Consider any assumptions the author is making. Assumptions may be
unstated in the piece of writing you are assessing, but the writer may be
basing her or his thesis on them. What does the author have to believe
is true before the rest of her or his essay makes sense?
Example: "[I]f a college recruiter argues that the school is superior to most
others because its ratio of students to teachers is low, the unstated
assumptions are (1) that students there will get more attention, and
(2) that more attention results in a better education"
(Crusius and Channell, The Aims of Argument, Mayfield Publishing Co., 1995).
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