...Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing CRT/205 October 3, 2013 Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing The two examples I chose to analyze were examples two and three. Both of the writing samples were vague and ambiguous leaving questions and curiosity as to what the author was intending. Without the clarity in the writing, the audience is left to assume what the author’s true meaning is, but not ever really knowing if they are correct. In example two the author states, “I was thrown from my truck as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by a flock of wild turkeys.” The vagueness in the writing is found in the first sentence. As the audience, we are unsure if the author meant another person in the vehicle physically threw him out of the truck or if author was involved in a car accident and when truck went off the side of the rode the impact ejected him from the vehicle. With this statement being as vague as it is, the possibility could be either. Ambiguity is present in the second sentence, in particularly the word “by”. The way this sentence is worded, it is possible a flock of wild turkeys were the ones who found him in the ditch, or that someone else found him in a ditch near a flock of turkeys. Since the word “by” could be referring to who found him or in relation to where he was found the author could have intended either. The author states in example three, “Next Sunday a collection will be taken to help with the cost of the new altar. Anyone...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity and Clarity Critical Thinking CRT205 In the first example the organization is not named, the type of van is not named, and the conflict going on is not named, to say the least, the entire section is very vague and does not refer or mention any one thing that is going on. The second example does not mention who, how or what was thrown out of the truck, why the truck went off the road. The first example states "this particular case study will reflect an organization with a van that has undergoing internal conflict. It will also analyze the reason for the conflict and offer positive resolutions of this conflict. The project must first understand that conflict among the membership, its leaders, group or anyone attached did not just show up one day. Conflict has been in existence for a very long time. The religious leaders have a great responsibility to the congregation (and others who look for guidance and direction according to the scriptures). It does not matter what title he or she holds, if they are in a leadership role, they bare responsible and accountable." Being vague in the first example influences understanding because not one person that is reading it would know anything about what is going on with the organization. There is no who, what, where or how stated in any part of the example. How would anyone understand what the organization is, what van is being talked about, what the conflict is, and why religious leaders are involved. The second...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing Denise Cook CRT/205 November 18, 2012 Professor Freda Trujillo The first example in which I chose was Example 2, “I was thrown from my truck as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by a flock of wild turkeys.” The first sentence is an example of vagueness because it does not tell us if he had an accident but it tells us enough to make the assumption that there was an accident. The second sentence is an example of ambiguity because it could mean that he was found by a flock of wild turkeys or it could mean that someone found him by a flock of wild turkeys in a ditch. The second example in which I chose was Example 3, “Next Sunday a collection will be taken to help with the cost of the new altar. Anyone wanting to help to do something on the new altar can step forward and let the committee know.” The first sentence is an example of vagueness because it does not tell us how much the new altar will cost or how much of a donation in which they need, but it is enough information given for you to make the assumption that they need money for a new altar. The second sentence is an example ambiguity because it could mean that anyone who wants to help with building the altar can step forward or it could mean anyone who wants to give money to help pay for the new altar can step forward. According to Chapter 3, vagueness plays a very important role in much that we do. Vagueness is often intentional, used as a means...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing CRT/205: Critical Thinking December 7, 2012 Gecobie Davis When I looked further into Capital punishment laws I found a very interested story about when it first started. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The death penalty was also part of the Fourteenth Century B.C.'s Hittite Code; in the Seventh Century B.C.'s Draconian Code of Athens, which made death the only punishment for all crimes, and in the Fifth Century B.C.'s Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. I think the United States should ban using capital punishment because many of them don’t do serious crimes then others. Look at the case of Brian Dugan is one of the people that the United States reconsider to use the capital punishment. I think if a person breaks the law any type of form of fashion they are responsible for their own actions. Brain Dugan execution took more than twice as normal time to do and appeared to some families member that was in a suffering process at the time of crime happen(Chicago tribune, 2011). I feel like the government is doing what they can to put these criminals in jail for killing, murdering, raping, and kidnapping another human being. I think by giving them life in...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing Holly Minor CRT/205 June 15, 2013 Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing Vague and ambiguous writing results in misinterpretation of the information within the writing. When writing is unclear, a reader may find difficulty in understanding the intent of the writing. On the other hand, a certain level of vagueness is adequate. “When a claim is not too vague to convey appropriately useful information, its level of vagueness is acceptable.” (Moore & Parker, 2012, p. 73). To illustrate the effect vagueness and ambiguousness has on a written work; two writing examples are deconstructed and analyzed. Example 1 [1]This particular case study will reflect an organization with a van that has undergoing internal conflict. [2]It will also analyze the reason for the conflict and offer positive resolutions of this conflict. [3]The project must first understand that conflict among the membership, its leaders, group or anyone attached did not just show up one day. [4]Conflict has been in existence for a very long time. [5]The religious leaders have a great responsibility to the congregation (and others who look for guidance and direction according to the scriptures). [6]It does not matter what title he or she holds, if they are in a leadership role, they bare responsible and accountable. The writing style in this first example contains both vague and ambiguous writing. The first sentence has both vague and ambiguous...
