26 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING
Links between claims
Evidence of the linking process
We can directly 'see' claims in natural language, but linking, the process of
reasoning, can only be inferred, indirectly.^1 In any argument or explanation in
natural language we can find the evidence of this linking process in the words or
phrases that show or signal how one claim relates to another. We have already come
across these words. Remember these examples?
- Your car is dirty [c] because you drove through some mud [p].
- You should wash your car [c] since your car is dirty [p].
The words 'because' and 'since' do not £otm part of the claims (the premises and
conclusions) but link them together, signalling which claim is the premise and
which the conclusion. These signal words are the visible traces of the mental process
of linking.
Because of the richness and complexity of the English language, we rarely find
evidence for every act of linking. Sometimes no link words are used because the
sense of the reasoning is clear just from the arrangement of the claims; sometimes
punctuation does the job. At other times, when it is stylistically appropriate,
phrases or even sentences signal the linking process. Link words are not necessarily
written directly between the premises and the conclusion, but since their function
is not determined by their position in a text, they can nevertheless still signal which
claim is which. In all cases, the linkages are between two or more claims, so that
any link words can signal that both a premise and a conclusion are present and can
distinguish between them.
Here are some examples: - I found out today that I had passed my exam. I was elated. [The order
of the sentences signals that the first claim is linked to the second
claim as premise to conclusion.] - Because I felt ill, I went home from work. ['Because' signals that 'I felt
ill' is the reason that explains the conclusion 'I went home from work';
the comma serves to show that there are two claims here and, hence,
that some link can be inferred.] - We need to learn to think: it helps us to do better at work and to do
better at university. [The colon separates the claims and, at the same
time, links them. The sense of the sentence signals the link between
the first part (the conclusion) and the second part (the premises).] - John has passed his final exams. This means that he is a fully qualified
lawyer. [The phrase 'this means that' is the linking element here: 'this'
refers to the first claim and 'means that' signals that the second
sentence contains a conclusion. Because the second claim is identi-
fied as a conclusion and is linked to the first, we know that 'John has
passed his final exams' is a premise.]