What is the difference between “making an inference” and “drawing a conclusion”?
The American Heritage dictionary says that to conclude is to “reach a decision or form an opinion about; infer or deduce.” So “drawing a conclusion” is the process of making a decision, after consideration of facts — the definition equates it with inferring. And the definition of “infer” is to “conclude from evidence …”. Again, they are presented as equivalent. So using these definitions, to “make an inference” — or, more simply, to infer — is to conclude, and to conclude is to infer. However . . . “Infer” has also been used for hundreds of years to mean something more like “imply”, or to the process of a person picking up on an implication. According to Merriam-Webster online, both meanings of infer were acceptable until sometime around World War I, after which textual commentators began to condemn this usage, as it often left the actual meaning of a sentence unclear. However, it’s clear that textual commentators have not been entirely successful in eliminating this meaning from
