Facione (2010) defined analysis as the ability “to identify the intended and actual inferential relationships among statements, questions, concepts, descriptions, or other forms of representation intended to express belief, judgment, experiences, reasons, information, or opinions” (p. 6). The process of analyzing involves breaking a piece of work apart, examining what the elements mean separately, and figuring out how they are related to each other, with the goal of understanding the meaning of the work as a whole.

Written material is composed of words that make up sentences, which in turn make up paragraphs, which in turn make up chapters, and so forth (Kurland, 2002). The elements in a well written text will be logically organized and a reader’s approach to analyzing them will generally depend on the reader’s goals and the primary themes that interest him/her. For example, a psychologist’s analysis of a work on mental health will differ from that of a psychiatrist or theologian. The first may focus on the behavioral aspects, the second on the clinical or biological aspects, and the third on spiritual aspects. Because scholarly literature is generally written by researchers or experts who wish to contribute to the knowledge of a particular subject, it is to be analyzed as an argument or communication within that particular social context. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

The reader’s analysis can focus on three aspects: content, language, and structure (Kurland, 2002). When analyzing the content one may ask the following questions:

1. Whom is the author addressing?
2. What is the author’s purpose?
3. What evidence is used to support the author’s argument?
4. What is the context of the work?
5. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments

When analyzing the structure of the argument, one would ask questions such as:

1. How is the argument built? What comes first?
2. Do the points follow a logical sequence or timeline?
3. How did the author divide the sections?
4. Did the author present a problem and its solution?
5. Did the author use a compare and contrast analysis?

When analyzing the language, one would ask questions such as:

1. What is the tone?
2. Does the word selection reveal any biases?
3. Is the language clear and vigorous?

As you analyze the text, it is also important to make connections between what you are reading and what you already know. Are any of the points made in conflict with your worldview or perhaps in conflict with the views of other respected scholars in the field? Is the text significant? If so, what makes it significant? Does it make a worthwhile contribution to the field? Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

The act of inferring is an important component of the critical reading process as it involves making judgments and drawing conclusions. A literacy study group created by The Project for School Innovation (n.d.) found that a reader’s ability to make correct inferences resulted in (a) better comprehension, (b) being more involved with the text, (c) becoming a more sophisticated reader, and (d) learning to think about the robustness of one’s thinking process. An inference (n.d.) is defined as “the act of passing from one proposition, statement, or judgment considered as true to another whose truth is believed to follow from that of the former.” Facione (2010) provided a more comprehensive definition; he defined it as being able to

identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and hypotheses; to consider relevant information and to deduce the consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation. (p. 6)

When inferring, the central question is: “What is the author really saying?” Inferences are made in everyday communication often without much thought. For instance, a husband may tell his wife “do not forget the girls.” From this simple statement the wife may infer several things that are not explicitly stated. She may infer that (a) he is referring to their two daughters, and/or (b) he is reminding her to pick them up from some place. Inference involves reading between the lines. To help her decide what her husband means, she relies primarily on the context, that is, what she already knows and what is most logical: he is her husband, and they have two teenage daughters who are out with friends. One could infer that by girls he is referring to random women; however, in this particular context, that inference though logical is unreasonable. Thus, for inferences to be accurate they must be sensitive to the context. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Making inferences, particularly when one does not have the benefit of a close personal relationship with the author or intimate knowledge of the author’s views, can be tricky and it requires a great deal of care. Like the husband in the example above, writers are trying to communicate a point and the reader combines the words, assesses how they are related to each other, and tries to understand the ideas or meaning behind the words. Readers will generally rely on indicators or clues within the text and prior knowledge and assumptions to make inferences. This process is thus both intuitive and deliberate and care must be taken when using prior knowledge. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. Making inferences based primarily on the text will yield the most useful benefits for a reader of academic literature.

Readers must also note that there is a difference between a reasonable inference and a correct one. One may make reasonable inferences based on a text and prior knowledge; however, these may not be correct. One way of ensuring that one’s inferences are correct is to review the evidence and try to determine whether specific reasons can be given to justify the conclusions that have been drawn. Inferences are, after all, speculations that are based on evidence. They are not quite the product of deductive reasoning so it is not unusual for two people to read the same material and make different inferences. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. The following example demonstrates this point: two people may see a man in tattered clothing lying in a gutter and from this one may infer that the man is homeless and the other that the man needs help; the first assumes only homeless people lie in gutters while the second assumes that a person lying in a gutter needs help (Paul, 1995). Note that Paul’s (1995) example also illustrates the intimate relationship between inferences and assumptions. The key to making valid inferences is thus a careful evaluation of the evidence. Kurland’s (2000) principle “the more evidence we have before us, and the more carefully we reason, the more valid our inferences” is apt. As you read and think through written material, it is important to also pay attention to the assumptions that underlie the inferences you make.

