Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

CLAIMS: THE KEY ELEMENTS OF REASONING 23

context

descriptive claim

exclamation

explanation

internal connection

order

premise

purposes of reasoning

question

scope

statement

subject

text

value claim

word

Review exercise 2

Answer briefly the following questions, giving, where possible, an example in your
answer that is different from those used in this book.

a. Is a statement the same as a sentence? Why should we distinguish

between the two?

b. What distinguishes claims from statements that are not claims?

c. Why are some claims thought of as 'facts'?

d. What are the three crucial properties of claims?

e. What is special about if/then claims?

f. What is the difference between a premise and a conclusion?

g. Are all conclusions the same? If not, why not?

h. What determines the 'type' of a particular premise?

i. What happens to claims when we express them in natural language?

NOTES

1 As we will see in chapter 8, questions can also be thought of as 'potential' claims or

'claims in question'. Here, for example, the claim 'Australia should continue to support

all American foreign policy decisions concerning Iraq' has been put under scrutiny by

turning it into a question.