In high school statistics class my teacher Mr. Thomas always told us to check our assumptions. In statistics assumptions are used to determine whether or not a study is suitable for analysis. Typical statistical procedures require for a sample to be a simple random sample of the population being questioned. Another assumption is that the sample size is greater than a certain amount because the sample should reflect as much of the population as permitted by the funding available to conduct said study. Such an assumption attempts to assure that the sample reflects a good portion of the population and to eliminate possible bias when the study is a survey.

Assumptions in an argument are important because they help the reader or the audience the author is trying to convince to see where they drew their conclusions from. Using assumptions in an argument might not effectively deliver the point across because these assumptions might pertain to the author's beliefs and not necessarily that of the author's audience. The reader then must under their own reasoning figure the assumptions in order to determine whether or not to agree with the author.