Page 181 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

168 ANSWERS, DISCUSSION, AND FURTHER ADVICE

be compulsory', the original premise ('In a democracy, voting is not just a right
but a civic duty') does not become 'false' (it remains acceptable), but it simply
is not relevant to the specific conclusion 'Voting at elections should be compul-
sory'.

Exercise 6.5

Claim 2 requires a claim such as 'We should understand what is happening now'.
In the context of a class of first-year university students (caught up in their own
concerns, and finding and discovering themselves at university), I would probably
explicitly establish this relevance, allowing me to argue for the truth of this
additional framing premise (which is in itself doubtful for these students, in my
experience) and also to show clearly the relevance of the first premise. I would not,
however, make such an explicit argument for an audience of academics who them-
selves study the contemporary world.
Claim 3 requires a claim such as 'Stories of the fight for democracy and justice
in the past can help us to maintain and improve democracy and justice in the
present' (which, one assumes, is what we want to do). In the context of writing an
article for a readership of left-wing historians, for example (a group whose pro-
fessional life involves precisely the activity that this premise describes), I would not
include this claim explicitly. For non-historians, however, I would explicitly include
it to make my argument clear.
Claim 4 requires a claim such as 'It is important to learn how to write
essays'. Professional historical researchers, although they know much about
history and, on reflection, would accept this new claim, would not, in my
experience, immediately see the relevance of claim 4 to the conclusion and would
thus need the additional claim to make the relevance explicit. In the context of
talking to high-school history teachers, however, I would probably not include
it explicitly.

Exercise 6.6

Context basically involves both audiences and knowledge. In a sense, we know
and think about audiences in terms of what they know and what they expect us
to know. We know that reasoning is about linking claims together in various
ways. We will do this in our own reasoning, but when our audience hears or
reads it, they will themselves immediately 'connect' what we have presented to
their existing knowledge. If they know something that we have not included and
make connections that run counter to our general argument, then we will fail to
convince them. If, at the moment, you are studying or working and must
regularly produce reasoning in some form, reflect on any stated, explicit require-
ments that you must meet in this presentation. Try to determine what under-
lying assumptions about reasoning these requirements express. (See also chapters
8 and 9.)