Pt1420 Unit 2 Assignment
Week 2 Task
Michael Ballard
Article two
Describe and explain mathematical terminology in the article.
In article two there are multiple mathematical term 's that need to be defined and explained so as to understand the article.
Percentage – “an amount of something, often expressed as a number out of 100.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, if I had a box of 100 lemons and I took out 26, I could say I had 26% of the lemons.
Median - “...the median is the middle entry in the list after sorting the list into increasing order. When the totals of the list are even, the median is equal to the sum of the two middle... numbers divided by two.” (Russell, 2014). For example, if I had done a survey of low income workers and had found out …show more content…
how much five people were making per hour. After receiving the information I list them into increasing order and get this set of numbers, 8, 12, 15, 18, 22. The median number would be the number fifteen. This is because it is the middle number in the set of ascending numbers.
Median House Income - “...the income of the householder and all other individuals 15 years old and over in the household...” (U. S. Census Bureau, 2014).
Half - “...either of the two equal...parts that together make up a whole.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014) . For example, half of 50 is 25, or half of 72 is 36.
Quarter - “one of four equal or almost equal parts of something; ¼.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, a quarter of 100 is 25.
Describe the major conclusions.
In the article by The Sydney Morning Herald on 600,000 Australians with disability in poverty, there is a main conclusion; People with a disability are more than twice more likely to be in poverty than other people in Australia.
Explain whether or not the conclusion(s) is/are reasonable given the information in the article. What other information do you think needs to be included before you can be sure that the conclusion(s) is/are valid?
There is a strong argument in this article. I would say that the evidence is definitely backed by authoritative sources. One of the sources used was the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS). From research I know that ACOSS is an organisation that is independent and therefore receives its information from its own surveys and experiments. Based on this I do not know where ACOSS got their information presented in this article, making me sceptical about the reliability of the statistics shown.
To think critically about the reliability and validity of the statistics presented in this article, I need to first take what looks large to me and put it into a realist viewpoint. The first statistic that the article uses is the large number, 600,000. How much is 600,000 in percentage to the whole population from the time of the article, march 2013. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013) in march, 2013 there was around 23,032,700. 600,000 in proportion to the population is only 2.6%.
The first sentence states that 2.6% of disabled Australians are living below the poverty line. The second sentence then goes on to say that over a quarter of people with a disability are living below the poverty line. According to Australian Network on Disability (2014), over 4 million Australians have a disability. Therefore the second sentence is stating that there are over 1 million disabled people with a disability in Australia living under the poverty line. The first and second sentences contradict each other making the reliability an the validity of this article near to nothing.
Therefore I conclude that, without even getting past the second sentence, this article is corrupted with biases and contradictory statements. Consequently making this article unreliable. Although I do admit that the information supplied by the organisation ACOSS and their CEO Cassandra Goldie is debatably reliable. ACOSS is governmentally connected but is independent and thus not as reliable and I do not know where they got their statistics from. Dr. Cassandra Goldie, LLB, Masters, PHD, (Pro Bono Australia News, 2013) is reliable on the other hand and therefore the part of the article made up of Dr Goldie 's quotes carry a lot of authority. In conclusion, there are fragments of this article that make it valid but the article itself, as a whole, seems to contradict itself and go against the statistics published by the Australian government, therefore making it invalid.
Article 3
Describe and explain mathematical terminology in the article.
The second article I chose was titles Labor storms ahead. It had similar mathematical terminology to Article two but had a few new terms.
Per cent or Percentage – “an amount of something, often expressed as a number out of 100.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, if I had a box of 100 lemons and I took out 26, I could say I had 26% of the lemons.
Fraction - “a number that results from dividing one whole number by another” or “a small part of something; a small amount.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). A fraction in a political context is expressed as 1256 votes out of 20000 votes. In a secondary school mathematical context its expressed as 1256/20000 and then usually simplified down to 157/2500.
Reduction - “the act of making something, or of something becoming, smaller in size, amount, degree, importance, etc.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Margin of Error - “an extra amount of something, such as time or money, which you allow because there might be a mistake in your calculations.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, when an archaeologist puts a date on an object he/she will always leave a few hundred years as a margin of error. (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Describe the major conclusions.
The major conclusion of this article is that Labor are gaining a lot of support due to their new leader Bill Shorten. Whereas The Liberal party is loosing support supposedly because of their inability to act on Asylum seekers and global warming.