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...the novelist may be stipulating that the flock of wild turkeys found him lying in a ditch, or maybe that a man had found him in the ditch lying next to the flock of wild turkeys. In the 3rd example, to me this is vague simply I am not quite certain what is being accumulated. It may be a contribution of pieces of merchandise or ready cash. And in the second sentence it is asking if anybody wants to lend a hand by doing something on the altar to let the board know. It is not clear to anyone who reads this as to what the board is asking what needs to be done to the new altar. These sentences are ambiguous simply since while anyone who is reading each example, there is several ways that anyone might clarify their significance. Both vagueness and ambiguity have an effect on understanding the assertions since what the writer is trying to say may not be what the viewers are familiar with. In order for the writer to his or her point through more efficiently the writer has to be certain they are clear in what they are trying to express. In the connection between...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing: Casey Dougherty CRT/205 December 13, 2012 Casey Thrift Vagueness, Ambiguity, and Clarity in Writing: Example 2 I was thrown from my truck as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by a flock of wild turkeys. Example 3 Next Sunday a collection will be taken to help with the cost of the new altar. Anyone wanting to help to do something on the new altar can step forward and let the committee know. In the example of being thrown from a truck there is vagueness and ambiguity. Vagueness and ambiguity used in writing have an influence on the understanding of the information to the audience. "A word or phrase is vague if the group of things to which it applies has border- line cases," (Moore & Parker, 2012, p. 72). In the second example, the writer provides a vague explanation of being thrown from his truck. The person could have been thrown because of a wreck with another vehicle, or because he was avoiding something in the road, or literally thrown from the vehicle by another person. The writer then says that he found in a ditch by a flock of wild turkeys. This statement is ambiguous because he could have been found actually in a ditch next to a flock of wild turkeys, or it could have been the flock of wild turkeys that found him in the ditch. ." A word, phrase, or sentence is said to be ambiguous when it has more than one meaning," (Moore & Parker, 2012, p. 72). In the example of needing help with...
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...“Clear thinking requires peace of mind rather than intelligence.” ~Meredith Forder … When it comes to making the right choices in life, mere intelligence will not guarantee the best result. This fact is exemplified by the problems of obesity, anxiety, stress, addictions and depression among highly intelligent people. At Clear Thinking we believe that many of life’s problems can be solved by simply learning how to think clearly—how to keep your mind calm, focused and within your control. Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself. Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking. Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987 A statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul, presented at the 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987. Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that...
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...Vagueness, Ambiguity and Clarity in Writing John Mackey The first example that I have chosen to use for this assignment is Example number two; Example 2 I was thrown from my truck as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by a flock of wild turkeys. The vagueness in this example raises the question of why he was thrown from the truck. What caused this to happen? What were the underlying circumstances that ultimately led to being thrown from the truck? Another question that can be asked is where did the wild turkeys come from? There are all these questions that remain to be asked and also later to be answered. For the ambiguous side of the house, Dictionary.com defines ambiguity as doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ambiguity). In this example what is the author’s intent on explaining? It is simply two sentences that very vaguely explain what happened but what is their purpose or intent that they are trying to achieve by saying what they did in the example? I believe that with this example there is more vagueness than there is ambiguity but also that the vagueness does lead to ambiguity. There are several questions left in this example unanswered. Re-Written Example I was thrown from my truck as it left the road because the roads were wet from the rain that had fallen throughout the night and I lost control of my truck. Later when I awoke I found myself lying in a ditch surrounded by a flock...
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...Why Ambiguity? Ariel Cohen Ben-Gurion University arikc@bgu.ac.il All human languages are ambiguous. Ambiguity is not restricted to some special constructions that linguists are fond of discussing, but is quite ubiquitous. It is hard, in fact, to find a sentence that is not ambiguous. This fact is all too familiar to computational linguists: “One often hears in computational linguistics about completely unremarkable sentences with hundreds of parses, and that is in fact no exaggeration.” (Abney, 1996). The question is, simply, why? Why is language ambiguous? Krifka (2002) raises a similar question concerning vagueness. He shows that there are good reasons for language to allow, and even encourage vagueness. Vagueness, however, is not ambiguity. When we are told that the theater is far from here, we may be unsure as to the precise distance; but we know what the speaker intends, and we can draw inferences based on this, e.g., that we should take a cab instead of walking to the theater. But with an ambiguous term, the intended meaning is not merely insufficiently specified; it is not known, until the term is disambiguated. When we hear that John has a kid, we draw very different inferences if John is a father or if he owns a young goat. Thus, the advantages of vagueness do not seem to apply to ambiguity, and we are back to the question: why ambiguity? Some may say that it doesn’t matter. Humans possess very powerful mechanisms for disambiguation; these mechanisms resolve ambiguities, so...
