To begin, you will use the topic you selected in the Week 1 Standard Form Arguments discussion forum and continued working with in the Week 2 Creating a Valid Argument Workshop assignment. For this assignment, you will present and evaluate reasoning from scholarly sources on both sides of your topic.
For an example of how to complete this paper, take a look at the
Week Three Example Pap
Conduct research from scholarly sources on each side of your issue. The UAGC library features research
Tutorials (Links to an external site.)
, which offer videos on getting started, understanding the research process, vetting scholarly and popular resources, and providing instruction on how to read a scholarly article.
Write a paper that includes the following:
Introduction (approximately 100 words)
Presentation of an Argument (approximately 200 words)
Evaluation of the quality of the reasoning in this source (approximately 200 words)
You may address questions such as the following:
Presentation of an Opposing Argument (approximately 200 words)
Evaluation of the quality of the reasoning in this source (approximately 200 words)
You may address questions such as the following:
How adequately does the article support the premises of the argument?
How strongly do the premises of the argument support the truth of the conclusion?
What (if any) missing premises would be needed to complete the argument (make it valid/strong)? Are these missing premises justified or merely assumptions?
Evaluation of Arguments in Non-Scholarly and Scholarly Sources (approximately 100 words)
If you need support, review the Scholarly and Popular Resources (1) (Links to an external site.) Writing Center video.
Conclusion (approximately 50 words)
MyTopic is : Should Facebook and other social media be allowed to censor certain types of content from being shared?
Is Marijuana Use Safe?
Modeled example for the Week 3 assignment
John Smith
University of Arizona Global Campus
PHI103 Informal Logic
Dr. Christopher Foster
Due: Day 7 of Week 3
Begin with a title page,
formatted according to
APA standards.
With many states legalizing both medical and recreational marijuana, an important
question for voters, legislators, and potential users is whether marijuana is safe. There have been
many studies done on the topic, with findings on both sides. The focus of this paper will be to
present scholarly research on both sides of the question and to evaluate the quality of each. To
provide the most reliable information possible, I have chosen to present the findings of meta-
studies on each side of the question of the safety of marijuana use. I will present and evaluate the
reasoning used by each and conclude with a discussion of the value of different types of sources
in terms of the degree of support that they provide for their
conclusions.
Presentation of an Argument that Marijuana Use is Safe
A large meta-study was performed by a group of researchers at UC San Diego focusing
on the long-term neurocognitive effects of cannabis use (Grant et al., 2003). The study analyzed
other studies that had been done, comparing data for 623 cannabis users against 409 non- or
minimal users. The researchers found that chronic users of marijuana showed minor decreases in
performance in the categories of learning and remembering, but no other significant effects. The
study concludes that cannabis is probably safe for use for medical purposes (2003).
The primary argument given may be represented in standard form as follows:
Premise 1: Combining data from studies that have been done on the effects of marijuana
use on cognitive function allows for a large data pool from which to draw strong
conclusions.
Premise 2: In six out of the eight cognitive areas studied, namely: reaction time, attention,
language, abstraction/executive, perceptual, and motor skills, no significant cognitive
impairment was found among marijuana users.
The paper begins with an introductory paragraph, allowing
readers to learn and see the importance of the research topic.
Introductory
paragraphs should
contain a preview of
what will be covered in
the rest of the paper.
Clear section
headings make
certain that the
paper is
organized and
make it easy
for instructors
to know that all
required
elements of the
assignment
have been
covered.
This
paragraph
introduces the
reader to the
source and
overviews its
findings.
The clearest way to
express an argument is in
standard form, with the
premises labeled and listed
above the conclusion.
The premises of the argument are not usually listed clearly within
articles (scholarly or otherwise). It is necessary for you to formulate
what you feel is the main argument given in the paper.
Premise 3: In the two areas in which cognitive impairment was found, learning and
memory, the effect was small and could have been affected by sample bias.
Premise 4: Medical use of marijuana tends not to involve long term use, resulting in even
more minor, if any, ill effects.
Premise 5: Medical use of marijuana is likely to have benefits that outweigh minor
amounts of harm.
Conclusion: Medical use of marijuana has “an acceptable margin of safety under the
more limited conditions of exposure that would likely obtain in a medical setting” (Grant
et al., 2003).
