Mapping an Argument
Premise, inference, conclusion — plus the step the author left out
Read the passage below and map its argument: [paste article or section]. Output: 1) the central conclusion in one sentence; 2) the premises, numbered, each labeled as a fact or a value judgment; 3) how the premises lead to the conclusion, including the unstated premise the author skipped; 4) the step where the argument jumps — where the conclusion claims more than the premises support; 5) if I wanted to push back, which single premise is cheapest to attack.
How to use
The unstated premise is usually the load-bearing sentence, and it's the one the author didn't write down.
Good for
- An op-ed or a proposal reads convincingly, but you can't say what it actually rests on
- You're writing a review or a rebuttal and need to point at the exact broken link, not just say the reasoning is weak
Not for
- You're reading a manual or a news brief that states facts without arguing for anything
- You only need a fast read on whether the conclusion holds, and auditing every inference costs more than it's worth
Example
Input
'Remote work lowers productivity. After we went fully remote last year, projects shipped two weeks late on average, so other companies shouldn't go remote either.'
What you get
The central conclusion is that other companies shouldn't go fully remote. The stated premise is one company's two-week delay; the unstated premise is that this company represents everyone else. The jump is at step three, generalizing from a single sample, and the cheapest rebuttal attacks that unstated premise by asking what else changed that year.
Common mistakes
- Treating the author's example as a premise — an example is an illustration, and the argument survives deleting it
- Listing premises without reconstructing the missing one, which just reformats the original page and leaves the jump invisible
Try tweaking it like this
- Add 'write a paragraph with the same structure arguing the opposite conclusion' — the contrast shows which premises are swappable
- Cut the output to 'conclusion plus weakest link' when you only need to decide whether the piece deserves a close read