Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [137]
14. Straw man. This move involves oversimplifying and even caricaturing another person’s argument or position in order to make it easier to refute. For example, opponents of health care reform treat it as a straw man when they claim that such reform would deny benefits to the elderly and perhaps even result in so-called “death panels”—groups who would choose which people will live and which will die.
15. Weasel word. A specialized form of equivocation results in what are sometimes called weasel words. As we note earlier, a weasel word is one that has been used so much and so loosely that it ceases to have much meaning (the term derives from the weasel’s reputed practice of sucking the contents from an egg without destroying the shell). The word “natural,” for example, can mean good, pure, and unsullied, but it can also refer to the ways of nature (flora and fauna). Such terms (“love,” “reality,” and “experience” are others) invite equivocation because they mean so many different things to different people.
GUIDELINES FOR ANALYZING ARGUMENTS
Make unstated premises (assumptions) explicit.
Look for the general principle or reason (warrant) that connects your data (“what have I got to go on?”) with your claim.
Remember that argument need not be mortal combat: “mutual inquiry or exploration” (as Wayne Booth puts it) is a constructive goal.
Be able to state another’s position to his or her satisfaction before you agree or disagree with it, as Carl Rogers counsels.
Beware of excessively categorical thinking, which produces overstated claims. To remedy, make sure to qualify your claims and check for unstated assumptions.
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Assignments: Analyzing Arguments
1. Find Examples of Any Two of the Logical Fallacies. You might look in newspapers, online web pages, blogs, and so forth. Copy out the language that contains the fallacy and explain why it is what you say it is.
2. Find Examples of Figurative Thinking. Look at prose rather than poetry so that you can locate figurative thinking as it operates in everyday writing. You can choose a piece of academic writing to see how figurative thinking operates there. Or you might look at a magazine feature article or other essay or even in your college catalog. Copy out the relevant language and explain how the figurative thinking works. Use the four-step procedure for exploring the logic of metaphor.
3. Apply Toulmin’s Scheme to an Editorial. Choose any editorial from your local newspaper and run it through Toulmin’s scheme, which we have repeated below:
• Data: what evidence does the editorial offer in support of its position? (Data respond to the question “What have you got to go on?”)
• Warrant: what general principle or reason is used to connect the data with the claim? (The warrant responds to the question “How did you get there?”)
• Claim: what conclusion does the writer draw?
After you have anatomized the editorial in these terms, assess its strength more carefully. What do you find most and least convincing about it, and why? Do you detect any logical lapses—into categorical thinking, say, if not actual logical fallacies? Write up your assessment in a few paragraphs.
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Chapter 10
Using Evidence to Build a Paper: 10 on 1
IN THIS CHAPTER, WE ARGUE for the importance of saying more about less. The phrase we use for this idea is 10 on 1. The term 10 on 1 was briefly mentioned in Chapter 2, Toolkit of Analytical Methods I, as a variant of Notice and Focus, an observation strategy. In this chapter, 10 on 1 is used to talk about essay structure as well as the analysis of selected data.
The phrase 10 on 1 stands for the principle that it is better to make 10 observations or points about a single representative issue or example (10 on 1) than to make the same basic point about 10 related issues or examples (1 on 10). Doing 10 on 1 teaches writers to narrow their focus