Once we get comfortable with categorical syllogisms laid out in their scientific logical way, we need to figure out how to deal with arguments that aren't laid out in this organized manner. And with that in mind, we'll move into a three-step process. So step one, we're going to use our indicators to identify our conclusion and put our conclusion at the bottom line. So that's your goal right out the gate is to put your conclusion at the very bottom of your argument. And then step two, you're going to remember that the subject of your conclusion is your minor term and the predicate of your conclusion is your major term. And then step three, based on that information in step two, we're going to find our premise with the major term and we're going to put it in the top and make that our major premise. And then we're going to find our premise with the minor term and put that in the bottom and make that our minor premise. So then we'll have major premise, minor premise conclusion. Here's what that looks like. So with this example, we have no silicates or crystalline substances because all silicates are oxygen compounds and some oxygen compounds are not crystalline substances. I have no idea what any of this means but that doesn't matter, because all I'm trying to do right now is organize it into standard form. An argument that was already organized in a standard form would have the conclusion at the bottom, but I'm not sure if the conclusion is at the bottom here. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to look for my indicators. I'm gonna try and find conclusion and premise indicators and see if I can't set the premises and the conclusion according to that. No silicates are crystalline substances because. Okay because is an indicator. It's not a conclusion indicator, but I'm gonna mark it right now. Still looking for conclusion indicators. That's the best bet. All silicates are oxygen compounds and some oxygen compounds are not crystalline substances. Okay, all I see in here is the premise indicator “because,” but there's something else that's going to help me in this argument. And that's the word “and.” And tells me we have a continuation of thought, so more of the same and so we know with this premise indicator that what's coming up next is our premise. And tells us more of the same, so what's coming up here is another premise. So we have all silicates or oxygen compounds, some oxygen compounds are not crystalline substances. Those are our premises. The problem is I'm not going to know which premise goes where until I have my conclusion sorted out and the parts of it identified. So I'm going to leave the premises alone and go to the conclusion. No silicates are crystalline substances and put that at the bottom. So we're gonna replace silicates with S crystalline substances with C and so at the bottom of our argument we're gonna write the conclusion no S are C. Now it's time for the work to sort out what premise goes where. We know S is our minor term of the conclusion because it's in the subject position of the conclusion, so that's our minor term. And that minor term is going to go in the bottom or second premise. This C is the predicate of the conclusion; the predicate of the conclusion is called our major term and whatever has the major term in it is going to go in the top or first premise. So now we just go back and look at our premises, find which premise has the S in it, that's going to go in the second location. Find which premise has the C in it, and that's going to go in the first location. Returning to our premises we see all silicates are oxygen compounds, so that's going to be all S are 0. And the S is the minor term and so this is going to be called the minor premise. It's going in the second position, so we're gonna go all S are O because once again it has the S in it and there's the S from the conclusion. The subject of the conclusion which makes it the minor term. Now just to double check our work, I assume that the other premise is going to go up top but just to be sure we're gonna be sure that that C of our major term occurs in this second premise of our argument. So it says some oxygen compounds are not crystalline substances. I'm going to rewrite that as some oxygen compounds O are not C for crystalline substances, and sure enough yeah there's the C of our major term. It does happen in this second premise so we're going to move that premise to the top location and write some O are not C. For bonus points do we remember what this O term is referred to as? I'll tell you the answer in three two one go: it's the middle term. So we have the major term with the C that occurs in the top premise, we have the minor term the S that occurs in the bottom premise, and we have our middle term which is repeated in both premises. And now our argument is set up for formal scientific logical analysis. And so what we've done here is converted a non-standard form argument into standard form I hope this helps. Take care bye.