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Chapter 5: From Formulating to Developing a Thesis
Brief Summary:
In this chapter, Greene and Lidinsky explain the necessity of a strong thesis in academic writing, highlighting the difference between a final thesis and a working thesis. To help writers develop a working thesis, or a temporary claim, they provide models for constructing a position in an argument. When beginning to form a thesis, writers must make sure that the issue is timely and be sure to examine what others have said about the issue before constructing their own position.
Key Points
Writing as a Conversation:
This chapter shares similarities with Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Essentially, Greene and Lidinsky are proposing that student writers think of academic writing as a conversation. In order to successfully enter the conversation, the writers must familiarize themselves with what others have previously expressed about the issue being discussed. The first sentence of this chapter states, “Academic writing explores complex issues that grow out of relevant, timely conversations in which something is at stake” (99). In the preface of They Say/I Say, Graff and Birkenstein express that “despite this growing consensus that writing is a social, conversational act, helping student writers actually participate in these conversations remains a formidable challenge,” which is why they attempt to guide student writers into the conversation successfully (xvi). Greene and Lidinsky are also trying to accomplish this “demystifying” of academic conversation in Chapter 5.
Identifying Others in the Conversation to Establish Credibility:
By having student writers think about what has already been said about an issue before developing their own claim, it appears as though Greene and Lidinsky are having students examine what David Bartholomae calls “commonplaces” in his article “Inventing the University.” According to Bartholomae, a commonplace is a type of embedded code or set of ideas already established in a discipline that need further elaboration. Writers need to become familiar with commonplaces in order to place themselves in the conversation or they won’t establish credibility. Greene and Lidinsky urge writers, “It is important to introduce who has said what in the conversation you are entering. After all, you are interrupting that conversation to make your contribution, and those who are already in that conversation expect you to have done your homework and acknowledge those who have already made important contributions” (108). Because this chapter appears to align itself more with Bartholomae, a social constructionist, cognitive theorists Flower and Hayes most likely wouldn’t support this chapter. Green and Lidinksy imply that students will never exactly come up with original arguments or ideas because they’re constantly pulling from what others have said. They’re not exactly “creating meaning,” as Flower and Hayes say in “The Cognition of Discovery.” They’re instead engaging in conversation with others who share similar ideas.
Remembering That Writing is Not Linear, but Recursive:
Lastly, and most importantly, this chapter emphasizes how important it is for students to realize that writing is a recursive process. They stress:
It is a myth that writers first come up with a thesis and then write their essays. The reality is that writers use issue-based questions to read, learn, and develop a thesis throughout the process of writing. . . The position writers ultimately take in writing their thesis comes at the end of the writing process, after not one draft but many. (100)
Their emphasis that writing is a process is something that Nancy Sommers and William Covino would greatly appreciate. Both Sommers and Covino argue that writing is not a linear process, and that writers can’t be certain of what they’re trying to argue until they’re in the midst of writing. As Covino says in “Rhetorical Pedagogy,” writing is a “radical associative process,” (43). This text completely supports this idea. Greene and Lidinsky even have a section of the chapter entitled “Working Versus Definitive Theses,” making sure that students realize the difference.
Chapter 6: From Finding to Evaluating Sources
Brief Summary:
In this chapter, the authors instruct student writers on where to find sources and how to evaluate said sources to discern their reliability. They distinguish the difference between primary and secondary sources and the difference between popular sources and scholarly sources, stating that secondary and scholarly sources are the most common used in academic writing. They provide students with a list of “experts” to consult when searching for sources, such as the writing instructor, campus librarians, field experts, and handbooks. Lastly, they offer tips for evaluating the sources to quickly determine if they’re pertinent to the student’s topic, such as reading the introductory sections, skimming the table of contents, and reading the sources’ bibliography.
