1. Career Decision Arguments
Your mother: “You should consider a career in education. It is the best way to make a difference in the world.”
Your father: “You should consider a career in business. You will have infinite career options.”
Your best friend: “You should consider a career in information technology. No other degree concentration is as innovative.”
Your grandmother: “You need to select a career you love and enjoy no matter the pay scale. If you love your work you will be happy.”
There are a lot of different arguments that can be made on whether or not a person should pursue a particular path for their future career. In many cases, everyone will have their own logic or opinion on that decision that needs to be evaluated. My parents, my best friend, and grandmother believe that their argument for what I should do with my life is the best logical choice possible for me to take advantage of for my future care. Carefully evaluating each of these arguments will help to determine which career path I should take for my future.

2. Compelling Arguments
Identify the two most compelling arguments that were presented.
My Mother’s Argument
My Grandmother Argument
List one that had a logical error in it but which you still thought was important.
My Father’s Argument
The two most compelling arguments to me are the one from my mother, “You should consider a career in education. It is the best way to make a difference in the world.” and the one from my grandmother, “You need to select a career you love and enjoy no matter the pay scale. If you love your work you will be happy.” Both of these arguments fit more with my own personal worldview and what I am hoping to achieve in my life. I would like to make a difference with anything that I do, and I would like to be in a career that I enjoy that does not feel like work because I love it.
I believe that the one with a logical error that I still think is pretty important to consider is the advice that my father gave me. “You should consider a career in business. You will have infinite career options.” I think that this has a logical error in it is that there really is not an infinite amount of career options with this choice. I am sure that there are plenty of potential careers that will require a different type of education that just a business degree, such as the medical field or some of the trades. I do believe that a business degree could be applied to a wide variety of jobs making it still a pretty valid argument even with the flaw.

3. Truth Errors
Were there any errors in truth with the argument? Describe what those errors were and what made them errors.
My Grandmother’s Argument
My Father’s Argument
Were there any errors in validity with the argument? Describe what those errors were and what made them errors.
Yes, I believe there were some errors in truth with the arguments that were selected. The first is from my grandmother’s argument, “You need to select a career you love and enjoy no matter the pay scale. If you love your work you will be happy.” I think that pay scale may be something that does need to be considered as there seems to be a lot of students graduating with a smaller pool of jobs open to those graduates. Being unable to pay off student loans or make a decent living wage will probably make the happiness of working in a field that I enjoy wears off. I also believe that there is an error in truth with my father’s argument, “You should consider a career in business. You will have infinite career options.” This is not completely true as business is not the only field out there for employment.

4. Validity Errors
Were there any errors in validity with the argument? Describe what those errors were and what made them errors.
My Mother’s Argument
My Father’s Argument
My mother’s argument can be seen to have an error in validity as it states that it is the best way to make a difference in the world, but I do not believe that is completely valid. There are other professions that also make a big difference in the world. I think that changing the word “best” would help to improve the logic of this argument. My father’s argument also has an error in validity due to the fact that this type of career path does not allow for any job position. I think that removing the word “infinite” would change this into a more valid argument.

5. Revised Argument
Revise the argument so that it removes all errors. Restate it in a logically sound way.
Original Argument: “You should consider a career in education. It is the best way to make a difference in the world.”
Revised Argument: “You should consider a career in education. It is a way to make a difference in the world.”
Original Argument: “You should consider a career in business. You will have infinite career options.”
New Argument: “You should consider a career in business. You will have a large variety of career options.”
My mother’s argument should be revised to “You should consider a career in education. It is a way to make a difference in the world.” My father’s argument should be revised to “You should consider a career in business. You will have a large variety of career options.”

6. Evaluate An Argument Steps to evaluate an argument: Read it carefully
Identify
Conclusion
Premise
Find any assumptions made
Identify any errors
Logic
Truth
Validity
Identify if the premise is true or false
Identify if the premises reasonably support the conclusion
There are certain steps that should be taken to evaluate an argument by following a logical path to help determine whether or not an argument is sound. The first step that should be taken is to read the argument over carefully to gain a full understanding of what is being said. The next step would be to determine what the conclusion and the premise are within the argument. After that, it would be important to identify any assumptions or errors that are made in the argument. This could be errors in logic, truth or validity. It is important to determine if the premise is true or false to determine if the argument is sound. Finally, it would be important to identify if the premise reasonably supports the conclusion that is being made in the argument.