Don't mind me, I just started the class, so I'm a bit excited.  Writing is a fascinating craft. There's a whole bunch of readings we have to do, but this one book, "The Craft of Revision" by Donald Murray, is excellent.  It's giving me confidence. I recommend it to all: beginners and experienced writers alike.  (after all, even experienced writers are still learning how to write)So many things I thought I was "wrong" about, and I'm finding out that maybe it's not so wrong after all.

Writing is a tool to advancement in life.  It's also a tool to persuade, inform, inspire, or rebuke.  Writing is a way toward self investigation as well.  The more you write, the more you learn about yourself.  Introspection is a great exercise, and the best writers engage in it all the time.

I have gone to a few “orientation” sessions for the graduate class I'll be taking this Fall.  One of the things they've mentioned is the writing that the program requires.  I think they expect quite a bit, which probably is normal for such a program.  “Getting into the habit” of writing was something they talked about.  One of the things a professor did mention as something which can help is to start journal entries about writing.  The journal would be writing about writing – or writing about where you want to go with your writing on a research paper or whatever project you may have going on.  I thought that was interesting.

Yeah I think that's a very good idea and a precise benefit of a journal.  You can record thoughts that arise during the course of your readings which you can review at a later time.  This way you don't have to ponder so much about a paper topic; you'll having been thinking of, and writing down, paper topics all through the semester.

Yes, I would say it's a logical fallacy….not sure the technical name of the rule it violates but it sounds like a “guilt by association” fallacy.Assuming all the premises you say are true, you're basically saying this:

The problem is that A does not have to equal C, so your conclusion is off.  A might equal C but this is not necessarily true.  A could possibly equal something else.

If memory serves me correctly, inductive reasoning is considering particulars and drawing universal rules from them; deductive reasoning is taking universal rules and drawing conclusions about particulars based on these rules.  Or, at least that would be the gist of it.As for your example - why don't you just go straight forward and try to find evidence that the NEA has a tendency to claim low funding regardless of how much money it gets?  I think that would be much more conclusive than trying to argue with conditional or non-committal words like you're using.  Your reworded example is technically true, but it's very weak.  After all, the reason for the NEA's request could be what you say, but it could also be any number of other things.  It seems like you're trying to argue about the NEA's motives based on the motives of other unions.  Inferring motives for one group based on motives from other groups isn't always the best way to go about things.