ARGUMENT IDENTIFICATION

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Exercise Three -- KEY:

1. Yes. "My knowledge of the future does not cause the future. It merely sees it, exactly as creatures at your low level recall things past.  And even if, say, I interfere---burn up somebody's meadhall, for instance, whether because I just feel like it or because some supplicant asked me to---even then I do not change the future, I merely do what I saw from the beginning."

2. Yes: "I think."  Here the conclusion is marked but the reason is not.  We know it is a reason because it supports the conclusion here.

3. Yes.  This is an ad and so it makes an argument.  The conclusion is that you should buy Nikes. The reasons are mainly implied, and they include the claim that if you want to play, you should buy Nikes, as well as the claim that if you want to be cool, you need to be like Nike.  There is an explicit reason as well: Play! 

4. Yes: "Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a demon, whose delight is in death and wretchedness."

5. No.  The second sentence is the conclusion of an argument, but the person who uttered this claim confused a conclusion for an argument and failed to offer a reason.  Remember:  arguments consist of more than one claim---a conclusion plus at least one reason.

6. No. This is the Webster's definition for 'reason' and not itself a reason. 

7. Yes. The last two sentences serve to explain and justify the first by undermining what might be the leading alternative view of the situation.  However, as with many extended arguments, this can only be fully understood in the context of the entire column, as the complete argument is distributed over many paragraphs.

8. Yes: Many editorial cartoons make arguments, but their structure is often implicit, as with this one.  Ramirez's cartoon concerns Timothy McVeigh's desire to avoid the death penalty for his role in killing 168 people in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995. Ramirez's implied conclusion is that his desire is not justified, and that he should have thought of this before April 19, 1995.  The implied reasons are that (1) his fear was the same as all of his victims, (2) if he believes that he should be allowed to avoid death, then he should have acted so that they avoided death, and (3) he didn't.  Therefore, his desire is not justified.

9. No.  This is Lance Armstrong defeating Ivan Basso in Stage 15 of the 2004 Tour de France.  No argument here.

10. Yes.  "All pigs eat cheese.  Old Snaggle is a pig."  These support what amounts to a conditional conclusion.  (Note that the dragon is here making fun of human logic:  "Games, games, games!")

 

Exercise Three Argument
Identification
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