Self-study
Letter to the editor: Support Allowing everyone to voice personal views can have the effect of inhibiting some from voicing their concerns. █████ ████████ ████████████ ████ ██████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███████
Summarize Argument
The letter-writer claims that allowing unrestricted free speech actually hinders free expression. How can this be? Well, some people are discouraged from speaking their mind when everyone is totally free to do so.
The support establishes that allowing everyone to speak their mind can cause others to be less vocal about their concerns. To make that claim better support the conclusion, we can look for a reason to believe that granting everyone such freedom to speak does, in fact, discourage others from speaking. Another way to provide justification would be to establish that making someone feel reluctant to speak up constitutes a real inhibition on free speech.
3.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ █████████████ ██████████ ██████
a
When free speech ██ █████████████ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ███ █████████
This describes a way in which unrestricted free speech in fact discourages people from speaking. This makes the hypothetical chilling effect described by the letter-writer more concrete, so better justifies the conclusion that unfettered free speech actually restricts free speech.
b
When there is ████████████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ██ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████████ ███ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ██ ████ ███████
This describes the potential characteristics of some freely-expressed views, but doesn’t indicate that free speech would be inhibited. For the conclusion, it doesn’t matter whether freely-expressed views are offensive or not.
c
Since unrestricted free ██████ ███ ██ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████
This is irrelevant. The author claims that an effect of unrestricted free speech is the inhibition of free speech. What people should or shouldn’t do is irrelevant to whether the causal relationship posited by the author exists.
d
Claiming that unrestricted ████ ██████ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ██████████ █████████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████ ███████
This describes how one might object to the author’s conclusion by way of analogy. We’re looking for an answer that justifies the author’s position, not one that attempts to debunk it, so this isn't useful.
e
When free speech ██ █████████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████ █████████████ ███████ ██████ █ ██████████ ██ █████████
This would weaken the author’s argument by undermining the idea that unrestricted free speech would actually silence people. The correct answer should describe how unrestricted speech makes others less likely to voice their views, not more likely.