Alli Penna

What is The Toulmin Method?  The Toulmin Method per page 315 in our textbook is a technique based on the work of Stephen Toulmin that allows the analysis of logic in any argument, including analyzing your own arguments and using the technique as you draft and revise them.  While page 315 has a basic explanation of what the Toulmin Method is, I feel that pages 320-324 have more details for each step of the technique. These are to identify the claim , which is finding out what the author is defending or arguing, and then looking for qualifiers and exceptions . Then you analyze the reasons and evidence for the author's argument by stating the reasons that are used to justify the author's claim or argument, and then finding and examining evidence to support the author's claim or evidence. Then you want to examine any warrants to the author's argument , such as bias. You then want to follow the final step which is noting rebuttals . You want to find out if the author has

      In our textbook, Professor Green (2017) defines hedging as  "use of strategic ambiguity and humor to provide a way for both parties to save face when a message fails to achieve its goal ." I do this all the time at work since it is a pretty high pressure job and there are many times that things start to take a negative turn in conversations and meetings. Honestly I'm kind of the joker of my team, and I feel like it is necessary.    So when it came to looking for a podcast based on communication, I was looking for one that actually had some humor to it, as most of the podcasts I listen to, regardless of the subject tend to be a little on the funny side. I came across a podcast called "Think Fast Talk Smart" by Matt Abrahams, a lecturer of strategic communication/organizational behavior at Stanford.    The podcast isn't necessarily a comedy podcast, but it does have some funny moments through several episodes I listened to. I decided to listen to the epi

     I remember social media being a place for people to connect with each other. I remember having a MySpace profile and being able to edit it any way that I wanted, adding music, pictures of my favorite bands, etc.. You could list your top six friends too, which was always a topic for discussion...positive or negative. I joined Facebook years ago, when you had to be a student at a four year university in order to be eligible to have a Facebook account. It was simple. You connected with classmates and friends from different universities, and posted pictures, statuses, and...you poked each other. You could share private messages too, but that was it. There were no memes, there were no public pages. Just passive aggressive hormonal and confused college students. Even then, the ability to get time away from bullying was almost completely over. Which by the way is one of the reasons bullying is taken so seriously now. I was bullied in grade school. But I got to go home and decompress from

90 Miles Cuban Cafe is a little restaurant I go to often that is about a one minute walk from my apartment in Chicago. They also have two other locations in Chicago.  I decided to research their online presence, and see that they have both a website and a Facebook page. First of all, as far as their Facebook page, I do not feel like they have a strong online presence as of today. It looks like the last post made to the page was February 5th, 2021. Almost a year ago to the day. They do however list their business information such as the addresses of their locations, the contact information, and hours of operation. The hours of operation are actually no longer correct. It is listed on Facebook as 8AM-8PM. The hours are now 9AM-9PM. Truthfully? I wished they really did open at 8AM. They serve some amazing breakfast empanadas! Since I work at 9AM I rarely get the chance during the week to get them. Sad face.  There is also a video added from when Guy Fieri visited the location closest to m

  T ruthfully while I more than likely fall more into the digital immigrant category, I do think that there is some of the digital native category to me. I spent my younger years, probably until I was about 12 or 13 years old without internet, without a cell phone, and without a computer. I didn’t have cable TV in my room, but I did have a small TV with a VCR, and a clock radio. So, I did get to spend some time learning as most digital immigrants did. However, my teen years were the years where having a computer and internet were more common. I may be dating myself, but I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was a senior in high school. It didn’t have internet, I couldn’t text anyone, and it only had 50 prepaid minutes that my parents allowed me to use for emergencies only. I didn’t have those things, but I did get to grow up with video games. Nintendo, Sega, Dreamcast, etc. So, I do rely on technology a lot, as I still love to play video games, and yes, I use my computer and cell ph

       I will admit that it was very difficult to think of a situation that I was comfortable discussing publicly at any stage. I suppose that I could say the most recent would likely be in regard to my marriage. Without going into the details of how things got to the the point they did, I decided to focus on the termination stage of Knapp's Relationship Model.       After several years of issues in the relationship, including emotional abuse, I decided that I needed to leave the marriage as quickly as my two feet could carry me. I would say that reaching that point of the termination stage where you completely go on with separate lives is indefinitely on hold, but I do the best as I can to live my life on my own terms. It changes a little when you have a child.       I suppose it is easy to say that everything is over and completely separate as much as possible aside from communicating about our son, and him taking our son every other weekend. I could say the moment that we offici