CriticalThinking Tutorial 6

1 Chapter 4: Reconstructing ArgumentsIn order to critically assess arguments it is first necessary to understand the structure of theargument. The way in which arguments are presented, however, is often not conducive to deter-mining the structure. Thus, it is often necessary to reconstruct the argument. I will briefly gothrough the steps involved in argument reconstruction.Whenidentifyingthepremisesandconclusionofanargumentweusethefollowingconventions:1. The conclusion is underlined and represented by C.2. Premises are enclosed in brackets and represented by P1, P2, P3, etc.3. A missing premise or conclusion is represented by MPx or MC.We will follow Hughes and examine the following argument as an example of argument recon-struction:The most important challenge facing educators today is to teach students how towrite decent prose. By “decent prose” I do not mean elegant writing: I mean simplestraightforward writing that conforms to the rules of English grammar and clearlyconveysitsmeaning. Theabilitytowritedecentproseisimportantbecausethosewholack it will be unable to understand the great achievements of our cultural heritage—whether of Homer or Hemingway—and, perhaps even more important, will be unableto communicate effectively in today’s world.1.1 Stage 1: Identification of the Premises and ConclusionFirst we identify the conclusion—the author’s/speaker’s main point, what the author is tryingto convince the reader of. In our example, this is clearly the ...