Last week Question 1

Over the length of this course I have learned many things about myself and my time management abilities. When I first signed up for this class I was very nervous because I felt that I would not be able to handle the time and effort that you had to put into a online class in order to succeed, and when the class first started I was freaking out because I had no clue what to do. But over the length of the course I found ways to make it simple for me to finish my work in a timely manor and have time to study and do everything that I need for my personal life. I also learned how to work in groups better, this was one of my favorite aspects of the class because we got randomly selected to work with a group of people and  had to put together several projects. I enjoyed taking this class and I am happy I manned up and decided to take the extra 3 units of an online class:D

Last Week Question 2

There were many positives to this class and I personally feel not to many negatives. My favorite thing about this class by far would have to be how you can manage it around your own time. For me personally I work 25 hours a week, have 15 units and part of an on campus organization and it is very hard for me to make it to classes sometimes, and this class worked perfectly for me because I could do my work over the weekends/ at late nights. My least favorite thing about the class would have to be getting into it for the first couple of weeks, it was very confusing at first and I feel the process of introduction to the course could have been a little better planned out/ explained. But overall the class was fairly easy and I actually learned a lot, I feel the discussion post actually make us think rather than just having us repeat material that we had already read which makes it more entertaining to do.

-Mike Ross

Last Week Question 3

Over the course of the class I have learned a lot about critical thinking and other aspects of arguments. But I think what will stick the most is the idea of the argument forms. When I took a math class last semester we slightly went over the ideas of Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, and when that was brought up again in this class I think it will stick in my mind forever. Modus Ponens is an argument form which is stated as so, If p then q happens, p is happening therefore q. While modus Tollens is, if p implies q, and q is false then p must also be false. These argument forms help to sort out ideas that will happen. Such as if it is raining out side then I will go to the movie theater, it is raining, therefore I will go to the movie theater. ( Modus Ponens)

-Mike Ross

Nov 11th-18th Question 3

One aspect of this chapter that I vound very interesting was the idea of the Scientific Method. Though the scientific method is not something new to me it is one of the easiest to explain. The boss text best described the scientific method as “ Involving the identification of a problem and the rigorous, systematic of observation and experimentation in testing an explanation for the problem.” The scientific method in the book is explained to be along the same lines as the three levels of thinking. Experience, interpretation, and analysis. The scientific method also has 5 methods in which it follows which are: Identifying the problem, develop and initial hypotheses, gather additional information and refine the hypotheses, test the hypothesis, and evaluate the hypothesis on the basis of testing or experimental results.  These methods are basically used to conduct experiments and be able to use a method everytime to make sure you are conducting an experiment correctly.

-Mike Ross the Boss

November 11th-18th Question #2

Well, the most recent time I could think of when I got an observation reversed real quick, was when I was playing a video game. We were playing a match of two versus two in the game World of Warcraft, and I was playing a healer class to keep my friend alive, and at the beginning of the match the other team flew out of the gates and came and killed my character (theskip), being the negative Nancy I am, left the match thinking we would lose. But my friend (Punerbro) ended up one shotting the opposing teams mage (Magician) by using the Swifty one shot macro then fought a long battle to secure the victory for our team. Scientific knowledge plays a course in this game by first off having the battle be a 2v1 when I left, giving our team the clear disadvantage, but that all turned when my friend one shot the other character making it a 1v1, giving us an equal chance as them to win the game!

-Mike Ross the Boss

Nov 11th - Nov 18th

Be careful not to fall prey to your own idealism today, Aquarius. While this is one of your most admirable qualities, as it contributes to your romantic, creative nature, too much of anything can be harmful. It's important to see things as they are, despite how much you may wish them to be different. The real world doesn't always go hand in hand with your ideal place. If something feels off, it probably is. Trust your instincts.

