Final Project: Tracking the Evolution of the Argument

Posted: April 25, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Dr. Meehan | Leave a comment

A Final Project that revised and extended the argument from Project 1 with ideas from Project 3; additions to the draft are underlined using the Track Changes function in Microsoft Word. We can use this as a tool for metacognition and review. What’s working in the evolving draft? We can assess the revision choices with regard to our Rubric, the critical thinking and rhetorical knowledge we have been studying.

What revision tools and strategies–digital, artificial, as well as human–might you use for the final project?

The Evolution of the Intellectual

[1]This new age of technology, supplies much controversy in the field of literature. While some authors revel in the fast-paced creative environment that technology creates, some authors cling on to the past, and like me some have a foot in both worlds.  Similar to Sven Birkert’s view of reading in ‘The Gutenberg Elegies’, which is inward and spiritual, I used to believe reading was a private experience, an escape from the outside world that only came in the form of a book. Although I still read as a form of escape I realize reading is more complex than that, it is about response, a sharing of ideas and development of opinion that can come in any form. I have always loved to read but it wasn’t until high school that I realized it was about more than just books, but developing critical thoughts and intellectual reflection.  This reading includes the news, tabloids, articles, and magazines not just novels; we respond to everything we read.

[2] As I began to realize literacy is defined by an intellectual response, I realized the importance of technology in the field of literature. I may have grown up on books, but the older I get the bigger a role technology plays in my life and in my learning. Electronic books provided by websites like Amazon began to shift the reading experience not just for myself but for everyone. Now authors of every kind are taking advantage of the many virtual options computers provide to be able to create something truly unique. The new virtual face of literature allows more people to partake in writing and reading; this is propelling the evolution of literature. Can literature be more than a book? Can the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens be recreated on a computed screen? Literature is not defined by its medium, and cannot be contained to just one. Literature is an expression, which can be represented in a manner of different art forms, from virtual texts to movies. Literacy is defined by an intellectual response and understanding, and literature can encompass technology as well as print.

[3]My view of literacy was developed in a household where my parents were intent on fostering my inner intellectual.  Thoroughly recognizing my utter lack of hand eye coordination and talent in sports, my parents turned their attention to my academics in hope for some success. From my earliest memories, I can see my father typing away on his newest gadget convinced that it was the most innovative thing he’s ever seen in his life, and my mother perched on her leather chair with a cup of tea and a book in her hand.  They both had very different approaches to teaching me everything there was to know. While my dad bantered on about all the things he could do on the latest version of our Intel, I couldn’t help but fall prey to the eggshell pages of a crisp new book. Author Sven Birkerts however, experienced a very different introduction to books. His love of reading had to be hid from his disapproving father, Birkerts claims “For him there was something against nature in the sight of a healthy individual sitting by himself with a book in his lap.” (Birkerts, 38).  Perhaps the individual ways in which we were exposed to books and technology hold influence over our view of it today.

[4]My infatuation with reading only grew stronger into middle school. As my reading level advanced to that of a college student and the books in the school library came to bore me, I began to experiment with my father’s almighty laptop. I found literature in places I never expected, and I was inspired. I researched my favorite authors and found book reviews and short stories and I was opened up to a new world of books. This world included virtual and interactive texts like “The Museum” that sparked my imagination and creativity. In the time between waiting for a new shipment of books I requested from Borders, I began typing up silly fictional stories of my own, inspired by the free publication the internet provided to the new world of authors. They were of little literary merit, a few alternate endings of my favorite books and beginnings to stories that I would never develop, but something to keep my eager imagination flowing. I realized that reading is about evoking a feeling, whether you completely hate Shakespeare you were forced to read in class or loved the latest Harry Potter sequel you stayed up all night reading. The feeling you have after reading a book is meant to be shared; that is in fact what a book is after all, a feeling developed into a work of art. Technology allows the individuals to share these thought with the world, revolutionizing literature.

