Deductive Essays

A deductive essay is an essential essay that students need to write at some point during their academic journey. Deductive essays are used to evaluate a student’s understanding of the course taken and his knowledge of the subject.

In general, deductive essays are scenario based and allow only limited resources to be used to deduce the solution. With limited resources we mean, matter has to be used that has been stated in the scenario, case or question. In some deductive essays, it is safe for students to use their own assumptions where necessary. Therefore, we are able to make a complex deductive essay a simple one by breaking it into smaller parts. These parts are based on the key elements of a deductive paper and the things what teachers look for in a deductive essay. These are: the premise, the evidence and the conclusion.

Premise is the fact evident in the question or the assumption of the student. Note: Do not assume a premise before you have read the entire question, scenario or case. Since your assumption will be leading to the conclusion based on the evidence you gather. For example:

  • Premise –people who don’t eat meat are vegetarians
  • Evidence – Kimberly doesn’t ever eat meat
  • Conclusion – Kimberly is a vegetarian.

(Obviously, the example given above is very simple and usually deductive essays are not that simple.)

A deductive essay is used by professors and teachers to evaluate how much a student has been able to learn within the course. This is used to measure how much comprehension and analytical skill has been learned and how the student will use it in his not everyday situations. Most of the times, the professors and teachers will try to judge the student based on his decision making skills based on what he already knows and the new knowledge being shown in the paper. In addition to that, students are also judged on assumptions or inferences.

Putting this in a simpler way, deductive writing or reasoning is a little more than just making assessments of a given situation but to linking it with what you already know – this kind of writing is mostly used in detective stories. It is important that the conclusion should be based on the most plausible assumption. Like in the example above, you would not assume that Kimberly is a vegetarian because you never say her eat burgers or fried chicken; you would need to investigate (interview or as her, her friends etc.) further before writing your conclusion.

To be able to write an A grade deductive essay, you should be able to prove your points, show that you have clearly understood the situation and it should be revealed in the essay’s structure. With every new paragraph you write, make sure it focuses on a new and different point, but they should all be pointing to the main premise and should be supported by strong evidence. The conclusion should just state what the evidence collected and analyzed resulted the writer to infer.