Dissecting Arguments

shewalks0801

Does anyone know of a good way to practice dissecting the different parts of an argument in a question stem? For example, J likes to highlight, circle, label P for premise & C for conclusion, call out context & referential phrases, key words like thus, therefore, etc. I feel like I need practice with this. Does anyone have any suggestions? Do you print out a bunch of questions and practice that by hand? Is that a helpful thing to do?

mikalyn.greenzweig

Personally, I have found that highlighting only the premises and conclusions is a lot more helpful. I've shyed away from highlighting context because 9/10 it's never useful when answering majority of the questions. I also try to do this on the computer since that is how the test is administered, however, if you really need to, try doing it on paper to start with and gradually start transitioning back to an online database.

Once I isolate everything, I pause before heading into the answer choices and breakdown how the premises support or don't support our conclusion, making sure I have a really good understanding of how everything is working together. I try to make the argument as simple as possible by using my own words, analogous examples, or asking myself, if this was a court case, does my evidence (premises) really support what I am trying to prove (my conclusion). I like to do this in replacement of highlight referential phrases, context, and key words. Overtime, I have found that using my own words to describe/summarize what's going on in the argument makes it a whole lot easier for me to understand, and keeps it more interesting, without having to stress over what I need to highlighting or circling in the argument.

shewalks0801

Thank you so much for this helpful feedback! I really appreciate it!