Drawing Inferences

What is drawing inferencences

Drawing inferences mean choosing the most likely explanation from the  facts and hand. There are several ways to help you draw conslucions from what an author may be implying.

Drawing conclusions refers to information that is implied or inferred.  This means that the information is never clearly stated. 

Writers often tell you more than they say directly.  They give you hints or clues that help you "read between the lines."  Using these clues to give you a deeper understanding of your reading is called inferring. When you infer, you go beyond the surface details to see other meanings that the details suggest or imply (not stated).  When the meanings of words are not stated clearly in the context of the text, they may be implied – that is, suggested or hinted at.  When meanings are implied, you may infer them.

Inference is just a big word that means a conclusion or judgement.  If you infer that something has happened, you do not see, hear, feel, smell, or taste the actual event.  But from what you know, it makes sense to think that it has happened.  You make inferences everyday.  Most of the time you do so without thinking about it.  Suppose you are sitting in your car stopped at a red signal light.  You hear screeching tires, then a loud crash and breaking glass.  You see nothing, but you infer that there has been a car accident.  We all know the sounds of screeching tires and a crash.  We know that these sounds almost always mean a car accident.  But there could be some other reason, and therefore another explanation, for the sounds.  Perhaps it was not an accident involving two moving vehicles.  Maybe an angry driver rammed a parked car.  Or maybe someone played the sound of a car crash from a recording.  Making inferences means choosing the most likely explanation from the facts at hand.

What you need to know about inferences? 

1.There are logical and illogical inferences, inferences that "fit" the rest of the text and inferences that don't. Make sure your inference has the right fit by relying on the author's words more than on your own feelings and opinions. To give you an obvious example: If the writer uses glowing language to describe the presidency of Bill Clinton but never states an opinion of the Clinton years in office, you probably shouldn't infer that the writer is a Clinton critic just because you yourself thought Bill Clinton was a terrible president.

2. Think of inferring implied main ideas as a two-step process, moving from part to whole. Your first step is to understand what each sentence contributes to your knowledge of the topic. Next ask yourself what the sentences combine as group to suggest. The answer to that question is the implied main idea of the paragraph.

3. If you draw an inference about the main idea, check to see if the your inference is contradicted by any statements in the paragraph. If it is, you have probably drawn an illogical inference, one that does not follow from the information given. With particularly difficult readings, see if you can actually identify the language or statements that led you to the main idea you inferred. This kind of close reading is a great inference check. It also gives you practice doing the kind of thoughtful reading that guarantees remembering.

4. Transitions such as "consequently," "next," and "in summary" definitely help readers make connections between sentences and paragraphs. Transitions are the considerate author's way of saying, "This is the connection you need to make between what you just read and what's coming up." However, transitions are not as commonly used as readers might like. It's often the reader's job to supply sentence and paragraph connections. In other words, it's the reader's job to draw the right inference. If a sentence doesn't open with a transition—and a good many won't—make sure you know how the sentence you are reading connects to the ideas that came before.

5. Pay especially close attention to sentence openers. That's where you will often get the clues you need to infer relationships between sentences and paragraphs.

6. Be on the look-out for key allusions or idioms (expressions that might seem completely out of place to those just learning the language, but which make sense to those who grew up hearing or reading these expressions), e.g., she loved her job; the money was "icing on the cake"). Allusions and idioms often suggest meanings that are central to the author's message. For instance, if the writer says that "the shotgun marriage between the unions and management dissolved once the war was over" you can infer that the unions and management were working together because they were forced to by necessity. However, the writer doesn't say anything about either side being forced by necessity. Instead, she uses an idiom and expects reader to draw the correct inference.

7. If the text includes visual aids, but neither the title nor caption tells you exactly how they relate to the author's meaning, take the time to figure out the relationship between text and graphic. Inferring relationships between the author's words and the visual aids will deepen your overall understanding of the point or points being made. You will also have two ways, one verbal, one visual, to anchor information in long-term memory.