38 comments

  • Thursday, Jul 16

    I like it, thank you

    13
  • Tuesday, Jul 21

    This was really fun and interactive. I like this tool

    11
  • Thursday, Jul 23

    this was fun!

    7
    Wednesday, Aug 5

    @SamiaJohnson01 I agree!!

    1
  • Friday, Aug 7

    I really liked this to break up the lesson!!

    6
  • Edited Thursday, Aug 13

    Okay I can't lie, I am stuggling of tease out the subtle differences between a premise and an intermediate conclusion. Can someone help?

    4
    Edited 3 days ago

    @DurodoluwaAina I may not be a whole lot of help as I am early on in my studies, but I have noticed that with many of the intermediate conclusions, you can put one of the conclusion indicator words before it and it still sounds alright. "But lately factories upstream began dumping waste into the river (Premise). Therefore/So, the river water is no longer safe to drink (intermediate conclusion)." Many of the intermediate conclusions already have these in them too. I hope this helps I am not very knowledgeable on this yet.

    1
  • this is a new tool. i like it

    3
  • Friday, Jul 31

    19/20 first time :), 20/20 in the retake!

    4
  • Wednesday, Jul 22

    For the question on clinic screenings, I'm failing to see the argument made, specifically the persuasion piece. I see a collection of statements, but no element of an argument's aim. Where is the persuasion if the clinic is inarguably out of compliance? Perhaps this one is so cut and dry I'm overthinking.

    2
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Edited Tuesday, Aug 4

    @JohnM An argument that's valid is still an argument. Imagine something like "All cats are animals. My pet is a cat. So it is an animal." This is an argument because the first two statements are designed to prove the last statement. It may not feel like persuasion because the argument seems so obviously logically airtight and no one would ever question whether cats are animals. But imagine you're trying to prove that a cat is an animal to an alien that knows nothing about how we classify different creatures and the labels we give to them. The alien does know logic, however. We can prove to him that my pet cat is an animal through that argument.

    3
  • Monday, Jul 27

    20/20. Given that i was not perfect at the in-course exercises this surprises me. Guess they worked.

    3
    Friday, Jul 31

    @AdamUpdike same, i found it quite fun. def happy that I can see real feedback that i am improving from the exercises!

    2
  • 5 days ago

    no because making it a game is like... i must get it right!!!! (by the last Q my brain felt like applesauce, thank you)

    1
  • 5 days ago

    How is this an argument if it's just a fact.

    1
    4 days ago

    @CodyWombles This happens to just be a strong argument! The premise, if true, doesn't leave room for assumptions and seems to guarantee the conclusion.

    Conclusions can appear factual; what makes a conclusion a conclusion is whether or not another sentence/clause/claim provides support for you to believe it. As long as there is a premise supporting a claim, you have an argument, whether it is weak, or strong like this one.

    1
  • Edited Wednesday, Aug 19

    "... the field is bare by August ..." isn't a conclusion of any kind. It either is or isn't. It's information (a factual result, not a conjecture) and therefore a premise supporting why the turf should be replaced. While we know the argument is about replacing the turf, how many matches are hosted is context for these premises but is not, in and of itself, a premise. How are we to assume that sixty matches plus concerts are "heavy use?" Maybe 100 or 1000 are. For me, this renders it context for the premises.

    1
  • Sunday, Aug 16

    I am having difficulty identifying the difference between an intermediate conclusion and a premise. Can someone help to clarify the difference?

    1
    6 days ago

    @Pheatherose An intermediate conclusion has a premise that goes with it to justify why it's correct. That means it's a full argument, but the speaker/writer wants to prove something else so they keep going with the argument to get to the main thing they want to justify, "the main argument". A premise is only adding support to justify the conclusion.

    1
    6 days ago

    @Gio216 Thank you!

