Critical Thinking And Application In Management: A reflective journal.

In the previous lesson we have learned about the basic of argument. An argument consists of a main proposition, at least two premises to support it and last but not least a conclusion to close things up. There are also the topics on how to detect an implicit premises and conclusion by reconstructing it with the use of interrogative, rhetorical and leading questions. Last but not least, the challenges that we have to face in explaining to the target audience to achieve a greater degree of success in building a good argument.

Today we learned about the role of supporting statements. A supporting statement is used to make the audience believe and understand the idea that you are trying to convey. It can be statements that lead to, or support or convince us to agree with the conclusion and it can be some statements that we use to help the reader/listener to understand and "believe in" the premises that we are trying to develop.

There are five things that we can do to make people assured with our premises. They are definition, supporting arguments, evidence, reference to authority and anecdote. First of all is definition, a definition is a statement that stipulates how to use a word or phrase. There are 4 types of definitions:-

1. Lexical definition (the words and phrases are defined in the way they are generally used in the language - e.g. definition taken from the dictionary)
2. Précising definition (in précising definition by further describe a "vague" word or phrase by adding examples or illustration)
3. Stipulative definition (by creating a new word/phrase to describe a concept - or uses an existing word or phrase in a new way)
4. Persuasive or tendentious definition (a really bad way to convey a definition, discouraged from using it. It is a definition that is created in an effort to persuade the audience to agree with the point of view by using emotional appeal or slanted term)


Second is, supporting statement or contributing argument. Supporting statements are used to elaborate further a premise with more descriptions and elaborations are added to it. While supporting statement has its conclusion the same statement as the premise being supported but such statements are often not stated.


Then there is evidence, it can be a statistical studies, historical information, physical evidence, observations, experiments and/ or eyewitness accounts. Evidence can never be an argument itself. The reliability of the evidence is determined by how dependable a person believes it to be. We can challenge the evidence methodology of study, the accuracy of the information, the manner in which the physical evidence was collected, and the eyesight or motivation of an eyewitness. Something like in the TV series CSI when they collect evidence, they make sure that evidence can’t be thrown back at them by the DA.


Next we have reference of authority, by reference of authority I do mean your family members, (unless they are well recognize for their achievements) it means that by using someone who we believes to be more likely to come with an accurate evaluation of evidence than we are ourselves. It doesn't have to be confined by people with expertise in scientific, medical, or other scholarly fields. It can be anything or anyone that we accept as somehow able to reach a more accurate evaluation. Even in the strongest cases, just like evidence, a reference of authority can’t stand on its own as an argument.


But in order for someone to be acknowledged as an authority, the person must have the following criteria. They must have an in depth knowledge about that topic, be it personal experience or demonstrated performance and they need to have qualifications such as university degrees, peer recognition, awards and honours or professional membership. (Although nowadays we can’t depend much on the title due to how people can just buy the title without earning it. Instead we look upon his/her achievements)


Last but not least we can support our statements by filling them in with anecdotes. A short story can go a long way in helping the readers or listeners to appreciate your hypothesis. The relative strength of an explanation or anecdote is usually a function of its clarity and applicability to support the statements.


To boil it down, an argument is a series of statements used to persuade someone of something in it and there are premises to make the argument strong and a conclusion to tie up any loose end but a supporting statement can help in making the premises and conclusion even concrete. They are used to lead or convince us with the conclusion by helping us understand and believed in the premises that are being developed. Supporting statements can be in a variety of forms, from definition all the way to anecdote to help us achieve clarity and understanding in the hypothesis or the given proposition.