Page 36 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

CLAIMS: THE KEY ELEMENTS OF REASONING 2 3

context
descriptive claim
exclamation
explanation

internal connection
order
premise
purposes of reasoning

question
scope
statement
subject

text
value claim
word

Review exercise 2

Answer briefly the following questions, giving, where possible, an example in your
answer that is different from those used in this book.
a. Is a statement the same as a sentence? Why should we distinguish
between the two?
b. What distinguishes claims from statements that are not claims?
c. Why are some claims thought of as 'facts'?
d. What are the three crucial properties of claims?
e. What is special about if/then claims?
f. What is the difference between a premise and a conclusion?
g. Are all conclusions the same? If not, why not?
h. What determines the 'type' of a particular premise?
i. What happens to claims when we express them in natural language?

NOTES
1 As we will see in chapter 8, questions can also be thought of as 'potential' claims or
'claims in question'. Here, for example, the claim 'Australia should continue to support
all American foreign policy decisions concerning Iraq' has been put under scrutiny by
turning it into a question.