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Status:: #literature/books/reading Author:: Medium:: { Books MOC Tags:: Links: { The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition Application - CMPT 105W Readings

{ The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition

7 - Making Good Arguments

• True research also involves explanation of your findings and justifying your solutions through arguments

7.1 Arguments

Elements of an argument:

• Claim
  • What’s your point?
• Reasons
  • Why do you hold this belief?
• Supportive evidence
  • What are the facts that lead to your reasoning?
• Acknowledgement and responding to other views
  • But what about…
• Explain principles of reasoning
  • Can you explain your reasons?

7.2 Supporting Claim

• Reasons and evidence are support to claim
• More than 1 reasons per claim
• Claim because of reason based on evidence Defintions:
• Assertion: a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief
• Claim: assertion that needs support, thesis
  • ex) School is overrated for comp sci students
• Reason: assertion that supports claim
  • Must eventually be backed with evidence
  • ex) Because learning can be obtained for free online
• Evidence: data to support reasons
  • ex) Official documentations, freecodecamp, udemy

7.3 Acknowledgement and responding to other views/questions

• Acknowledge then reassure
  • ex) Self-learning will miss out on valuable resources like professors and TA’s, but there are other communities like discord and stackoverflow where answers can be found

7.4 Connecting claims and reasons with warrants

• Warrants help form connections between claims and reasons, ensuring relevance to reader
  • Use when people might be more skeptical, or when writing to an audience of general readers
  • ex) Since these cheaper alternatives can be just as effective as traditional schooling, the justification for such high tuition fees of traditional schooling is put into jeopardy

7.5 BUILDING A COMPLEX ARGUMENT OUT OF SIMPLE ONES

Complex arguments:

• Claims are supported with 2+ reasons
  • reasons are supported with their own reasons + evidence + warrant
  • informed readers require responses to various alternatives and objections
    • may require separate arguments
• Complex topics may require additional context beforehand

7.6 CREATING AN ETHOS BY THICKENING YOUR ARGUMENT

• Ethos: the portrayed character in an argument
  • Affects writing reputation
• Gain confidence of readers by having a strong mix of (reasons + evidence) and responses to questions and concerns
  • Turns your ethos into one that is well-versed, rather than one-sided

Mistake- falling back on what you know

Being a researcher means allowing yourself to be surprised by your discoveries and insights. So when you start a project, begin not with a claim you know you can prove but with a problem you want to explore and solve.

• Don’t try to prove your beliefs right, stay open-minded and let ideas naturally unfold
  • Same can be said for writing styles
    • different fields may have different practices
    • always improve other areas of writing

My Thoughts

It’s nice to see a definitive structure for how to write an argument. I’d like to think that I’ve been following this structure for my previous papers and writings, but one thing i definitely need to work on is my acknowledgement and responses to differing views. Hopefully, I can keep this in mind when writing my papers for this class.

8 - Making Claims

Prompts for thinking of a claim:

1. What kind of claim should I make?
2. Is it specific enough?
3. Will my readers think it is significant enough to need an argument supporting it?

8.1 Kind of Claim

• Claims and arguments are based on problem at hand

  • Conceptual problems to understand rather than practical problems to act on
  • Different evidence is needed for different claims

• Don’t combine conceptual with practical early on, do it in conclusion

  • Prevents need to develop case

Types of claims

• Fact/existence
  • ex) The human life is definite
• Definition/classification
  • ex) Hotdog is a burger
• Cause and consequence
  • ex) Video games cause violence
• Evaluation or appraisal
  • ex) Pineapple is the best kind of pizza
• Action/policy ex) China should ban 9-9-6 to promote worker wellness

Practical Claims

• Arguement for/against action or policy
• Built from conceptual claims that consist of:
  • existing problem
  • cause of problem
  • solution proposition
    • may be pushed on effectiveness of solution (feasability, worth, alternatives)
• Lacking those conceptual claims lessens validity

8.2 Evaluating Claim

• Is it specific?
  • Helps provide a path
  • Use specific lanuage

    Example: Vague: TV inflates estimates of crime rates. Specific: Graphic reports of violence on local TV news lead regular viewers to overestimate by as much as 150 percent both the rate of crime in their neighborhood and the personal danger to themselves and their families.

