Recipe

Put a statement in standard form

Use when: an everyday sentence makes a claim about how two groups relate, but it is not yet written with all, no, or some, a group, are or are not, and a second group

Goal: a standard-form statement, true in just the same situations as the original, with its type (A, E, I, or O)

Taught in Putting statements in standard form

1. 1

   Name the group the sentence is about and the group it relates it to. If one of them is a single person or thing, make it a one-member group.

   Example

   "Tomás is a goalkeeper": the groups are people identical to Tomás and goalkeepers.

   Why: every standard-form statement is about just two groups, so you can't write one until you know what they are.

2. 2

   Watch for "only" and "none but." They reverse the usual order: "Only P are S" becomes "All S are P." "The only" keeps the order.

   Example

   "Only staff may enter" is about who enters, so the subject is people who may enter.

   Why: getting the direction wrong swaps the terms, and a swapped A-statement makes a different claim.

3. 3

   Use "all" for rules and general claims, "no" for "none" and "no one who," "some" for "a few," "many," and "most," and "some … are not" for "not all."

   Example

   "Most phones have a camera" becomes "Some phones are…," the strongest claim the standard forms can make.

   Why: the standard forms have only three quantity words, so every other one has to be mapped onto them.

4. 4

   Add a noun to a describing word, and turn an action into "things that …".

   Example

   "…are waterproof" becomes "…are waterproof items"; "…charge fast" becomes "…are devices that charge fast."

   Why: the copula "are" can only link one group to another group.

5. 5

   Ask whether the rewrite and the original could ever differ in truth. If they could, go back.

   Why: a rewrite is only useful if it makes the same claim; otherwise you are reasoning about a different sentence.