What is an argument and how do you construct a good one?

According to ”Learning Legal Skills and Reasoning” by Sharon Hanson, ‘an argument is a series of statements, which are purposely presented in order to prove, or disprove, a given position’. The main difference between an argument and an opinion is that the latter is a subjective perception of a particular person, for example: ‘All blonde people are intelligent’, whilst the former includes reasons for or evidence to back up one’s claim.

The anatomy of an argument:

An argument consists of a set of premises (a premise can be any statement you believe to be true). A conclusion must naturally follow from those premises. For example:

Premise one: It rains in London on every Thursday.

Premise two: It is Thursday today.

Therefore, it must be raining in London today. This is true in the light of the principles above.

Try to critically assess your argument and reflect on it. One of the most important skills that you will need in order to construct good arguments is critical thinking. It means that you should be as analytical and observant as you can get. For critical thinkers nothing is certain, there are no absolute truths. Even if they hold a strong view on some topic they are also aware of the arguments against their thesis.

There is a clear distinction between descriptive writing, and critical writing. Whilst writing your LNAT essay you should be as critical as possible (of course without it getting too far; you cannot question everything). You should refuse to accept the ideas of other writers without evaluating them. Furthermore, you ought to state why those ideas may be convincing, or alternatively, why they are not compelling.

Answered by Karolina M. LNAT tutor

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