[5]Before I agreed with Birkerts’ definition of reading as this inward spiritual act, particularly when he argues that, “Through the process of reading we slip out of our customary time orientation, marked by distractedness and surficiality, into a realm of duration…Only in this state are we prepared to consider our lives under what the philosophers used to call “the aspect of eternity”, to question our origins and destinations, and conceive of ourselves as souls.” (Birkerts, 32). I disagree with this view now because in my experience reading is about more than paging through a book; it’s a sharing of ideas, a representation and outward expression of opinion and imagination.  Sharing books with my friends, listening to bantering opinions at the dinner table and reading virtual texts particularly shapes my view here.  Writing in itself is a public act; authors are putting their thoughts, opinions, and notions on pages or a screen for everyone to see. When people read books or articles they develop thoughts and opinions about what they read and they respond, and that’s how literature advances. It is a dynamic development of ideas that involves us as readers responding. Birkerts turns his back to technology and all the modern literature that it provides. The newly established ‘internet authors’ and book critics appall him because he’s private experience and close personal relationship with books is now very public.

[6]Janet Murray is an author that I particularly agree with in this argument. Opposing Birkerts, Murray is open minded and accepting of this new age of technology. Before hypertext was even a word, Murray had used the idea herself to enhance her own writing “Frustrated by the constraint of producing a single book with a single pattern of organization, I filled my collection with multiple cross-references, encouraging the reader to jump from one topic to another.” (Murray, 4). Murray has the fluid creative mind that Birkerts did not understand. To be able to jump from topic to topic with no real end or beginning would completely confuse a reader like Birkerts, whereas readers like Murray thrive.  For example, in the hyper textual reading The Museum, follows Janet Murray’s non-linear writing style. Birkerts sees a limitation in this kind of writing, as he claims it to be distracting and lacking depth that he feels all literature must require. Technology is being used to create works of art and it should not be demeaned as Murray says, “Although the computer is often accused of fragmenting information and overwhelming us, I believe this view is a function of its current undomesticated state. The more we cultivate it as a tool for serious inquiry, the more it will offer itself as both an analytical and a synthetic medium.”(Murray, 7). I agree with Janet Murray that something’s are better displayed digitally than on paper, and vice versa. Books and technology will form an alliance, just as print came to enhance oral stories, technology will come to enhance books.

 [7]Birkerts has refused the new world and the hyper-mediated literature that comes with it. He holds fast to his beliefs in the written book and traditional literature.  To Birkerts, literacy is about reading a classic novel and understanding it at the most intellectual level, he sees no modern intellectual in our society. Although Birkerts doesn’t agree with the change happening around him, he is not blind to it. He believes that “Like a cancer, it has a “stage”. Stage 1 was detection, what I wrote about more than a decade ago. This is Stage 2, not yet a condition of total saturation, but advanced enough so that there is no going back, only forward via refinements and intensifications.” (Birkerts, 235). He sees technology as a sickness moving through the world, stripping this generation from intellectual thought and depth. While Birkerts acknowledges the stages that this evolution of literature occurs in, Birkerts argument doesn’t take into account the benefits of it. Technology allows more and more people of many different mindsets to log in and become a part of the literary playing field.  Birkerts claims “Mediation, saturation, and fragmentation, then, are the three of the major consequences of the information age.”(Birkerts, 237) What Birkerts sees as consequences, are simply outcomes of the evolution and they are not necessary damaging. Mediation provides the world with many forms of literature to share and respond to. Saturation of information allows individuals to become more well rounded and form their own opinions. Fragmentation only implies that we as individuals are beginning to understand the many facets of the world. These three outcomes provide a perfect environment for the growth of intellectuals.

[8]Response is all around us in many different forms, such as blogging, YouTube, articles, novels, even just casual discussion. In this era we are constantly reinforced to ‘be ourselves’ and share our opinions and there is a phenomena happening all around the world. What Sven Birkerts fails to see in our modern technology is its overwhelming supply of opinion, argument, and response. People are reading the newspaper, blogs, books, articles and they are speaking out. Technology has given literacy wings to reach places and people it never could before.  Although I disagree with Birkerts view that literature can only remain on the page, I do not renounce books all together as he did with technology. I enjoy reading bound books, dug from the corners of the library bookshelves, but I also appreciate the virtual experience that only technology can provide. This is balance that we must obtain for ourselves. There can be no quota on how many books we must read, or how much time we must spend online to be an intellectual. The modern intellectual is not only hiding in books and proper theses; she is out responding to the world using mediums like YouTube, blogs, and articles. The modern intellectual must evolve with her surroundings to become a more cultivated individual.

