Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [138]
ORGANIZING PAPERS USING 10 ON 1
Use The Method or Notice and Focus to find a revealing pattern or tendency in your evidence (see Chapter 2).
Select a representative example.
Do 10 on 1 to produce an in-depth analysis of your example.
Test your results in similar cases.
DEVELOPING A THESIS IS MORE THAN REPEATING AN IDEA
When the time comes to compose a formal paper with a thesis, it is very common for writers to abandon the wealth of data and ideas they have accumulated in the exploratory writing stage, panic, and revert to old habits: “Now I better have my one idea and be able to prove to everybody that I’m right.” Out goes careful attention to detail. Out goes any evidence that doesn’t fit. Instead of analysis, they substitute the kind of paper we call a demonstration; that is, they cite evidence to prove that a generalization is generally true. The problem with the demonstration lies with its too limited notions of what a thesis and evidence can do in a piece of analytical thinking.
FIGURE 10.1
Doing 1 on 10. The horizontal pattern of 1 on 10 (in which “10” stands arbitrarily for any number of examples) repeatedly makes the same point about every example. Its analysis of evidence is superficial.
A paper produced by repeating a single unchanging idea generally follows the form we call 1 on 10: the writer makes a single and usually very general claim (“History repeats itself,” “Exercise is good for you,” and so forth) and then proceeds to affix it to 10 examples (see Figure 10.1). A writer who reasserts the same idea about each example is going to produce a list, not a piece of developed thinking. By contrast, in nearly all good writing the thesis evolves by gaining in complexity and, thus, in accuracy as the paper progresses.
The 1 on 10 demonstration results from a mistaken assumption about the function of evidence, that it exists only to demonstrate the validity of (corroborate) a claim. Beyond corroborating claims, evidence should serve to test and develop and evolve the thesis. This is one of the most important points of this chapter.
When and How to Use 1 on 10
Doing 1 on 10 is not always a counterproductive habit of mind. Although collecting a bunch of similar examples of the same phenomenon is unlikely to produce an analytically acute paper, there are occasions when gathering evidence to develop a thesis is essential. It makes sense to do 1 on 10 in order to find an example worth developing because in effect you will be locating a pattern of evidence. The search for repetition that is the first step in The Method is essentially a form of doing 1 on 10.
Noticing a repetition is a key way of ascertaining if a particular kind of evidence is important. If, for example, you discover that revolutionary movements at vastly different historical moments and geographical locales produce similar kinds of violence, it would be essential to demonstrate that pattern before you settled down to analyze one such instance as exemplary. Similarly, when a writer is trying to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to make a claim, it is useful to collect a group of related examples before focusing on the most interesting or revealing ones. If, for example, you were writing about the failure of faith in the biblical book of Exodus, you would do well to chart repeated instances of its failure to substantiate that it is a recurrent feature. But to get beyond this general demonstration, you would need to look more closely at a representative instance.
Sometimes doing 1 on 10 can be valuable in itself, not just as a step in some larger analytical procedure. Demonstrations have their place—short speeches, for example, in situations where the audience has to follow a chain of thought in spite of interference from noise or other distractions.
STUCK IN 1 ON 10: THE PROBLEM OF FIVE-PARAGRAPH FORM
In Chapter 1, we argued that five-paragraph form, an organizational scheme still taught in many high schools, blocks