228 CHAPTER 8 | FRom ETHos To Logos: APPEALing To YouR REAdERsIn following these three steps, you will want to determine the truth of your
premises, help readers understand whether or not the inferences you draw
are justified, and use word signals to help readers fully grasp the connec-
tions between your premises and your conclusion.■ (^) state the premises of Your argument
Stating a premise establishes what you have found to be true and what you
want to persuade readers to accept as truth as well. Let’s return to Loewen,
who asserts his premise at the very outset of the excerpt: “Middle-class stu-
dents... know little about how the American class structure works... and
nothing at all about how it has changed over time.” Loewen elaborates on
this initial premise a few sentences later, arguing that students “have no
understanding of the ways that opportunity is not equal in America and
no notion that the social structure pushes people around, influencing the
ideas they hold and the lives they fashion.”
Implicit here is the point that class matters. Loewen makes this point
explicit several paragraphs later, where he states that “social class is prob-
ably the single most important variable in society” (para. 6). He states his
second, more specific premise in paragraph 2: “High school history text-
books can take some of the credit for this state of affairs.” The burden of
demonstrating that these premises are true is on Loewen. If readers find
that either of the premises is not true, it will be difficult, if not impossible,
for them to accept his conclusion that with more knowledge, people will
understand that poverty is not the fault of the poor (para. 10).
■ (^) use Credible evidence
The validity of your argument depends on whether the inferences you draw
are justified, and whether you can expect a reasonable person to draw the
same conclusion from those premises. Loewen has to demonstrate through-
out (1) that students do not have much, if any, knowledge about the class
structure that exists in the United States and (2) that textbook writers are
in large part to blame for this lack of knowledge. He also must help read-
ers understand how this lack of knowledge contributes to (3) his conclu-
sion that greater knowledge would lead Americans to understand that poor
people are not responsible for poverty. He can help readers with the order
in which he states his premises and by choosing the type and amount of evi-
dence that will enable readers to draw the inferences that he does.
Interestingly, Loewen seems to assume that one group of readers —
educators — will accept his first premise as true. He does not elaborate on
what students know or do not know. Instead, he moves right to his second
premise, which involves first acknowledging what high school history text-
books typically cover, then identifying what he believes are the important
events that textbook writers exclude, and ultimately asserting that “treat-
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