Think about a time when you made a claim or gave an opinion, but someone asked you, “Why?” or “How do you know?” Describe the situation. What evidence did you use to support your point, and why is explaining your evidence just as important as providing it?

Prompt: Think about a time when you made a claim or gave an opinion, but someone asked you, “Why?” or “How do you know?” Describe the situation. What evidence did you use to support your point, and why is explaining your evidence just as important as providing it?

Prompt Response: A time when I made a claim or gave an opinion, but someone asked me "Why", was when I was trying to convince my dad to get me a MacBook for my birthday. I started by telling him that I wanted it now so when it's my time for my birthday he'll know that I have wanted it for a while. Then explained to him how having one MacBook instead of two PCs and chromebook will better for productivity because the I have and the accounts I need to login to won't be fragmented across separate devices. This reduces the barrier to start working, and for me getting started is the hardest part. Explaining your evidence is just as important as providing it because it ties the evidence back to the claim through reasoning and justifies your claim to the audience.

Summary: Today in class, we started by doing an overview of evidence through analysis of the O.J. Simpson trial. Then we debated whether there was such as thing as a "good kill."

Reflection: There are some beliefs that no matter how good of a persuader one is, they can never convince another person to change their beliefs. These include things like moral values which is like arguing against a brick wall, especially if the topic being discussed is not centered around those moral beliefs.