Tracing Someone Else's Line of Reasoning

The same skill, pointed outwards

Building a line of reasoning and tracing one are the same skill in two directions. The exam tests the second constantly: multiple-choice function questions, and the whole rhetorical analysis essay, depend on being able to say what each part of somebody else's argument is doing.

Map by function, not by content

Read a passage once and write one verb beside each paragraph — not a summary, a function:

• establishes the writer's standing
• states the problem in the audience's own terms
• concedes the strongest objection
• narrows from the general case to one instance
• turns: rejects the frame just accepted
• names the cost of doing nothing

Six verbs is a map of the argument. A summary of the same passage would be three times as long and would not tell you where the argument moves.

Find the turn first

Almost every exam passage has one place where the argument pivots — where concession stops and the counter-case begins, or where a general principle drops into a particular case. Markers: but, yet, still, and yet, of course, admittedly, it is true that, a sudden shift from long sentences to short, a switch from third person to direct address.

Locating the turn does three jobs at once: it gives the essay a structure, it tells you which paragraphs are setup and which are payoff, and it answers most function questions about the sentences around it.

Distinguish claim, support and qualification

When a sentence looks hard to classify, ask what happens if you delete it. If the argument's conclusion changes, it was a claim. If the conclusion stands but becomes less believable, it was support. If the conclusion stands but becomes broader and easier to attack, it was a qualification — and qualifications are the sentences students misread most often, because they sound like retreats and are usually defences.