An example is: “Smoking cigarettes is bad for you. It can be addictive and costly. Smoking also causes stained teeth, gives you bad breath and leaves a bad odor on your clothes.”
Analysis: The conclusion here is that smoking cigarettes are bad. Many people can argue with many of these claims made. Some people feel that cigarettes are not addictive and that they do not cost much. A premise that can be added is, “Cigarettes contain nicotine, a deadly poison that makes cigarettes addictive.” Just because something causes stained teeth, bad breath, and leaves your clothes smelling doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad for you. Coffee can stain your teeth but it can also have some positives to it. Some studies show that coffee can reduce the chances of certain diseases such as type-2 diabetes and certain cancers. A premise we can add to the claim is, “Cigarettes are one of the leading causes of heart disease and cancer.” Heart disease and cancer are bad for you. This premise makes the claim stronger than what it was before.
You thought of really good premises to add to make your conclusion that smoking is bad for your health valid. I really liked how on top of giving more than one example for the smoking issue, you also brought in another idea such as drinking coffee to prove why the original argument was weak. This extra example helped further your point of why the cigarettes didn’t seem all that bad for your health when the argument was originally presented. You really did a good job demonstrating the importance of adding in extra premises when needed to help strengthen an argument.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post you made. The way you’re presented your example and how though smoking has negative effects it doesn’t mean its bad because you could say that stain teeth and bad breath are also associated with coffee as well. I liked the way your presented this because you gave a list of all the negative effects that smoking is associated with which give you a sense that smoking is bad, but then you say that coffee has the same effects making the audience believe that smoking cant be any worse then drinking coffee effectively poking a hole in the argument. Then you add the premise of smoking is the leading cause of heart disease effectively saving the argument
ReplyDeleteYour example was very good. After reading the example I wasn't convinced that those were bad enough reasons to not smoke. Your premises that you added make the argument much stronger because a person is more likely to take in what the argument is if they knew cigarettes would greatly affect their life. Some people wouldn't care about their clothes or their teeth, but when it comes to serious health issues such as cancer then they are more likely to take in consideration to not smoke. Your premises strengthened the argument because coffee having the same effects made the first argument very weak. Many people drink coffee so if it has the same effects as smoking then smoking seemed like it wasn't that bad to do. The argument was saved by adding the scary stuff such as cancer.
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