Key Points:
Students Choosing and Exploring Topics:
On identifying the topic, Greene and Lidinsky urge students, “What is important to follow is what interests you and to keep in mind what is going to matter to your readers” (121). Though they touched on this subject previously when discussing the importance of choosing topics that are timely, they really stress in the beginning of this chapter the importance of letting students choose their own topics, something that interests them enough to want to write about it, which is an aspect of this book that Peter Elbow would love. As an expressivist scholar, Elbow stresses the importance of letting students choose their own topics because it will most likely engage students more in the writing process. In addition, he talks about how essential it is for students to successfully convey their interest in the topic and purpose of their argument to produce the desired effect on the reader. Greene and Lidinsky seem to support this part of Elbow’s argument.
Consulting Experts:
One part of this chapter that Elbow most likely wouldn’t have enjoyed is the hierarchical relationship between the student and the “experts.” Greene and Lidinsky propose that before students begin searching for sources, they should consult one or more of the four experts: their writing instructor, librarians at their campus, experts in other fields, or manuals and handbooks (122). By using the word “experts,” the authors are establishing that there is a ranking, and that instead of encouraging student authority, as Elbow argues, they are implying that students are dependent on those who are higher than them, and that those who are above them are more capable. Granted, that’s only apparent if one reads deeply into it; however, using that kind of hierarchical language certainly implies something. Elbow, who values placing much of the control in the students’ hands, probably wouldn’t like this piece of advice. As an advocate for collaboration, Rebecca Moore Howard would also probably feel uncertain about the use of the word “experts.” In “Collaborative Pedagogy,” she says, “Much more frequently, scholars note ways in which collaborative pedagogy levels the teacher-student hierarchy. When teachers are no longer dispensing knowledge in lectures but are guiding students in the collaborative process of discovering and constructing knowledge, students are empowered” (57). While Howard probably wouldn’t have a problem with students going to their instructor with questions about where to find sources, she would most likely prefer to use the term “guide” or “facilitator,” rather than “expert.”
Considering the Audience When Selecting Courses:
In this chapter, Greene and Lidinsky explain the difference between using popular sources, such as magazines and newspapers for the general public, and scholarly sources, such as journal entries written by scholars from a specific field. When students are trying to determine which type of source to use, Greene and Lidinsky recommend that they consider the type of audience they are writing for, and how much that specific audience knows and understands about the topic: “Given your experience with rhetorical analyses, you should also be able to determine the makeup of your audience-specialists or nonspecialists-and the level of language you need to use in your writing” (126). Social constructionist Joseph Harris would probably agree with this approach. Though Bartholomae is also a social constructive scholar, Harris is more realistic in his pedagogy. Bartholomae is correct in saying that students must adapt to the language of the university, but Harris recognizes that Bartholomae’s concept of academic discourse is idealized as the language of solely one community, sitting on an unreachable pedestal to students. In “The Idea of Community in the Study of Writing,” Harris proposes, “That is, instead of presenting academic discourse as coherent and well-defined, we might be better off viewing it as polyglot, as a sort of space in which competing beliefs and practices intersect with and confront one another” (756). This view aligns with Greene and Lidinsky, who seem to recognize that there are multiple communities the student could be writing for, communities with all different levels of intellect, and that the students need to assess who this exact audience is and how to choose sources that correlate with that audience.
Interacting With the Text as a Form of Collaboration:
This chapter devotes a lot of time to giving students tips on how to evaluate sources to decide if they’re compatible with the students’ chosen topics. Green and Lidinsky provide a lengthy list of elements of the source that students should look for when making their decision, such as the writer’s purpose, the author’s personal view on the subject, the audience the author is writing for, the credibility of the author, and so on. By providing this list, Green and Lidinsky are asking students to collaborate with the text in a way, which is something Howard briefly proposes. She says, “Increasingly. . .composition scholars describe writers’ work with texts as a form of collaboration” (66). Though Greene and Lidinsky are not overtly proclaiming that this writer/source interaction is a form of collaboration, it seems implied, especially since after they provide this list of elements to take into consideration when interacting with the text, they devote a lengthy section to plagiarism and how to avoid it in the next chapter. Howard stresses the controversy that writers interacting with a source is not collaboration but is, in the worst case scenario, plagiarism. Therefore, Greene and Lidinsky’s strong warnings and tips to students are a good way to distinguish the difference between collaborating and stealing.
