5. Th e insanity plea should be done away with; criminals should lose this easy way out. Killers can theoretically spend as little as six months in a mental hospital, then be released. It’s time to take a stand for safety and put psychotic killers in prison.

Th e following selections were taken from the letters to the editor section of a newspaper.

Each can be interpreted as expressing one or more arguments. Begin by identifying the conclusion of each. Th en disengage the covert assumptions, value claims, and other cognitive assertions from the emotive language and translate them into emotively neutral premises. Use the two examples in the text as models.

Finally, evaluate the restructured arguments. Some may turn out to be good ones.