When reading this horoscope of the day it is hard to truly believe if such thing can be true or not, but one thing that I noticed about this horoscope is how broad it is in the terminology it uses. I for one personally do not believe in horoscopes, since they can’t really base a whole person’s life off of the fact of what month they were born in. I feel that horoscopes are more of just something for people to relate to by using broad terms, and I believe that is one of the reasons it makes horoscopes falsible. The way they explain horoscopes lets people basically make them what they want to hear. Just like the idea of going to a palm reader, they use such broad ideas that people can make what they hear relate to them. There are several types of services that are based off such ideas and using broad terms to make people believe what is going on and I feel its more of a way to extort money from a customer than actually being true.

-Mike Ross

Nov 4th-11th Question 3

One of the concepts from this week that interested me was the segment about the mass media.  In America, almost every house hold owns a television and if they don’t own a tv, there is some type of electronical device that keeps them connected to the mass media. I am not one of the Americans that spend endless hours watching t.v. so I do not get to see as many commercials as the rest of America. When I hear the term mass media I usually relate it to the television and the internet since they are the main sources that people get their information from.  But with new technology with cell phones people are getting more access from the mass media. From your cellphones alone you can access many of the social media websites such as facebook and twitter. And with the mass media there is also a second form of media called Niche media which is focused on the form of communication geared to narrowly defined audience. Mass media has a huge impact on the world today, and with  the impact it makes on the society it is important to understand the medias tactics.

-Mike Ross

Nov 4-11th Question 2

While attending San Jose State University, I have had to go through many different types of processes to prove to teachers that there is no plagiarized work being used, such as using desire2learn and turnitin.com. In chapter 11 two professors Ressel Hunt and Brook J. Sadles discuss the issue of plagiarism and seeing if it is beneficial for student or harming them. Sadles believes that plagiarism only holds students back from their full potential and in the end their education is not worth as much as someone who did their own work. On the other hand Hunt promotes the idea of plagiarism. He thinks that if students are at least citing the sources, they should be able to use whoever work or other ideas that were given to them. I personally don’t even believe it is plagiarism if they cite these sources because they are giving correct credit to the people that deserve it. I personally agree with Hunt on the fact that people should be able to use others ideas if they at least give the credit to the people that deserve it.

-Mike Ross

Nov 4-11 Question 1

With technology advancing every year, it is hard for an individual to not be affected by the ideas and believes of the media. Smart phones have enabled people to be able to keep up on all the latest political, economic, and of course the gossip that is happening at almost all times. Personally, as someone who does not own a smart phone the only way I get to see the media is through watching the news (solemnly) or through the internet. I keep up on almost all the new political news, and while the media try’s to force ideas into my head to vote a certain I always use my own judgments to make the final decision. But mainly, I try to keep myself away from the highly Democratic and Republican channels such as Fox(Republican) and CNN(Democratic) to avoid the bias information that they may pertain due to their background. While watching the election at work they had the fox channel on and I was getting frustrated by the information they were portraying because I knew it was not true from research that I had done within the last week. The media has a strong hold on the people these days, and we are being affected by it all the time even if we may not know.

-Mike Ross

Nov 4th Question 3

This chapter of the book was very easy to read since it was a business related chapter and since I am a business major it kept my interest throughout the whole chapter. The part of the chapter that interested me the most was how advertising affects the media and how important it is to the success of a business. The three main purposes of advertising are first off to inform the consumers about a product or services, secondly to create product awareness and lastly to motivate customers demand for a certain product. Advertisements are used throughout the media to try to persuade people to buy their products or at least get them interested to do further research on the product. Companies but a large amount of money into there advertising team because it is one of the most important factors when it comes to a company. If your advertising team is weak it will be hard to get your product out on the market and get it known.

-mike ross

oct 28- nov 4th question 2

Robert Liodice and Margo G.Wootan have different positions on whether the government should have regulations on food commercial or not. Wootan supports regulations on food commercials because he finds the commercials to promote unhealthy eating and is leading to the increase in child obesity. He feels that the government would help control these factors by limiting the marketing strategies that such company as McDonalds could use. On the other hand, Liodice does not support the fact of government being able to regulate commercials. He believes that controlling commercials by manufactures violates the first amendment, which is the right of freedom of speech. I believe that Liodice has a better argument purely based on the fact that his argument is based upon an idea that is placed in the U.S. constitution. Wootan ideas are basically yet factual, based on his opinion that if the government is allowed to put restrictions on the marketing that it will decrease child obesity which may not always be the case.

