Formulating Inferences

Inference comes from the verb “to infer.” When you infer, you make an educated guess about the meaning and significance of details and connections, based on what you observe and what you know. These inferences represent a reader’s thinking about a reading selection. They are essential for being able to arrive at a critical understanding of a writer’s idea.

What exactly do you do when you make an inference? Essentially, you make a little mental leap—an intellectual jump. You jump mentally or intellectually from what you know to what you don’t know. This mental leap is based on the observations you make and the connections you discover among your observations. If you see a man entering an apartment with a key, you infer that he lives there. If you see a couple entering a house through a window, you infer perhaps that they don’t live there—or that they locked themselves out.

Inferences can be right or wrong. That is, an inference is not necessarily true. In the example about the man entering an apartment with a key, you inferred that he lived there. But that inference would be incorrect if he had borrowed the key from a relative or friend or if he was hired to walk the dog.