Evaluating assumptions
Once you’ve spotted them, decide if you agree with them or not. If you don’t know whether you agree
(maybe you’ve never thought about it before, or you just don’t have enough information), then make an
educated guess. What do you think? Does it seem reasonable? Why or why not? On the other hand, you
can start with your opinion of the article, and then examine the assumptions to try to understand why
you have that opinion.
Example
“Rebuilding our economy [by focusing on green technologies, alternative energy, etc.] will mean more
people will have meaningful work.”
In this case, rather than agreeing or disagreeing, we decided to focus on whether the assumption was
reasonable (probably true, likely to be true) or questionable (not likely to be true).
Reasonable:

My own perspective is, if you were working on something that mattered to the world, you
would have more meaningful work. There probably are other people who feel this way. So for
these people, at least, the assumption would be true. Here is how you might write this up in
your paper:
o I think most people share my view that work that matters to the world, like green
technology, is “meaningful work.” Therefore, I think the assumption is pretty
reasonable.
Questionable:
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
Depends on what people consider “meaningful work.” Not everyone considers green tech.
meaningful.
But not many people would think that “green technology” really does matter to the world.
There are also those who may find “green technology” meaningful but find other things more
so.
Example
If we learn to “live within our ecological means” then we won’t have to fight over water and other
resources.
Before evaluating this claim, we decided to double-check that it really is an assumption.
Could you try to prove this? Here are some things we said you might do to try to prove it.

Make comparisons between people who are living within their ecological means and those who
are not, and see if conflict is lower among the first group.


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Try it and see
Search for examples in history for comparison
Try to prove that conflict over resources is caused by scarcity
Look at areas affected by scarcity and try to change that and see if it has an effect.
The article does not do any of this, so it is an assumption.
Agree or disagree?
Disagree:



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
We’ve always been fighting over resources and we always will. (Watch out for simply re-stating
your claim. Give reasons why you think this. See “General Comments on Assumptions” Mistake
#4.)
You can’t define “ecological means”
We’ve seen many promises of change in the past, which never seem to come true, so there’s no
reason to think that they will in the future.
We don’t fight wars over resources, we fight over other things (for example, ideology)
Even if we have abundant resources, someone will try to control that abundance to make a
profit.
Questionable:

It depends on what new resources we’ll turn to in trying to “live within our ecological means.”
Agree:
 “ecological means” is carrying capacity, which can be defined. You can look at, for example,
amount of resources currently available and rates of use.
 There are examples of groups that are living within their ecological means who are also not
involved in such conflicts.
In this example, it may be that people are actually disagreeing with a deeper assumption: It is possible to
“live within our ecological means.” The article assumes this, too. Many of the disagreements with the
previous assumption turn out to actually be disagreements with this more basic one.
Very important, kind of important, or not very important to the thesis?
Thesis: climate change is real, happening now, and we need to make a change.
Kind of:
Very:
Not very: Stopping the wars is a byproduct of slowing climate change, which is the main focus of the
article. So even if it wasn’t true about stopping wars, it wouldn’t seriously undermine their main
argument that we need to stop climate change.
Yellow: part of the thesis, repeated in the statement that analyzes the assumption.
Green: part of the assumption, repeated in the same sentence.
The idea is to re-state the relevant part of the thesis and the relevant part of the assumption in a single
sentence, connecting them so the reader understands how the assumption supports the thesis.
Example
Youth from rich countries are supporting climate action for the poor.
Questionable: No personal experience to show that it’s true. I’m a young person, I live in a rich country, I
don’t know anyone, nor do I know of anyone, who is doing this.
On the other hand: I think I’ve heard about this kind of thing happening, and it seems to me like it’s the
cool thing even though I don’t have any direct knowledge of it. Or, it seems logical to me that young
people would be involved in this kind of thing.
Good assumption: I’ve seen lots of commercials related to this topic.
Relate to thesis (How much and in what way would it hurt the argument if it turned out that this
assumption was false?).
This claim (assumption) says that youth are trying to act now to stop climate change. It reflects an
important part of the article’s thesis.
Yellow: part of the thesis, repeated in the statement that analyzes the assumption.
Green: part of the assumption, repeated in the same sentence.
The idea is to re-state the relevant part of the thesis and the relevant part of the assumption in a single
sentence, connecting them so the reader understands how the assumption supports the thesis.
Example
The science proving that global warming is real is true and correct.
Do they try to prove this?
Yes: They give us some of the actual data that the science is based on, and they quote individuals who
may be expected to know something about this, and they describe a scientific consensus. Therefore,
this is not an assumption.
Deeper assumption: Consensus is part of science.
Outline of the Critique Paper
1. Introduce and summarize article (thesis, main points)
2. State your thesis. (Evaluation of evidence + evaluation of the reasoning = your thesis.)
3. Analyze and evaluate the evidence
a. Give an overview of the evidence
b. Give examples
c. Explain how those examples relate to the point
d. State whether the evidence is or is not sufficient, relevant, and representative, and why.
4. Analyze and evaluate the reasoning—2 or 3 assumptions. For each one:
a. Identify the assumption.
b. Show how it relates to the article’s thesis
c. Explain why you think it is good or bad.
Generally, one assumption per paragraph is a good model.