Hi, this is Mr. Sato. Let's learn about making inferences.
Don't be scared off by this academic-sounding word.
You probably made 20 inferences before lunch, regardless of whether or not
you knew that's what they're called. You do make inferences. Picture this.
There's breakfast cereal all over the ground and the box looks kind of
chewed up, and your dog-- who got into the cinnamon bread
last week-- is over there with a guilty look on
his face. You naturally infer that the dog got into the breakfast cereal, right?
And you're probably correct. That's an inference. An inference is just
coming to a logical conclusion from whatever evidence you have.
It's one of the most valuable thinking skills you can learn.
First, here are three different forms of the word:
Inference: You make an inference. Infer: You infer something.
Inferential: Your conclusion is inferential.
Now, it is possible that your dog is innocent, and that
cat ninjas invaded the house while you were gone,
had a crazy party, and threw the breakfast cereal all over the place,
and then chewed on the box just to frame the dog. It's not impossible,
and it's more interesting than the dog theory.
But is that really what happened? Sadly, there isn't any real evidence
to support that idea over the far likelier hungry dog theory.
And as for your wonderful but will-power-impaired dog,
Well, there's clear evidence.
1) He was home with the cereal that you forgot to put back in the cabinet.
2) He did this before -- with the cinnamon bread.
And 3) your dog couldn't tell a lie to save his life, and
he's totally broadcasting his guilt
with that expression on his face. So it could it have been cat ninjas, sure,
but the evidence points to the dog.
People believing highly improbable ideas just because they're
more interesting than the conclusion that's actually
supported by strong, reliable evidence-- that's how conspiracy
theories get started and people end up in cuckoo-crazy-land saying that
space aliens assassinated President Kennedy
because he was trying to send men to the moon where they
might discover the secret alien outpost.
So, in life, you make inferences about things you see around you.
In your Language Arts class,
you make inferences in literature. Authors generally don't like spelling things
out and making their meaning all obvious, because that isn't what real life is like,
and literature usually tries to reflect real life. What you need to do is look carefully
at the evidence in the book or story you're reading, typically incomplete evidence,
and figure out what it means.
It's like looking at an incomplete drawing and using your imagination
to complete it and figure out what it's a drawing of.
For example, Mary Hood's insightful short story
"How Far She Went," is about a woman in the American South
who is trying to save her
angry, rebellious granddaughter from a biker gang.
Although it never says this literally, you can tell that the teenage granddaughter
is headed for a life of trouble just like her now-deceased mom.
Furthermore, an alert reader will be able to make an inference
that the grandmother has a kind of second chance because,
if she's willing to make the kinds of sacrifices that are necessary,
she can create a strong relationship with her
granddaughter that she never had with her own daughter, this girl's mother.
None of this is actually spelled out in the text, but you can figure it out if
you're paying attention. This is often called "reading between the lines."
How do we know this if it doesn't clearly and explicitly say it in the text?
Well, evidence.
When you make an inference, you have to back it up with evidence from the text,
or why would anyone believe you?
Any bonehead can have any opinion -- "I think the biker gang
just wants to take them both to Disneyland!" --
but without strong supporting evidence, that person is just letting off gas,
talking about something without any real knowledge or understanding
and you really don't want to be that person.
So if I wanted to support the claim that the grandma is getting a second
chance to create a loving relationship with her granddaughter
that she didn't have with her own daughter,
I might point to p. 115, give a quote that supports that idea, then clearly explain
to the reader why it proves what I say it proves,
even if the connection seems obvious to me. It might not be obvious to my reader.
Then I'd find another good quote, explain how it supports my inference,
and so on, until my analysis is as rock-solid as I can make it.
That's all analysis is: saying "I think this, and here's a breakdown of why I think it.
You also make inferences when reading nonfiction.
State standardized tests will almost certainly expect you to be able to do this.
A standardized test in the Great State of Washington asked,
"what idea is best supported by information"
in an article about the California Gold Rush.
That's an inference question.
To get this question right, you have to understand the article well enough
to make an accurate inference.
So read, don't just skim.
It gave four possible answers. A. James Marshall's discovery had
life-changing results.
B. John Sutter and James Marshall were overjoyed about their find.
C. James Marshall's discovery led to new methods of searching for gold,
and D.-- John Marshall established new settlements for gold seekers.
I won't make you read the article, but a person who did read
and understand the article would know that right answer was A.
Sutter's land was flooded by prospectors hoping to get rich
quick and his estate was ruined. And even though he and John Marshall were
first to find the gold, Sutter became an alcoholic and died a very poor man.
That's a pretty life-changing result!
And, of course, the article never included the phrase "life-changing result,"
but a skilled reader would be able to read between the lines make that inference.
And if you can do this in a book or in a nonfiction article,
you can do it in your real life.
And this is where the ability to infer matters most.
Let's say you're starting a business If you're alert to the clues around you,
you can make better decisions to assure that
your business is successful. You might notice something
about the location or nearby competition.
Or if you're a soldier, if you can look around you at the geography
of the battlefield, at the history of enemy activity
in this area, and other clues you pick up, and then read the situation
with strong critical thinking skills, you can infer whether you're entering
a dangerous situation, and what you ought to do about it.
Or when it comes to matters of romance and dating,
If you're paying attention, you might infer that that person over there
is interested in you, and something good might happen if
you gave him or her a little encouragement.
Again, you're still guessing, but you're making an educated guess,
and -- really -- that's about the best you can hope for in a lot of
real life situations.
Before wrapping up, we should touch on incorrect inferences.
As you know, it's possible to come to the wrong conclusion,
and sometimes that's just the fault of weak reasoning.
Like the cat ninjas.
This kind of error in reasoning is called a fallacy.
(They use that term in math too.)
I won't go into detail on the large and complex topic of fallacies,
but it's easily looked up on the Internet.
And remember, the simplest answer that takes all the evidence into account
is usually the correct one.
Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Sure, there might have been a powerful but tiny, localized earthquake under
the kitchen table that knocked the cereal box off the table,
scattered the cereal, and your dog just thought he was protecting
the house from the strangely behaving cereal box when he attacked it.
But-- probably not.
So the ability to make inferences is one of the things that makes a person what
we call "smart" And we say the person who can't make inferences is
"a little slow on the uptake," right?
because other people figure out what's going on
more quickly than he or she does.
We have to spell things out explicitly for that person.
So, when your teacher says he or she is going to help you learn
how to make good inferences,
imagine in your head that he or just said that you're going to learn
how to be smart today.
You're going to learn how to think, because, ultimately, that's what
making inferences is all about.
All right? Now, go enjoy getting even smarter than you already are.