Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill [81]
Notice, by the way, that this is a place where skimming for overall shape (“fast reading”) is appropriate as a starting point. Browse first and last sentences of paragraphs, the introduction and conclusion, and transitional words such as “but” and “however.”
ENTERING THE THINKING IN A READING: UNCOVERING ASSUMPTIONS AND REFORMULATING BINARIES (A REPRISE)
Here, we briefly revisit two items from Toolkit II, heuristics essential to seeing the thinking in a reading (see Chapter 4).
UNCOVERING ASSUMPTIONS
Isolate the key terms in the statement.
Ask what the statement rests on, the ideas underlying it.
Draw out implications of the underlying ideas.
All readings—virtually all statements—are built on assumptions. Uncovering the assumptions in a reading, also known as reasoning back to premises, enables you to understand the text better—where it’s coming from, what else it believes that is more fundamental than what it is overtly declaring. The essential move is to ask, “Given its overt claim, what must this reading also already believe?” To answer this question, you need to make inferences from the primary claims to the ideas that underlie them. In effect, you are working backward, reinventing the chain of thinking that led the writer to the position you are now analyzing.
Once you begin looking at chains of thought, you will often discover that key binaries rise to the surface and need to be reconsidered. You will see examples of this phenomenon in two examples that follow: Christopher Borick’s consideration of the term “liberal” and Anna Whiston’s analysis of self-deprecation on late night talk shows.
REFORMULATING BINARIES
Step 1: Locate a range of opposing categories
Step 2: Define and analyze the key terms
Step 3: Question the accuracy of the binary and rephrase the terms
Step 4: Substitute “to what extent?” for “either/or”
At the heart of most seriously reflective thinking is some organizing binary. This is to say that thinking rarely looks like a steamroller paving the writer’s way from a clear beginning to a predestined end. Rather, it consists of key terms in tension with each other, the tension providing organization and structure for the thought. Thus, the swiftest way to apprehend what’s at stake in a reading is to discern its organizing contrasts. Analysis progresses when writers consider how accurately they have named the oppositions in their thinking and whether these should be named otherwise.
Tracking the Thinking Through Complication and Qualification: An Example
Notice how the writer of the following piece—an excerpt from “On Political Labels” by political scientist Christopher Borick—complicates the definition of liberalism by tracking it historically. Look in the first paragraph for the historical roots of liberalism as favoring public control over government actions. Then, in the second paragraph, see how this emphasis moves almost to its opposite—the belief that “government intervention in society is necessary.” You’ll learn a lot from the excerpt by seeing how it pivots around more than one sense of the word “freedom.”
Let’s look at liberalism for a start. The term liberal can be traced at least back to17th-Century England, where it evolved from debates dealing with the voting franchise among English citizens. Proponents of including greater numbers of Englishmen in elections came to be known as liberals, thanks in part to the writings of John Locke, whose ideas about the social contract helped to build the philosophical underpinnings of this political ideology. Over time, liberalism has maintained its focus on public control over government actions, but there have been splits that have led to its current