Evaluation of the Argument that Marijuana Use is Safe
The reasoning presented appears to be strong since the premises appear adequately to
support the idea that the potential harms are minor and either do not apply to medical use or are
outweighed by the benefits to be gained therefrom. The article also attempts to explain away the
negative effects in learning and memory, suggesting that they could be due to selection bias in
the articles reviewed or due to an insufficient time of non-use of the drug prior to the study
(Grant et al., 2003). If the article is right about that, then perhaps there is no significant
neurological harm even in those two areas. The article supplies substantial support for its
premises, since there is a large data pool, all of it gathered from scientific studies.
However, the article points out that there are limitations of the research, such as different
lengths of time within the studies since the last use of the drug and the question of whether long
term marijuana users may not have the same initial cognitive abilities as those that do not,
making causal inferences more difficult (2003).
The premises and
conclusion of your
argument should be put in
your own words. If some
passages are directly from
the source, then they
should occur within
quotation marks, with the
source cited.
After the argument is
given, there is a
paragraph detailing the
strength of the
reasoning (how certain
the premises make the
conclusion, assuming
that they are true).
This is a
comment
on the
amount of
support
for the
premises.
It is important to point out any weakness in the reasoning as
well. Sometimes these weaknesses are pointed out in the article
and not necessarily fallacious. Other times, you may notice
weaknesses in the reasoning that are not acknowledged within
the article itself. Either way, it is important to comment on any
such factors affecting the strength of the reasoning.
The instructions do not require that
you address ALL of the bullet
points listed, but states, “You may
address questions such as the
following.” I chose the ones that
seemed most relevant here.
Presentation of an Argument that Marijuana Use is Unsafe
On the other side of the issue, a study from 2016 seems to demonstrate the exact opposite
conclusion. The authors show that use of marijuana, especially by teens, has many long term
negative effects and is associated with a multitude of, including physical, psychiatric,
neurological, and social impairments (Feeney & Kampman, 2016). The argument presented can
be summarized as follows:
Premise 1: Marijuana is addictive (Volkow et al., 2014).
Premise 2: Marijuana causes breathing problems (Tashkin et al., 2002).
Premise 3: Marijuana may increase the likelihood of developing schizophrenia and other
psychiatric symptoms (Arseneault et al., 2004).
Premise 4: Marijuana causes long terms harms cognitive abilities, including attention,
memory, processing speed, and executive functioning (Thames et al., 2014).
Premise 5: Marijuana use by teens is correlated with lower academic achievement, job
performance, and social functioning in relationships (Palamar et al., 2014).
Premise 6: Marijuana use results in decreased psychomotor function, and reaction time,
causing driving risks (Neavyn et al., 2014).
Conclusion: Marijuana use can cause physical, psychological, neurological, and social
harm, especially when used by adolescents.
Evaluation of the Argument that Marijuana Use is Unsafe
The reasoning in the article seems quite strong. The conclusion seems to follow from the
premises since it mostly summarizes the research findings. Furthermore, the premises are well
supported since they are all based in scientific research studies.
However, there are some limitations in the strength of the reasoning (as noted within the
study). One of those limitations is that we are not sure in all cases if marijuana use is the cause of
It is good to supply section headings that
are as clear as possible about what the
section covers.
It is important to present
both arguments as
strongly as possible.
One of the points of this
assignment is to be able
to understand and
appreciate the strongest
arguments on each side
of issues (rather than to
take sides).
These
sentences
evaluate the
strength of
the reasoning
itself.
This sentence comments on the support for the
premises (which is a separate question from the
strength of the reasoning).
In addition to summarizing the strength of the reasoning
and support for the premises, it is important to note any
sources of weakness within the argument.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102212/#C14
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102212/#C12
the impairment observed. For example, the article notes that the correlation with schizophrenia
may or may not be causal (Feeney & Kampman, 2016). Furthermore, most of the studies focus
on the use of marijuana by teens; therefore, these results may have limited application to
discussions of marijuana use among adults, especially those using it for medical purposes.
Evaluation of Arguments in Scholarly and Non-Scholarly Sources
Both of these scholarly sources supply quite a bit of evidence for their conclusions by
analyzing the data from multiple scientific studies. Non-scholarly sources, by contrast, frequently
make claims that are not supported at all, or are only supported by other partisan sources. One of
the non-scholarly sources I read does not explicitly cite any research at all, but only implies that
it exists (Foundation, n.d.). This allows non-scholarly sources, such as advocative web pages, to
make it sound as though the case for their position is much stronger than it actually is.