Oct 28-4 Nov Question #1

Avoiding advertisements in the world today is basically impossible, you see them when your driving, walking, on the internet, basically anywhere you go there is some type of advertisements. They could range from a simple flier to a plane flying over the top of you with a banner attached.  Within the past week I have ran into several types of advertising and the one that I found most effective was an even that Microsoft was having to promote their new game Halo 4. Over this weekend Microsoft put together an event where they streamed gameplay of their game almost constantly on a website known to most of the gaming community twitch.tv. Microsoft paid twitch to have their game on the front page as well as having a little popup on the site at all times that you could click on to redirect you to the halo 4 stream. I am not interested in Halo very much but just because they were on the front page I checked out the game for 30 min to an hour and it interested to do further research on the game. One advertising method I found not very effective was I believe it is a scion commercial where they have hamsters driving a car. I find it ridiculous and not very funny which is what I believe they were going for. It makes the car company look a bit childish.

-          Mike Ross

Chapter 4 Question 2

While reading chapter 4 and the arguments on UFO there were 3 different physicist that explained there personal feelings on UFO’s. First was Edward U. Condom who was a physicist at the University of Colorado. In his writings he said that UFO were a good field to conduct studies on, however they could not find sufficient evidence to proof the existence of these UFO’s. I got the idea that Condom believes that people should keep studying on UFO’s if they have a reason and or evidence to continue to do their studies but otherwise they should just stop . The next researcher was J. Allenhynek and he claimed that there is a possibility that UFO exist . He believed that scientist have to up their research on UFOs. The last researcher, is Royston Paynter and his argument was more of that UFO’s have the possibility of being real and that scientist should collect evidence and seek for facts to prove that UFO’s are real. I think Paynter makes the best argument because he is in more of the middle ground and does not sway towards one side specifically.

-Mike Ross

Chapter 4 Question 1

Hey Class,

In chapter 4 they talk about Aristotle and his idea of wisdom and that it is the greatest virtue. To me wisdom is an aspect that is gained over time and threw experience. I personally feel that wisdom is not something you can be taught but something that is gained. On the other hand I feel knowledge can be taught and is what we are being taught in class increases our knowledge, but at the same time the experience of going to college is also giving us wisdom by experiencing college life. So I feel the experience of going to college helps you gain wisdom while attending classes and studying is how you obtain knowledge. To me you can’t study how to gain wisdom, and its often why young kids go to adults or their grandparents for advice because they have been around the block and have the wisdom to help a teen make a hard decision.

-Mike Ross

Week 7 Chapter 3

Hey Class,

One of the topics covered in chapter 3 was the definition of connotative meaning. Connotative meaning is a word or phrase that includes feelings and personal thoughts that are elicited on the basis of past experiences and associations. For example just as stated in the text when someone hears the word dog, they think of a man’s best friend or they think of vicious pit bulls that tear people apart. Connotative meanings are a part of why people make judgments, because when you see someone that reminds you of a certain group of people from past experiences you are going to have personal thoughts based on that past. Connotative meanings may also be included in dictionary definitions, but they are more commonly shared between a group of people. For example my friends share a phrase in which they say  “We out here” and while most would think this means we are outside, when they say it they mean that they are getting girls/ partying.

-Mike Ross

Chapter 3 Sally Ride

Hey Everyone,

After looking over the characteristics needed to be qualified as a good critical thinker, I came to the conclusion that Sally Ride has obtained the quality’s enabling her to be characterized as a good critical thinker. As it says in the text Sally Ride majored in both Physics and English, this first amazed me because these topics are basically north and south of one another, usually someone that is good at physics is not very good at English but that is just from my experience. Physics and English both require someone to be good at problem solving and being able to think out of the box and be creative. Sally Ride also had to have the quality of communication, with working at NASA as an astronaut you need to be able to communicate with your fellow employees enable to complete missions and make sure everyone is on the same page. Overall, to me it is clear that Sally has the quality’s needed to be a good critical thinker since she has proved it through her life with the work that she did.

