SSH 105 Lecture 7: ARGUMENT RECONSTRUCTION (CH. 5 & 6)

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: Klaas Kraay

Document Summary

Steps of argument reconstruction: identify if there is an argument or not. Conclude whether it is descriptive, rhetorical, or argumentative writing. It is an argument if the author provides reasons to support the truth of some claim: reconstruct the argument. Identify the conclusion: try to identify main point of argument/what claim is being supported, outline structure/drawing shapes around premises/conclusions, look for/try to insert conclusion indicators: (cid:862)(cid:271)e(cid:272)ause(cid:863: recognize implicit vs. explicit conclusions. Identify the premises: look for reasons to believe conclusion, identify premise indicators, identify explicit vs. implicit premises (ep or ip/which premise it is justifying, check to see if argument is well-formed. Compound arguments arguments that contain any number of sub-arguments. When an argument contains a sub-argument, the conclusion of that sub-argument has two roles: it is a conclusion that supports the previously stated premises, and also supports the premises and conclusions that follow it.