Diagram the following conditional statement and find its contrapositive: “To be a good public speaker, it is essential that one rehearses in front of a mirror.”
Answer
This is a tricky sentence to diagram because it does not feature one of the common diagramming indicator words. However, it does use the word “essential,” which is basically a synonym for “necessary.” So, the statement tells us that rehearsing in front of a mirror is necessary for something else. So, we will put “rehearse in front of a mirror” in the necessary slot in the diagram. Then, to fill out the rest of the diagram, we can put the other term, “good public speaker,” on the sufficient side.