Reference no: EM13124420 , Length: 955 words

Determine whether the following passages contain arguments. If not, write "not an argument." If so, analyze and diagram all arguments contained in the passage. 

1. Some argue that file sharing is actually good for artists, because it is in effect promoting their work...

{however,} when recorded music is not paid for, there are clear and obvious implications for those who create the music - songwriters, performers and the record companies that make the actual sound recording. Consequently, since the rewards to production of music has gone down, it would seem reasonable to conjecture that the results will be less music, and less diversity of music, in the future. At a minimum, the possibility of recording artists and songwriters earning a living from selling their music is diminished. It is difficult to compete with "free". 

2. I recently spoke with a PH.D. in engineering who commented that during the early years of his doctoral research, he often spent days amongst the journals in the library's stacks and stumbled upon numerous articles that became key background material for his thesis. He wouldn't have found any of these online, he noted, because the electronic sources either didn't go back that far or didn't contain the more obscure journals. Doing his research in print, in addition to doing it electronically, made all the difference between producing adequate research and excellent research.

3. In common with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Merton stressed the development of methods for the non violent settlement of conflict. He was not a Utopian who envisioned a world in which there was no conflict, but he could imagine a world in which non-violent options were seen as effective rather than dismissed as naive, idealistic or unrealistic. When we think of the immense and irreparable harm war does, how realistic is war?

4. When the U.S National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, the general public and scientists in the aerospace field both held high hopes ... but blurry images caused by a flawed mirror sent those hopes crashing to Earth. The U.S. Congress demanded an explanation for the failure... Stress and health problems afflicted many NASA engineers. "It was traumatic.| says the former director of NASA's astrophysics division, Charles Pellerin, who oversaw the launch of the Hubble. Nobody could see how to fix the problem. 

Well, nobody except Pellerin. He not only had insight on how to solve the problem but found the funding and resources to repair the telescope, for which he received NASA's outstanding leadership medal. But his real reward came over the next decade when the telescope provided spectacular images and important discoveries about stars, galaxies and other cosmic phenomena.

What was the secret of Pellerin's success? Dozens of other people at NASA had high IQ's and world class technical knowledge-they were, after all, rocket scientists. So what gave Pellerin the edge? What made him persist until the telescope was fixed when others felt overwhelmed by the challenge? His mind perceived reality differently. He re framed the situation as an unfinished project, not a failed one. He never lost sight of the potential for a positive outcome-a space telescope that worked. He saw how that positive future could happen as the result of technical solutions-corrective optics-package repairs performed by a crew of astronauts-that were possible with a rearrangement of the situation, recognizing the potential and envisioning the repaired telescope, he was able to help orchestrate the unfolding of events that changed the future.

5. Some people think that the law should require that all political poll results be made public. Otherwise, the possessors of poll results can use the information to their own advantage. They can act on the information, release only selected parts of it, or time the release for best effect. A candidate's organization replies that they are paying for the poll in order to gain information for their own use, not to amuse the public.

6. Yet perhaps the biggest reason why people resist technology has to do with individual priorities. The act of "resisting" technology isn't an act of defiance to spite society-it's also engaging with more relaxed forms of living. We've discovered that computers make us feel threatened because they do the exact opposite of their original goals-namely, they radically speed up our lives, stressing us out with endless passwords, spam and digital clutter.