Chapter 7: From Summary to Synthesis: Using Sources to Build an Argument
Brief Summary:
In this chapter, Greene and Lidinsky help students figure out what to do after they’ve selected their sources; in other words, they help them understand the difference between quoting and paraphrasing and a summary and a synthesis, but also how to correctly achieve these four types of application and when to use them. When teaching students how to paraphrase or summarize, Greene and Lidinsky provide students with passages from scholarly essays and examples of a paraphrased or summarized version, as opposed to directly citing. When specifically talking about summarizing, they urge students to pay close attention to more formalist elements, such as topic sentences and transitions. They also introduce the concept of the “gist” of an author’s argument, or a brief explanation of the author’s main point. They say that deciphering the gist is the first step in writing a synthesis. When discussing how to conduct a synthesis, they provide three essays from three different journalists, and they include their own analytical comments in the margins of the essays so the students get an idea of how to assess what each writer is trying to accomplish and how to compare or contrast them. They then have a section devoted to avoiding plagiarism, which is something students may easily fall into if they’re not fully aware of how to cite. Therefore, they help students integrate quotes in their writing by discussing when it’s appropriate to cite, how often they should cite, how to explain their citations, and so on. Here, the chapter again seems slightly formalist as they explore how to integrate citations while being making sure the students’ writing is grammatically correct, such as where to put the commas, how to use an ellipsis, and so on. They end with an annotated student research paper that synthesized sources. All throughout the chapter, Greene and Lidinsky provide practice sequences with opportunities to try quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, and synthesizing for themselves.
Key Points:
Formalist Instruction on How to Paraphrase:
This is a section of the chapter that doesn’t use formalism in the most helpful way. Granted, many scholars reject formalism to begin with, but it can be successful if implemented properly. In the section about paraphrasing, however, Greene and Lidinsky’s first piece of advice to students learning to paraphrase is to “start by identifying key words and phrases and substituting synonyms for them,” followed by “experimenting with word order and sentence structure” (140). Here, they are focusing on form, which is a huge element of formalism. Granted, it’s necessary to discuss form and syntax for students who have never paraphrased before because they may not know where to begin; however, the fact that their first step was to substitute with synonyms is a little concerning. Of course, part of paraphrasing is trying to use one’s own words to restate an author’s idea, but one of the common mistakes that students make that lead them to accidental plagiarism is simply using a thesaurus and finding synonyms. Though Greene and Lidinsky follow up this step by saying that replacing words isn’t enough, the first step needs to be rephrased, especially with the possibility that students may quickly skim the text and see the words “substituting synonyms” and think that’s enough. They talk about paraphrasing more so in the grammatical context, which seems both misleading and formulaic. For example, in the sample passages they provide, they alert readers to the synonyms the writer used or the way the writer rearranged the word order to get the point across more easily to his or her readers. Unfortunately, the way they describe paraphrasing makes the reader seem incompetent and unable to understand the scholarly reference unless if severely dumbed down:
[Y]ou paraphrase when the ideas in a passage are important but are conveyed in language your readers may have difficulty understanding. When academics write for their peers, they draw on the specialized vocabulary of their disciplines to make their arguments. By paraphrasing, you may be helping your readers, providing a translation of sorts for those who do not speak the language. (142)
The tone that Greene and Lidinsky take here, whether intentional or accidental, is somewhat condescending. It assumes that there is the language of academia and then there is the language of the everyday person, who does not “speak the language.” Harris would probably really dislike this; he continually stresses that communities will most likely overlap, and that there isn’t one all-mighty academic language. In this segment about paraphrasing, Greene and Lidinsky seem to imply that there are certain people who don’t have access to this academic language. In addition, they say that paraphrasing is strictly used for when readers don’t understand the language, but one could use paraphrasing at other times, such as when he or she simply wants to condense a long passage, for example.
