Implicit Premise Free Essay Example

Implicit premise is a missing premise that is supposed to support the conclusion to make the argument a good and well-formed argument.

The implicit premise from “There are sins worse than cheating” by The Unskooled Professor is, performance of students and teachers evaluate the value of the university.

The argument talks about what kind of grades a student gets when they are found guilty of academic dishonesty, then concludes with a point saying that academic dishonesty will destruct the value of the university. However it does not point out why academic dishonesty is related to the value of the university. If I were to reconstruct the argument, I would interpret it as shown below.

Without implicit:

1) Students guilty of academic dishonesty will receive a letter grade of FD ,“Failure with Dishonesty”
2) Receiving an FD is worse than receiving an F
3) Academic dishonesty is a concoction of individual professors
4) Therefore, academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university.

Adding the implicit premise:

1) Students guilty of academic dishonesty will receive a letter grade of FD; “Failure with Dishonesty”
2) Receiving an FD is worse than receiving an F
3) Academic dishonesty is a concoction of individual professors
4) Performance of students and teachers evaluate the value of the university
5) Therefore, academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university.

Before adding the implicit premise, there were no premises to support why the values of the university will fall due to academic dishonesty. In general, most people know that academic dishonesty will give a student a failing mark and will bring down the grade average of the university which evaluates the value and ratings of universities.

However, for people who does not have any knowledge about universities will not know why the values of the university would be ultimately destructive. By adding the implicit premise, a stronger argument can be formed and can support and reason why the conclusion may be true.