• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 10278 0

first glance. Papers are generally broken into four sections: “Introduction” (What is this all about, what do we already know, why do we care?), “Experimental Procedures” (What did you actually do?), “Results” (What happened in your experiments?), and “Discussion” (What do you think it means, what are the remaining questions?). This breakdown is useful because it emphasizes the process of argument (introduction and results), providing evidence (results), and analysis (discussion). However, although this may seem different from writing in other disciplines, I think of it as a codification of basic analytical writing that is common in most disciplines.

A common mistake made by beginning and intermediate students is taking this breakdown too literally. In order to be comprehensible, the rules must be broken periodically. For example, results frequently must be referred to in the “Experimental Procedures” section in order to understand why the next procedure was performed. Similarly, the “Results” section frequently must include some discussion, so that the reader understands the immediate significance of the results, if not the broader implications. For example, the following sentences might appear in a “Results” section: “These data suggest that the p53 protein may function in repressing cell division in potential cancer cells. In order to test this possibility, we overexpressed p53 protein in a transformed cell line.” The first sentence provides an interpretation of the results that is necessary to understand why the next experiment was performed.

—Bruce Wightman, Professor of Biology

B. The Shaping Force of Common Thought Patterns

DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION

According to the usual definitions of the terms deduction and induction, you might expect that a fairly full-fledged version of the thesis would appear at the beginning of a deductive paper but at the end of an inductive one. But as we will go on to show, papers don’t neatly fit these two abstract models of thinking. In practice, all writing combines the two patterns. In virtually all essays, the paper begins with some kind of organizing claim; this is not delayed until the end. And in virtually all essays, the opening claim is not simply repeated at the end but occurs there in its duly tested and evolved form. To clarify these claims we need to offer some definitions. (See Figure 15.1, A and B).

FIGURE 15.1 Deduction and Induction.

Deduction (A) uses particular cases to exemplify general principles and analyze their implications. Induction (B) constructs general principles from the analysis of particular cases. In practice, analytical thinking and writing blend deduction and induction and start either with particular cases (C) or a general principle (D).

Deduction

As a thought process, deduction reasons from a general principle (assumed to be true) to the particular case. It introduces this principle up front and then uses it to select and interpret evidence. For example, a deductive paper might state in its first paragraph that attitudes toward and rules governing sexuality in a given culture can be seen, at least in part, to have economic causes. The paper might then apply this principle, already assumed to be true, to the codes governing sexual behavior in several cultures or several kinds of sexual behavior in a single culture.

A good deductive argument is, however, more than a mechanical application or matching exercise of general claim and specific details that are explained by it. Deductive reasoning uses the evidence to draw out the implications—what logicians term inferring the consequences—of the claim. The general principle explains selected features of particular cases, and reciprocally, the evidence brings out implications in the principle.

Thus, the general principle stated at the beginning of the paper and the idea stated as the paper’s conclusion are not the same. Rather, the conclusion presents the (evolved) idea that the writer has arrived at through the application of the principle.

Induction

An inductively organized paper typically