-Thanks Mike Ross

Chapter 3 rhetorical devises

Hey Everyone,

After reading this chapter I got to get familiar with the definition and the uses of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devises as stated in the text are “the use of euphemisms, dysphemisms, hyperbole, and sarcasm to manipulate and persuade.” The only two rhetorical devises that I use on a weekly if not daily basis are sarcasm and hyperbole. Sarcasm by definition is“a sharply ironical taunt; sneering or cutting remark” .I am a very sarcastic person so when people talk to me they often get confused with what I am saying because of my use of sarcasm. For example the other day one of my friends asked if he could use a toothbrush since he is from out of town he did not have one with him. I looked at him with a serious face and said in a sarcastic tone “O ya, for sure just go and use mine”. He then got the idea that I did not have a toothbrush for him because who would actually let someone else use their own toothbrush.  Another Rhetorical devise that I use is a hyperbole, a hyperbole by definition is “A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect”. The other day when telling my friend a story about a joke my friend said it told him “ I nearly died from laughing so hard at his joke.” These rhetorical devises often can confuse people if they are used incorrectly but they often are used to make a point that is rather obvious from your point of view more clear for whoever is asking to do something.

-Mike Ross

Chapter 2 Question 3

Hello Class,

One of the topics that interested me this week was Emotional Intelligence, emotional intelligence is the” ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion; the ability to access and or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge…”(stated in our text book). I took this as the ability to use our emotions in able to make intellection decisions that will help us in the future. For example, I think this would apply to the commercials that you see on t.v with the starving children. Those commercials make people feel terrible with emotions and they then use those emotions to help out these children. Though some people may look that as a negative, but many non-profit organizations are purely based on people emotions on topics, and those organizations help preserve the world. Without emotional intelligence, people would just make decisions that benefit them and no one else, which in my eyes would ultimately destroy the economy.

-Mike Ross

Chapter 2 Question 2

The evolution Concept is one of the most controversial arguments in this day and age. The concept of evolution expels the idea of most religions and their ideas of the creation of the world.  Personally, I do believe that religion and the idea of evolution is incompatible. The idea of evolution explains how the world was created and where man came from. Evolution destroys the theory that the bible proposes, and the fact that it is based on scientific reasoning it is hard to have a counter argument. I am not a religious person, and I personally believe that evolution is the explanation of how the world was created. I think it is anyone choice to choose what the believe in, but there is a lack of evidence that portrays the bible to be true so it is hard for me personally to believe that god created the world.

-Mike Ross 

Chapter 2 Question 1

When choosing a career choice finding out what you are good at is always an important factor.  If you try to do a job that requires skills that you are not good at, or just don’t understand then you will end up hurting whatever company you are working for. Finding my strengths for me actually happened my second year of college. My whole life I have been at the top of my class for math, until I hit this little speed bump called calculus. Every semester starting from calculus 1 going and the way up to calc 3 my grades got lower and lower. From my calculus classes I learned that I was not good at visualizing graphs and shapes in my head, which is a necessity to becoming an engineer. I then realized that my strengths are just understanding equations and numbers. When I see numbers my mind starts clicking and I can figure out expenses and such within a few minutes.  I am also very good at memorization, studying for me is very simple, but I get distracted so easily and that is where I struggle. With these two strengths it helped me make the decision of switching my major from computer science to business since business is less of a visual math that also requires a good amount of memorization.

-Mike Ross

Week 4 Question 3

This week within chapter 7 the author Judith A. Boss discusses the topic of sampling. Sampling is the process in selecting only some members of a class or group and then making a generalization about the whole population.  For example, they will take a small sample group from a large population and give them a poll and make a generalization from those results. There are a few different types of samples. The first one is a representative sample, which is a sample that is similar in relevant respects to the larger population.  To get the results needed in a Representative sample you need to use the method of random sampling which is every member of the population has an equal chance of becoming a member of the sample. Lastly there is a sample that is known as self-selected sample, which is only the people interested in the poll actually take the time to participate in it.

