Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [206]
A. Disciplinary Forms and Formats
Two Functions of Formats: Rhetorical and Heuristic
Rhetorical: formats make communication among members of a discipline easier and more efficient.
Heuristic: formats offer writers a means of finding and exploring ideas.
THE TWO FUNCTIONS OF DISCIPLINARY FORMATS
Most of the writing (and thinking) we do is generated by some kind of format, even if we are not aware of it. Writers virtually never write in the absence of conventions. Accordingly, you should not regard the formats you encounter simply as prescriptive (that is, strictly required) sets of artificial rules. Rather, try to think of them as descriptive accounts of the various heuristics—sets of questions and categories—that humans typically use to guide and stimulate their thinking.
Because formats offer a means not only of displaying thinking in a discipline but also of shaping it, the format a discipline requires (whether tacitly or overtly) conditions its members to think in particular ways. Learning to use the format that scientists use predisposes you to think like a scientist. Although knowing the required steps of a discipline’s writing format won’t write your papers for you, not knowing how writers in that discipline characteristically proceed can keep you from being read.
Academic disciplines differ in the extent to which they adhere to prescribed organizational schemes. In biology and psychology, for example, formal papers and reports generally follow an explicitly prescribed pattern of presentation. Some other disciplines are less uniform and less explicit about their reliance on formats, but writers in these fields—economics, for example, or history—usually operate within fairly established forms as well. Thus, we also use the term “format” for organizational schemes that lay out the form of prospective papers in a series of steps.
The writing strategies and heuristics in this book are formats in the sense that most prescribe a series of steps. Our emphasis rests more on the process of invention than it does on the organization of the finished paper, but, as we have been suggesting, the two are not really separate. See, for example, “A Template for Organizing Papers Using 10 on 1: An Alternative to 5-Paragraph Form” (end of Chapter 10) and “Six Steps for Making a Thesis Evolve Through Successive Complications” (Chapter 11). The book’s heuristics can be used as organizational models and can be adapted to disciplinary forms. They are especially useful in the many disciplines that do not prescribe a specific format.
USING FORMATS HEURISTICALLY: AN EXAMPLE
To lose sight of the heuristic value of formats is to become preoccupied with formats merely as disciplinary etiquette. The solution to this problem probably sounds easier than it is: you need to find the spaces in a format that will allow it to work as a heuristic. Consider how you might go about using even a highly specified organizational scheme like the following:
State the problem.
Develop criteria of adequacy for a solution.
Explore at least two inadequate solutions.
Explicate the proposed solution.
Evaluate the proposed solution.
Reply to anticipated criticisms.
The best reason not to ignore any of the six steps in this problem/solution format is that the format does have a logic, although it leaves that logic unstated. The purpose of including at least two inadequate solutions (step 3), for example, is to protect the writer against moving to a conclusion too quickly on the basis of too little evidence. The requirements that