fairly or unfairly, to those who are likely to reject the argument’s conclusion.
e
It treats a ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████████████
The argument doesn’t treat an unsupported hypothesis as a fact. In fact, there isn’t any stated hypothesis which the argument admits is unsupported to begin with.