However, as we have seen, even scholarly sources are capable of contradicting each
other. This would not be surprising in non-scholarly sources, especially between sources with
advocative intent. It is more surprising to find contradictory results within scholarly sources.
However, there are possible ways to resolve these contradictions. One possibility comes
from noting that the first meta-study combined the data from its studies. Some of these specific
studies showed greater and lesser scores for various neurocognitive skills among marijuana
users, and the meta-study’s methodology allowed them to cancel each other out. The study on
the contrary side, on the other hand, simply cited one source each for the various harms, which
may have enabled the authors to select studies to cite that showed results more favorable to their
preferred conclusion.
This section
contrasts the
evidence given
by scholarly
sources (Week
3) with the
amount of
evidence given
by non-
scholarly
sources (from
Week 2).
Part of the point of
the Week 2 and
Week 3 assignments
is to contrast the
type of support that
one can find in
scholarly versus
non-scholarly
sources.
Some of the questions in the prompt for this
section are intended to be somewhat open-
ended … the purpose is to critically discuss
the sources of evidence, including the relative
strengths and weaknesses of each. This
analysis goes beyond just answering those
questions and focuses on an interesting related
issue about apparent contradictions one can
find even in scholarly research.
Thus, while non-scholarly sources can be clearly partisan and non-objective, pulling from
whichever sources, reliable or not, that support their point of view, even scholarly sources are
able to analyze data in ways that are far from neutral.
Conclusion:
Studying the reasoning on each side of the issue has been enlightening. Though there is
still debate, even among scholars, about the safety of marijuana use, studying the reasoning from
high quality sources gives perspective about the type of evidence that is being used on each side,
allowing one to assess which evidence is more reliable and provides more support for its
conclusion. In the future, I am more likely to go to scholarly sources over popular ones and to
analyze a multitude of scholarly results to understand the issue from a more well informed point
of view.
A simple concluding paragraph can contain
things such as thoughts on what one has
learned about the value of searching out
different types of sources.
References
Arseneault, L., Cannon, M., Witton, J., & Murray, R. M. (2004). Causal association between
cannabis and psychosis: Examination of the evidence. British Journal of
Psychiatry, 184(2), 110-117. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.184.2.110
Feeney, K. E., & Kampman, K. M. (2016). Adverse effects of marijuana use. The Linacre
Quarterly, 83(2), 174-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/00243639.2016.1175707
Foundation for a Drug Free World. (n.d.). The truth about marijuana: Behind the smoke screen.
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/behind-the-smoke-screen.html
Grant, I., Gonzales, R., Carey, C., Natarajan, L., & Wolfson, T. (2003). Non-acute (residual)
neurocognitive effects of cannabis use: A meta-analytic study. Journal of the
International Neuropsychological Society, 9(5), 679-689.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617703950016
Neavyn, M. J., Blohm, E., Babu, K. M., & Bird, S. B. (2014). Medical marijuana and driving: A
review. Journal of Medical Toxicology, 10(3), 269-279. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13181-
014-0393-4
Palamar, J. J., Fenstermaker, M., Kamboukos, D., Ompad, D. C., Cleland, C. M., & Weitzman,
M. (2014). Adverse psychosocial outcomes associated with drug use among US high
school seniors: A comparison of alcohol and marijuana. American Journal of Drug and
Alcohol Abuse, 40(6), 438-446. https://doi.org/10.3109/00952990.2014.943371
Tashkin, D. P., Baldwin, G. C., Sarafian, T., Dubinett, S., & Roth, M. D. (2002). Respiratory and
immunologic consequences of marijuana smoking. Journal of Clinical
Pharmacology, 42(S1), 71S-81S. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-4604.2002.tb06006.x
Always have a reference section that contains
citations for all of the sources that you use
within the article.
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/behind-the-smoke-screen.html
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355617703950016
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-4604.2002.tb06006.x
Thames, A. D., Arbid, N., & Sayegh, P. (2014). Cannabis use and neurocognitive functioning in
a non-clinical sample of users. Addictive Behaviors, 39(5), 994-999.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.01.019
Volkow, N. D., Baler, R. D., Compton, W. M., & Weiss, S. R. B. (2014). Adverse health effects
of marijuana use. New England Journal of Medicine, 370, 2219-2227.
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra1402309
You do not have to have this many resources, only
the number required in the assignment
instructions.
