Assignment : Logical Fallacies and the News

For Week 1, address the following in a three-page paper:

1. Identify a current event or contemporary social issue that you are interested in analyzing using the critical thinking method. Your issue must be broad enough to sustain deep philosophical analysis and must have relevance to your community. This means that the issue should be one (1) about which reasonable minds can disagree, (2) that concretely affects people’s lives and (3) that requires a solution. Issues that only affect a few people or have only a minor impact are probably too narrow. Issues that you are not open to examining with an open mind will also not work well for this assignment. For some topic suggestions, you might want to browse some recent episodes of PBS’s Frontline series or the website of a reputable news organization.

2. Identify at least two news articles on your topic located using the South University Online Library and/or reputable news outlets. Make sure that the articles you choose present at least two different perspectives on the issue or event you choose and include information that you can use to develop your arguments and analysis. If you cannot locate two news articles on your topic, or if all of the articles share the same perspective, you should choose another topic. You should cite the two articles using correct APA citation.

3. Analyze the issue using the critical-thinking method. Identify and explain any logical fallacies that might be involved in any of the relevant arguments.