Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

I've always managed to know exactly what deductive reasoning was, which was assisted by my knowledge of how Sherlock Holmes came to his own conclusions. But while my geometry teacher attempted to explain the difference between that and inductive reasoning to me, the difference has remained one of the few cloudy points in my mental information reserves. That is, until today.

I received a document on argumentative essays from my teacher, wherein she discusses deductive and inductive argumentation. As her definitions seemed severely unclear, I finally Googled the definition for inductive reasoning.

I have since figured out that I use deductive reasoning to constantly evaluate my environment, while I use inductive reasoning to evaluate the people I meet. This is why I usually get a "feeling" when I meet a person, or a general definition of them based on scant information gathered, which later becomes proven quite accurate. I think the reason for its accuracy lies in the fact that the "scant information" is actually a subconsciously detected pattern in behaviours.

It's an interesting theory, anyway. I'll have to see if I see evidence of it in action.