Structure of Arguments

I chose the second example to analyze. I think that one side could argue that if he or she is five minutes late in leaving for school in the morning and there is heavy traffic, stopping for breakfast would not be a problem because he or she is already late but then there is also the argument that he or she is only five minutes late and it is not absolutely certain that this person will be late for school. Traffic could possibly clear up. Additional premises are needed because it only says, "...I'll be late for class. So I might as well stop and get breakfast." This also happens to be the conclusion. It does not give any other possibilities of what may happen if he or she is late or if he or she decides to skip breakfast and head straight to school, regardless of leaving home five minutes late. There is no subargument. I do not think this is a good argument because there are so many other possibilities to consider that you cannot just assume that "because this happened, this will happen". It is a valid argument but that does not make it a good one.

I thought this exercise was useful because it makes you think of all of the possibilities of a situation and it helps you to not assume that because something seems the way it is, you should always accept it at face-value. This exercise helps you to think of all of the logical explanations or expectations, rather than thinking that "because this happened, this IS going to happen".