According to "Critical Thinking" by Richard Epstein, a prescriptive claim is a statement about what someone thinks "should be" or "ought to be." A prescriptive claim usually involves one persons judgement of value. An example of a prescriptive claim would be: "John should go to the football game." This statement is considered a prescriptive claim because it is someones opinion about what John should do. We make subjective claims frequently in our everyday conversation.
A descriptive claim is different than a prescriptive. Descriptive claims describe "what is" as opposed to "what should be." An example of a descriptive claim would be: "John is at the football game." This statement is obviously not suggesting that John should go to the game, but rather telling the listener that he is in fact at the football game. Descriptive claims do not involve words like "should" or "ought to." It is not very difficult to determine if a claim is descriptive or prescriptive, you just need to determine if it is a suggestion or a statement about "what is."
Mr. Powers I agree with your statement regarding how easy it is for a person to determine if a claim is descriptive or prescriptive. The example you gave for each claim was very clear and concise in defining descriptive and prescriptive claims. Although simple to define when looking at the two, sometimes listeners could misunderstand what the speaker is saying. They are very common claims that people use very often in conversation which is why we should better know them.
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