Week 2 — Laying It Out: Standard Form, Supplied Premises, and Maps — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 2 of the term — lay an argument out line by line, fill its gaps fairly, and draw how its parts connect, then explain the drawing to someone new to the subject.

This week you learned to write an argument in standard form, to supply and mark a premise the arguer left unsaid, to choose that premise with the principle of charity, and to map linked and independent premises with objections and replies. In this assignment you work four short problems on two illustrative texts, interpret each one, and explain a map to someone who has never studied critical thinking. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Argument Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles.

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." In standard form it has 3 stated premises, 1 supplied premise, and 1 conclusion. Your second text is an illustrative email from a campus chess club, with no real club behind it: "The chess club should move its weekly meeting to the evening. Most members have afternoon labs. The student lounge is free in the evening. The club's volunteer coach can only come after work." Under it, a member objects, "Members who commute would have to travel home after dark," and the club president replies, "Members who commute can join by video call on the evenings they cannot stay."

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

1. In standard form, the running question has 3 stated premises and 1 supplied premise. How many premises does it have in all?
2. The running question has 4 premises and 1 conclusion. How many lines does its standard form have, not counting the line that reads So?
3. The overnight staffing cost behind P4 assumes 2 staff working 8 hours a night for 5 nights at 20 dollars an hour. What is that cost in dollars?
4. In the club email, 3 stated premises each support the conclusion on their own, and the map adds 1 objection and 1 reply. How many arrows does the map have in all?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: write the running question in standard form, with P1 to P4 and C on their own lines and the supplied premise marked "(supplied)", and explain why the supplied premise is not the newsletter writer's stated view.
• Problem 2: explain why the modest P3 is the weakest premise that closes the gap, and name the sweeping premise the principle of charity sets aside.
• Problem 3: say which premise the 1,600-dollar figure supports, and describe the running question's map in words, saying which premises are linked and where P4's arrow points.
• Problem 4: run the cover-up test on the club email's three premises to show they are independent, say in words where the objection's arrow and the reply's arrow point, then write the message to the club treasurer described below.

Explain it to a non-expert

The chess club's treasurer has never seen an argument map and asks, "Why does your drawing of our email have five arrows, and does that mean the evening plan is a good idea?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains in everyday words what it means for reasons to stand on their own, says where the objection's arrow and the reply's arrow point, reports that the map has 5 arrows in all, and names one limit: a map shows how the reasons connect, not whether the argument is good. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible, and you do not need to take a side on when the club should meet.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a coworker reading a farmers' market sign that says, "Shop here on weekends. The produce is picked that morning, and parking is free." Model answer: "The sign gives two reasons, and each one would still count even if the other were missing, so on a map each reason gets its own arrow pointing at the main claim. That makes 2 arrows. The drawing only shows how the reasons line up; it does not tell us whether the produce really is fresher, so we would still check before deciding."

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

Show your arithmetic and quote the sentences you use. A reader should be able to reproduce every number you report, and find every quoted sentence in the passage or the email, without guessing which values, steps, or sentences you used.

Deliverables

Submit a single report containing:

• the four answers, each with the arithmetic shown and the brief interpretation the task names for that problem;
• your message to the treasurer, explaining what it means for reasons to stand on their own, saying where the objection's and the reply's arrows point, reporting that the map has 5 arrows, and naming one limit; and
• a one-line restatement of the values you used (the running question's stated and supplied premises, the cost inputs, and the club email's premises, objection, and reply), so your answers are reproducible.

Keep it to roughly one page. Clear and correct beats long.

Choose how you show it. Present your report as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the two maps with a short note that says each map in words. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. 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.

How you'll be graded

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

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the computations, the interpretations, and the writing yourself, without a chatbot or other AI tool. Quote the passage and the email only as they are printed here, word for word. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's work, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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