Formalist Instruction on How to Summarize:
In the segment on how to summarize, Greene and Lidinsky introduce a few more formalist elements, specifically topic sentences of paragraphs and transitions between paragraphs. They argue that looking for these two stylistic elements will help students properly summarize an author’s argument. For instance, they say, “Often, focusing on the first and last sentences of paragraphs will alert you to the shape and direction of an academic argument,” and “Another strategy for identifying major points is to pay attention to descriptive words and transitions (146-147). In Covino’s “Rhetorical Pedagogy,” he opens up with what he calls a “set of ‘rules’” that appeared in a 1973 formalist, two of which are topic sentences and transitional words (36). Based on Covino’s quotes around “rules,” one may infer that he finds them a little ridiculous. In this chapter, Greene and Lidinsky are not suggesting students use these themselves, but arguing that they look for them in someone else’s writing. However, it still is rather formalist because it implies that “good writing” needs to have these elements in order for it to make sense to readers, which is of course misleading.
Chapter 8: From Ethos to Logos: Appealing to Your Readers
Brief Summary:
In this chapter, Greene and Lidinsky introduce the three techniques to appealing to readers: ethos, which rely on the author’s character, pathos, which rely on the author’s appeal to emotion, and logos, which rely on the author’s use of logic and reasoning. They provide a visual and an explanation of Kinneavy’s rhetorical triangle, which addresses the relationship between the author, the audience, and reality. In order to give students an example of how to use these three appeals, they use an excerpt from James W. Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, and point out examples of how Loewen uses a combination of ethos, pathos, and logos to produce an effect on his readers. They also address logical fallacies in this chapter and urge students to be aware of how they can reduce the students’ credibility as writers. At the end of the chapter, they briefly discuss analyzing advertisements and ask students to apply what they have learned about ethos, pathos, and logos to determine the purpose of their provided advertisement (Feeding America).
Key Points:
Kinneavy’s Rhetorical Triangle:
By referring to Kinneavy’s triangle, Greene and Lidinsky debunk the expressivist and formalist pedagogies in some ways. As Covino says:
In this connection [to Kinneavy’s triangle], we might say that a rhetorical pedagogy consists in encouraging writing that is not restricted to self-expression or the acontextual generation of syntactic structures or the formulaic obedience to rules, but instead keeps in view the skills and contingencies that attend a variety of situations and circumstances. (37)
Though Greene and Lidinsky incorporate some expressivist elements, such as the student’s choice of topic in Chapter 6, and some formalist elements, such as the topic sentences and transitions in Chapter 7, they incorporate rhetorical pedagogy in this chapter, and they do it very successfully. As they continually stress in this chapter, it’s important for students to consider not only themselves and how they feel, but how others will feel when reading their argument:
Who you believe your readers are influences how you see a particular situation, define an issue, explain the ongoing conversation surrounding that issue, and formulate a question. You may need to read widely to understand how different writers have dealt with the issue you address. And you will need to anticipate how others might respond to your argument. (199)
What Greene and Lidinsky are saying here would give Elbow something to think about. Elbow is a strong advocate for expressivism, but he also stresses the importance of producing the desired effect on the reader. Of course, the two can go hand in hand, self-expression and audience awareness, but in Elbow’s “A Method for Teaching Writing,” he contradicts himself when attempting to explain the importance of both. First, he argues that students need to write for an audience and try and anticipate what the reader wants. However, he later says that students need to adopt a strong, authoritative voice in their writing and forget about whether the readers believe them or not. It’s important to understand the relationship between the reader and the writer and to understand that they can co-exist, and Greene and Lidinsky accomplish this a lot bit better than Elbow, especially with their reference to the rhetorical triangle, which shows that all three elements go hand in hand. They show the connection between reader and writer specifically in the section about ethos: “[T]he audience for your argument will be more disposed to agree with you if its members believe you are a fair, just person who is knowledgeable and has good judgment” (205). Ethos is all about building character and is the part of the triangle that represents the author. Greene and Lidinsky point out that once students gain the trust of their readers by showing they are both fair and knowledgeable about the subject, they’ll be able to put more of themselves in it, as long as they develop a believable character first.