Mentoring

One concept that I found interesting in chapter 4 of the small group text would have to have been the concept of mentoring.  Mentoring is a valuable process to any young person which could easily help them get further in life. The definition of a mentor would have to be someone who is older; more experienced, and well respected who serves as a role model for less experienced people. The mentorship process usually goes through four distinct processes which include…

Initiation – When the mentor and protégé learn more about each other. The mentor provides guidance and the protégé is open to ideas and shows loyalty to his mentor.

Cultivation – During this stage is when the protégé and mentor begin to form an interpersonal bond.

Separation – Separation begins once the protégé has gotten to a certain point in his organization where he does not need all the support of his mentor. Once this occurs the mentor and protégé drift apart.

Redefinition – The final stage is where both the mentor and protégé find themselves as equal partners. The relationship is now equal 50/50 rather than the mentor being a more knowledgeable role.

The tests for an argument to be good

If you are unclear about whether or not you have a good argument you can always look back to three tests that will help you decide whether or not your argument is a good one. This test includes three separate parts including:


The premises are plausible

The premises are more plausible than the conclusion

The argument is valid or strong

These tests are all independent from one another which means any one of them can fail whilst the other two sustain plausibility. My example I could use would be my cousins work. She works at Hancock fabrics and a customer could ask if she had a specific item in stock that was not on display. My cousin could easily tell her that they are all out because its not on display, or she could check her stock room and see if there is any that isn’t out on display. She could already know that they don’t have anything left in stock when she tells the customer therefore not needing to check the stockroom. It all depends on her knowledge of the stores inventory.

Cognitive, Psychological, and Social Forces.

In the group communication text chapter three discusses leadership and decision making in groups and teams. some interesting pieces of this chapter would have to be when it talks about cognitive psychological, and social forces. each one of these different types of forces refers to different ways that people interact within a group. Cognitive forces refers to mental processes. this would include  somoene thinks, believes, or feels. Psychological forces refer to a personsmotives, goals, attitudes, and the values of group members.physical forces can come into effect when two people within a group butt heads and have problems. this could lead to pressure being put on the decision maker. Social forces are communication influences such as language use and persuasion. A social force is spresent whenever there is 2 or more people interacting with eachother. All of these forceshave some way of affecting the decision making process. in most group atmospheres there is going to almost all of these forces amongst the group.

Strong vs Valid Arguments

Strong and Valid arguments are something that everyone can relate to in everyday life because we all hear them. by definition the book states," an argument is strong if there is some way, some possibility, for its presises to be true and its conclusion false at the same time." An example of a strong argument is...
The Stevens Creek Chevy dealer had terrible service.
The San Diego Chevy dealer is the same company. 
So all Chevy Dealers have terrible service.
This is a strong argument because the conclusion is not necessarily true and the premises can be proved to be true. A strong argument only needs the possibility for the conclusion to be false while the premises are true which this example proves to show.
 Valid arguments are defined as "An argument is valid if there is no possible way for its premises to be true and its conclusion to be false at the same time." An example would be
Myself and my brother went to gamble at an indian casino.
So everyone there gambling is at least age 18 and up.
This is a valid argument because there is no way the premise could be true and the conclusion false at the same time. if u are gambling at any indian casino you must be age 18 and up no matter what.

Prescriptive and Descriptive claims

As I was reading through the text I came across Prescriptive and Descriptive claims which caught my attention. These two claims can easily get confused with one another and have one specific distinction between one another. A descriptive claim states how something is, while a Prescriptive claim contains something that we call value judgments. The value judgments basically represent a persons opinion. This opinion is what might make a prescriptive claim appear to be a descriptive claim. One example that shows this would be,"College is necessary in order to be successful." This is prescriptive because its not stating what the world is, but simply stating my opinion which is a value judgment. "College is hard work", this example would be a descriptive claim because its stating how college is. "College is hard", is a fact and not just merely my own opinion. These two different types of claims are a common form of communication and i think that everyone could relate to them.

Objective And Subjective Claims

Subjective and Objective claims are easily a huge part of communication. At some point everyone uses one or the other and it happens regularly to everyone. I fine myself in arguments revolving around this kind of communication all the time. Recently my older cousin had visited and we went out to eat. My little cousin started to text me and just kept talking. i made the comment of him being annoying while my older cousin disagreed. This is a subjective claim because it varies person to person. one situation which involved an objective claim would have to have been when i lived down in southern California. It was a hot day probably around 103 degrees and i went to school wearing a jacket. One of my friends said that it was so hot outside and how could i be wearing a jacket. My response was that it was not that bad out. This is an objective view because no matter what i think, 103 degrees is still hot whether i think it is or not.

Vague Sentence

Vague sentences are a part of every day life. My definition of a vague sentence would be, when the speaker needs to give more detail to make the sentence understandable.

 I used to carpool with my cousin to school because it was cheaper. One day i completely forgot where we parked the car so i had to call her and ask. She responds to me by saying." We parked on the fourth floor." this is a vague sentence because we could have parked anywhere on the fourth floor. There are signs sayings 4A, 4B, 4C and etc. Simply telling me the fourth floor is not specific enough and left me in confusion. I had to continue asking where exactly so i would not have to walk around the entire floor to find the car. Once she told me which section and on which side of the fourth floor i was able to find the car and continued on with my day.