This task is Portfolio and it has two parts portfolio instructions 1. Standardisation Comparison (15%) o Compare your standardisation from the Standardisation Task with the exemplar provided in the t

Portfolio Template

(Please make sure your assignment includes both sections before you submit)

Section One: Standardisation Comparison (15%)

In this section we want you to compare your standardisation of Whitehouse’s argument to the exemplar below. First copy and paste your standardisation into the second box below on page 2. Then write up a brief comparison.

Exemplar standardisation of Whitehouse’s argument

C: A government ban on social media for children under 16 is a good idea

P1.: Social media is harmful to young children

P1.1.: There is evidence of cyberbullying on social media

P1.2.: Social media causes increased anxiety in young people

P1.2.1.: The graph from Jonathon Haidt's work shows that anxiety has increased since social media was invented

P2.: The Government should protect children from harm

P3.: Social media is addictive

P3.1.: Whistleblowers from within Big Tech have come forward and shown that social media is intentionally designed to be addictive for young people

P3.1.1.: Whistleblowers point to the endless scrolling mechanism

P3.1.2.: Whistleblowers point to the way social media has prompts and alerts which are challenging to switch off

P3.2.: Jonathon Haidt says that social media is "more additive than heroin"

P4.: Either big tech or government needs to regulate social media

P4.1.: Other harmful things, such as alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs are regulated

P5.: Big Tech has failed to regulate itself

P5.1.: There have been scandals which show Big Tech cannot regulate itself

P6.: Opponents of the ban should not be trusted

P6.1.: Those in favour of education over bans have ulterior motives

P6.1.1.: Those in favour of education over bans are in the pockets of Big Tech

P6.1.2.: Big tech only cares about profit

P6.2.: Trying to educate on social media would be like letting a 13-year-old smoke

P6.3.: Lazy parents are against the ban

P7.: Australians are in support of the ban

P7.1.: Australians are decent people

P7.2.: Only bad people are against the ban

P7.3.: The Guardian reports that an Essential Poll in September 2024 found that 67% of people aged 18-34 support the ban

P7.4.: Radio host Wippa thinks we should regulate social media

P7.5.: News Corp's 'Let Them be Kids' Campaign supports the ban

P1., P2. = Linked; P4., P5. = Linked; P3., P6., P7. = Convergent

P1.1., P1.2. = Convergent

P3.1., P3.2. = Convergent

P3.1.1., P3.1.2. = Convergent

P6.1., P6.2., P6.3. = Convergent

P6.1.1., P6.1.2. = linked

P7.1., P7.2. = Linked

P7.3., P7.4., P7.5. = Convergent

Your standardisation from the standardisation task

[Delete this text and insert your standardisation from the standardisation task here. Please use the same standardisation you submitted in the first task. It will not be assessed again here, but you do need to be reflecting on your own standardisation from the previous task to get the marks for this section.]

Comparison: (200 words maximum – Include a word count for this section)

Please give a brief reflection on the differences between your standardisation of Whitehouse’s argument from the standardisation task and the standardisation provided. For example:

Check your feedback. Were there any errors you made that you could avoid making in future? If so, how will you do things differently next time? Try to demonstrate your understanding here.
Even if you didn’t make any significant errors, there may well have been differences between your standardisation and the one we’ve given – there are multiple good ways to standardise an argument. Where yours differs from ours, why did you make the choices you did?

Note that if your standardisation is very close to the one provided, there may not be much to say here. You will be assessed on how accurate your reflection here is, though, so if there aren’t many differences to comment on, you won’t be penalised for writing less.

Comparison:

Word count: ______

Section Two: Analysis (85%)

The aim of this section is to help you develop a set of strategies based on the standardisation for analysing and evaluating the quality of the argument. We are using the standardisation as a tool through which to organise parts of Whitehouse’s argument so that we can engage with it systematically, by using the standardisation as a guide to the structure of the argument in the text we’re analysing

We will work through Whitehouse’s claims subargument by subargument (i.e.,: main argument; subargument supporting premise 1; subargument supporting premise 2 etc). For each subargument, you will be asked to identify and comment on the following features, where applicable:

Argument types: Can you identify any argument type(s) we’ve studied? (E.g., look for deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments). If so, evaluate them using the relevant methods studied in weeks 5-7.

Language features: Can you identify any problematic or interesting language features here? (e.g., vagueness, rhetorical questions, ‘I am everyone’, etc.). If so, what role is it playing in manipulating the persuasiveness of the claims here? Give a brief explanation.

Rules/fallacies: Are there any rule violations here? Are there any fallacies? If so, identify them and give a brief explanation of what role they are playing here in manipulating the persuasiveness of this argument.

Overall evaluation: based on the argument and language features, and any fallacies/rule violations you have identified in your analysis above, how would you evaluate the effectiveness of the main argument? Is it a good line of argument? Or have elements of the language or fallacies undermined its strength or coherence? Note that there will be multiple convergent lines of reasoning here, some of which may be stronger than others. The overall question here is: Do the premises of this subargument give sufficient reason to accept its conclusion?

You are welcome to do this in your own time, but the purpose of the workshop sessions and online materials in weeks 8-10 is to help guide you in this process.

The following section is organised according to the exemplar standardisation. You are welcome to organise these according to your standardisation if you wish, as long as your own standardisation was accurate. But make sure you make it clear to your marker that you have done so with a little note at the top of your standardisation on page 2 above to indicate that that is the one you’ll be using.

We will be using the exemplar standardisation in workshops.

Fill in your examples/comments under the subheadings below, for each subargument, deleting any subheadings that are not relevant. Use the guide questions on pages 3-4 above for advice on what to include.

Main argument (Do the main premises give us sufficient reason to accept the main conclusion? Note that some of these are linked and others are convergent, so take this into consideration when considering how they support the conclusion)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 1 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 1?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 2 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 2?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 3 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 3?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 4 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 4?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 5 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 5?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 6 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 6?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

Subargument supporting Premise 7 (Have we been given sufficient reason to accept premise 7?)

Argument types:

Language features:

Rules/fallacies:

Evaluation:

WORD COUNT FOR SECTION TWO: _______ (2000 words maximum; Note that there are 184 words in the subheadings above, so the total wordcount the subsections in boxes above including the subheadings should be no more than 2184)

What next? (Using your Portfolio for exam preparation)

You will need to submit your Portfolio on Monday 19/5 (Week 11). It will be returned on Monday 2/6 (Week 13) and will be discussed in a final ‘exam-prep’ lecture in Week 13 (Tuesday 3/6).

You should make use of this document and the work you’ve completed on it for your own exam preparation, and it may help guide your thinking about what resources you would like to take into the open book exam. Consider:

What core points of analysis is it worth organising in terms of how you will approach the task in stages?
What kinds of key terms is it useful to have a note of?
What prompts may be useful to you to make sure that you are not only identifying features but also analysing and evaluating them appropriately?
What kind of notes do you intend to take into the exam?