Debate? Dissent ! By Mickiko Kakutani

774 Words2 Pages

College students giving the impression of being no longer interested in debates is the inspiration for the article, "Debate? Dissent? Discussion? Oh, Don 't Go There!" by Mickiko Kakutani. Kakutani argues that students would rather debate. The audience intended for this argument are for teachers or anyone who is concerned about the students ' desire to debate in a classroom. She found that today 's students "are interested in hearing another person 's point of view, but not interested in engaging it, in challenging it or being challenged..." (59-60) Kakutani 's argument that students prefer to not debate is not effective because she used the wrong data pool, used an insufficient amount of data, and used outdated data to support her argument, …show more content…

She only uses secondary sources which are stated in the previous paragraph. Her argument was generalizing all college students, however, she only used a survey that questioned one particular college. She also only used statements from a dean of undergraduate education and a professor at Princeton. Those few reasons cannot account for all college students. In other words, Kakutani did not use enough data to support her argument. Kakutani analyzed a survey that only accounts for students who were born in the early 1980 's making this data outdated. Her essay "Debate? Dissent? Discussion? Oh, Don 't Go There!" was published in 2002 which does not consider students who are in college from 2003 to now. With that being said, she also used an article about a survey in a specific college which was from 2001 meaning her argument about college students excluded any new college students that attended …show more content…

However, her essay is flawed with the wrong data pool, an insufficient amount of data, and outdated data. She used secondary sources from her analysis on surveys. In addition, she used only statements from professors and administrators which only gives an outside perspective of college students. Lastly, she used sources that do not account for all college students from 2003 to now. From my perspective as a college student, I was able to relate to her argument and agree with it. Despite this, her argument that college students prefer to not debate was

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