Final Project: Revision and Review

Posted: April 21, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Dr. Meehan | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Putting it All Together: The Rhetoric of Creative Reading

Revision, as we have emphasized in each of the writing projects this term, is not so much “fixing” our writing and reading as taking it further. In that sense, writing represents a continual feedback loop of experimentation and recombination. There is more we can do, or might do, or should do, or would do–if only we had more time. The final project obliges you to take that time. This is your final exam. The components are:

  • Essay: You will write a 1500 word (6-7 pages, double-spaced, standard 12pt. font, etc) essay that revises and expands upon something you have already begun in one or more of your previous writing projects.
  • Learning Focal Point: Revision. Your task is to revise this essay: go back and go further with your reading, your thinking, your writing. The revision should reflect substantial development and change, not merely editing. Revision involves taking a risk with your thinking and writing.
  • Proposal. To guide your revision, you will update your to-do list and propose a revised abstract for the final project revision and identify a writer from the course who you select as a mentor. You will also identify one key rhetorical or logical element of your writing and one grammatical or stylistic element of writing that you will revise and improve. To conduct this further reading, consult resources such as Guide to Grammar and Writing, Purdue OWL, and others listed on right side of this blog. To identify these rhetorical, logical, and grammatical elements of composition, refer back to our Rubric . You will submit a proposal (300-500 words) that includes the following:
    • revised abstract of your argument + indication of which writer from the course (anyone we have read) you select as your writing mentor, and why: what aspects of writing do they demonstrate that you would like to develop?
    • rhetorical/logical element of your writing you will develop: with guidelines, examples to explain; provide a link/citation to the resource
    • grammatical/stylistic element of your writing you will improve: with guidelines, examples to explain; provide a link/citation to the resource
    • in a brief (2-3 minute) presentation in class, you will teach us what you have learned and how the rest of us might learn from your further reading
  • Publication: 
    • Preface: Your preface is an expanded abstract/reflection/acknowledgments (1-2 pages), serving as the introduction to your portfolio. After providing the abstract of the argument in a short paragraph (as you have done with each writing project), you will reflect on the work that went into the revision–what you have attempted to do with the essay, why and how you revised it, what you believe you have achieved with this writing. You should pinpoint 1 or more of the key aspects of the revision you have pursued.  The Self-Reflection should also reflect on your progress and achievement as a writer and reader this term overall–what you have worked on (that to-do list I keep talking about), what you have achieved, what you want to keep working on in the coming semesters at Washington College. In other words, what does this portfolio represent of the work you have done this semester and the writing and critical reading you plan to continue in the coming semesters?

This final project in revised reading and writing tests your progress with the three main objectives of this course (remember those?): developing critical reading; developing thoughtful writing; developing effective writing. Those objectives, of course, are ongoing; but your final project should demonstrate your development in those areas–in contrast, say, with the last ‘paper’ you wrote in high school or the first essay you wrote in this course.

The project also provides an opportunity for publication–what we do and want to do (in different forms and forums) as writers. For example, you might consider submitting this essay for consideration by one of the numerous publications on campus that highlight student work–and include critical writing, are not limited to fiction or poetry. Those publications include The Collegian, and The Washington College Review

The projects also provides an opportunity for you to put to work the rhetorical focal points we explored and practiced with each project. In a preface to a final project, a former student wrote this review of those focal points, informed by Joseph Harris’s terminology and our use of his book Rewriting:

When Coming to Terms with a text by another writer, I then make three moves:

  • Define the project of the writer in my own terms,
  • Note keywords or passages in the text,
  • Assess the uses and limits of this approach

In Forwarding a text, I begin to shift the focus of my readers away from what its author has to say and toward my own project:

  • Illustrating: When I look to other texts for examples of a point I want to make.
  • Authorizing: When I involve the expertise or status of another writer to support my thinking
  • Borrowing: When I draw on terms or ideas from other writers to use in thinking through my subject
  • Extending: When I put my own spin on the terms or concepts that you take from other texts.

