Week 4 - The Need for Precision Language

Week 4

The Need for Precision Language

In week 4, the topic is the need for precision language. Based on the topic itself, I thought that this week, the lecture will explain to us how to talk properly. Maybe he wanted to talk about the way we talk. That’s what I thought but as always, I was wrong. Actually he wanted to teach us about sentences, subjectivity, facts and opinion and more.

First, he starts off with good argument. In a good argument, the conclusion and premises are clear enough to make you understand about the ideas that the other person is trying to give. The conclusion and premises should NOT be vague. Vague sentence is a sentence that is unclear on the ideas. What I learn is that, if you don’t understand the idea and scratch you head then it is a vague statement. There are few causes that cause a statement to be vague such as confusion over the idea and uncertainty about what standards are being used as a basis of comparison. For example, “my best friend is the best!”  The statement is vague.

Over-generality also not good. Over-generality mean statement that provides too much information to be useful. The difference between this and vague is that over-generality is clear and understandable but it’s not allowing us to determine the important ideas. Next, my lecturer taught us about ambiguous sentences. An ambiguous sentence is when there are two or a few ways a sentence could be understood as a claim. It actually makes the listener or reader confuse on which one you are talking about. For example, the use of “she” in a sentence but the sentence before that states 2 girls name. You can’t tell which one they are talking about.

The lecturer also talks about clarity. Your reader or listeners will lose track if there is lack of clarity on the statement. It may be because you did not know whether you agree or disagree with the points given. All of these are really important in order to make your ideas presented well. With this topic, I learn how to make a really good argument. I just have to make my points clear and simple so that people can understand easily. I learn a new word today, which is “vague” and I will remember the meaning of it as long as I could.