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...2 of 56 Clear Thinking, Critical Thinking, and Clear Writing Students will learn to … 1. Determine acceptable and unacceptable degrees of vagueness in language 2. Understand and identify types of ambiguity 3. Identify the problems generality causes in language 4. Use definitions to increase precision and clarity and to influence attitudes 5. Understand the types of definitions 6. Acquire skills for writing an effective argumentative essay rom August 1987 until January 2007, Alan Greenspan was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (“the Fed”). Because any remark he made about U.S. monetary policy could cause markets all over the world to fluctuate wildly, he developed a complicated way of speaking that came to be known as “Fedspeak.” Here’s an example: It is a tricky problem to find the particular calibration in timing that would be appropriate to 2/9/2016 12:17 PM 3 of 56 stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling incomes without prematurely aborting the decline in the inflation-generated risk premiums.* Greenspan has admitted that such remarks were not really intended to be understood. Asked to give an example by commenting on the weather, Greenspan replied, I would generally expect that today in Washington, D.C., the probability of changes in the weather is highly uncertain. But we are monitoring the data in such a manner that we will be able to update people on changes that are important.* Page 70 2/9/2016 12:17 PM This tells us nothing about the weather...
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...AMBIGUITY A word, phrase, or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning. The word 'light', for example, can mean not very heavy or not very dark. Words like 'light', 'note', 'bear' and 'over' are lexically ambiguous. They induce ambiguity in phrases or sentences in which they occur, such as 'light suit' and 'The duchess can't bear children'. However, phrases and sentences can be ambiguous even if none of their constituents is. The phrase 'porcelain egg container' is structurally ambiguous, as is the sentence 'The police shot the rioters with guns'. Ambiguity can have both a lexical and a structural basis, as with sentences like 'I left her behind for you' and 'He saw her duck'. The notion of ambiguity has philosophical applications. For example, identifying an ambiguity can aid in solving a philosophical problem. Suppose one wonders how two people can have the same idea, say of a unicorn. This can seem puzzling until one distinguishes 'idea' in the sense of a particular psychological occurrence, a mental representation, from 'idea' in the sense of an abstract, shareable concept. On the other hand, gratuitous claims of ambiguity can make for overly simple solutions. Accordingly, the question arises of how genuine ambiguities can be distinguished from spurious ones. Part of the answer consists in identifying phenomena with which ambiguity may be confused, such as vagueness, unclarity, inexplicitness and indexicality. 1. Types of ambiguity 2. Ambiguity contrasted ...
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...definiendum is not a new term, but one with a known usage, although it being vague or ambiguous. Therefore, when constructing a precise definition, we are not at liberty to assign the definiendum any meaning we want. A precise definition cannot be a simple report like that of lexical definition because it has to be beyond established usage if the vagueness of the definiendum is to be reduced (Copi, Cohen and Mcmahon). Précising definitions are used because in some cases we need to use a particular term in a way that is more precise than a definition found in the dictionary. Hence, such definitions are not to be found in the dictionary. Précising definitions are conceptual tools of vast significance (Hall). An example of where précising definition was used is in units of measurement in science. “ Horse power” is commonly used in reporting the power of motors, but its vagueness brought about commercial deception. To overcome that, a precise definition was formulated. One “horsepower” is now defined precisely as “the power needed to raise a weight of 550 pounds by one foot in one second”—calculated to be equal to 745.7 watts. The vagueness of the term “horse power” could not be eliminated by appealing merely to ordinary...
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...Respectively or a total of more or less (P1,847,578,057.50); and by collecting or receiving, directly or indirectly, by himself and/or in connivance with John Does & Jane Does, commissions or percentages by reason of said purchases of shares of stock in the amount of P189,700,000.00 more or less, from Belle Corporation which became part of the Deposit in the equitable Bank under the account name of ‘Jose Velarde’. Petitioner wishes to impress upon the constitutionality of RA 7080 (An Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder), as amended by RA 7659. He therefore makes a stringent call for this Court to subject the Plunder Law to the crucible of constitutionality mainly because, according to him, (a) it suffers from the vice of vagueness; (b) it dispenses with the "reasonable doubt" standard in criminal prosecutions; and, (c) it...
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...relatively concrete concepts such as ‘Table’ we can understand them without definitions by simply seeing them. But most concepts are abstract and complex and to understand them definitions are important tool of knowledge. A definition does the following functions: a. It clarifies the boundaries of a concept. b. It clarifies the relationships among concepts. c. It clarifies the referents of the concepts. Vagueness and Ambiguity A term is ‘vague’ means it is hazy obscure and imprecise for example the words love, happiness, rich or poor are vague. We can rarely tell whether they apply to a given situation or not. How rich one has to be in order to be called rich? An ‘ambiguous expression’ is one that can be interpreted as having more than one clearly distinct meaning in a given context for example: words such as proper, light, critical, bank can be used ambiguously. If one were to describe an action as proper, does this mean proper in moral sense or proper in the sense of being socially acceptable? The difference between ambiguity and vagueness is that vague terminology allows for a relatively continuous range of interpretations, where as ambiguous terminology allows for multiple discrete interpretations. A vague expression creates a blur of meaning where as ambiguous expression mixes up otherwise clear meanings. Definitions and their purposes Definition is a group of words that assigns a meaning to some word or group of words. A definition consists of two...
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