Countering– Three main ways of creating a sort of critical distance:

  • Arguing the other side: showing the usefulness of a term or idea that a writer has criticized or noting problems with one that she or he has argues for.
  • Uncovering values: Surfacing a word or concept for analysis that a text has left undefined or unexamined.
  • Dissenting: Identifying a shared line of thought on an issue in order to note its limits

Revising-My aim is instead to describe revising as a knowable practice, as a consistent set of questions you can ask of a draft of an essay that I am working on:

  • What’s your project? What do you want to accomplish in this essay? (Coming to Terms)
  • What works? How can you build on the strengths of your draft? (Forwarding)
  • What else might be said? How might you acknowledge other views and possibilities? (Countering)
  • What’s next? What are the implications of what you have to say? (Taking an Approach)

Student Sample: For one example of how you might extend your revision work, and extend the medium of your writing (in the senses of Marshall McLuhan), consider this digital version of the project produced by Caitrin Doyle, a former student in the class. This digital project offers an extension of what the author submitted, which was itself an extension of her third writing project. One of the areas that the author extended in the revision focused on the forwarding and countering of critical perspective. Here is a sample of the extended discussion that allows the author to take her own approach, while clearly responding to and effectively building upon the work and ideas of others (in this case: Murray, Birkerts, Carr, and the hypertext poem “Faith”).

[…]Sadly, however, hypertext literature has been confronted with just as much skepticism as its conduit. According to people like Sven Birkerts, hypertext literature cannot be considered “true” literature and therefore cannot be worth reading because it lacks the depth present in classic literature; but that simply cannot be true. While beauty is in the eye of beholder, it is widely believed that art–and literature as a facet–are successful only if they evoke something in their audience; some emotion, a hard-to-describe feeling, anything. And the hypertext poem “Faith”, written by Robert Kendall, does exactly what Birkert’s claims it is incapable of: it inspires. Kendall’s poem garners its very meaning from the use of technology. With the use of coding and magic, Kendall guides and inspires his readers through a step-by-step journey of his own writing process. In fact, without the use of movement on the screen–entirely credited to his use of the tools that these new technologies have provided–the poem would not have been nearly as poignant. I got so much more out of this poem by physically watching it unfold word by sentence by thought then I would have had I simply read it in its entirety printed on a page. Kendall uses technology to take his readers on an adventure from the birth of his idea to the final executions of the language he uses to shape, flesh out, and express it. The problem with a lot of poetry is, after all, that the author’s meaning, what he or she actually set out to express, often gets lost in the muddied interpretations of its readers. With this multimedia poem, Kendall’s true meaning rings out loud and clear.  This poem is not read, it is experienced.  Multimedia literature–as made evident by this poem and by thousands of others like it–provokes as much thought, evokes as much emotion, and involves the audience as much if not more than any classic literature I have ever read. And by meeting those standards, set out by perhaps hypertext’s most vigilant critic himself, it proves itself worthy.

However, my personal experience with multimedia literature doesn’t do much in the way of convincing, and as Murray points out, “The birth of new medium of communication is both exhilarating and frightening. Any industrial technology that dramatically extends our capabilities also makes us uneasy by challenging our concept of humanity itself”, and that seems to ring especially true with the opponents of hypertext literature. But what everyone seems to be conveniently forgetting is that technology is what started it all, especially when it comes to literature. The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439, decades before even the American continent was discovered. At the time, thousands of people were wary about the infusion of literature into the everyman’s experience, as literacy tended to breed uprisings and all kinds of problems for the ruling class. But what no one could have predicted, however, was the absolutely enormous influence the printing press would have. It changed every single aspect of life for the people of the world. All of the sudden, entire populations were learning how to read, expanding their minds, inventing, exploring, discovering, creating, and all in the active pursuit of knowledge brought on by easy accessibility to the printed word. The invention of the printing press sparked the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, and led to so many countless new technologies, theories, and efficiencies that I couldn’t even begin to name them. This is the natural progression of our species; we sit and think on some problem for a great long while, we finally make some solution happen, nay-sayers and worshippers alike cry out, and then, often regardless of the public’s reaction, that new technology makes a shift in the world. Eventually, those changes have all proved to serve us and to improve our quality of life. The internet and hypertext, multimedia literature are simply in their “outcry” phase. I believe that once the dust settles, we will be left with a tool just as mighty and powerful as the printing press before it, we are simply following in the footsteps of our own ancestors before us.

