1. Read argument carefully.
2. Formulate synopsis.`
3. Recast the arguments - clarify meaning - eliminate rhetoric.
4. Eliminating Rhetoric - Here are some rules of thumb that can help:
l. Look for and focus on the argument. Use contextual clues and
premises and conclusion indicators as guides to the conclusion and
2. Set aside phrases, sentences and even paragraphs that are extraneous
to the bare argument - such items as background information, explanations,
asides, repetition, elaborations, rhetorical trappings.
3. Separate each statement that belongs to the argument as a distinct
premiss (or conclusion), marked with its own number tag (Pl, P2, P3, etc.,
and Cl, C2, etc., as necessary). This requires breaking up compound
sentences so there will be just one
single point made in each set-out premise or conclusion.
4. Reformulate the premises and conclusion(s) if it is necessary in
order to have all the points stated in straightforward and clear language.
This especially requires transposing rhetorical questions into assertive
sentences. Employ the
informative use of language alone.
5. Double check to make sure that no changes you make alter the
meaning. Your restatement of the argument should not add new ideas, nor
take away, nor give any new twists or shadings to the sense of the
argument in the original passage.
To follow these suggestions you will usually need to do some detective
work. Using the context and what is actually said in the passage as your
clues, you will have to deduce from them what is actually meant.
5. Supply Missing Premises.
Missing Premises - By a missing premise, we mean a proposition which,
though unstated in the argument, nevertheless is needed to link a stated
premise with a conclusion. In looking for the missing premises, we are
seeking what must be taken for granted in order to connect the stated
premise with the conclusion. Intermediary premises - as is always the case
when making explicit something implicit in an argument - we are obliged to
pick the weakest possible candidate that will do the job. Otherwise we
risk attributing to the arguer a position it does not have to accept, and
thereby setting up a strawperson. Observe the principle of charity.
6. Arrange Premises in a Schema, cast the argument, employ a diagram.
7. State Conclusion(s).
Clearly, Fairly - Observe Principle of Charity.
Avoid Hedging or Strawperson.
8. Identify Vagueness - try to resolve it.
9. Identify Ambiguity - Amphiboly.
10. Identify equivocation - note its use in "shifting ground"
11. Identify overall standpoints - views adopted to place an opponent
at a disadvantage;
Disinterested Mature Person
Reasonable man Radical
Voice in the Wilderness Plain person
World weary cynic Expert
Official Indignation Uplifter/Debaser
12. Recheck and Rewrite.