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

76 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

b. Now, first of all, privatisation leads to competition and, when there is

competition, prices go down and service improves. People want reduced

prices and improved service in the postal system and so the government

postal service should be privatised.

c. Several politicians have been discovered to have lied in public; many

rarely seem to have much knowledge of what their voters want; and

generally, politicians get too many benefits. Hence we should not trust

them to make good decisions on our behalf.

Ensuring premises are relevant

But what if the connection between a premise and a conclusion is not obvious? A

crucial smart-thinking skill is the ability to think through how evidence relates to a

conclusion, and how apparently irrelevant material does indeed help to prove or

establish a conclusion. Making sure premises are relevant to a conclusion requires

careful analysis of the possible connections between them. As noted above, the key

question is whether or not the premises are concerned with the same issue as the

conclusion and, hence, whether they are capable of telling us something about it. A

way to check this relationship is to ask, in the case of arguments, 'if this premise were

true, would it make the conclusion more likely to be true' or, for explanations, 'if this

premise were true, would it make it easier to understand why the events stated in the

conclusion happened'. Equally, we must think about the way in which our knowledge

of other events and ideas might help us to see the relevance of one particular claim in

establishing another and thus prevent us from 'missing' an important relevant premise.

Presenting relevant premises is also about making it clear that they are relevant.

In other words, use a claim, as part of a linked chain of premises, to show the rele-

vance of the premises to the conclusion. An effective argument or explanation not

only reflects careful thinking, but also clearly demonstrates it, so others can follow

your reasoning. Here is an example of how to establish relevance:

1. Australia's universities are of a high quality.


2. Australian university graduates report that their lecturers are, gener-
   ally speaking, good at communicating.


3. All universities now have quality-assurance programs to maintain
   quality.


4. Australia's universities attract many overseas students to them.