Now, that we've identified arguments and 
we've also identified premises and 
conclusions, we need to put them in 
order. 
The actual word order doesn't always tell 
us the order of argument. 
Compare these two sentences. 
Because I am a professor, I teach 
classes. 
I teach classes because I am a professor. 
In those two examples, the words I am a 
professor, in one instance, occur at the 
beginning and at the other instance, 
occur at the end. 
But they actually express exactly the 
same argument. 
Namely, the fact that I'm a professor is 
a reason why I teach classes. 
But contrast both of those with this 
example. 
I teach classes, so I must be a 
professor. 
The point there must be something like 
nobody but professors can teach classes. 
And whether or not that's true, the point 
here is, that's a different argument from 
the first one. 
And we need to represent the difference 
between these two arguments very 
carefully. 
In order to show what is shared by the 
first two examples, but is different than 
the third example, 
we put the arguments in what's called 
standard form. 
And it's really easy. 
Basically, you put the premise down and 
if there's another premise, you put that 
down. 
Then, you draw a line. 
Then, you put what I call a dot pyramid. 
It's basically three little dots with two 
at the bottom and one at the top. 
And then, you put the conclusion after 
that. 
It's also useful, we'll see why later, 
but its useful to number the premises and 
to number the conclusion, so that we can 
refer back to the premise and conclusion 
with the number instead of having to 
repeat it all the time. 
And that's all there is in a standard 
form. 
You just put down the premises on 
different lines, then you draw a line, 
put the little dot pyramid, and then 
write down the conclusion and then number 
them all. 
That's it. 
And this standard form accomplishes what 
we wanted it to. 
Namely, it helps us show what's common to 
the first two examples at the beginning 
of this lecture that distinguishes them 
from the third example. 
So, the first two examples were, I teach 
classes because I'm a professor. 
And because I'm a professor, I teach 
classes. 
They are the sentences. 
The premise that goes above the line is, 
I'm a professor. 
And the conclusion that goes below the 
line and next to the dot pyramid is, I 
teach classes. 
But the next example, the third example 
at the beginning of the lecture was, I 
teach classes, so, I must be a professor. 
Now, that means that I am a professor is 
the conclusion that goes below the line 
next to the dot pyramid. 
And the premise is, I teach classes. 
So, when you put these two in standard 
form right next to each other, it makes 
it absolutely clear what the difference 
is and what's in common to the first two 
that distinguishes them from the third 
one. 
No matter how easy, I think it's still 
worthwhile to do a few exercises just to 
make sure we've got it straight because 
this notion in standard form will become 
important later.