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Some statements look like arguments but are not. For example:

"If the history of Taekwondo is accurate, then General Choi must either have been a power hungry pretender, or the founder of Taekwondo."

This is not an argument; it is a conditional statement. It does not state the premises necessary to support its conclusion, and, even if you add those assertions, it still suffers from a number of other flaws that are discussed later.

An argument is also not the same as an explanation. Suppose that you are trying to argue that John believes that Taekwondo is an ancient art, and you state:

"John said Taekwondo is an ancient art because he believes Taekwondo has its roots in the ancient art of Subak"

This may appear to be a relevant argument but it is not, it is an explanation of John's statement. To see this, remember that a statement of the form "X because Y" may be rephrased as an equivalent statement, of the form "Y therefore X." Doing this with this statement results in:

"John believes that Taekwondo has its roots in the ancient art of Subak, therefore he said that Taekwondo was an ancient art."

Now it is clear that the statement, which seemed to be an argument, is actually assuming the result which it is supposed to be proving.

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