One concept that I found interesting in Chapter 14 of Epsteins text was random sampling because I always found this interesting when I learned about this in my science class.

Random sampling is a sample chosen randomly where that at every choice there is an equal chance that any of the remaining members of the population is picked (Epstein, 284).

For example, when you are trying to determine the average number of individuals who like playing sports and who those who don't in San Jose State University. It wouldn't be reasonable to pick a sample group from those of the athletic department because they may all like to play sports, that would not be a good sample. But, to pick individuals at random would be a more better sample because the group wouldn't be concentrated in one area. The average would be weighted equal and not lean towards one side.

This is my first online class, and I really like how it doesn't consume too much of my times from my busy schedule. I also like that we were able to blog about our thoughts and insights about the topics without having to think of punctuation and/or grammar as much. And we wouldn't be criticized by what we had written. The fact that we needed to comment on three posts made us read our peers blogs which in return possibly helped us understand certain topic even more. This course helped me a lot on finding claims and fallacy in arguments, and that helped me on rebuttal on making a better counter argument. Also, I liked that we were able to stay with our groups throughout the projects. With keeping the same groups it was easier because we had already met each other previously.

The least favorite thing about this class was the last project. It was a little inconvenient to gather many people up because a lot of people have different time schedule.

Coming into this class I didn't know what to expect. I struggled in debates and discussion that were held in and outside of school. But after taking this class I found it easier for me to rebuttal against what other people are arguing about. I have learned to further expand my thoughts about the subjects. There are certain ways to convey your point or lure people into thinking what your stating is plausible or a reasonable explanation. I learned to communicate my thoughts clearly to other people by reading, understanding and placing the concepts in class into real life scenarios. With learning the critical thinking concepts I was able to figure out what certain advertisements and political figures are using to attract more consumers/ followers.

Now, every time I watch a commercial about something I'll connect it to one of the many fallacies that we have learned about. Most advertisements or commercials now-a-days use appeal to emotion. There were more things that I have learned from this class that I have started to use in everyday life. Critical thinking and expanding the thought of certain things has made me become a better writer.