Subject: Think Again: How to Reason and Argue | Announcement: Student Stars!
Date: January 10, 2013 5:24:14 AM PST
This email should have gone out with the posting of the announcement yesterday, but something seems to have gone wrong. If you get another copy of this message later, please ignore the copy.
Hello, Courserians. Let me begin by congratulating our student television star, Tracy Lippincott. She and other students who were not named did a magnificent job discussing Think Again yesterday evening on the PBS Newshour, a major news show in the US. If you missed it, check out: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june13/online_01-08.html
Don't miss your chance to become an international web star yourself by submitting your own argument (up to 100 words or 1 minute of video). To post a video argument, simply (a) record your argument, spoken clearly, (b) upload the video to YouTube at this link: www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload (requires Google account), and (c) post a link to the video in a new thread in the "Construct Your Own Argument" forum. Remember to make your argument as clear and explicit as possible so that your audience can tell precisely what your premises and conclusion are.
Many students have already posted their arguments in that forum, and other students are commenting constructively. Thanks. When you go there to vote for your favorites, please try your best to ignore the votes of others while you form your own opinion. Also, we hope that you will judge arguments by their structure, strength (or validity), interest, and originality rather than by whether you happen to agree with the conclusion.
Because other students are making such helpful suggestions, we decided to allow students to revise their arguments in light of comments in the forum. Just post your final version in the same thread as your original argument and be sure to tag it with "FINAL VERSION" in all CAPS. Your final version should be submitted by the deadline of Friday, January 11, at 11:59 pm Eastern US time, though we will allow some leeway for video arguments, because those take more time to construct.
After your submissions and voting, we will choose which arguments to show and discuss in the lectures of Week 12. Our choice will be based not only on quality but also on our desire for a distribution among topics and kinds of argument.
We are grateful for all of your hard work in Think Again.
Yours in Coursera,
Walter and Ram