Premise Indicators vs Conclusion Indicators Premise Indicators:  A premise is a fact, proposition, or statement from which a conclusion is made.  Premises support and explain the conclusion.  Why the conclusion should be accepted.  Ask yourself the following questions: o What reasons has the author used to persuade me? o Why should I believe this argument? o What evidence exists? Conclusion Indicators:  A conclusion is a statement or judgement that follows from one or more reasons.  Conclusions are supposed to be drawn from and rest on the premises.  Ask yourself the following questions: o What does the author want me to believe? o What is the author driving at? o What point follows from the others? Words that indicate when a premise or conclusion is present: Premise Indicators Conclusion Indicators Because Thus Since Therefore For Hence For example, Consequently For the reason that As a result, In that So Given that Accordingly As indicated by clearly Due to Must be that Owing to Shows that This can be seen from We know this by Conclude that Follows that For this reason,  There are many more words that could be used by these are the most common.  The first two are the ones that are used most frequently.