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Deductive Reasoning

"Deductive" reasoning derives from a Latin word meaning to "lead down from." It is the process of beginning with a general statement and then moving down to specific supporting details.

For example:

GENERAL STATEMENT: Answering legislative mail in a Congressional office is a complex operation.

1. Specific Statement: Legislative mail must be accurately logged in and routed to the appropriate staff member for response.
2. Specific Statement: If a piece of mail can be answered with a form letter, the staff member must code it properly and route it to the computer operator.
3. Specific Statement: If the correspondence cannot be answered with a form letter, an individual response must be drafted and forwarded to the computer operator for entry.
4. Specific Statement: The computer operator must accurately enter the correspondent's name and address, and either the code number of a form response or the text of an original reply.
5. Specific Statement: Computer-generated letters must be separated and forwarded for signature to the member of Congress, or his/her designee.

The Deductive Theme Pattern

The writer presents a general proposition, or thesis, in his introductory paragraph and then supports that thesis with more specific statements in a series of developmental paragraphs. The conclusion is a brief restatement, usually in other words, of the main thesis.

Note that the function of the thesis statement is to state the main idea of an entire paper. This purpose is similar to that of the topic sentence: stating the main idea of an individual paragraph. For the mathematically inclined, the thesis statement is to the multi­paragraph paper as the topic sentence is to the paragraph:

The typical multi-paragraph student paper, either expository or persuasive, will likely be structured as illustrated below:

This schematic demonstrates a typical pattern of organization, one which you should find very helpful in ordering your multi-paragraph papers so that all of the supporting details support one clear thesis. But it is neither necessary nor always desirable to imitate this rigid pattern. You may want, for example, to state your thesis in the very first sentence instead of withholding it to the end of an introductory paragraph. Similarly, not every supporting paragraph needs to begin with a topic sentence, although the topic idea of the paragraph ought to be clearly evident somewhere within it.

Regard the deductive theme pattern as a general guide, one that will both focus and order your thinking, and not as a rigid prescription that replaces that thinking.

EXAMPLE:

A deductive multi-paragraph paper might be ordered something along the lines suggested by this brief outline:

THESIS: Political Action Committees (PACs) are a growing menace to our Democratic form of government.

Topic Sentence 1: Our Congressmen and Senators are becoming increasingly dependent on campaign contributions from PACs.

Topic Sentence 2:  PAC contributions, at a minimum, buy the kind of access to public officials which is denied to the ordinary citizen.

Topic Sentence 3: PACs represent special interests like big banks and big oil, and not the interests of most citizens.

Conclusion: PACs are a growing danger to the ordinary citizen's right to be represented in his or her government.

With the addition of appropriate introductory matter and the inclusion of adequate supporting information, a multi-paragraph paper using the deductive pattern could be generated to support the thesis.

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