    • Consider revising initial claim to match content of support
  • Use specific logic
    • Use although in beginning, because in reasoning
      • ex) Although x, I believe y because z
      • Although helps challenge a belief, a point of view, or a condition that may conflict with the claim
      • Because helps
• Is it significant?
  • Significance challenges the reader’s thinking
  • Challenging common beliefs result in stronger significance
    • Consider seeing the agreeability of the opposite of the claim
  • Consider your own revelations from researching your claim, or of your intended audience (teacher)

8.3 Qualifying claims

• Acknowleding limits helps build credibility as it considers other views
  • Not everything is perfect or under control, acknowledge what is variable
    • ex) Assuming that the scale is right, I weight 2 pounds
  • Only introduce relevant ideas
• Hedges
  • Expressing not absolute confidence in statements
    • firmly believe → suggest
    • is → appear
  • People may be skeptical from constant confidence, but on the contrary, don’t be timid

9 Reasons and Evidence

• Evidence is used by the reader to evaluate credibility of claim

9.1 Plan arguments via reasons

• Storyboard
• 
• Be conscious of the order, make changes if needed to promote flow

9.2 Evidence vs reasons

• Evidence is something readers don’t question
  • Otherwise, it’s a reason, not sufficient enough to validate claim

9.3 Evidence vs reports

• Reports are not evidence in itself, they are interpretation of evidence
• Unless you conduct experiments yourself, your evidence is always second-hand, meaning
  • It is prone to adjustment to better fit the initial purpose
  • Cannot add your own interpretations, just present

9.4 Evaluating evidence

Evidence is evaulated on:

• Accuracy of report details
  • Place, time, conditions
• Precision
  • Language used to express
    • Refrain from some, generally, etc
    • Dependent on field
• Quantity
  • Ensure it represents the whole range of possibilities
  • Specific examples are persuasive but not general
• Weight of authority
  • What kind of evidence they look for
    • Take examples from evidence in lectures
  • Source of evidence

10 Acknowledgements and Responses

• Introduce opposing views continously

  • Introduction in thesis, although
  • cooperation and conversation with the reader

• Types of questioning

  • Intrinsic soundness, the content
    • Clarity, reasoning relevance, quality of evidence
  • Extrinsic soundness, the possibilities
    • different problems, evidence, comments

10.1 Questioning argument

• Focus on intrinsic before extrinsic
  • Ask others and distance yourself from your paper to analyze it

Question your argument to find holes

• Problem
  • definition and realism, practical or conceptual
• Solution
  • assertion, practical/conceptual and advantages

Question evidence

10.2 Imagine alternatives

• Refer to sources to see different approaches to developing ideas
• Also helps portray readers viewpoints and reactions

10.3 Deciding what to acknowledge

• Amount of acknowledgement can be related to the goldilocks dilemma

Priorities, respond to:

• weaknesses that can be rebuttled
• other arguments important in relation to field
• alternative conclusions readers expect/wish
• alternative evidence readers know
• counterexamples

Acknowledging flaws

• Rebuild arguments/problems to avoid flaws
  • If cannot, just acknowledge, maybe turn it as an although moment
    • If cannot answer either, pose them as questions and food for thought

10.4 Framing Responses

• Some responses need to be further supported

10.5 Acknowledgement/Response Vocabulary

Ranges of acknowledgement

1. Downplaying
   • Despite, although, while
2. Signalling
   • seem, appear, surprisingly
3. Sourcing the claim from something specific
   • Imagine, claim, argue
   • Evidence might, could, suggests
4. Sourcing the claim from a general group
   • Some, many may think
5. Personally acknowledge it, or passively
   • I realize
   • Of course

Ranges of responses

1. Lack of understanding
   • It’s not clear to me how
2. Unsettled issues
   • But there is still the problem of
3. Irrelevance/Unreliable
   • Argument is weak, and it overlooks