Explain whether or not the conclusion(s) is/are reasonable given the information in the article. What other information do you think needs to be included before you can be sure that the conclusion(s) is/are valid?
The Nielson poll has a margin of error of 2.6%. The Coalition received 48% whereas Labor received 52%. This means that if the margin of error was affective then the coalition and Labor could be in reality sitting on similar numbers. The Age has always been biased towards Labor (Sharp, 2009). Since The Age is biased towards Labor and there is a uncommitted voters percentage of 4% redistributed, how do we know that The Age didn’t just inject the 4% into Labor? Therefore, based on the high percentage of uncommitted votes being redistributed through a Labor biased news company, and the high percent margin of error, I conclude that this article is invalid and unreliable.
References
Russell, D. (2014). The law of averages. the mean, the median and the mode. understand the basics of statistics.. [online] Retrieved from: http://math.about.com/od/statistics/a/MeanMedian.htm [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Quarter. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/quarter_1?q=Quarter [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014).
Percentage. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/percentage_1?q=percentage [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Half. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/half_1?q=Half [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
U. S. Census Bureau. (2014). Median household income. [online] Retrieved from: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_INC110212.htm [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Pro Bono Australia News (2013). Profile: cassandra goldie | pro bono australia. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2010/09/profile-cassandra-goldie [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2013). Australian demographic statistics. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, p. 1.
Australian Network On Disability (2014). Facts and figures. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.and.org.au/pages/resources-disability-confidence-275-facts-and-figures-292.html [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Australian Council Of Social Service (2014). Australian council of social service. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.acoss.org.au/ [Accessed: 12 Mar …show more content…
2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014).
Fraction. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/fraction [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Reduction. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/reduction?q=Reduction [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Margin of error. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/margin-of-error?q=margin+of+error [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Sharp, A. (2009). Study finds abc bias leans towards coalition. [online] 3rd September. Retrieved from: http://www.theage.com.au/business/study-finds-abc-bias-leans-towards-coalition-20090902-f8gm.html [Accessed: 12 Mar
2014].
Michael Ballard
Article two
Describe and explain mathematical terminology in the article.
In article two there are multiple mathematical term 's that need to be defined and explained so as to understand the article.
Percentage – “an amount of something, often expressed as a number out of 100.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, if I had a box of 100 lemons and I took out 26, I could say I had 26% of the lemons.
Median - “...the median is the middle entry in the list after sorting the list into increasing order. When the totals of the list are even, the median is equal to the sum of the two middle... numbers divided by two.” (Russell, 2014). For example, if I had done a survey of low income workers and had found out …show more content…
how much five people were making per hour. After receiving the information I list them into increasing order and get this set of numbers, 8, 12, 15, 18, 22. The median number would be the number fifteen. This is because it is the middle number in the set of ascending numbers.
Median House Income - “...the income of the householder and all other individuals 15 years old and over in the household...” (U. S. Census Bureau, 2014).
Half - “...either of the two equal...parts that together make up a whole.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014) . For example, half of 50 is 25, or half of 72 is 36.
Quarter - “one of four equal or almost equal parts of something; ¼.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, a quarter of 100 is 25.
Describe the major conclusions.
In the article by The Sydney Morning Herald on 600,000 Australians with disability in poverty, there is a main conclusion; People with a disability are more than twice more likely to be in poverty than other people in Australia.
Explain whether or not the conclusion(s) is/are reasonable given the information in the article. What other information do you think needs to be included before you can be sure that the conclusion(s) is/are valid?
There is a strong argument in this article. I would say that the evidence is definitely backed by authoritative sources. One of the sources used was the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS). From research I know that ACOSS is an organisation that is independent and therefore receives its information from its own surveys and experiments. Based on this I do not know where ACOSS got their information presented in this article, making me sceptical about the reliability of the statistics shown.
To think critically about the reliability and validity of the statistics presented in this article, I need to first take what looks large to me and put it into a realist viewpoint. The first statistic that the article uses is the large number, 600,000. How much is 600,000 in percentage to the whole population from the time of the article, march 2013. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013) in march, 2013 there was around 23,032,700. 600,000 in proportion to the population is only 2.6%.
