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

66 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

©

©.0

+

©

V

©

Note that, in this example, we are not engaging in an analysis of the fact that

Rickard has made this claim. That is why we separate the authority from the

substantive claim it is supporting. If we were trying to show why Rickard was right

or wrong to make it, then we would combine the claims together and write:

'Rickard has argued that Australian history is marked by considerable conflict and

tension over the competing interests of labour and capital'. By doing so, we would

be starting to analyse the fact that Rickard has made that argument. In simple use

of authority, by contrast, the authority and the claim that is relying on it have the

same logical connection as that by which claims prove or show another claim.

Hence it is appropriate to diagram the relationship using the arrow.

Claims supported by reasoning

Looking back to the last example, what should we do about claims 4 and 5, for

which no clear foundation is offered? Well, rather than allow their foundations to

remain implicit, we can argue for claims 4 and 5 in precisely the same way as we

are arguing for claim 1, thus developing a complex argument structure. We could,

for example, add the following claims to our argument, not to support claim 1

directly but to show why claim 5 was acceptable.

6. Capitalist economies are structured in a way that creates two groups:
   labour (those employed) and capital (those who do the employing).


7. These two groups will always have different interests.


8. It is highly likely that, in future, Australia will continue to have a capi-
   talist economy.
   In the overall argument, claims 6-8 form a subsidiary argument to support
   claim 5 (one of the main premises in the argument), which in turn helps to explain
   the conclusion. Claim 5, therefore, serves in two different ways: as a conclusion and
   a premise. There is no difference in the way that the two arrows operate, nor in the
   way that the linking between premises operates in either the first or second part of