Story-telling strategies can help us write more interesting arguments

When we come to write up an argument map, the map itself provides some immediate pointers on how to proceed. We can get organisational clues from the architecture of the map itself, from the indicated strength or weakness of various lines of the argument, and from the real-world (or conceptual) relationships of the content in the map's item boxes.

Argument composition can also be informed by larger-scale, strategic considerations. The classical art of 'rhetoric' stretches back several millennia, and is a study unto itself. It concentrates on strategies of persuasion. Here, rather than focussing on how to make an argument more persuasive, we will consider how to make it more more coherent, connected and compelling to read, by using insights from another 'large-scale' system, the world of story-telling. I have always been interested in the dynamics of stories, and in my days as a scientist, I was more consciously aware of trying to write good stories rather than good arguments. In retrospect this appears to have been sufficient to result in reasonably well-crafted and persuasive papers. The Reader Expectation Theory group, upon whose work I draw considerably, have promoted the benefits of adopting a story-telling approach for expository writing, not just for the text-as-a-whole, but even for paragraphs and individual sentences.

With respect to arguments, it the position-final argument, itself possibly the most classical style of argument, that lends itself best to the application of story-telling strategies. It has a surprising degree of structural overlap with the typical story, which we will look at in more detail later in the course.

But in this exercise our sole focus is on becoming more familiar with the principles of traditional story-telling. The exercise is structured as a quest. You will need to show you understand the "Seven Secrets" to telling a good story. There is, in truth, no consensus that these "secrets" are the only such secrets: some have argued that there are as many as twenty-two strategies commonly used in story-telling. But I think that few "lists" would not include the seven strategies dealt with here, which have been selected because of their particular applicability to argumentation.

As you demonstrate your knowledge, prepare to collect the SEVEN BADGES of STORY-TELLING WISDOM!