Page 61 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

48 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING
also of value judgment so as to learn better how to make a good link from premises
to conclusion. In this section, I will try to model for you the process of writing an
argument in the analytical structure format so that you can see how understanding
the links between claims also depends on understanding what those claims are
saying.

The importance of internal connections
Let's begin by thinking about the following simple claim, which we will use as our
conclusion: 'Australia is a good country in which to live'. Now the reason I am
asserting this conclusion is that I believe 'Countries that permit freedom of
religious expression are good places to live'. So, in theory I could create a structure
like this:

1. Australia is a good country in which to live.
2. Countries that permit freedom of religious expression are good places
to live.

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My knowledge that independent premises are a sign that another, dependent
premise is needed cues me to think 'what is missing here?'. The answer comes
from the fact that claims 1 and 2 both share the same predicate (good places to
live) but have a different subjects: Australia (1) and Countries that permit freedom
of religious expression (2). While it might seem obvious, the problem here is that
you cannot move from claim 2 to claim 1 logically without providing an
additional claim in which the two different subjects in claims 1 and 2 are them-
selves placed in a relationship. Such a claim would be 'Australia permits freedom
of religious expression'. Thus, by thinking about the internal connections of the
claim that is my conclusion, and the first premise I thought of, I have identified
an extra premise that is needed in my analytical structure, which now looks like
this:
1. Australia is a good country in which to live.
2. Countries that permit freedom of religious expression are good places
to live.
3. Australia permits freedom of religious expression.