The Science Of Scientific Writing Set 9 Set 9-Analysis maps • Second page • Example • Exercise 1 • Exercise 2 • Exercise 3 • Exercise 4 • Exercise 5 • Refinement Revisited • Rabbit Rule • Holding Hands Rule • Exercise 6 • Inference objections • Exercise 7 • Exercise 8 • Final. |
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OVERVIEW: The way to well-written science
PART I: Paragraphs and Sentences SET A: Paragraphs: The Maps Behind Them SET B: Paragraphs: Using Maps to Meet Readers' Expectations SET C: Paragraphs with Something Extra: Points and Tails SET D: The Generic Section: Expectations and Maps as Blueprints SET E: Scientific Sections: The Methods and Results SET F: Scientific Sections: The Discussion SET G : Scientific Sections: The Introduction SET H : Sentences SET I : The Paper as a Whole
PART II: The Paper and its Sections SET 1: Argument Parts SET 2: Indicator Words SET 4: Locating Arguments in Prose SET 5: Rationale's Essay Planner SET 6: Evidence in Arguments: Basis Boxes Synthesis 1: Position-Early Paragraphs Synthesis 2: Position-Final Paragraphs Synthesis 3: Writing a Discussion I Synthesis 4: Writing a Discussion II |
In Set 3 we were introduced to the need to refine our claims, such that:
Now that you have a feel for identifying and including assumptions, it's a good time to think more about refining claims, taking what we learnt in Set 3 a little further. These rules are major weapons against the most deadly challenge you face when trying to craft a tight argument: The Curse of the Chinese Whispers! We will look at three important rules for argument construction:
The Binary Rule Consider this argument:
This is a classic, generic, three part argument comprising 1. A claim 2. A supporting reason 3. An assumption. The three component claims illustrate some generic features we should aim for in ALL the claims used in an argument. To see this first look at a slightly reformatted version: We see that only THREE "things" (technically called 'terms' in logic) are referred to:
and most importantly, any one claim only refers to one PAIR of terms derived from the larger set (The Binary Rule). This is the way to formulate ALL your claims, i.e. that they are basically sentences that say: "An X is a Y" (e.g. Dogs are mammals; Mammals are animals that suckle their young) or "An X is something with property Y" ( e.g. "Dogs have fur") We can create a "shorthand" version of our Dog argument, using these ideas, and it is now very easy to see how each claims only has TWO terms.
What happens if we don't stick to the Binary Rule? Each of the claims of the following argument contains THREE terms. Do you agree that this makes the job of pulling out the central argument a lot more difficult?
Content of this page drawn in whole or part from the Austhink Rationale Exercises with permission from Austhink.
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