Instructions:
Please complete the following exercise in 400-450 words total and conclude with a question designed to open up further discussion. When making your diagram, it’s fine to do it as a list, or just to write out the relationships in words. After you do your diagram (or list), please write about how successful the article is in making its point, how reasonable its arguments are, and how good the evidence is. Be sure to include a link to the article.
Exercise:
(From Critical Reasoning and Writing Chapter 5 pg. 27)
“Breaking Apart the News: An exercise in diagramming
Pick any news article that actually has some bit of length. Pick one that is not merely a short presentation of events that occurred, but that is actually attempting (in some way) to argue something. Opinion articles always do this, so maybe just pick one of them. However the article is written, you can organize it in a visual form using the method just described by doing the following:
1. Write down the first claim, statement, belief, argument, thought, sentence, etc., that is made.
2. Write down the next one, and connect it to the first one (if it connects to it – if not, then just write it on another part of the paper for now, since it may or may not end up connecting to the starting
point).
3. Write down the next one, and see how it might connect to the other claims already made.
4. Repeat. Keep going until you’ve gone through everything and see how they all connect and
where they lead. If it’s a well-written and argued piece, then everything will connect together and point to a final claim. If so, congratulations, you just read an article written by someone that has taken a philosophy class. If not (and I’d expect not), see how you might be able to fill in the blanks for them.”