Week 1 — Finding the Argument: Claims, Reasons, and Counts

Assignment 1 of the term — find the parts of a real-feeling argument the way a careful reader does, and explain them to someone new to the subject.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, evidence-based analysis. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the reasoning you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Argument Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put them together on two short texts.

The task

Your first text is the running question's illustrative campus-newsletter passage, which has no real author: "The campus library should stay open around the clock during finals week. During finals week many students need a quiet, safe place to study late at night. The library is the only quiet, safe, well-lit study space on campus large enough to meet that need. Keeping the library open overnight for the five nights of finals week costs about 1,600 dollars in staff wages." It has 1 conclusion and 3 stated reasons. Your second text is an illustrative ad for a coffee maker, with no real company behind it: "Tired of slow mornings? This coffee maker brews a full pot in 4 minutes. Order yours this week. We love the smell of it every morning. It is the best coffee maker you can buy." Two of its 5 sentences are claims.

Work these four problems, showing your arithmetic and quoting the sentences you use:

1. The running question's newsletter passage has 1 conclusion and 3 stated reasons. How many claims does the passage hold in all?
2. The newsletter's cost figure assumes 2 staff working 8 hours a night for 5 nights at 20 dollars an hour. What is the overnight staffing cost in dollars?
3. The illustrative coffee-maker ad has 5 sentences, and 2 of them are claims. How many of its sentences are not claims?
4. In the newsletter passage, 3 of the 4 claims are stated reasons. What fraction of the passage's claims are stated reasons, written as a decimal?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: name the conclusion and the three stated reasons in your own words, and explain how you found the conclusion even though no indicator word marks it.
• Problem 2: say whether the cost sentence is a premise or the conclusion, and run the doubt test to decide whether the passage argues or explains.
• Problem 3: label each of the ad's five sentences as a claim, a question, a command, or a report of a feeling; name the claim that the question or the command carries without saying it; and explain why "It is the best coffee maker you can buy" is a claim even though it is an opinion.
• Problem 4: explain why finding an argument's conclusion and reasons is not the same as agreeing with it, then write the message to your roommate described below.

Explain it to a non-expert

Your roommate glances at the newsletter and says, "That's only someone's opinion, so there's nothing to analyze." Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains in everyday words why an opinion is still a claim whose reasons can be judged, names the passage's conclusion and its three stated reasons, reports that 3 of the 4 claims are stated reasons, and names one limit: finding the parts does not show whether the reasons are good or settle the question. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible, and you do not need to take a side on the library question.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a neighbor reading a block-party flyer that says, "The block party should move to the park. The street floods when it rains." Model answer: "This flyer is trying to convince us of something, so it is an argument. What it wants us to accept is that the party should move to the park, and the reason it gives is that the street floods. Spotting that reason does not tell us whether the park is free that day, so we would still need to check before deciding."

Use that pattern for the newsletter, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft all four answers, the four brief interpretations, and your message to the roommate before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show calculations and quote the sentences you use when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one calculation or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you. If it calls the passage's last sentence the conclusion, or calls an explanation an argument because it sees the word "because", say so and ask it why.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introductory critical thinking course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about finding claims, premises, and conclusions, and about telling an argument from an explanation. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, or a quotation, never name a real person, company, or product, and never take a side on whether the library should stay open. This week is about finding arguments, not judging them, so do not tell me whether the library argument is good.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these four problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The texts: the running question's illustrative campus-newsletter passage, "The campus library should stay open around the clock during finals week. During finals week many students need a quiet, safe place to study late at night. The library is the only quiet, safe, well-lit study space on campus large enough to meet that need. Keeping the library open overnight for the five nights of finals week costs about 1,600 dollars in staff wages." It has 1 conclusion (the first sentence) and 3 stated reasons. And an illustrative coffee-maker ad: "Tired of slow mornings? This coffee maker brews a full pot in 4 minutes. Order yours this week. We love the smell of it every morning. It is the best coffee maker you can buy." Two of its 5 sentences are claims.
PROBLEM P1: The running question's newsletter passage has 1 conclusion and 3 stated reasons. How many claims does the passage hold in all?
PROBLEM P2: The newsletter's cost figure assumes 2 staff working 8 hours a night for 5 nights at 20 dollars an hour. What is the overnight staffing cost in dollars?
PROBLEM P3: The illustrative coffee-maker ad has 5 sentences, and 2 of them are claims. How many of its sentences are not claims?
PROBLEM P4: In the newsletter passage, 3 of the 4 claims are stated reasons. What fraction of the passage's claims are stated reasons, written as a decimal?
After the four answers, I must briefly interpret each one: for P1, name the conclusion and the three stated reasons and explain how I found the conclusion without an indicator word; for P2, say whether the cost sentence is a premise or the conclusion and run the doubt test on the passage; for P3, label each of the ad's five sentences as a claim, a question, a command, or a report of a feeling, name an implied claim, and explain why the best-coffee-maker sentence is a claim even though it is an opinion; for P4, explain why finding an argument's parts is not agreeing with it. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a roommate who says the newsletter is only someone's opinion, explaining that an opinion is still a claim whose reasons can be judged, naming the conclusion and the three stated reasons, reporting that 3 of the 4 claims are stated reasons, and naming one limit. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct computations (20 points), argument analysis (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (16 points), and showing the evidence so it can be checked (16 points). For each of P1-P4, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 2.5 computation points, 6 analysis points, 2 clarity points, or 2 evidence points. Sum all four problems within each criterion. Count my roommate message only with P4, not again with P1-P3.
COMPUTATION UNITS: A correct count, cost, or decimal = 2; the right values and operation with only an arithmetic slip = 1; a missing answer or the wrong values or operation = 0. Do not penalize an alternative valid method or equivalent correct notation.
ANALYSIS UNITS: For P1-P3 separately, an interpretation that meets both parts named for that problem = 2; exactly one part = 1; neither = 0. For P4, BOTH the finding-is-not-agreeing explanation AND a roommate message that treats the opinion as an evaluable claim, names the parts, reports the count, and names a limit = 2. If full P4 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate analysis = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and calling an explanation an argument only because it uses "because" is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not an analysis error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labeled evidence understandable to someone new to critical thinking, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the roommate message with P4 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
EVIDENCE UNITS: For each problem, checkable values and steps, with every quoted sentence matching the passage or the ad as printed = 2; a relevant but incomplete value, step, or quotation, or a quotation that drifts from the text = 1; an answer alone or no method = 0. A visible method stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied all four answers and their brief interpretations AND written my message to the roommate AND revised at least one calculation or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned total; it may end in .5 and must not be rounded to a whole number. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the total for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my calculations, quotations, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with all four answers, their brief interpretations, and your message to the roommate — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch that marks the passage's conclusion and stated reasons with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 1 skills — telling claims from questions, commands, and reports of a feeling; finding an argument's conclusion and stated reasons with and without indicator words; telling an argument from an explanation with the doubt test; and explaining all of it to someone new — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same four problems, the four brief interpretations, and the message to the roommate. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and check every quoted sentence against the passage and the ad as printed. Write a second draft and add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one calculation or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The calculations, reasoning, revision, and final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and check any sentence it quotes against the passage and the ad as printed here. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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