• Focus on work not the author

Tip: Predictable disagreements

• Additonal causes other than what was highlighted
• Counterexamples
• Differences in personal interpretation
  • Justify your meanings

11 - Warrants

Principles

• Warrants are “general principles that connect reasons to claims” through relevancy
• When x, then y, where x is a general circumstance, and y is a general consequence
• Only use if necessary, is not mandatory for experienced or obvious writing where they are already evident

11.1 Everyday reasoning

• Warrants are featured in everyday saying that contain a cause and effect relationship

11.2 Academic arguments

Inexperienced writers may not know when a warrant is needed, as they are:

1. Unsure of the background knowledge of their readers
2. Do not have an audience loyal and knowledgeable of their writing and knowledge
3. May make connections too concise to provide meaningful messages

11.3 Warrant Logic

Example argument from book:

The Russian Federation faces a falling standard of living, ${claim}$ because its birthrate is only 13.2 per 1,000 and life expectancy for men is only about 63 years. ${reason}$

• If someone questions the relevancy of the argument, then we must provide a path of relevancy through the when x, then y format:

  When a nation’s labor force shrinks (general circumstance) its economic future is grim (general consequence)

  • Now, the example argument acts as a specific case that follows the format of the general argument

11.4 Testing warrants

Prompts to question your warrants:

1. Is that warrant reasonable?
   • Provide reasons and evidence for your warrant
2. Is it sufficiently limited?
   • Make the warrant specific to not allow for any subjective or outlier cases
     • Add a lack of confidence
3. Is it superior to any competing warrants?
   • If there is a competing warrant, acknowledge how it may be different in relation to that
     • ex) x is true as long as y isn’t, where x is warrant one and y is a competing warrant
4. Is it appropriate to this field?
   • Remember your audience
5. Is it able to cover the reason and claim?
   • An example of a non-relevant warrant:

     Ahmed: You should buy a gun,claim because you live alone.(reason) Beth: Why does living alone mean I should buy a gun? Ahmed: When you aren’t safe,(general circumstance) you should protect yourself.(general consequence) Beth: But living alone doesn’t make me unsafe. Ahmed: You should buy a gun,claim because you live alone.reason Beth: Why does living alone mean I should buy a gun? Ahmed: When you aren’t safe,(general circumstance) you should protect yourself.general consequence Beth: But living alone doesn’t make me unsafe.

     • What’s the point of providing relevancy with a warrant when the warrant itself isn’t even relevant?

11.5 Knowing when to use

Reasons for using:

1. Readers are not knowledgeable, may require some hand-holding through arguments
2. During use of new/controversial principles, used to show that it is valid
3. Proving claims that people wish were false

11.6 Argument testing

• Compare to see if the specifc circumstances and consequences fall within their general counterparts
  • ex) higher exposure to video games is not related to children being constantly exposed to images of sadistic violence, but showing that children have been exposed to more video games is

11.7 Challenging other warrants

We can challenge warrants if we know their type. They can be based on:

1. Experience
   • ex) When people habitually lie, we don’t trust them.
   • Challenge reliability or provide counterexamples
2. Authority
   • ex) When authority X says Y, Y must be so.
   • Question all-knowingness of the authority
3. Systems of knowledge
   • ex) When we add two odd numbers, we get an even one.
   • show case is not relevant
4. Cultural principles
   • ex) An insult justifies retaliation.
   • Wait for gradual change
5. Methodologies
   • Common patterns like those in philosophy and logic
     • ex) When Y regularly occurs before, during, or after X, Y is a sign of X
   • Point out limiting conditions

Quick Tips

• Evidence is a more reliable and preferred proof than warrants

Thoughts

• I should introduce such skepticism in my youtube videos
  • Help viewer know that I understand their perspective and that my advice helps
• Good practice for becoming more grounded and open-minded in beliefs

Backlinks

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list from { The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition AND !outgoing({ The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition)

References:

Created:: 2022-01-26