Look For Support

Understanding Arguments

When you hear the word “argument” you might think of heated debates or disagreements, but in the context of the LSAT—and critical thinking more broadly—an argument is a structured set of statements designed to persuade or convey a specific point of view. It’s not just about making claims; it’s about making claims to support additional claims, in a logical manner.

An argument serves a particular purpose: to persuade. It consists of a set of statements logically connected to get the audience to agree with the author. Understanding this purpose is key as it enables you to more effectively dissect the argument, analyze its components, and evaluate its strength.

An argument is composed of statements, each serving a specific role. The conclusion is the statement being supported, while the premises provide that support. For example, consider the argument: “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.” Here, “Socrates is mortal” is the conclusion, supported by the premises “All men are mortal” and “Socrates is a man.”

Premises can be of various types—they can be more factual – providing more ‘objective’ information, or they can be more value-based – providing an assessment or evaluation.   Additionally, an important type of the more ‘factual’ statements can be thought of as ‘theoretical’ or ‘causal’ – they’ll provide a mechanism by which something happens.  This is all true of the conclusion as well.  You’ll also, most often in the conclusion, have statements that are recommendations or proposals – so not really facts, evaluations, or causal mechanisms but ‘calls to action’.

The premises and conclusion have a specific logical relationship. The premises offer a foundation upon which the conclusion stands. They provide the support.  You can think of what support means intuitively – basically, the thing that provides the support makes it more likely for you to agree with the thing that’s being supported.  And remises can support a conclusion in various ways, including through evidence, reasoning, or examples. The stronger the support, the stronger the argument.

Understanding the structure and components of an argument is like acquiring a toolkit for LSAT success. This toolkit will enable you to dissect complex arguments, evaluate their validity, and, most importantly, answer LSAT questions more effectively.

Identifying Argument Structure

Now that we’ve got a clear picture of what an argument is and its essential elements, the next step is to identify its structure. Learning how to identify what’s what in an argument is extremely important because a big part in doing well on those sections of the test that involve verbal reasoning is simply being able to recognize what are the premises and what’s the conclusion. 

In fact, doing that is the cornerstone of identifying an argument’s structure. Essentially, premises provide the basis, the rationale, and the support, while the conclusion is the ultimate point the argument is trying to make.  The first thing to look for are indicator words – words that signal the function of the statement within the argument.  For example:

“John is studying for the LSAT.  Therefore, John is going to do well on the test.”  We see the ‘therefore’ at the beginning of the second sentence, that let’s us know that it’s the conclusion. 

Common premise indicators:

• Because
• Since
• Due to

Common conclusion indicators:

• Therefore
• Thus
• Consequently
• As a result 

If you learn to spot these you’ll start being able to more quickly and easily recognize the structure of the argument..

But you won’t always have indicator words, and sometimes they might even be misleading.  Fundamentally, arguments are all about support.  So if you’re not clear on what the structure is, there are no indicators or you’re not sure how they relate then you want to look for support. Ask yourself, “Is this statement supporting another statement, or is it the one being supported?” And you can also use the ‘therefore-test’.  Simply place one statement after another and put a ‘therefore’ between them.  What you’re doing is essentially making one the premise and one the conclusion arbitrarily.  Then read through them and ask yourself “does this sound right?, does it make sense?, does the first support the second?”  If it does then you’ve got your premise and conclusion.  If it doesn’t, then switch them up and ask yourself those questions again.  For example:

“It’s going to rain tomorrow.  The weatherman said it was going to rain tomorrow.”  There’s no indicators here but if we put a ‘therefore’ at the start of the second sentence we see that it doesn’t make much sense – why would it be true that the weatherman said it was going to rain tomorrow if all we know is that it’s going to rain tomorrow?  But if we switch it up and it now looks something like this: “The weatherman said it was going to rain tomorrow.  Therefore it’s going to rain tomorrow.” then that makes a lot more sense.

Understanding the structure of an argument is not just an academic exercise; it’s a skill that can significantly improve your LSAT scores. Recognizing the premises and conclusions, using indicator words to your advantage, and analyzing how each statement relates to others—all these steps contribute to a deeper understanding of arguments. And a deeper understanding translates into a better performance on the LSAT.

Irrelevant Factors in Argument Structure

There are aspects to arguments that are irrelevant to the argument’s fundamental structure. Understanding what doesn’t affect an argument’s structure is important for being clear on what you need to pay attention to in order to properly analyze and evaluate them.

For example, the sequence in which premises and conclusions appear doesn’t alter the argument’s core logic. For example, whether you say, “It’s raining, so the ground is wet,” or “The ground is wet because it’s raining,” the fundamental structure of the argument remains unchanged.  Similarly, the grammatical form of an argument does not affect its basic structure. You can have multiple statements in one sentence or have them across multiple sentences.  You can also use rhetorical questions instead of simple statements.  The key thing is the information in the statements and their relationships to one another. Recognizing what doesn’t impact an argument’s structure is as important as knowing what does. This awareness clarifies your analytical process, helping you identify what’s important and what isn’t.

Key Elements to Observe

The arguments on the test often have elements that go beyond simple premises and conclusions. Understanding these things is absolutely necessary for more complex arguments, which are common across the entire test.

Sub-conclusions

In more complex arguments, you may encounter sub-conclusions—statements that function as both a premise and a conclusion. For example, in the argument “John is studying for the LSAT, so he’ll get a good score, therefore he’ll get into a good school”, the statement “he’ll get a good score” serves as a sub-conclusion. It’s supported by the first premise and also supports the final conclusion.  You can think of sub-conclusions as intermediary links in a chain.  In order to identify them use the same approach as for any other premise and conclusion, keeping in mind that simply because something is supported it doesn’t mean that it’s the conclusion – it could go on to support something else.  Likewise, just because it offers support for something doesn’t mean that it’s only a premise – it could also be supported by something else.

Perspectives

Sometimes, an argument may include statements that neither support nor are supported by other statements but are essential for understanding the argument.  You can think of a perspective as a point of view – they function as a reference point and are almost always what the author is critically responding to or challenging.  For example: “Jane says that you can’t improve on standardized tests.  But John is studying for the LSAT, therefore John is going to do well on it.”  Here, the statement “Jane says that you can’t improve on standardized tests” is the perspective – it’s what this argument is responding to.  Often, perspectives are going to be associated with a specific individual or group and what they think or believe (Jane in this case) but sometimes it can be general (“people think that …”, “there’s a belief that …”, etc).  To identify them you want to look at the first sentence or two in particular since they will almost always be presented there and you want to look for language that talks about groups or individuals having a point of view (or more general agents as well).  Likewise, look for ‘opposition-indicators’ like ‘but, yet, however, nonetheless’, etc that signal the author’s position – that language indicates a challenge or criticism and that is by far the most likely attitude that the author of the argument will have with respect to the perspective.  Being attentive to these key elements—sub-conclusions and perspectives—can deepen your understanding of an argument’s structure. This will not only help you dissect arguments more efficiently but also answer LSAT questions more accurately.

Conclusion

Understanding the structure of an argument is more than just an academic exercise; it’s a foundational skill that directly impacts your LSAT scores. From recognizing what an argument is and its key components to identifying its structure, each step contributes to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of arguments.

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