Critical Thinking And Application In Management: A reflective journal.

Today's lesson, we learned about arguments. When we talk about arguments, my mind straight wonder about two people debating about a topic which is quite true since according to dictionary.com, an argument is a discussion involving differing points of view; debate. But, when it comes to critical thinking, an argument is defined as an act of presenting a reason to support a point of view, which precisely can be interpreted as a set of a statement, one of which is intended to be supported by others.

Before we go deeper into the topic, the lecturer explained to us about statement. It is the basic of argument. An argument must have a supporting statement to it, premises and last but not least a conclusion. A statement or proposition is a declarative sentence believed to be true and presented as an argument for consideration by the target audience. A simple statement conveys exactly one idea.

Like everything else, a statement has its own terms and conditions so that it would be a legit claim. First, the sentences must make a declaration and second, the audience or the receiver must be capable of determining whether the statement is true or false for a proposition to be established. You don't even have to know whether the answer to the claim is but with some research, you know that the statement can determine to be true or false.

We have covered the definitions of arguments and statements but how can we differentiate an argument with non-arguments and a claim with a general statement? To know the difference between a statement and a noise (non statements that are meant to confuse us into making a flawed inference) are by spotting the essence of the arguments named the premises and the conclusion. While in order for you to be able to separate arguments and non arguments, you need to know how to find the main message and what the author want you to believe while non argument have no attention to persuade you about something.

Digging deeper into the chapter, we learn about the main components in an argument. An argument must have a main idea about which you are trying to persuade others therefore it is called conclusion. Reasoning should lead towards an end point which is the conclusion. The conclusion should relate closely to the author’s main claim.

Premise on the other hand is another type of statement that must be presented for the collection of statements to be an argument. Simply put it, premises are statements that directly support the conclusion. In an argument a conclusion is only supported by its premises, but each premise itself can be supported in a number of ways.

Moving on along with the chapter, we learn that sometime it can be very difficult to logically analyze someone’s intentions in convincing us about something or misleading us. To avoid this from happening, we should examine the arguments that the other party is trying to convey but sometimes it is difficult to do so due to extraneous material (arguments that are buried in mass of language and missing its indicator words). It is a mixture of arguments and extraneous material resulting a raw material.

One can avoid from drawing a wrong inference by reconstructing the arguments. A reconstruction is a process where you find the arguments and the dissecting it into their various parts. It involves a series of technique where you look for indicator words. By asking the 5WH (what, where, when, why, who and how) you can find the arguments from the masses of languages.

And then there is the implicit conclusion and implicit premises. Implicit conclusion and premises is when the conclusion or the premises is not stated outright and the arguer gathers that you will know it. Sometimes you even have to fill in the implicit premises yourself. If you think that is difficult, there is another aspect of reconstruction that is mind boggling called "questioning"

There are certain forms of question that can take on the role of premises or conclusion in an argument. These questions are called interrogative question and rhetorical question. Interrogative question are questions intended to dig some information from you while rhetorical question are questions intended to get you to agree with them or to manipulate you to do something. There is another type of question called leading question, it is a question that are intended to incline you to answer in a certain way.

There are a few challenges in developing an argument, among them are the problem to identify the main idea, the problem of supporting it with a concrete reasoning and last but not least the problem in making the target audience understand what you are trying to convey. By countering this challenge we can achieve a greater degree of success in building a good argument.

To be concise, an argument consists of a main claim, premises to support the proposition and a conclusion to tie up any loose end. Sometimes we can get lost in interpreting the given claim from raw material, therefore we need to reconstruct it back by finding the implicit conclusion or premises and by using questions to determine the key point of the claim. A conclusion and premises also can be found by questions such as interrogative questions, rhetorical questions and last but not least a leading question.

I end this journal with a funny skit about argument. I hope this will at least relieved the burden of cramming too much information. I wonder if anyone could find the main idea of this skit.