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Autobiographical subject matter: This section will focus on basic background information about you.
Logical skills involved:
- Representing factual claims in propositional logic
- Constructing a truth table for a complex claim
- Identifying which line of a truth table reflects the real-world situation
Worksheet instructions: Make a key that contains five biographical claims about yourself: three true claims, and two false claims. Each letter should stand for an atomic sentence of propositional logic. Do not indicate in the key which claims are true and which are false. Mix up the true and false claims in a random order, so that the reader can’t tell from the key alone which are which. Make the false ones realistic and believable.
Please use the given key letters. Include whatever types of biographical claims you consider important about your background, such as where you’re from, when you were born, whether you have siblings, what kind of school you went to, etc. There are no specific facts that everyone must include – so if you would rather not indicate your age, for instance, it is fine to focus on other biographical claims.
Then, given your key, provide the information requested below. If you have done the key correctly, there will be multiple correct examples you could give for some of these parts. Just give one example of each requested type.
Again, please don’t indicate which two claims are the false ones on this worksheet itself, even though it can be deduced from your examples.
Advice and things to keep in mind
Make sure each letter in your key stands for an atomic sentence – not just a word or phrase, and not a negation, conditional, conjunction, etc.
Here and throughout the project, it is fine to use ‘I’ in your key. Alternatively, you can refer to yourself by your name, although that might sound odd in an autobiography.
Show the work in your truth table. To be complete, it must include a column of values for each logical constant, not just the main column.
Biographical Information Worksheet
KEY
P =
Q =
R =
S =
T =
A negation that expresses a true claim about me: ___________________________________
A conjunction that expresses a true claim about me: _________________________________
A conditional that expresses a false claim about me: _________________________________
The formula (¬Q → (P ^ S)) represents the following claim, stated in English:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Overall, this is a true / false (circle one) claim about me.
A complex formula involving three letters and at least two logical constants that represents a true claim about me: ________________________________
Truth table of that formula:
Which row of the table represents the actual, real-world situation with respect to the truth or falsity of the atomic sentences involved? ________________
