The Well-Crafted Argument Ch. 8

Fred D. White & Simone J. Billings                                                                           Pages 234-284

            This chapter looks at how arguments are made in different disciplines. It discusses argumentation in the arts, the natural sciences, the social sciences, and workplace-related contexts. It shows how different disciplines have different audiences, perspectives, and evidence, and each discipline must keep these factors in mind when constructing their arguments. For example, those writing about legal issues need to make sure they thoroughly understand their topic and are able to explain it in layman’s terms because legal issues are of great interest to the general public. The most important bit comes as the chapter explains that students writing papers on topics within these different disciplines need to be familiar with these modes of argumentation. For example, students writing about topics in the arts need to be familiar with the historical context the art was published into, the different critical perspectives, and the way in which these perspectives are changing. Finally, at the end of the chapter there is a checklist which provides a list of questions for students to ask themselves while writing their papers in these various disciplines.

What questions about this text would you like answered?

            While I don’t have specific factual-based questions about this text, I would appreciate a little more explanation of the structure of argumentation in the various disciplines it mentions. It explained that in business writing, one usually presents the problem at hand and then moves into giving background information, rather than the other way around which is more commonly utilized. I feel that we are all very used to the structure of the five+ paragraph essay and I think it would be interesting if the chapter highlighted the structural differences between writing in these disciplines. The chapter gives examples of short arguments from each discipline and its subsets, but its only instructions are to read it closely. I think it would be useful if the authors applied those handy annotations they utilized in earlier chapters. In this way, the authors could directly show readers how argumentation in different disciplines differ in a clear, direct manner.

            I must admit, it was harder this week to find connections between the readings, mostly because they were all so technical in nature. However, I think this chapter relates to what we’ve been reading about and discussing in my anthropology course. We’ve been talking about the various forms of evidence that anthropologists use to evaluate the peace and violence in past societies, as well as the different biases and pitfalls that accompany this evidence. Some biases are called theoretical biases, and these occur when people’s perceptions of evidence are skewed by the perspectives inherent in their disciplines. For example, philosophers, politicians, archaeologists, and historians may all view the same evidence but come away with different interpretations because of their scholarly background. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it will help to provide a range of possible interpretations. However, it is something to be aware of and to keep in mind when evaluating evidence. This relates to this chapter and how it explains the necessity of understanding the argumentative approach each discipline takes to writing so that we may read and write effectively in these differing fields. Just as in interpreting archaeological evidence, no one discipline has a “better” mode of argumentation; however, it is good to be aware of how they differ so that we can evaluate them properly.