PHILOS 111-201
Summer 2015
Informal Logic – Critical Reasoning
Instructor
Matt Knachel, knachel@uwm.edu.
Home phone: (262) 794 – 3122; cell: (414) 817 – 2421.
Text
Copi and Cohen, Introduction to Logic, 13th or 14th Edition.
Content
Most of the material will come from the course textbook; additional,
supplemental material, will be provided on the course website. I’ve
divided things into 6 Units. See the Unit Overview documents for details
about each unit—parts of the text to be covered, practice problems to try,
etc. (Note that my “Units” don’t correspond to chapters in the text.)
Grading
Each Unit culminates with a quiz. Each quiz consists of 17 multiplechoice questions. Your final grade is the sum of your six quiz scores.
There is a wrinkle: in fact, there are three quizzes for each of the six Units.
You may—though you needn’t—attempt all three; only the highest score
will count for each Unit. The three quizzes have different questions, but
they’re very similar: they have the same types of questions, and the same
number of questions of the various types. It’s important, therefore, to
learn from your mistakes (if any) on early quiz attempts so that you can
improve your score on subsequent attempts.
The quizzes are under the heading ‘Quizzes’ on D2L. You take them at
your convenience, and they’re graded automatically. There is a 2 hour
time limit. I’ve posted a 3-question practice quiz that you can take to get a
feeling for how things work (it doesn’t count toward your grade).
One final requirement for the course, in addition to the quizzes: in order to
be considered as having completed the class, one must fill out a course
evaluation form. The document will be available for download toward the
end of the term; it is to be filled out and submitted via e-mail to the
philosophy department before the final day of classes.
Schedule
You may work at your own pace in this course. It is important, however,
that you make steady progress. Students who wait until the very end to do
most of the work typically fail the course.
Resources
This is an online course, so you’ll have to be self-reliant and selfmotivated to some degree. But here are some additional resources:
Question Forums. Whenever someone asks me a question—whether via e-mail,
over the phone, or in my office—I’ll post it (anonymously) to this list, along with
the answer, so that everyone can benefit. This will be under ‘Discussions’ on
D2L, and so it will have a message board format. You may of course submit
questions directly to the message board, and use it to communicate with one
another. The forums are organized by topic (‘General’, ‘Unit 1’, etc.), so please
take care in posting to the correct place. Note that there are also separate forums
for each of the 30 quizzes, access to which is restricted to those who have already
taken them; this is the place to ask questions about specific quiz questions.
Video. I’ve posted lectures from the in-class version of this course here:
http://lubar.mediasite.com/mediasite/Catalog/Full/5bc78a1e98ee4b5d83117daead
cd28ee21. (If you sort these in ascending order by date, they’ll display
optimally—in the order you should watch them.) If you so choose, you can
experience the course just as you would off-line—by virtually attending lectures.
Or, you can pick and choose which videos to watch—or which parts of videos to
watch—depending on your needs. Each Unit Overview document contains a list
of the videos covering that Unit’s material.
Homework Answers. When I teach this course in the classroom, I assign
homework every week. There are 12 homework assignments. Each Unit
Overview document tells you which homework assignments cover that Unit’s
material. While you’re not required to do homework, you will find these problems
useful as practice before taking quizzes, so I provide you with the answer keys.
They’re on D2L in the Answer Key folder under ‘Content’. The textbook also
provides answers to selected problems (those marked with an asterisk).
Policies
One must take at least one quiz from each Unit to pass the course.
The following URL links to a list of various University policies:
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf
Note that academic dishonesty will be dealt with as harshly as possible.
PHILOS 111-201
Summer 2015
Note About the Textbook
We will use Irving Copi and Carl Cohen’s Introduction to Logic for this course. The
book’s been around for a long time: it’s currently in its 14th edition. You can get either
the 14th edition or the 13th edition; they’re basically identical, except for page-numbers.
Just find the best deal you can.
Speaking of deals, I strongly discourage you from using the campus bookstore; they
charge way too much. Instead, look around on-line for used copies—or, look into renting
the book from one of the usual on-line retailers (Amazon, Chegg, etc.).
The best deal on used books is probably from ex-students of mine. I keep a list of those
who are willing to sell their books at this
website: https://sites.google.com/site/uwmlogicbookexchange/.
Don’t be afraid to look around for a while to find a good deal: I’ve scanned the first two
chapters of the book and posted PDFs on our course website; that gets you through the
first few weeks of classes, giving you plenty of time to shop around and wait for your
book to arrive in the mail.
Also, I have three copies of the book on reserve at the library, so you can access the book
that way, too. (Heck, if you really want to save money, you could just get the book from
the reserve desk, then use one of the library’s scanners to copy the whole thing, then send
yourself an e-mail with the book in PDF form!)
Finally, three words of warning:
1. DO NOT get an edition other than the 13th or 14th; earlier versions of
are quite different.
the book
2. DO NOT buy the “international” paperback edition of the book; it’s supposed to be
the same, but it’s not.
3. Again, avoid the bookstore; they will charge you too much. If you’ve already
purchased a book from them, I recommend that you take it back. Remember, you have
plenty of time to find a good deal.