Read Chapter 3 of your text.
In your design labs this week, you are designing a device that will protect an egg when dropped from a height of approximately 5.5. meters. Your task for this week's writing assignment is to write a one or two page argument supporting the premise that your device will succeed in safeguarding an egg when dropped. An argument is a series of statements used to persuade someone of something. That “something” is called the conclusion or main claim, and in this assignment, the claim is that:
Your egg protection device will prevent the egg from being damaged when dropped.
Include at least three reasons (facts, explanations, etc.) that support your premise and do it using at least three of the following kinds of support:
supporting arguments
evidence (may require citations)
authority (may require citations)
explanations
anecdotes
Formulate your response as a report no more than 2 pages long (preferably one page), save it as a Word or OpenOffice document, and submit it using Mahara. Grammar and spelling counts. You may use point form where appropriate but your report must be well formed and clearly organized. If you make a claim (eg. This is the most cost-effective.) then you must support your claim with a citation. Citations may be casual, but MUST include sufficient information to allow someone else to find the source. See the Citations page for more information.
Your response will likely consist of 5 paragraphs: the introduction; the three reasons; the conclusion (plus the references).
Sample of Supporting a Premise Here is a sample report that does the same thing as you are asked to do in your assignment, but using a different 'device'. This one supports the premise, “This rabbit hutch design is sound.” Note that the citations have not yet been filled in so this report is incomplete.
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Supporting arguments. A supporting argument is one which has as its conclusion the same statement as the premise being supported. All premises can be supported in this way, but such supporting arguments are often not stated. A special type of supporting argument is a definition, and while these, too, are usually unstated, at times it is necessary to define a term because either the term itself or the particular denotation being used is unusual.
Assumptions. Eventually, all support for premises can be traced back to a set of beliefs which the person making the argument considers to be self-evident, and therefore not in need of further support or analysis. These may be called assumptions, presumptions, suppositions, or, in certain situations, postulates and axioms. Such assumptions serve as the premises for supporting arguments and, in general, any premise can be called an assumption.
Evidence. A premise can be made more acceptable when it supported by various kinds of evidence: statistical studies, historical information, physical evidence, observations, or experiments, eyewitness accounts, and so on. The relative strength of evidence is determined by how reliable a person believes it to be. Almost no evidence is beyond dispute–we might challenge the methodology of a study, the accuracy of the information, the manner in which physical evidence was collected, and the eyesight or motivation of an eyewitness. And remember that the evidence only supports the premises–evidence cannot be an argument itself.
Authority. Sometimes, we are not in a position to judge supporting evidence for ourselves: there may simply be too much of it, or it may be too technical in nature, or it may not be directly available to us. In those cases we often rely on the judgments of others, authorities whom we believe to be more likely to come to an accurate evaluation of the evidence than we are ourselves. Though we tend to think of such expertise in scientific, medical, or other scholarly fields, authority in arguments can also come from religious teachings, folk wisdom, and popular sayings–anything or anyone that we accept as somehow able to reach a more accurate evaluation. The relative strength of an authority in an argument depends on how willing a person is to accept the judgment of that source, but even in the strongest of cases, use of an authority merely supports a premise, and does not make an argument by itself.
Explanations and anecdotes. Sometimes, we are more willing to accept a premise if we are given background information or specific examples. Such explanations and accounts are not given the importance of evidence or authority in an argument. Anecdotal evidence, for example, is by definition less statistically reliable than other sorts of evidence, and explanations do not carry the weight of authority. But both anecdotal evidence and explanations may affect our understanding of a premise, and therefore influence our judgment. The relative strength of an explanation or an anecdote is usually a function of its clarity and applicability to the premise it is supporting.
When you have completed your assignment, submit your Mahara Assignment View for assessment. Please remember to name your file and View appropriately and to use the correct View (it is the one named ENGR Asst View). Remember to complete the quiz on the Moodle site as well.