So, for class tomorrow we need, as you all know, to write out our arguments in standard form with all that entails. It seems that at this point, without writing a full essay, we still have several lines of argumentation that all lead up to our conclusion, and this is our thesis. However, this seems very different than theses that I've written for other classes.
Below is a thesis for a paper that I took to a national undergraduate research conference:
Though
the anti-forced busing movement of the 1970s in Boston was in part a result of racism, there were other key factors such as the concept of defended
neighborhoods, various sociological issues regarding city structure, white
poverty, and issues
regarding unequal treatment between white and black
children that were equally as
important which lead Bostonians to their fierce
opposition of the policy.
Now, I guess I personally feel that this thesis is different than the ones we're structuring for class. However, is my thesis a bit more truncated than the ones we're supposed to be doing? Maybe each section separated by a comma can be expanded into its own sentence and line or argument. Who knows?
I think the main difference is that in history and lit studies, arguments are made using pure evidence and supposing that that's enough. In history (you'd know better than me) evidence may be enough provided that your evidence is factually correct; but with lit studies, there's a lot of interpretation and if I'm not mistaken, a lot of begging the question.
ReplyDeleteYou could try to throw an argument into standard form though and it might turn more effective that way or at least you could work out the fallacies and untruths with it clearly organized.
So you could put your argument like this:
1. The anti-forced busing movement of the '70s IMPLIES being a result of racism.
2. The concept of defended neighborhoods AND various sociological issues regarding city structure AND white poverty AND issues regarding unequal treatment between white and black children that were equally important all IMPLY the Bostonians' fierce opposition to the policy.
Another problem with lit studies and history arguments would also be their sweeping sentences that take in many concepts all at once and not reiterating them again so as to be useful in a formal proof of the argument. The present argument I think would need more info or proving of individual aspects (various sociological issues imply ....).
There is no absolute difference between what intellectuals do in the physical sciences, history, literary criticism, philosophy, or any other discipline. Some tools and methods differ, as the various subject-matters demand, but the logic remains remarkably similar -- everyone states theses, and argues for them with premises (though not everyone does this clearly or explicitly). As you are all discovering, rendering ordinary arguments into standard form is quite challenging. I am confident, however, that ALL academic work would be stronger for accepting the challenge.
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