Share your Rogerian Argument field test. Proceed in this order:
1. First, what was the occasion of the disagreement (context, background)?
2. Second, describe how you employed these 4 steps of Rogerian argument with your “adversary” (I prefer the term “partner”). Again, here are the steps you must follow during your conversation with the person:
a. Summarize for the person the grievance between you two.
b. State your “partner’s” position. Make sure he or she agrees that you’ve stated correctly his/her position.
c. Grant the validity of his or her position.
d. Show how his or her position will be improved if he or she also accepts your position.
3. Finally, how did your partner in the discussion respond? Was the grievance resolved, stayed same, escalated?
Feel free to comment on others’ posts. Remember, you are to engage someone (in real life!) in Rogerian Argument this week, and this forum is where you share those results.
See SAMPLE ROGERIAN DISCUSSION below.
[K.P.]
1. Few weeks ago, my younger sister and I had a dispute about whether she should go straight to university or go to community college first and transfer later. She is a senior high school student, and she will be graduating within next year.
2. a. My sister is planning on applying for several universities. She already took a SAT test two times but didn’t get the good scores. She wants to retake it this December, and will use that result to apply for whichever university accepts it. She said that most of her friends go straight to university without attending to community college, and she wants to be the same. However, I don’t really think that’s a good plan. And we had an argument about this.
b. “So you are going to apply for university and if get accepted, you will move out and live in school campus?” – I asked.
“Yup. I don’t want to go to community college. There’s no point of going there while you can go straight to university. It’s better. And also I’m turning 18 soon. I want to move out and live in dorm.”
c. “Yes, I agree with you that university is nicer, bigger, and better than community college. I also agree that you can move out and live independently if you can afford for everything by yourself.” – I told her.
d. “So what if you couldn’t get into any universities?”- I asked.
“I believe I could, my grade is good, and my school activities are good as well. All I need is a high SAT score which I am working hard on it now.” – She replied.
“Ok then, let’s assume you get into UCLA (the school she wants to go best) and stay in campus. As I know, the estimated budget per academic year (9 months) is about $32,000. Let’s also assume that you get Financial Aid of $20,000. So what would you do with the rest of $12,000?” – I asked.
She remained silent. But then she said: “I can find a part-time job, or I can apply for loan.”
Here is what I told her: “University is not easy to handle. And if you work, that would affect your study, and possibly lengthen your educational time frame. And yes, you could get loan from government. But let’s think about this, if you chose to go to college for the first 2 years, you would save a lot of money because free waver covers all the tuition and you get financial aid as well. If you spend smartly, you could save about $7,000 from those 2 years. Then you transfer to university, you only need a loan of (2 years X 12,000) – 7,000 = $17,000, compared with a loan of (4 years x 12,000) = $48,000 if you go straight to university from the beginning. Of course that’s just estimated. But I want to give you a suggestion to think about.”
I’m a college girl and will be transferring to university next year as well. Community college has provided me a good environment for studying and preparing for further education. Most importantly, college helps me save a lot of money. For a family who just settled to the State not too long ago, spending money in the most efficient way is always a necessary concern. 4 years in university would cost a huge chunk of money, not mention to the expenditure for dorm, food and everything else. Especially when the economy is not completely recovered yet, and the California budget for education has been cut recently, I incurred her to think about it. I made a clear point to her about there’s not much difference between transferring to university from 2 –year-community college and attending 4 year university in terms of academy and degree.
3. She’s turning 18 soon, which means she could be able to take responsibility for whatever she does. And I told her that I never want to force her to do anything. As an older sister, I just wanted to give her advice and experience which I used to be through. I do want her to consider them and think carefully before making a decision. She said she would think about it. However, if she got a high score on the SAT test and was accepted by some good universities, she would definitely go for it. Our discussion was not to decide who win or lose, but at least she had another option to think about before making up her mind.