Piper wrote, "most of us write to communicate something, rather than simply to throw things on the page for others to make of them what they will". Good reading means we aim to discover this "something". You are trying to discover the "mind" of the writer.
Sometimes a novel will have one theme. Sometimes a motivational book will have dozens of ideas. Our focus here is on the kind of book that contains explicit points it is trying to put across. When we say argument here, we don't mean a loud exchange of words. Tracy Bowell and Gary Kemp in their book "Critical thinking" define an argument as, "a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are the premises intended to support the conclusion". By "premise" they mean "basis" for the conclusion.
So an argument is a statement that gives a conclusion, and a reason for that conclusion. For example: "Taking too much salt is bad for you. People who take too much salt eventually suffer from high blood pressure." The conclusion is that "salt is bad for you". The basis is the experience of people who have taken too much. That is the premise.
When we come to speeches and adverts, we may find it is harder to pin-point the conclusion, the point of the statement. Many speeches and adverts are "decorated" with phrases that add "flavour", but many times there is no real point that is being made.
When you read a paragraph, try and find the one sentence that highlights the point of the whole statement. There is a motive behind the writing, and your aim should be to discover that point, whether you agree with it or not. You can only react properly to the piece of writing when you have identified the point.
When we analyse and understand statements better, there is less chance that we will be conned by "sweet talkers" and lose ourselves in the eloquence. Good analysis is part of wisdom.
The next step will be identifying what is a good argument and what is a bad or faulty argument. But that is for another entry!
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