How to Write a Deductive Essay in Religious Studies: Helpful Hints for College Students

A college deductive essay is fundamentally based on the certain type of logical reasoning that is usually called as deduction. In academic papers, deduction is not just about subtle reasoning. It is actually the process of reasoning in which the author uses a range of proposition statements that helped to arrive at a logical conclusion. In other words, deductive reasoning requires you to identify a prospective explanation for a phenomenon on the basis of available evidence.

If the task to write a deductive essay seems challenging for you, you will be happy to know that deduction is something that you really use in your everyday life even without realizing it. Here is an example of how you might go about deductive in terms of religion:

• General principle: Hijab is the type of clothes that Muslim women wear for many different reasons.
• Particular instance: The women wear hijab.
• Conclusion: These women are Muslims.

Just like deductive reasoning, a deductive essay is based on a logical progression. In many cases, a deductive essay might include no standard thesis statement just like the other essays do. Instead, the role of the typical thesis statement belongs to the conclusion.
This type of essay is very popular in many different subjects and religion is one of them. Once your professor wants to make certain that you understand the topic and can provide a logical progression of thoughts about it, you’re assigned a deductive essay. Using the tips below will let you understand how this paper should be written.

• Creationism Versus Evolution;
• Why LGBT Individuals Can’t Come to Terms with Religion;
• The Reasons for Which Women Should Become the Priests;
• Why Church Attendance Improves Teenagers’ Moral Beliefs;
• Why Atheism Is a Religion Too;
• Why Religions Can Have No Gods at All;
• Why the Laws Should Regulate the Existing Religions.

Composing a Deductive Essay: Things to Learn

The first thing that the author of a deductive essay is supposed to do is to provide the desired assumption. You have to take some relevant issue that has been widely discussed in order to get as many readers interested as possible. If you think you can write about some simple issues, go ahead. But in this case, you better be prepared that nobody might really want to read another paragraph of the most boring essay on earth about something that everyone knows.

The next step for the author to take is about gathering relevant data. In case with the topics in religion, you can use some of the most famous online portals like Religion Online, IslamiCity, Christianity Explained or Buddhist Studies depending on the sub-topic of religious studies that you explore. It is important to evaluate the facts and data that you have gathered in accordance with the general situation on the issue. The author has to use only the trusted and tested sources in order to avoid unprofessional statements. Usually, if students have friends that represent different world religions, they can approach them to get some first-hand knowledge.

If you rely upon internet in your religious studies deduction, keep in mind that a lot of materials out there are provided for money and are far from the truth. Authenticity of your statements should be your priority, and the links between them should be logical and strong as well.

When you compose a deductive essay in religious studies, you should remember some of its distinctive features. For instance, you shouldn’t be surprised with the fact that sometimes this type of papers doesn’t include a typical thesis statement that you got used to in argumentative or narrative essays. This is mainly caused by the purpose of thesis that actually is an intermediate conclusion. All the conclusions that you make should be given in the end of the deductive essay, which means everything that goes before needs to be fulfilled by means of deductive reasoning. To get the idea how to write each part of the deductive essay in religion, you have to perceive the following steps that include the premise, the evidence and the conclusion.

The Premise

In the deductive essay written for religious studies, you have to start your thoughts with some background information. At first, you have to give some general truth that eventually provide enough sources to make strong and logical conclusion. Your readers should hear something common in order to begin to analyze the rest of your paper and this is when you have to get deductive. The example of the premise might sounds like “The main reason why inquisition was started was to purify Catholicism in all territories”. This premise provides your target audience with some general information, as well as develops in a certain direction in order to provoke the readers into pondering over the current issue. The other good examples of reliable premise in religious studies are the following:

• Mormons aren’t allowed to drink coffee, tea or alcohol.
• Many religions in the world require believers to refuse medical treatment.
• In Buddhism, Nirvana is a state achieved through enlightenment.
• Ancient Egyptians strongly believed in an afterlife.

