Week 3 Discussion — A Guarantee or a Good Bet? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
Plenty of everyday arguments sound airtight until someone asks whether they were meant to prove their conclusion or only to make it likely. This week you learned to sort that promise and to run the test that fits it, and real passages often leave room for two careful readers to sort them differently.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: A bakery owner tells a new employee (illustrative): "Every time we've put cinnamon rolls in the front window, they've sold out by noon. So the batch in the window will sell out by noon." Is this argument deductive or inductive? Defend your reading from its wording, then run the test that fits it: build a counterexample if you read it as deductive, or rate its strength and say what would make it cogent if you read it as inductive. Say what single change in the wording would settle the label.
Option B: Choose a short argument from your own life that sounded convincing: a coach's prediction, a coworker's reasoning about a schedule, a product review, or a friend's advice (no politicians, parties, or campaigns, and no one's real name). Sort it as deductive or inductive, run the test that fits it, and say whether it is valid and sound, or strong and cogent. Then say what one added premise would change your verdict.
There is no single right answer here. Careful readers can sort a borderline passage differently, and the real work is defending your reading and running the right test on it. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- Sort the argument as deductive or inductive, and point to the wording that supports your reading.
- Run the test that fits: build a counterexample with every premise true and the conclusion false, or rate the argument's strength and say what would make it cogent.
- Say in one sentence what change in the wording, or what added premise, would change your verdict.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (deductive argument, inductive argument, valid, sound, strong, cogent, counterexample) correctly.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
- Write from your own reasoning, in your own words, and keep real people's names and live political questions out of your examples.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: defend the other reading of a classmate's argument, test their counterexample to see whether every premise is really true, or name a premise that would make their argument stronger or weaker. "Nice post!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like:
I chose Option A. I read the bakery owner's argument as inductive: "every time we've put cinnamon rolls in the window" reports a run of past mornings, and nothing in the wording rules out a slow morning. So I rated its strength instead of hunting for a counterexample. It is fairly strong if the record is long, and cogent if the record is accurate, but a rainy morning with few customers could still leave rolls unsold at noon. If the owner had said "we bake only as many rolls as our standing orders, and every standing order is picked up by noon," I would read it as deductive and test it for validity instead.
Notice how it defends a reading from the wording, runs the test that fits that reading, says the verdict in words, and names the change that would flip the label. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | The argument is sorted by what its premises are meant to do, the fitting test is run and shown, and the verdict is said in words with the wording or premise that would change it | A label is given and a test is attempted, but the test does not fit the label, or the verdict is not explained | Missing, off-topic, or no test of the argument |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | Uses deductive, inductive, valid, sound, strong, cogent, and counterexample precisely, and keeps valid apart from true | Uses a term loosely, or treats a strong argument as valid | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that defend another reading, test a classmate's counterexample, or name a premise that would change a verdict | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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