Think about a time when you made a claim or gave an opinion, but someone asked you, “Why?” or “How do you know?” Describe the situation. What evidence did you use to support your point, and why is explaining your evidence just as important as providing it?

 One time, I expressed my opinion on a movie and said that it was really good to a friend. They ended up disagreeing and asking me why I thought that. The evidence that I ended up using to back up my claim on the movie was that the actors and characters were good and that the main plot was intreging. I didn't have the best evidence though and trying to give reasoning with what I had was a struggle so there opinion didn't change on the movie. I think that explaining your evidence is extremly important to create an effective argument and that without an explanation no one will fully understand the point you are trying to make.

Summary: Today in class, we read a story with a military setting involving a guy named Tim O'brien and discussed how to make an argument over whether there is such thing as a good kill.

Reflection: I learned that our class has a lot of different opinions on whether killing someone can be morally ok or not. From our class discussion on this subject I now understand that people can have completely different arguments as long as they defend them with good evidence.