An assumption is a statement or fact that is taken for granted. It has also been defined as an element that “bridges the gap between an argument’s stated evidence and conclusion … a piece of support that isn’t explicitly stated but that is required for the conclusion to be valid” (Kaplan, 2008, p. 30). Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. Although inferences and assumptions are not identical, they are related in that inferences often find a basis in what is assumed. Understanding assumptions is thus a crucial component of the critical reading process because it enables the reader to:

1. Identify what is holding an argument together.
2. Identify strengths and weaknesses of an argument.
3. Find possible points of critique.

Finding hidden assumptions can be tricky, especially when one is reading dense academic literature. However, identifying them is important because most logical flaws are rooted problematic assumptions. Here are a few strategies one can employ to identify assumptions:

1. Evaluate the argument and determine whether it is valid. If it is not, what additional premises should be provided to make it so?
2. Look for the gap in the argument. Is there a piece of information missing that may explain how the author concluded X from Y?
3. Find a significant counterexample to the point made. This will enable one to identify what the author ignored.
4. Assess the terms and categories. What meanings are ascribed to key terms? Are the meanings reasonable and justified? Do they reveal any biases?

Ultimately, the goal of the reading process is to understand the overall meaning of the text. A writer may “paint a picture” for the reader, but it is ultimately the reader who ascribes meaning to what is read. The meaning ascribed to the text will be influenced by the reader’s biases, knowledge of other literature, inferences, and so forth. Interpretation has to do with making sense of or assigning meaning to something. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. Facione (2010) defined it as the ability “to comprehend and express the meaning or significance of a wide variety of experiences, situations, data, events, judgments, conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures, or criteria” (p. 5). It involves the ability to determine what is significant, recognize and describe a problem without bias, making distinctions between main ideas and subideas, and so forth (Facione, 2010). This skill is particularly important for graduate school students because of the sheer volume of reading that is expected of them and also because much of academic writing involves synthesizing the ideas of multiple authors. To be able to perform these tasks effectively, one must be able to interpret texts. A key skill involved in interpretation is the ability to summarize. When one is able to summarize each paragraph or each key point, one is on the way to effectively interpreting the overall meaning of the text. However, this is only the beginning as one must also be able to draw out the implications of the author’s arguments.

An implication is a conclusion drawn from some facts. In making connections between the text and the world, it is important to think about the possible consequences that might result if the author’s views are accurate. This, however, must be done carefully in order to avoid falling into the slippery-slope problem, in which one assumes without warrant that a given action will result in a series of increasingly undesirable consequences. For instance, an instructor may argue that he/she cannot make an exception for a particular student because he/she will have to make an exception for all students. This, however, need not be the case as the conclusion/consequence does not logically follow from the premise/action. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Implications provide useful material for critiquing or undermining arguments, so recognizing and drawing them out is an important component of the critical reading process. Drawing implications must begin with an understanding of the facts that are explicitly stated and the conclusions drawn by the author.

Facione, P. (2010). Critical thinking: What it is and why it counts. Retrieved from http://www.insightassessment.com/pdf_files/what&why2006.pdf

Kaplan, Inc. (2007). LSAT comprehensive program (2008 ed.). New York, NY: Kaplan Publishing.

Kurland, D. (2010). The fundamentals of critical reading and effective writing. Retrieved August 27, 2010 from http://www.criticalreading.com/criticalreadingthinkingtoc.htm. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Paul, R. (1995). Why students and teachers do not reason well. In J. Wilson & A. J. A. Binker (Eds.), Critical thinking: What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing world (3rd ed., pp. 151-178). Santa Rosa, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Project for School Innovation. (n.d.). Making inferences from text: A vital skill for reading comprehension. Retrieved June 10, 2010 from http://www.psinnovation.org/files/documents/LSGIntro.doc

Understanding the structure of arguments is important because it enables a reader to critique various works effectively. Arguments consist of two main parts: conclusion and evidence.