-mike ross 

Week 4 Cause and Effect

When Cause and effect happens, it often shows a premise then a conclusion because of the premise. For example, I slept in too late so I missed my class. While sometimes the cause and effect may not be as clear as other situations, they will always be able to be pointed out. In the text book Dr. Novello has the problem that more teenagers are starting to smoke. Now there could be many possibilities of the cause in this situation but from the text it looks like that the ads that are being used to target teenagers and make smoking look like “the cool” thing to do. To fix this problem Dr. Novello pushed for the banning of advertising cigarettes to the youth and for schools to start educating students of the harms of smoking. I believe that these changes are helping because being educated about the harms of smoking and knowing what it does to your body makes it hard to smoke without thinking of what your doing to your body.

-mike ross

Week 4 Question 1

Inductive reasoning is used daily to make decisions that would otherwise be difficult to make but you use aspects of a person or situation that you know from the past to help you make the decision for that moment. For example, As I have stated in my blog post before I am the treasurer of a fraternity, and we always have people that have troubles paying on time/ try to make deals to avoid late fees. Just the other day one of my brothers came to me with a situation. We had a payment due on September 5^th and everyone knew and if people have problems with paying they either get late fees or make plans with me a few weeks before the payment is due in order for me to make a plan that will work for the both of us. But just the other day on the 10^th this brother came to me and asked if the house could cover his payment for this time and he will pay us back when he gets his paycheck. I then started to use some inductive reasoning to help me figure out this situation. I have had troubles with this brother in the past with payments, and not only that he is consistently late, and often tells me he will pay “on his next paycheck” which most of the time does not happen. Using those as my premises I came out with the conclusion that I will probably not get the money back that he promises by the time I need it and therefore decided to not use the houses funds to help cover his payment. While, this  does make it more expensive for him in the long run, it is important for someone to learn how to take accountability and responsibility.

-Mike Ross

Week 3 Question 3

Within chapter 8 of the boss text book they discuss the different argument types and how you can determine if they are valid or invalid. First off a argument is valid if the conclusion must be true if the premises are true. With that being said, there are several types of argument forms. One of the easier argument forms to understand is the disjunctive syllogism. The disjunctive syllogism is an argument form that only lets two alternatives be the outcome. For example, it could be

Either Mike Ross is a lawyer or he is a Hobo.

Mike Ross is not a Hobo.

Therefore, he is a lawyer.

Another type of argument form is modus ponens, which is a hypothetical syllogism in which the antecedent premise is affirmed by the consequent premise. While this may sound confusing it is simple once you get a hold of it. I had a math class last semester that was based on modus ponens and modus tollens so I have a good understanding on the topic. So an example for this one could be,

If I pass this math class, I get credit for the course.

I passed the math class.

Therefore, I got credit for the course.

Now modus tollens is the opposite of what modus ponens is. Therefore, an example of modus tollens would be,

If I pass this math class, I get credit for the course.

I did not pass the math class

Therefore, I did not get credit for the course.

I hope this brief explanation is helpful.

-Mike Ross

Week 3 #2

In Chapter 8 of the Think text book, Sister Helen Prejean talks about her position on the death penalty and how it is an “immoral” act and against human rights. Sister Helen is fairly biased on this stance since she was raised and is a part of a religious group, which has a huge affect on her stance in this position.  She bases her argument off of the Jesus “who taught us to not to return hate for hate and evil for evil" and while this does make scenes it is hard to base a choice off purely religion. Growing up my dad was a very religious man while my mom was the total opposite. Living in two completely different house hold I have had both sides of the spectrum when it came to politics.  I personally believe the death penalty is necessary for our judicial system. For someone to take someone’s life and just deserve a prison sentence is a little lackluster. I believe in the saying an eye for an eye. If you take one humans life you deserve the same to you.

