Deductive Essays

A Deductive Essay tests students' critical thinking and analytical skills. Your tutor may ask you to create a premise or premises, identify facts, and draw a conclusion. Students must demonstrate their power to argue out facts and convince their readers.

This essay details the structure of a Deductive Essay, the argument styles available, and the process of writing the essay.

Parts of a Deductive Essay

The essay is made up of three key parts:

1. The premise

You cannot proceed with the essay if you do not have a premise. A premise is a key fact that prompts the need to provide evidence. You can have more than one premise in your essay. However, the more premises you have, the longer the essay you will write. At the premises, you will provide background information. For example, "Universities in the United States have students who engage in cheating." In your background, you should tell the readers more about universities that are in the United States.

You can also explain the nature of examinations in the institutions. Another example of a premise is, "Genetically Modified foods cause cancer." Do not assume that your readers understand the meaning of Genetically Modified Foods. Therefore, explain the meaning of the terms that you have used before you proceed further. Here you can explain in brief how laboratories use alters the genetic makeup of food and the reasons for doing so.

2. Evidence

You are supposed to provide proof of the premises that you have mentioned. It would be best if you relied on facts that will convince your readers to agree with your conclusion. Look for scientific findings and information that supports your premises. The above example of cheating in all universities in the United States demands that you provide findings.

Therefore, look for studies about cheatings in the institutions, preferably all of them in the country. You may find several studies arguing the same. Ensure that you get as much evidence as possible to make your argument strong. For example, if you only use one case to conclude, your readers may consider your essay fallacious. However, if you get several cases from credible sources, you will make a convincing essay. The premises can have the following structure:

Researcher A confirmed these universities to have reported cheating during examinations
Study B found that engineering/medical students from universities offering the courses could not do practical work.
Findings C established that students tested after their graduation could not remember what they learned in their colleges.
Research D documented students confessing to having sought external support t have their term papers written.

3. The conclusion

You must note that a Deductive Essay's conclusion is not the same as those of other essays. Here, you are not supposed to summarize the arguments in the previous sections but rather to conclude. After presenting your evidence, you have the conclusion section as a platform to finalize your end of arguments. Let's take an example of the above example of the premise on cheating in the universities in the United States. If you consider the four premises listed, you will realize that you can use them to conclude.

Styles of argument in a Deductive Essay

You can use several styles of deductive reasoning to write your essay. Despite the various styles, the essay is the same because of the common structure. The common styles include:

Categorical arguments

Categorical arguments are logical arguments with two premises and a conclusion. The words used include "all" and "some." The examples aforementioned in this paper are some of the examples of this style of argument.

Propositional arguments

Unlike categorical arguments, propositional arguments use words such as "if." For example:

Premise: If a doctor cannot diagnose a chronic disease on the first encounter with a patient, the expert cheated during the university examination.

Evidence: Dr. Ben Roberts could not diagnose brain cancer when he attended to a patient in a hospital

Conclusion: Dr. Ben Roberts cheated during his university examination.

An outline on the process of writing a deductive essay

Create the following outline to guide you in writing a good essay:

Identify a premise: Write down the premise and break it down to know the pieces of evidence you will search for.
Look for evidence to support the premise. List all the evidence that will support your premise. Ensure they are credible to you and, by extension, to your readers. Ensure that you have much evidence to strengthen your arguments. This will enable you to make a convincing conclusion authoritatively.
Conclude. Let the conclusion be clear and in line with the arguments.

From the outline, you are good to write a draft of your essay, proofread and edit it for syntax and grammar.

Important tips when writing a Deductive Essay topic

Be clear about your premise. Make your premise the topic/thesis statement.
Conduct extensive research to get credible proof. Find the correct sources to avoid backlash from your readers. If the premises are insufficient, you have no reason to proceed to outline your essay.
Be consistent with your thesis statement. The premise that you have made should inform the entire essay. Evidence you are giving should merge with the premise. Finally, the conclusion should proceed from the arguments made in the previous chapters.
Make your conclusion clear and convincing. Be confident in declaring your stance because of the strength of the evidence you have given.

Final Thoughts

A Deductive Essay tests your analytical skills. Be confident and curious to find facts that will support your premise. Get as many facts as possible to boost your premise and guide you towards a credible conclusion. Considering that a deductive essay is relatively scientific, be consistent with the structure by aligning your arguments to the main thesis. Read several Deductive essay topic examples to master the art of writing.

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