Socrates is human (premise) → Socrates is mortal (conclusion)

In this common argument, one concludes that Socrates is mortal because he is human (as humans are, in fact, mortal). In this example a single conclusion/claim is drawn from a single premise. However, most of the arguments readers of academic literature encounter are a lot more complicated with numerous reasons given in support of an assertion, and the assumptions that may hold them together may be difficult to uncover. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

A slightly more complex example might look like this:

• The United States should close Guantanamo (GITMO).
  • Keeping GITMO open hurts the United States’s reputation in international affairs.
    • By keeping GITMO open, the United States woudl be violating important principles of international law.
    • Violating important principles of international law would hurt the United States’s reptuation in international affairs. Undermining the United States’s reputation would make it difficult for the United States to be a leader in international affairs.
  • The United States should not do anything that will undermine its reputation in international affairs.
    • The United States should not do anything that would make it difficult for the country to lead in international affairs.
    • The United States’s diminished reputation would make it difficult for the country to influence human rights policy. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.
    • The United States should not do anything that would make it difficult for the country to influence international human rights policy.

The most important part of the analysis for the critical reader is to determine whether the reasons given really support the main point. For instance, one may ask whether violating important principles of international law by keeping GITMO open would really undermine the United States’s reputation.

Readers of social science literature sometimes have a difficult time distinguishing between an argument and an explanation. The former is, as noted earlier, a combination of assertions supporting a central claim; the latter is a description of the circumstances or an interpretation of given information. Thus, one cannot use an explanation to support a claim. For instance, one might say that the increase in teen pregnancy in the US can be explained by the permissive media culture, willingness to take risks in sexual relations, or moral decline. Although these explanations are certainly interesting and may even be true, they are not evidence. One would need to go further and try to provide some sort of empirical evidence to support the claim. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Inductive and Deductive Arguments

There are generally two types of arguments: inductive and deductive. A deductive argument is one in which the premises guarantee that the conclusion is true. These occur when, perhaps by mathematical or definitional necessity, the truth of the premise will definitely determine the truth of the conclusion. An inductive argument, on the other hand, is one in which the premises provide a sufficient reason for a reader to believe that a conclusion is likely to be true. The difference between the two is the level of certainty that can be ascribed to each one. One can be certain that the conclusion of a deductive argument is correct while one can bet that the conclusion of an inductive argument is probably correct. Most of the arguments encountered in social science literature will be inductive as scientists (a) seek to find possible explanations for varying phenomena, (b) use statistical data to make inferences regarding large groups based on what is found to be true of smaller ones, or (c) try to find a causal relationship between two or more variables. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments.

Validity and Soundness

A deductive argument is considered valid or invalid. It is valid when it has the right form regardless of whether or not its premises are true. For instance:

All fish can run.
Anything that can run can fly.
Therefore, all fish can fly.

Although the two premises in this argument are false, the argument is logically valid. This means it is possible to have a valid argument that has false premises and a false conclusion. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. Validity simply means that if the premises are true the conclusion must also be true; it does not mean that the premises are true. Thus a deductive argument with false premises and a true conclusion can be valid. For instance:

All fish have smooth skin.
Anything with smooth skin can swim.
Therefore, all fish can swim.

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In an invalid argument, the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. It may look like this:

All American presidents live in Washington, DC.
John lives in Washington, DC.
Therefore, John is an American president.

In this example, the premises may be true, but the conclusion is false. A key point to note is that invalid arguments are unsound. When one combines true premises with a valid argument, the argument is said to be sound.

Inductive arguments, on the other hand, are described as either strong or weak, depending on the strength of the premises/information provided to support the conclusion. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. Therefore, by definition, valid arguments cannot be strong and vice versa. One can, however, speak of any argument as being valid or invalid. If an argument is valid, one may ask whether it is sound or unsound. If you understand the structure of a writer’s argument, the easier it will be to critique. See our section on logical fallacies.

Critical reading has a lot to do with evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of arguments. Because graduate students are generally expected to critically assess what they read, simply having a sense of what might be wrong with an argument is not enough, they must be able to identify precisely why an argument may be weak. As a general rule, the stronger the claim, the stronger the evidence provided in support of it must be. It is one thing to say poverty contributes to war and entirely another to say poverty causes war. One would require stronger evidence to support the latter claim than to support the former. Both critical readers and writers must learn how to strengthen and weaken arguments. Writers who master these skills are able to write authoritative and convincing material and readers who master these skills are able to critique such material. Nursing Essay Writing – Academic Arguments. By learning how to effectively identify assumptions, one is well on the way to evaluating arguments effectively.