All of these statements are a common knowledge, which means the starting point of your paper will be smooth and perfect. Besides, with the help of similar issues, the author will have an opportunity to submit the deductive essay for religion class with enough background details.

The Evidence

Writing a strong deductive essay in religious studies is impossible without proving each of your main arguments. The evidence is the tool that the author uses as some sort of transition between the premise and the conclusion. As you can see, the evidence part is the most important one. As we’ve already said previously, your task is to give the path that goes from the background information to the logical conclusions. For that reason, the ‘transition’ part must be concise and include logical chain, so that your target audience have the necessary details to properly analyze each piece of information on their way to your conclusion. At this stage, the author proposes his or her analysis of any trustworthy resources that were used (books, religious journals, blogs, academic articles, and so on) as well as expands the ideas into the proper and logical direction. Once you give clear and trusted examples that Osiris was the ruler of the underworld in Ancient Egypt, you will be able to convince your target audience that Ancient Egyptians has a strong belief in an afterlife.

The Conclusion

In case with the deductive essay in religious studies, the concluding paragraph is highly important due to the fact that the whole essay is written in order to draw up strong and logical conclusion. You, as the author, have an opportunity to arrive at more than one conclusion (that you can’t afford in case with the other types of academic essays). Typically, you will face several possibilities at the end of your discussion. Regardless of your situation, all possible conclusions that you draw should be clear and specifically focused. Each of your conclusions should be based on your premises and the evidence that you used. Besides, the deductive essay in religious studies should end with a restatement of your thesis statements and summarizing all pieces of information that the author presented in the text. Before the writer starts, he or she needs to consider what potential conclusions may appear later. Besides, before you begin to write, you have to build a comprehensive plan that your text will be based on entirely.

Keep in mind that the deductive writing in religion is based on reasoning. The author cannot just come up with exact conclusions when he or she is in the process of writing.
If, for example, your deductive essay is based on the premise ‘Islam is a peaceful religion’, you will have to mention the following conclusions within the final section:

• Violence emanates from parts of the Muslim world community but it doesn’t mean that violence is a product of complex political and social circumstances.
• The emergence of many of the extremist organizations has more to do with the United States of America than Muslim countries.
• Government dysfunction all over the Middle East has also opened the door for numerous extremist groups.

These facts will convince your readers that Islam is not a religion of violence.

The Deductive & Inductive Reasoning: Get the Difference

There are several ways that you can provide information in your essay, and deductive or inductive reasoning are among them. Both inductive and deductive reasoning appear natural to people because we all tend to make use of them in everyday life when communicating with each other. Before you start working on your deductive essay, you need to get the difference between these techniques:

• Inductive reasoning requires you to present various facts and then sum up them with a logical conclusion.
• Deductive reasoning states a strong thesis statements and then presents reliable supportive facts, data or examples.

Once you know how each of these forms of reasoning function and in what way they are different, you will get a better idea of how to translate your thinking into clear writing when working on a deductive essay in such a controversial area as religious studies.

To sum up, it doesn’t matter what technique you choose to wrote a deductive essay for religion subject, there are more important things to take into consideration. First of all, you have to use the evidence and facts that are true and reliable. Do your deductive research carefully and on the basis of appropriate sources. Make certain that each idea is cited correctly. The author of the deductive essay needs to avoid the words of absolute nature such as ‘only’, ‘never’ and ‘always’. These words will automatically exclude any sort of anomalies. Stay away from writing questions. In this essay, your task is to give answers. And finally, do not use quotes in conclusions or statements since they are not your own thoughts or ideas, which means they will undermine your authority straight away.

All things considered, a college essay based on deductive reasoning is a form of art. The point here is that by means of this paper you have an opportunity to arrive at grounded and logical conclusions related to the topic or come up with a reasonable solution to the debated situation or even uncover the identity of a person if adequate information is available.