Rewriting Arguments in Standard Form When an argument occurs in ordinary language, the premises and conclusion may appear in various orders. Multiple premises may be combined into a single sentence in order to make the language seem more natural to the reader. When you are analyzing an argument, however, it is important to be able to examine each premise individually and to place them in an order that makes it easiest for you to follow the argument's reasoning. When you restructure an argument from natural language into a standard form, you should rewrite each premise and the conclusion as a separate, complete, and declarative sentence without pronouns such as "it" or "they." Then list the premises in the order that makes the most sense. Last, you should list the conclusion. Restructuring an argument in this way allows you to more easily see the relationship between the premises and the conclusion, and it allows you to examine each premise individually in order to determine its truth value. Consider the following sample argument that has been restructured for you: Sample Argument Ticks are pesky, dangerous, and ubiquitous. Therefore, they should be exterminated, seeing as how they carry Lyme disease. Restructured Sample Argument P1: Ticks are pesky. P2: Ticks are dangerous. P3: Ticks are ubiquitous. P4: Ticks carry Lyme disease. C: Ticks should be exterminated. Restructure the arguments here, following the example. List the premises in the same order as they occur in the original passage. List the conclusion at the end. Use complete declarative sentences, and replace pronouns with a suitable noun phrase when appropriate. Argument B Every year, the United States purchases billions of dollars of oil overseas, but it has a large stockpile of oil in Alaska. Therefore, the United States should pursue oil drilling in Alaska, because doing so would eliminate the need for foreign oil and stabilize the U.S. economy. P1: P2: P3: P4: C: