one day as we walked from campus to hostel with my friends, we saw a snake in the road & it was so big.we were very terrified such that we just coulmd cross to the other side of the road. we ran back to my other friend's house in Cyberia. when we got there we couldn't speak. we were trembling. only one friend could do that. this is how the conversation went:
Sarah: Whats wrong?
Moneyface: we saw a snake in te road & we coludnt cross to the other side.
Sarah: What kind of a snake
Moneyface: one of some kind.
Sarah:Was it big?
Moneyface: yes it was
Sarah: how big?
Moneyface: a lot of centimeters big
Sarah: probably how many?
Moneyface: more than 100 centimeters
Sarah: but you are four, why didnt you kill it
Moneyface: because we couldnt
Now from this argument, my friend was using what in critical thinking is known as overgenerality. we see that Sarah's answers were not specific enough to be satisfactory to Moneyface. take for example Sarah asked Moneyface what kind of the snake we saw but Moneyface replied 'one of some kind' from this answer, we konw that obviously it should be one of the kind but which type exactly? thats what sarah was simply asking.
Again Sarah asked how big was the snake and Moneyface replied 'more than 100 centimeters'. so we ask ourselves was it 200 centimeters or 250 centimeters or 500 centimeters because there are so many numbers more than 100.
we see that in our everyday life we tend to use overgenerality but we dnt ecognise that. now that we know maybe we can go back & start to be specific when answering questions.
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