    2
    5 days ago

    @Pheatherose No worries! :)

    1
  • Friday, Aug 14

    I marked the third sentence as context because after the previous question I thought there would only be one premise

    1
  • Tuesday, Aug 11

    for the farms columnist question: Why isn't the traders forecast a premise if part of the conclusion is "The traders had the effect exactly backward:"

    1
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Wednesday, Aug 12

    @JulioBarbosa There's a difference between a premise and a statement that you're saying is wrong.

    "Mark: George Washington was born after Abraham Lincoln."

    "Me: No, you have the timeline backwards. GW was born in 1731 and Lincoln was born in 1809."

    The meaning of "you have the timeline backwards" is "GW was born after Lincoln." The fact that we have to refer to someone else'e claim to understand the conclusion doesn't mean that the other person's claim is offered to help prove the conclusion.

    1
  • Monday, Aug 10

    I'm just a little confused identifying the difference premise vs context, I understand that premises support the argument, and context is background information, but in my mind those are the same.

    1
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Edited Wednesday, Aug 12

    @jagoro If something isn't part of "why should I believe the conclusion," then it's not a premise. A premise is something that is offered to convince you of the truth of the conclusion. A claim that simply helps you understand what the argument is about, or a claim that goes against the author's argument, or a claim that is what the author is rejecting, aren't designed to help prove the author's conclusion.

    1
  • Thursday, Aug 6

    Question besties - is a concession always context and therefore not ever a premise?

    1
    Thursday, Aug 6

    @RaquelRage apparently - yes PER @KevinLin "IN order for something to be a premise, it has to be part of what the author points to when you ask them, "Why should I believe your conclusion?"

    Context isn't part of that -- it's either a concession point or background information that just tells you what the argument is about."

    1
  • Monday, Jul 27

    How is "The Field hosts concerts as well as sixty matches a year" a premise? Its clearly context. It just tells us about the condition of the field. It doesn't answer a why question.

    Groundskeeper: The stadium should replace its natural turf with a hybrid surface. The field hosts concerts as well as sixty matches a year. Grass that heavily used never fully recovers between events, and thus the field is bare by August, no matter how it is tended.

    1
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Monday, Jul 27

    @Naty

    Consider this:

    1. I got 5 questions wrong.

    2. Getting that many wrong prevents me from getting an A.

    3. So, I won't get an A.

    1 is a premise -- the author uses the combination of 1 and 2 to prove 3.

    1. The field is used for 60 matches and concerts.

    2. Fields that are used that much hurt the grass and don't let it recover.

    3. So the field doesn't recover.

    1 and 2 are used in connection with each other to prove 3. Imagine if 1 wasn't there. If all we know is that fields used a certain amount don't recover, that by itself isn't enough to prove that this particular field won't recover.

    2
    Tuesday, Jul 28

    @Kevin_Lin Ok thanks for the explanation.

    1
  • Saturday, Jul 25

    What's difference between context and premise? I feel like I keep putting premise as context

    1
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Saturday, Jul 25

    @Amanda.K IN order for something to be a premise, it has to be part of what the author points to when you ask them, "Why should I believe your conclusion?"

    Context isn't part of that -- it's either a concession point or background information that just tells you what the argument is about.

    2
  • Wednesday, Jul 22

    4100

    18/20 but the two I got wrong were partial wrongs

    1
  • Edited Thursday, Jul 16

    For the question with the Groundskeeper as a speaker. Why is the second sentence Premise and not Context? It is a premise if we assume "concerts as well as sixty matches a year" is a negative feature. However, we do not know if it is negative. We do not know if concerts + 60 matches is a lot or a little. It seems more like Context as it just reports the events held.

    1
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Thursday, Jul 16

    @CarlosTorres Whether something is a premise depends on the intention of the author. I agree that we as readers don't necessarily know wehther concerts plus sixty matches a year is actually a lot. But what does the groundskeeper think? Why does he mention the number of concerts? Just to tell us some neutral fact about the stadium?

    3
    Monday, Jul 27

    @Kevin_Lin But that statement doesn't answer the why. It seems to be giving a background information we dont know about.

    1
  • Saturday, Jul 18

    dang 3980 pts 19/20 :cry

    1
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