All that being said, there are probably hundreds of thousands of people who are still unsettled by the shift occurring in our world right now. And to be entirely truthful, those concerns are not completely unfounded.  For example, Nicholas Carr, a kind of spokesperson for the healthily open-minded and skeptical, believes that if we make efficiency and immediacy our priorities with literature, we “may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace”. And he’s got a point; the types of long, verbose novels that have come out of the invention of the printing press are definitely getting a little tougher to swallow. But I think the cause of that problem is a lot simpler than it may at first appear: just like a child’s favorite toy will inevitably be passed up for a newer, shinier version, so will it always be harder for a reader to engage in a long, complex, linear story printed on a page when they have experienced other complex worlds–co-authored by both writer and technology–that allow them to experience the same story with more than just their imaginations. Technology has made way for a way new kind of story-telling: an experience of the senses. Anyone who has embraced these new technologies has become accustomed to being completely engrossed; eyes, ears, and minds, into the worlds that are being created for them by a medium that uses multiple forms of media. Over time those changes in the way we experience our content have reflected themselves as changes even in the way our brains process new things. It makes absolute sense that people would have a hard time concentrating on and engaging with novels, because they are simply not as engaging as the new types of literature readers have been experimenting with.

However, Carr is right when he points out that “never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives-or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts-as the Internet does today.” But I don’t think he’s really considering the reasons why that would be happening.  The internet is a tool that can make almost every single aspect of daily life go a little bit smoother. It’s a tool that can be used to do literally anything it is programmed to do. Could I sit in the library stacks, combing through text after text, running my finger and my eyes endlessly down the page searching for that perfect quote I read once in seventh grade? Absolutely.  But, do I have the time or the inclination to be doing that on a daily basis? Not at all. The internet gives us the opportunity to explore whole world if we have a few minutes to kill. I know that the argument that Carr is making here is that that all that time spent doing one thing–like reading an 800-page novel–is incredibly valuable, and I think he’s entirely right. But should that mean that people should not also spend their time finding meaning in short little poems that quite literally sing and dance their way across the page? I don’t believe so. Time spent experiencing literature is incredibly valuable, but what Carr is missing is that literature doesn’t have to be experienced solely on the printed page.

Readers who experience hypertext literature are connecting sensory memories; like sound, and sight, with their thoughts and memories. With novels, you can only have thought. If anything, these new forms of literature are opening us up to deeper levels of contemplation. Birkerts takes Carr’s argument a step further: “[Hypertext forms of literature] are not only extensions of the senses, they are extensions of the senses that put us in touch with the extended senses of others,” (224). He is concerned that the Internet’s ultimate goal is to forge connections between every person in the world, turning the individual perspective into a global one. He goes on to say “The end of it all…is a kind of amniotic environment of impulses, a condition of connectedness,” (224), but I really don’t see a problem with that. He uses the image of an amniotic environment, and I think, like Murray’s use of the word “bound” to describe the words printed on a page, that he’s chosen a really appropriate metaphor. The internet and its brain children are still so incredibly young. The symbol he’s provided for us is one of growth, and one of hope. Absolutely endless possibilities have come out of this new form of technology already, and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that Birkerts wants to stomp it out before it has even had a chance to grow. What might be happening is a sort of social adaptation, a change that will yield a possibly better world. To give all of that hope and opportunity away to revert back to our old ways would only seem to me to be simply barbaric and cowardly. It’s in our blood to move forward, to keep ourselves rooted in the past would be to deny our always striving minds.

