Notes about the chapter

Chapter 2: What Are the Issue and the Conclusion?

1. What is the issue?

• An issue is a question or controversy responsible for the conversation or discussion. It is the stimulus for what is being said.

2. Kinds of issues

• Descriptive issues

• Prescriptive issues

3. Searching for the issue

• The issue may be identified in the body of the text, usually right at the beginning, or it may even be found in the title.

• You have found an issue that stimulated the argument in question.

• In many cases, the conclusion must be found before you can identify the issue. YOU CANNOT CRITICALLY EVALUATE UNTIL WE FIND THE CONCLUSION!

• A conclusion is the message that the speaker or writer wishes you to accept.

4. Searching for the author's or speaker's conclusion

• The critical thinker must ask, "What is the writer or speaker trying to prove?" or "What is the communicator's main point?"

• Looking for a statement or set of statements that the writer or speaker wants you to believe.

5. Clues to discovery: How to find the conclusion

• Clue No. 1: Ask what the issue is

• Clue No. 2: Look for indicator words

consequently suggests that

therefore thus

it follows that the point I'm trying to make is

shows that proves that

indicates that the truth of the matter is

• Clue No. 3: Look in likely locations

• Clue No. 4: Remember what a conclusion is not

examples

statistics

definitions

background information

evidence

• Clue No. 5: Check the context of the communication and the author's background

List of new words or interesting expressions you learn from the reading (optional)

1. Descriptive

2. Prescriptive