This Flowchart Helps You Evaluate any Argument

Argument analysis flowchart
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0

Complex issues with multiple influential factors can be difficult to process for some. Three researchers from George Mason University and the University of Queensland decided to help people evaluate arguments by combining their own knowledge into one handy flowchart. The flowchart (above) is a great tool to help you think through any topic that you’re having difficulty with. The best part of the using the flowchart is that the more you use it the better you’ll get at reasoning through other’s arguments.

Step 3:  Determine Inference

Recall that we can make deductive or inductive arguments. Deductive arguments make their conclusion necessarily true or false. Inductive arguments merely make their conclusion more or less probably true — thus admitting the possibility that the conclusion is wrong. One way to test whether an argument relies on deductive or inductive inference is to check whether and how its premises support its conclusion.

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