'Sub-Arguments In Sports Build Character'

Before I criticize the passage “Sports Build Character”, I am going to define a few terms. The first term I want to define is “character”; this is defined as, “The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual” (Oxford University). The next term is “role model”, by definition it is “A person looked to by others as an example to be imitated” (Oxford University). The passage “Sports Build Character” presents two sub-arguments proving a larger argument which leads to the approval of the conclusion, the argument instantly verifies the conclusion that professional athletes are not good role models, since the traits they portray are not what we want our kids or society to learn.

The first sub-argument is that an athlete's personal life

The fallacy of “begging the question” has been established here when the author states this point. The reason for this fallacy is because they are judging the professional athlete on both their personal and business life, and this can only be accepted if there is an agreement with the point before reading the passage. This is an informal passage to decline and I will explain why later in this paragraph. This argument is also certainly depraved as the evidence for this point is “winning is the only goal that athletes care about, they will cheat, swear, and look away at misdeeds as long as the end goal is accomplished”. Notice the term “athletes”, in this argument, is being very loosely applied especially during that last quote. In the last paragraph, the author gave us an actual example of someone that does corrupt activities, but then again, in this example, the author didn’t point anyone out. The author is establishing a hasty generalization, that cheating happens in sports. On the other hand, it does not concisely state how their argument would be applied, applying the terms very loosely causing the reader no choice but to agree with the statement. This could have been true if it were being correctly portrayed to the audience that the reader was trying to reach. Instead of giving examples of what “cheating to win” per say is, the author could have given a concrete

As I have said before, you can't judge someone or a profession by the sum of its parts, not only is it unethical to do so; the listed argument doesn’t have a respectable scope by providing only one example, moreover, showing that the argument isn’t clearly explaining the reasoning behind its paragraphs. Although the argumentation of this passage could have been much better, the passage itself is sound. It sounds logical, and if done correctly could have been harder to criticize, on the other hand, this passage is not cogent. Cogency is the attribute that devalues this passage tremendously by not making the logic flow. It is not clear as due to the different types of examples in the passage, and by the lack of two attributes the final attribute isn’t there which is being