Week 2 - The Basic Structure of Argument

Week 2

The Basic Structure of Argument

            For week 2, the topic is the basic structure of argument. I always thought and refer argument as non-physical fight. Most people and me included, always say that argument is a negative thing and people will not ends up well with it. For statement, I thought that statement is a sentence that one people give to tell what they are thinking about. I was totally blown away on how wrong I am. This topic really thought me a lot.

In this topic, I learned about statement, arguments, non-arguments, conclusion and premises. First and most important thing is, we have to know what statements are. A declarative sentence/statement believed to be true and presented as arguments/reasons for consideration by the target audience. I was wrong when I thought all sentence are statement. Actually, not all sentences are statement. They have to meet the conditions in order to be a statement.

The conditions are the sentence must be a declaration and we can identify the statement true or not. Some declarative sentence need to do some research to know whether it is true or false. Example for a false statement is “2+4=9”. A non statement is claims that include command, question, proposal, instruction and more. Example for non statement is “please write you address on the card”. That is actually a request not a statement.

In general, we know that argument is fight or dispute, but in critical thinking, arguments have a different meaning. Argument is a claim defended with reasons. It composed of a group of statements that have one or more statements (premises) support another statement (conclusion). The meaning of argument in critical thinking is an act of presenting reasons to support individual’s position or point of view.

What I also learned it that, descriptions, explanations and summaries, and command are NOT an argument. It is because they have no intention to persuade us about something. Description is gives a clue on what something is like. For example, the box is blue. Explanation is just explained about things. For example, the blue box is made of wood, therefore is must be hard. Summaries are reduced versions of longer text such as book synopsis.

In an argument, there must have conclusion and premises. Conclusion is actually idea on how you are trying to persuade someone. It is always be at the end of the point because it wants to show reasoning. Premises are statements that use to support conclusion. The conclusion will ONLY be supported by its premises. A simple argument has two premises and a conclusion but a more complex argument may contain many claims that can be divided up into premises and a conclusion.

So, that is pretty much what I learned during week 2. What I learned was, not all sentence are statement. Non-statement is a claim. Arguments are not a fight and there must be a conclusion and premise in it. This week was really knowledgeable.