Transcript Chapter Six: More About Inferences From this chapter, you’ll learn 1. how we make inferences all the time without realizing it. 2.

Chapter Six: More About Inferences
From this chapter, you’ll learn
1. how we make inferences all the time without
realizing it.
2. how writers don’t supply readers with every
single detail essential to their point but instead
rely on readers to add information to the text.
3. how to tell the difference between logical
and illogical inferences.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.1 Defining Terms: Inferences
Inferences are
• conclusions we draw about the unknown
based upon the known.
• educated guesses about something that’s been
implied, or suggested, but never said directly.
• central to understanding an author’s or
speaker’s meaning.
• the result of reading between the lines.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.1 Inferences in Daily Life
• If someone says, “Hey, what’s up?” we infer
that they are not asking about the state of the
ceiling but about our state of mind.
• If someone makes a joke, we often supply the
background information for the punch line, “If
you look like the photo on your driver’s
license, you aren’t well enough to drive.”
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
A Word to the Wise
Much as you draw inferences all the time in
everyday life, you constantly draw inferences
when you read. But here again, you may not
always notice when you do. For example, taken
together, the following picture and caption make
what point?
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Those who have contributed the most to global warming
probably won’t be the ones paying the highest price.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Drawing Inferences as a Reader
What’s the author’s point?
a. Polar bears have contributed heavily to global
warming, and they are going to pay the price
because the icebergs they rely on for mobility
are melting.
b. Humans have contributed heavily to global
warming, but polar bears are paying the price
because the icebergs they rely on for mobility
are melting.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Even Pictures with Captions Need
Inferences from Readers
Most people choose answer b. It seems the
obvious answer. However, to arrive at that
obvious answer, we have to infer that the
author had the following thoughts in mind
when writing the caption for this particular
picture.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Reader-Supplied Inferences
1. Humans are the ones usually mentioned as contributors to
global warming.
2. The melting of icebergs has been repeatedly cited in the
news as a consequence of global warming.
3. Because icebergs are melting, polar bears are getting
stranded in Arctic waters when they fish.
4. Polar bears rely on icebergs as places to rest on
periodically when they fish.
5. Dying in the Arctic seas will be the price that polar bears pay
as a result of global warming they did not cause
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Inferences in Sentences
Even the simplest storylines require the help
of inferences to be understood, for instance:
“Miranda was ironing her favorite blouse for work when
she was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
When she returned to her ironing, after a lengthy chat
with her neighbor--who had brought over some mail
delivered to the wrong address--Miranda was horrified to
see the horseshoe-shaped burn on what had once been
her favorite blouse.”
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
A Word to the Wise
It’s all but impossible for writers to put every
thought essential to meaning on the page.
They rely on readers to add information to the
text by drawing logical inferences, or
conclusions. Those inferences are based on a
combination of the author’s words and the
reader’s background knowledge.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Inferences in Paragraphs
Like sentences, paragraphs don’t always
put everything into words. Often readers
are expected to infer the main idea.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 What’s the implied main idea?
Biographers of the New England, local color writer Sarah
Orne Jewett always mention how Jewett adored her
doctor-father. They never seem to notice that in Jewett’s
fiction, doctors and fathers don’t do very well. Jewett’s
fictional fathers are inclined to sacrifice their families in
the name of their own extravagant dreams and social
schemes. Driven by their desires, they never seem to
notice the suffering they cause others. It’s also true that
Jewett’s fictional doctors are inclined to be arrogant and
are frequently shown up by female healers, who rely on
home remedies rather than fancy medical treatments.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.2 Taken together, what do the
supporting details suggest?
a. Jewett was very good at portraying the flaws of
pompous doctors and self-serving fathers.
b. Jewett’s fiction suggests that her admiration for
her father may have had some anger mixed in.
c. Jewett may have adored her father, but as a
local colorist, she was still inclined to follow the
literary tradition of making men look silly.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Just So you Know
The local color literary tradition began after the Civil War ended in
1865, when writers all across the United States were concerned that
the war’s devastation, along with the spread of cities and industry,
were destroying the customs, speech, and look of different regions
in the United States. Writers like Sarah Orne Jewett in the North,
Sidney Lanier in the South, and Bret Harte in the West tried to
preserve the characteristics of their region in the fiction they
created. They also tried to show the value of the regional traditions
that were fast disappearing under the onslaught of industrialization
and passing time.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.3 Defining Terms: Logical Inferences
Logical Inferences are
• based on the author’s words more than your
personal experience and opinions.
• not contradicted by anything else said in the
passage.
