Ilona offers some useful thoughts on the issue of argumentation. Certainly any sophisticated paper will be a complex construction with different things going on at different times. But what holds these different parts together is the argumentation. I remember Ann Johns commenting to me one time (based on some research by John Swales, I think) that every part of a research article is argumentative.
You argue that there is a gap in the existing literature that merits research; you argue that you have the methodological tools to get valid results; you preview the findings that you will argue towards; you preview how the argument of the paper will be built up; you fulfil that preview by first arguing that a particular description or narrative is accurate and also necessary as a foundation for your later parts; you argue that a particular theory or theories provide an appropriate framework for the research; you present empirical results and argue what they mean; finally you argue that the process you have been through does indeed lead us to the conclusion you say it does, that other interpretations of the data are inferior, and that this finding has implications for research or policy that are what you say they are.
I think the priority you give to things like descriptive and narrative writing in your course depends on how far short the students fall of the standard you need them to achieve. My own (graduate) students are generally pretty good when it comes to writing descriptive and narrative texts, but very poor when it come to holding them together with argumentation. In my context therefore, teaching argumentation becomes a priority. In others, other types of writing might be a priority.
There is also the assumption that when we start basic writing (whether that be at secondary school or at undergraduate level) we should start from basics, description being more basic than argumentation, so that argumentation should be left alone until all the simpler things like description of processes, narratives, description of data and so on have been mastered. I would say this is fine so long as the students are not going to be required by anyone else in any other course to do any arguing until we have finished the narrative teaching. In real life, this is rarely the case, even in secondary school, never mind at university.
Best,
John
>>> <[log in to unmask]> 22/3/10 17:25 >>>
Dear colleagues,
Hi, everybody,
I learn a lot while reading all these interesting comments.
However, I have some doubts, for example, about the "top priority" of
argumentation. Now and then I analyse "common" academic genres for
teaching purposes and I regularly find>that these genres are complex
pieces of different text-types: descriptive and explanatory paragraphs,
informative parts with high information density etc. etc.
So, the challenging key-words for syllabus-designers might be the "right
order" and the "correct proportion" of text-types.
Ilona Ma'te'
BME
John, thanks so much for your emails about policy briefs. This approach
> will be very helpful to me, for the few management students who get into
> my
> academic writing class for engineering PhD students. A great second track
> for the argument section of my course!
>
> Further to which, I'd like to share an argument mapping approach that I've
> developed; it's proven quite effective in getting the notion of argument
> established. Attached is a .doc file with the outline. The idea is to
> constrain the content of the text links in the maps to only the set of
> links
> used in argumentation. If anyone interested in this approach, I will be
> happy to share.
>
> Cheers
> Lawrie
> -------------------------------------
> Lawrie HUNTER
> Kochi University of Technology
> http://www.core.kochi-tech.ac.jp/hunter/
> http://www.lawriehunter.com
>
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