-Mike Ross

Week 3 Question 1

Hello all,

In the story of “Silver Blaze” Sherlock Holmes tells Watson that many people instead of reasoning and using critical thinking when it comes to figuring out a problem they use their own opinions and assumptions of people or situations. I agree with Holmes in this regard because I see this all the time. I feel that people find it easier to just use their opinions and assumptions over actually thinking about what the real situation could be. Being in the Greek system at San Jose State I see this a lot.  Many people within the Greek system will base some ones personality based on the house they are in or just the way the person dresses. Almost every sorority and fraternity have a stereotypes connected to their letters. I have seen many people go up to someone and treat them with disrespect just because the letters they are wearing on their shirt. It is a shame that this exists within the Greek system because a lot of the stories that are told that make these stereotypes are often rumors and not based off of true facts.

-Mike Ross

Ch6 Q3

While reading I found many different aspects of critical thinking interesting but the one that got my attention the most was just the simple fact of how to Develop your critical thinking skills. This topic was presented in “The Essential Guide to Group Communication” by Dan O’hair and Mary O. Wiemann. In this section it noted some simple strategies that help develop your skills in critical thinking. The first strategy that the authors write about is considering multiple perspectives. While this may seem easy when you are reading about it, this often is one of the hardest aspects of critical thinking in my eyes. It is hard for someone to think that “hey, maybe I am wrong in this situation” because they have a certain stance on the issue or subject. Many of the other strategies were focused on being able to clarify the issue and making sure that your judgment is valid. These strategies also focused on being able to fully understand the issue that is at hand, someone cannot put their judgment in if they fully do not understand what is going on.  For example, if I was asked about the presidential candidates this year and my feelings on what they stand for to help someone make their decision on who to elect. I could not fully answer because I am not educated about the topics and I am skewed in one direction because how I was raised. Overall, the ideas at hand in this section of the reading were focused on a person being able to make a good decision by using their critical thinking skills, and giving some helpful tips that will assist in that.

-Mike Ross

Ch6 Q2

I have never been one to fall under peer pressure. I have a very strong feeling of who I am as a person and I know what is right and what is wrong. When I was in middle school I hung out with what some people would consider to be the wrong crowd. I never really took part in some of the acts they did such as egging, drinking, and just vandalizing basically anything that would get us to laugh. One day they told me to throw eggs at this lady that was walking with a stroller, this decision just randomly came up because they knew I didn’t like taking part in these type of acts and I wasn’t sure what to do because I knew if I didn’t do it they would just make fun of me for weeks. That is when my critical thinking skills came into play; I knew that if I did this there might be some consequences. I wanted to be a leader and show these guys that we don’t have to do these types of acts to have fun and when I stood up for myself they decided that I was not the type of person they wanted to hang out with and I lost a group of my friends. But I realized that I didn’t want to be hanging out with those type of people anyway so it wasn’t a huge loss for me.

-Mike Ross

Chapter 6 Question 1

Barack Obama opposes to the idea of same sex marriage but supports civil rights and equality for homosexual couples, I believe that this is just a strategy Obama is using to obtain the votes from the homosexual community. With this approach on the idea of same-sex couples he is portraying that he does not mind the fact that there will always be same-sex couples and he believes they should have the same rights as every other human, but he does not believe that they should be able to have the sacred bondage of marriage.  Same-sex marriage is a highly controversial topic that is based off the ideas of Christianity, while there should be this “separation between church and state” most of the arguing facts on same sex marriage is based off ideas from the bible. I feel that Obama would have trouble responding to Nava and Dawidoff's writings because they just talk about the perks that come along with marriage and explain that same-sex couples want the right to marry so they can share the same type of bond. Obama would most likely just talk about the idea and promoting same-sex couples to fight for equality but he personally would not do anything for the movement towards same sex marriage.

Introduction

Hello All,

I am currently a third year at San Jose State. Recently I have decided to change my major from computer science to business. My time at San Jose right now feels like it has been wasted because i took mostly major related courses for my first 2 years rather than taking GE classes so now i get to be on the 5 year+ plan to graduate. Some of my hobbies include video games, hanging out with friends, watching tv, running and playing lacrosse.I am also an active member in the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, where I have an executive position. I work as the treasurer of the fraternity, which is partly as of why i changed my major to business with an emphasis in financing. 

When i first decided to take an online class I was nervous because I have never really done one before, but after reading through the page I am excited to try something new and look forward to the rest of the semester.