Lesson Three: Reasons

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Critical ThinkingLesson 3

• What Are The Reasons?

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What Are The Reasons?

• Reasons
• Explanations or rationales for why we should
  believe a particular conclusion.
• Reasons support the conclusion.
• Apart from reasons a conclusion is nothing more
  than an opinion.
• You cannot determine the value of a conclusion
  until you identify and assess the reasons behind
  that conclusion.
• Remember reasons conclusions argument

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Reasons Conclusions Argument

• Three points about arguments
• Arguments have intent. The person wishes to
  convince you of something.
• The quality of arguments vary. Just because a
  person has reasons does not mean that you must
  accept their conclusions.
• Arguments are made up of conclusions and reasons.
  We must be able to identify both.

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Initiating the Questioning

• Panning for gold seeks to make sure that the
  reasons provide support for the conclusion
  (i.e.a good argument).
• How do we pan for gold (how do we go about this
  questioning?)
• Simple Question WHY?
• Why did this person come to that particular
  conclusion?
• Why does this person expect you to accept their
  conclusion?
• Why does their conclusion make sense?

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Initiating the Questioning

• You want a statement that provides support for
  the conclusion they have presented (reasons).
• Only then can you determine if the conclusion
  they have presented is supported by good
  reasoning.
• By asking why you find out why the
  author/speaker believes the way they do or why
  they have come to a particular conclusion.

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Terms That Identify Reasons

• Page 31 Pepper Spray
• Page 31 Genetic Screening.
• Topic?
• Conclusion?
• Reasons?
• Important Indicator Words
• Page 32 Reasons.
• Page 21 Conclusions.

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Kinds of Reasons

• Reasons contain evidence or specific information
  that is used to provide proof for something they
  claiming is true.
• What are examples of evidences?
• Research.
• Word of mouth.
• News.
• Polls.
• Scholarly book/article.

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Kinds of Reasons

• Page 32
• What are the evidences in paragraph 1?
• Page 33
• What are the evidences in paragraph 2?

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Keeping The Reasons and Conclusions Straight

• Make sure you can differentiate between
  conclusions and reasons (dont confuse the two).
• Complicated arguments might contain multiple
  conclusions and reasons.
• Page 34 Clues for identifying and organizing
  the reasons of a passage.
• Circle indicator words.
• Underline the reasons and conclusions in
  different colors.
• Label the reasons and conclusions in margin.
• Make a list of reasons at the end.

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Practice Makes Perfect

• Reasons must always come before the conclusion
  (logically).
• Dont decide on a conclusion before you have
  researched the reasons.
• Practice
• Review passages 1 and 2 on pages 36-37.

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• Critical Thinking HUM 115Practice Assignment
  Four
• Passage 3 on page 37.
• Identify
• Issue
• Argument (Conclusion Reasons)

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End of LessonRead Chapter 4