Dr. Philip Macewen

pmacewen@yorku.ca

This course addresses a number of contemporary social issues using the critical skills developed in the first part of the course. These critical skills included 1) logical analysis, 2) language analysis, 3) fallacy analysis, 4) conceptual analysis, and 5) writing analysis.

Technical requirements for taking the course: Students will need a computer with high-speed Internet. They will not need a computer with webcam and microphone, and/or a smart device with these features.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

Times and locations: This course is entirely on-line and asynchronous. In other words, there are no lectures times, tutorial times, or course meeting times. Instead, all course material, including lectures, tutorials, and readings, will be available to students via the course website which they should access regularly, i.e., several times each week at their convenience. Once the course website is active, students can access it by logging into their student accounts and clicking on MODR 1730 6.0A.

Virtual office hours: Students should contact their Tutorial Leaders about virtual office hours. Contact information for Tutorial Leaders is at the top of the Course Outline which will be posted on the course website when the website is activated.

All the required texts/readings are posted on the course website.

The course is weighted on five short small-group writing assignments, each worth 20% of the final grade. Writing groups will consist of no more than 5 students each, all of whom will be in your tutorial.

The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, we will study the nature of reasoning. In the second part, we will examine some of the major social issues of our time, equipped with the requisite reasoning skills. Students will be registered in tutorials. Each week, joint Zoom lectures and tutorials will be posted on the course website. Students should log on to the course website regularly to access the joint Zoom lectures and tutorials. In addition, the written lectures for the entire course will be posted on the course website when it is opened to students.

This course is designed to help students improve their reasoning skills, an essential component of becoming successful professionals.

Additional Information: All the writing assignments will be graded by your Tutorial Leader. Grades will come with detailed comments provided by your Tutorial Leader. Assignments must be submitted to your Tutorial Leader by the dates indicated in the Course Outline. Late assignments will be accepted without penalty up to a week after the deadline for the assignment concerned, but no comments will be provided. Thereafter, late assignments will be assigned a grade of “0”, medical, legal, or other outstanding reasons excepted. Students will receive the contact information of the members of their Writing Group from their Tutorial Leader as soon as the add deadline for the SU 2026 Semester (Monday, May 11) has passed. At the same time, Tutorial Leaders will inform their students how they want them to submit their assignments (e.g., Turnitin, Email, etc.).

Additional Information:

Course policies:

1. Final grades will be posted on-line within a few days after the official final day of classes for SU 2026 (Tuesday, August 4). You may access your final grade by logging on to your student account and following the relevant link/s.