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An especially useful way of making pbff (as we shorthand it) productive academically is to freewrite for fifteen minutes every day on a different passage as you move through a book. If, for example, you are discussing a book over four class periods, prepare for each class by giving 15 minutes to a passage before you attend. You will not only discover things to say; you will begin to write your way to an essay.

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2. UNCOVERING ASSUMPTIONS

WHAT IS AN ASSUMPTION?

An assumption is an underlying belief from which other statements spring.

Virtually all statements have underlying assumptions—especially claims.

Assumptions are usually unstated, which is why they need to be uncovered.

We generally reason forward to implications (what follows from X), but we reason backward to assumptions (what has led to X), which are a particular kind of implicit meaning.

The ability to uncover assumptions is a powerful analytical procedure to learn. It gives you insight into the root, the basic givens that a piece of writing has assumed are true. When you locate assumptions in a text, you understand the text better—where it’s coming from, what else it believes that is more fundamental than what it is overtly declaring.

You also find things to write about. When analyzing the work of others, you are likely to discover related ideas or positions, and sometimes these are positions of which the writer is not aware. The same goes for developing and revising your own work. When you work back to your own premises from some statement you like that you have written, you will often find what else you believe, at a more basic level, that you did not realize you believed.

Step 1: Paraphrase the explicit statement. This will produce a range of related ideas and highlight the key terms in the original statement (see Chapter 2, Paraphrase x 3).

Step 2: List the implicit ideas that the statement seems to assume to be true. Ask yourself, “Given what is overtly stated, what must the writer also already believe?”

Step 3: Further analyze the original claim by drawing out implications of the underlying assumptions. What do you now recognize about the statement?

Discussion Uncovering assumptions is a version, with a difference, of Move 4 of the Five Analytical Moves from Chapter 3: it renders the implicit explicit. But in this case, what it is revealing is not what follows from a given statement, but rather, what precedes.

You should be aware that this tool gets used for different purposes. In argument, it is often used (and abused) to catch out the other guy: your opponent’s undiscerned assumption is exposed in order to be attacked. But in analysis, the goal is not attack; as Chapter 1 discusses in the short takes entitled Analysis: A Quick Definition and What’s Different About Writing Arguments in College, analysis can lead eventually to making an argument or claim, but it does not generally conduct search-and-destroy missions. It seeks instead primarily to understand other positions, and in this context, uncovering the assumptions of other writers can be an essential move in helping everyone comprehend more clearly what is involved in accepting or negotiating with another point of view.

Uncovering Assumptions: An Example

In the reference application sent to professors at our college for students seeking to enter the student-teaching program, the professor is asked to rank the student from one to four (unacceptable to acceptable) on the following criterion: “The student uses his/her sense of humor appropriately.”

Step 1: To uncover the assumptions in that statement, we might first paraphrase it a few times:

The student makes jokes in a way that is right for the situation.

The student creates situations that invite others to laugh in ways that are not socially indecorous.

The student has good manners in the way he or she does things that are funny.

The paraphrasing helps identify the key terms in the original