Deductive reasoning uses information to justify a specific claim; inductive reasoning uses information to support a general conjecture

Deductive reasoning uses GENERAL information to justify a specific claim; inductive reasoning uses SOECIFIC information to support a general. Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. Informally, we sometimes call this a "bottom up" approach.