Hello, and welcome everybody. My name is Brint Montgomery. I am a tenured professor of Logic and Philosophy at a liberal arts university in the Southwestern part of the United States. I teach both classroom and online courses, and have done so for over 25 years. In this lecture, I want to present myself to all of you who take time, energy, and interest to be here with me in this course.
As your instructor, I've made sure you'll get the best practices for argument diagramming and analysis out of this course experience. I am an undergraduate instructor and have taught a range of classes to many students over the years. As a professional philosopher, I have created, designed, and implemented new argument diagramming techniques here for you to use. These techniques are useful for both students and professionals to get at the heart of how people use evidence in their reasoning.
As a philosopher, I'm drawing on knowledge from my professional background in analysis, analytic approaches and language research. I have carefully worked groups of students through the rigors of argument analysis so they can make the best, evidence-based decisions for whatever discipline or career they find themselves within.
In this course, I have created a whole systematic and diagrammatic approach for assessing how ideas are connected to justify the conclusions of arguments. I've used this system myself to gain insight into what I read and hear in everyday discourse -- both in the common course of my day and in heavyweight academic environments. That's a good reason why I'm the best instructor for you in this class -- I've taught these techniques and seen them work. Since I'm both the creator and instructor of these new techniques, you have a truly unique chance at the best, firsthand experience of learning them. So, get ready to use the newest, most powerful application of a modeling language for your needs!
