English 1B: Take Home Quiz—Judgments and Inductive Reasoning

1. A value judgment is a claim or a conclusion that expresses an opinion about the worth, morality, or quality of a thing, person, place, or event. 

Examples:

College students are hard workers.

Employees at CR are committed to student success.

Residents of the Central Valley of California are not environmentally conscious.

George W. Bush is intelligent.

Offer simple, but distinct, value judgments for any TWO of the following.

College of the Redwoods

A particular teacher at CR                                                  1.

Modern television programming

Survivor (the TV show)

The Bachelor (the TV show)                                              2.

MTV

Brittany Spears

Television news                                                                  

George W. Bush                                                                                                  

The US war against Iraq                                                    

The “war on terror”

McDonalds

Starbucks

Arcata, Eureka, Fortuna, or McKinelyville

HSU

Los Bagels

Costco

Ramone's Bakery

Moonstone Beach

Trinidad

2. Offer specific value judgments about

1. The characters (or a character) in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
2. The story "A Good Man is Hard to Find
3. The characters (or a character) in "Good Country People."
4. The story "Good Country People."

3. Evidence is different from a judgment.  Whereas a judgment expresses an opinion or a conclusion about something, evidence is a hard specific (or a collection of hard specifics) that provides support for the claim.  Evidence tells us “what you have to go on” or what you base your claim on.  For example, “he lies all the time” is not evidence that supports the claim “George W. Bush is a liar.”  However, “George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” looks like evidence, but it is still extremely vague.  “George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in a speech to the United Nations in January 2003” is approaching evidence since it is more specific. Naming the specific untruths told in that speech would be evidence.  For the two value judgments you offered in number one above, list specific evidence to support each claim.

4. List some of the specific evidence you used to arrive at some of the claims you offered in 2abcd above.

5. As best as you can and in less than 40 of your own words, describe what inductive reasoning is for someone who isn’t familiar with the concept.

6. What do we examine to determine the reliability of an inductive conclusion? (what, specifically, are some of the things we look at?)