My research question: How can I help my students become more proficient and productive writers?
Review of Literature
While there are probably thousands of sources that a teacher could use to help her or his students develop as researchers and writers, the articles “The Art of the Police Report” and “Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?” offer particularly instructive moments for effective writing. What sets these articles apart is their attention to the importance of clear writing and to constructing a logical argument. Further, each source argues for the importance of trying to stay as impartial as possible when researching and writing.
In her article from the Utne Reader, Ellen Collett writes that the writing of police reports is something that most cops hate more than shootouts or even more mundane occasions like a court appearance (“The Art of the Police Report” par. 4), a sentiment that many college students might share. Collett writes that all cops must write daily reports and that the overall goal is to use neutral language when describing a crime scene or complaint. Such advice is similar to what we writing instructors often give to students. This advice makes particular sense if we think of our audiences as jurors. In other words, a juror would find a police officer’s testimony valid so long as that juror is confident that the officer has not tainted the evidence. One final connection to research writing is the need for an officer to “introduces himself and offers his credentials for telling this tale” (par. 10).
While the above criterion focus on , Collett claims, that the voice of the officer sometimes show through the text as certain clues peak out for the audience to see. At first, this may seem to be a problem for writing that is attempting to remain neutral in such a situation. Los Angeles police officers learn in police academy that writing should always be precise and to the point. Slippery words such as adverbs should not be used as they potentially offer the officer’s interpretation of the event instead of just the facts (par. 16). However, Collett argues that this may not be the case as the details of a story can be illuminating, especially for those who did not witness the crime scene. Collett’s argument is worth quoting in full as she connects the dots clearly for her reader:
In the witness section of the report, Brown might say, “Victim’s
mother gave no statement.” Martinez would tell us, “Mother refused to cooperate.” This carries a totally different emphasis and meaning. Martinez doesn’t speculate if she’s protecting her husband at the expense of her child. He doesn’t need to. What kind of mother refuses to speak when her baby is bleeding from three orifices? (par. 30)
Her point is that any good story, any good police report, and piece of persuasive writing must always have its own agenda. A sense of purpose is crucial for productive writing.
In addition to a sense of purpose, skillful research writing also requires that an author use logical arguments that support claims that the author makes. In “Finding the Good Argument,” Rebecca Jones argues for a collaborative argument style that attempts to persuade without relying on traditional, violent metaphors (157). She offers three rhetorical models to aid students in recognizing and creating productive (as well as non-productive) arguments: classical rhetoric, Stephen Toumlin’s claims/warrants model, and pragma-dialectics.
The first model, based on classical rhetoric, offers the view that strong arguing is important for developing citizens who actively participate in their public lives. It is important to remember that, in the classical model, logic does not mean facts or truth (163) and that it is possible to be logical and dishonest in the same argument. Essentially, the three most important components of classical, Aristotelian logic include the following components: 1) attention to the structure of the argument, either deductive (moving from general to specific) or inductive (moving from specifics to general); 2) appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos; and 3) audience awareness.
In developing his model of argument, Stephen Toumlin does not disagree with the important elements of classical rhetoric as outlined in the above paragraph. Toumlin basically posits the ideas that arguing is more complex and context-specific, and therefore he developed a model that he claims is more complex and attentive to specific, rhetorical situations. The model that he developed moves through six steps: claim, data, warrant, backing, rebuttal, and qualifiers (169). Toumlin’s model provides the structure, conditions, and language that one might use to construct a coherent argument.
Our final rhetorical model under consideration is pragma-dialectics, an approach that considers the ethical dimensions of one’s argument. The concern in this model is to avoid using logical fallacies so as to ensure that the rhetor is fair, logical, and is staying on topic (172). The ten rules that Jones adapts from pragma-dialectics attempt to ensure that rhetors focus on the merits of an argument instead of their opposing rhetor (173), that rhetors engage the same topic within the argument at hand (174), and that the logic a rhetor uses must be “logically valid or must capable of being made valid by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises” (176).
The above suggestions may seem like a lot to keep in mind while composing a research paper. This is because they are. But trust me, with practice and patience, the above steps become second nature and become a set of practical tools that are easily at your disposal. However, you might not want to just take my word for it, so I interviewed several of my colleagues on the value of the above approaches for helping students achieve success as writers.
Methods