The first sentence states that 2.6% of disabled Australians are living below the poverty line. The second sentence then goes on to say that over a quarter of people with a disability are living below the poverty line. According to Australian Network on Disability (2014), over 4 million Australians have a disability. Therefore the second sentence is stating that there are over 1 million disabled people with a disability in Australia living under the poverty line. The first and second sentences contradict each other making the reliability an the validity of this article near to nothing.
Therefore I conclude that, without even getting past the second sentence, this article is corrupted with biases and contradictory statements. Consequently making this article unreliable. Although I do admit that the information supplied by the organisation ACOSS and their CEO Cassandra Goldie is debatably reliable. ACOSS is governmentally connected but is independent and thus not as reliable and I do not know where they got their statistics from. Dr. Cassandra Goldie, LLB, Masters, PHD, (Pro Bono Australia News, 2013) is reliable on the other hand and therefore the part of the article made up of Dr Goldie 's quotes carry a lot of authority. In conclusion, there are fragments of this article that make it valid but the article itself, as a whole, seems to contradict itself and go against the statistics published by the Australian government, therefore making it invalid.
Article 3
Describe and explain mathematical terminology in the article.
The second article I chose was titles Labor storms ahead. It had similar mathematical terminology to Article two but had a few new terms.
Per cent or Percentage – “an amount of something, often expressed as a number out of 100.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, if I had a box of 100 lemons and I took out 26, I could say I had 26% of the lemons.
Fraction - “a number that results from dividing one whole number by another” or “a small part of something; a small amount.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). A fraction in a political context is expressed as 1256 votes out of 20000 votes. In a secondary school mathematical context its expressed as 1256/20000 and then usually simplified down to 157/2500.
Reduction - “the act of making something, or of something becoming, smaller in size, amount, degree, importance, etc.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Margin of Error - “an extra amount of something, such as time or money, which you allow because there might be a mistake in your calculations.” (Cambridge University Press, 2014). For example, when an archaeologist puts a date on an object he/she will always leave a few hundred years as a margin of error. (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Describe the major conclusions.
The major conclusion of this article is that Labor are gaining a lot of support due to their new leader Bill Shorten. Whereas The Liberal party is loosing support supposedly because of their inability to act on Asylum seekers and global warming.
Explain whether or not the conclusion(s) is/are reasonable given the information in the article. What other information do you think needs to be included before you can be sure that the conclusion(s) is/are valid?
The Nielson poll has a margin of error of 2.6%. The Coalition received 48% whereas Labor received 52%. This means that if the margin of error was affective then the coalition and Labor could be in reality sitting on similar numbers. The Age has always been biased towards Labor (Sharp, 2009). Since The Age is biased towards Labor and there is a uncommitted voters percentage of 4% redistributed, how do we know that The Age didn’t just inject the 4% into Labor? Therefore, based on the high percentage of uncommitted votes being redistributed through a Labor biased news company, and the high percent margin of error, I conclude that this article is invalid and unreliable.
References
Russell, D. (2014). The law of averages. the mean, the median and the mode. understand the basics of statistics.. [online] Retrieved from: http://math.about.com/od/statistics/a/MeanMedian.htm [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Quarter. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/quarter_1?q=Quarter [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014).
Percentage. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/percentage_1?q=percentage [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Half. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/half_1?q=Half [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
U. S. Census Bureau. (2014). Median household income. [online] Retrieved from: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_INC110212.htm [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Pro Bono Australia News (2013). Profile: cassandra goldie | pro bono australia. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2010/09/profile-cassandra-goldie [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2013). Australian demographic statistics. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, p. 1.
Australian Network On Disability (2014). Facts and figures. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.and.org.au/pages/resources-disability-confidence-275-facts-and-figures-292.html [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Australian Council Of Social Service (2014). Australian council of social service. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.acoss.org.au/ [Accessed: 12 Mar …show more content…
2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014).
Fraction. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/fraction [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Reduction. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/reduction?q=Reduction [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Cambridge University Press (2014). Margin of error. [online] Retrieved from: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/margin-of-error?q=margin+of+error [Accessed: 12 Mar 2014].
Sharp, A. (2009). Study finds abc bias leans towards coalition. [online] 3rd September. Retrieved from: http://www.theage.com.au/business/study-finds-abc-bias-leans-towards-coalition-20090902-f8gm.html [Accessed: 12 Mar
2014].