AP/MODR1770 6.0 E: Techniques of Persuasion
Offered by: MODR
Session
Fall 2021
Term
Y
Format
REMT
Instructor
Calendar Description / Prerequisite / Co-Requisite
This is a skills-based course focusing on critical thinking, persuasive writing, and strategic argumentation. Examples are drawn from various forms of persuasion including advertising, propaganda and political argument. Course credit exclusions: AP/MODR 1730 6.00, AP/MODR 1760 6.00. Note: This is an approved LA&PS General Education course: Humanities OR Social Science.
Course Start Up
Course Websites hosted on York's "eClass" are accessible to students during the first week of the term. It takes two business days from the time of your enrolment to access your course website. Course materials begin to be released on the course website during the first week. To log in to your eClass course visit the York U eClass Portal and login with your Student Passport York Account. If you are creating and participating in Zoom meetings you may also go directly to the York U Zoom Portal.
For further course Start Up details, review the Getting Started webpage.
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Philip MacEwen (pmacewen@yorku.ca)
This course is an introduction to logic, language, fallacy analysis, conceptual analysis, and writing analysis, five critical skills which will then be used to study some of the main techniques of persuasion.
The main techniques of persuasion we will study are 1) argument, 2) advertising, 3) propaganda, and 4) ideology, both in terms of their similarities and, more notably, their differences.
If you have enrolled in the course, you can access the course website once it has been posted on-line. It contains the course outline, the lectures topics and lecture notes, access to the weekly Zoom lectures (T at 8:30 a.m.), and the assignments for the course (see Weighting of Course below).
All the readings are supplied on-line, at no cost to the students, and are posted on the course website.
5 short writing assignments, each worth 20% of the course grade.
After studying the five critical skills abovementioned, we will use these skills to analyze the nature of the four main techniques of persuasion.
To learn to write clearly, simply, and, if possible, memorably (so that your audience is likely to remember your main points) about complicated subjects, in this case, the four main techniques of persuasion.
- Academic Honesty
- Student Rights and Responsibilities
- Religious Observance
- Grading Scheme and Feedback
- 20% Rule
No examinations or tests collectively worth more than 20% of the final grade in a course will be given during the final 14 calendar days of classes in a term. The exceptions to the rule are classes which regularly meet Friday evenings or on Saturday and/or Sunday at any time, and courses offered in the compressed summer terms. - Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities
