What I learned

Overall, this wasn't a difficult course with difficult material. The only things I found difficult was remembering the miniscule differences between different fallacies. It was also hard to remember how to identify the incorrectness of an argument, claims, and premises.

Aside from critical thinking, I gained a lot of positive information on the benefits of how group decision making can be applied towards future classes and group projects. Knowing how to conduct group decisions and how to facilitate a group project and discussion is going to be beneficial for me in my field, especially since I think group communication in the field of education. Knowing how group communication functions in society and the benefits it can bring is essential in any field; we all should know how to be a good leader in conversations, an active participant in conversations, and what makes an effective group that can deduce a proper argument.

Generalizations

The Epstein text describes sever kinds of generalizations as well as what makes a good generalization versus a bad one. I chose to look further into the various kinds of samples. The three main kinds of smapling the author examines are Representative Sampling, Random Sampling and Haphazard sampling. Representative Sampling is a sampling that accurately represents the population of the subgroup within proportion of the entire population. Random sampling is when a sample is chosen at complete random, like when names are chosen from a fishbowl. Haphazard sampling is when the sample is chosen with an intentional bias. Haphazard sampling can be representative but there is no good reason to believe it is representative because those chosen for the sample were selected for a specific reason. The book also explains that representative samplings are ones that are not intentionally biased.