• capable of being explained or proven by the
other sentences in the paragraph.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.3 Defining Terms: Illogical Inferences
Illogical inferences
• favor the readers experiences and opinions more
than the author’s words.
• are based on a few words rather than the
majority of sentences in the paragraph.
• may be contradicted by statements in the
paragraph.
• divert readers from the intended meaning,
sending them off on a train of thought not
implied by the author.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
A Word to the Wise
The final test of an inference is how it fits in with what the
author actually says. Take, for instance, the paragraph on Sarah
Orne Jewett. If a reader had read a biography that stressed
Jewett’s warm relationship with her father and wanted to infer
that the passage focused on the benefits of father-daughter
bonding, the reader would be off the mark. That inference
does not match up with the author’s words, which describe
negative images of fathers. In reading, it’s the actual text--not
the reader’s background knowledge--that is always the final
test of an inference.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6. 3 What’s the logical inference you could
draw from the following paragraph?
Guess Who’s Not Coming for Dinner?
In an effort to help ranchers protect their sheep from
coyotes, researchers injected dead sheep with a poison
and left the carcasses strewn in pastures, where the wolves
could find and eat the remains. As intended, the poison made
the coyotes horribly sick. Within a short time, the coyotes,
who had been routinely slaughtering live sheep for their dinner,
stopped. In fact, it wasn’t long before the coyotes ran away
at the very sight or smell of sheep, and sheep had been crossed
off the coyote menu.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6. 3 Which implied main idea is the
most logical inference?
1. The sheep had learned how to outsmart and
get away from the coyotes.
2. After the coyotes associated eating the sheep
with getting sick, they didn’t want to hunt them
them anymore.
3. The poisoned sheep carcasses didn’t taste very
good, so the coyotes decided to hunt different
prey that tasted better.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.3 Distinguishing Between Logical
and Illogical Inferences
Inference 2 is the logical inference because it
follows from the information supplied by the author.
We can say that eating the ill-tasting sheep stopped the
coyotes from killing because according to the paragraph,
1. the killings stopped after the coyotes ate the
poisoned carcasses.
2. the coyotes didn’t even want to see the sheep
after eating some poisoned ones.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
6.3 Distinguishing Between Logical
and Illogical Inferences
• Implied main idea 1, about the sheep outsmarting
coyotes, is not a logical inference. There’s no mention in
the paragraph of the sheep being either smart or dumb.
• Implied main idea 2, about the sheep not tasting very
good, doesn’t fit the information in the paragraph.
It might account for why the coyotes stopped eating
the sheep, but it wouldn’t explain why they began to
run away at the sight of the sheep. That detail only
works with implied main idea 2: The coyotes associated
the sheep with being sick.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Just So you Know
The description of how the coyotes came to associate the
sheep with being sick and therefore avoided them is a good
example of what’s called classical conditioning, or associated
learning. This kind of learning occurs when a formerly neutral
or even pleasant object or experience gets associated with
something positive or negative. In a famous experiment
based on classical conditioning, experimenters banged a
hammer on a steel bar each time a little boy reached out to
touch a white rat he had once considered a pet. When the
experiment ended, the little boy was afraid of the bell and the
white rat.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Finishing Up: More About Inferences
You’ve previewed the major concepts and skills
introduced in Chapter 6. Take this quick quiz to test
your mastery of those skills and concepts, and you are
ready to read the chapter.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Finishing Up: More About Inferences
1. True or False. Readers sometimes have to
draw inferences to get the main idea of a
paragraph, but sentences can stand on their
own and don’t require any reader-supplied
inferences.
2. True or False. If a writer is really good,
readers never have to supply inferences to
help create meaning.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Finishing Up: More About Inferences
3. Can you identify the characteristics of a
logical inference?
4. Can you describe the characteristics of an
illogical one?
5. Read the following passage and draw a
logical inference.
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Finishing Up: More About Inferences
At first glance, hunger seems an easy word to define. It
means wanting something to eat or having an appetite that
will in time be satisfied. But is that what hunger is for people
around the world? Not quite. For millions of adults and
children everywhere, including the United States, hunger
means a persistently recurring empty stomach that growls and
cramps and seldom feels full. For others, hunger is a constant
companion. These are the victims of war, famine, and backbreaking social inequality. In their world, hunger is a synonym
for starvation. (Adapted from Kaufman and Franz, Biosphere,
2000, p.172)
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Brain Teaser Challenge
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009
Brain Teaser Challenge
When advertisers employ images of
gorgeous men and women using their
products, what inference are they
hoping consumers will draw from
seeing a beautiful woman carrying a
Kate Spade handbag or a good-looking
man drinking José Cuervo?
Copyright Laraine Flemming 2009