Editing Workshop: Signals for Argument

Posted: April 18, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Dr. Meehan | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

When you make an argument in writing you are participating in an ongoing conversation. One of the primary ways that conversation takes place in writing is when you quote other critics and views, bring them into your argument, and in some way work off them: come to terms, forward, counter, take an approach. Because this conversation is taking place in your writing, it is important that you clearly identify things such as: who is speaking, which part of the argument you agree with, where you would disagree. These signals are words and phrases that you can revise and edit into your essay. I adapt the following templates from the book They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein.

Introducing Quotations: X states (argues, believes, asserts), “………..”

Explaining Quotations (a way to begin your follow up): In other words, X believes…..

Signaling Agreement/Disagreement

[Disagreeing with reasons] X’s claim that  ___________ rests upon the questionable assumption that _________.

However, by focusing on ________, X overlooks the deeper problem of ___________.

[Agreeing with a difference] X’s view of ____ is useful because it sheds insight on the difficult problem of __________.

[Agreeing and Disagreeing] Although I agree with X up to a point, I cannot accept his overall conclusion that __________.

My feelings on the issue are mixed. I do support X’s position that ________, but I find Y’s argument about _________ equally persuasive.

Entertaining Objections

Of course, many will probably disagree with my assertion that _________.

Yet some readers may challenge my view that _______. Indeed, my own argument seems to ignore _________.

Yet is it always true that ________? Is it always the case, as I have been arguing, that __________?

Although I grant that _______, I still maintain that __________.

In classical rhetorical, this introduction of a counterargument is called Procatalepsis or prolepsis–refuting anticipated objections.

Useful Metacommentary (ways of talking more directly to your reader about your argument)

In other words, _________.

Essentially, I am arguing that _________.

My point is ________.

My conclusion, then, is that __________.

Saying why your argument matters (template for larger implications/resolution)

This argument has important consequences for the larger issue of ___________.

Although X may seem of concern to only a small group of _______, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about ________.

A poorly signaled argument can often lead problems with logos (evidence, logic) known as logical fallacies. We have focused on counterargument with the third writing project as a way to strengthen our logos, our handling of evidence. Recall that “countering,” as Harris terms it, doesn’t mean simply letting “the other side” have a say or merely disagreeing with an opposing view. That may be how argument on cable television (unfortunately) works these days, but it isn’t what academic argument is about. Rather, countering means locating a thread or idea or implication in another’s argument that will be useful to the development of your own argument. This oppositional or contradictory thread may be useful in locating a potential weakness of your own argument–a point that your reader might expect you to consider and possibly refute. The thread may well point to a weakness in the other’s argument that you can use to elaborate your own. In other words, you might find language in an argument that you don’t agree with but can put to work.

Given this view of countering, I have suggested that focusing on counterargument can serve as an effective revision strategy. After completing a draft that focuses on developing your argument, you can revise your argument by giving more time to the terms of another’s argument that contends or contradicts your own. One way to evaluate this other argument–and by extension, to reconsider the structure of your own–is to pay attention to its logic. That’s where recognizing and revising potential logical fallacies can be useful.

Logical Fallacies or Flaws

Anticipating/Responding to Flaws/Fallacies in your argumentation. A counterargument is also a type of qualification–where you can tell your reader that you are not guilty of logical flaws or fallacies such as a “false premise” or “false dichotomy.” or “anecdotal fallacy.” In fact, that might be how you respond to an objection and turn back to your argument, by pointing out a fallacy in the other argument. Here is a description of some of the most common fallacies that can get you into rhetorical trouble.

Below are some common errors in logic that you might find in another’s argument (and therefore useful for countering) or may well find in your own. These errors are known as logical fallacies. In general, we engage in a fallacy when we move too quickly in our discussion, fail to qualify what we say, or admit that our own argument has limitations. Or worse: when we say or do something deceptive in our argumentation. In rhetoric, logical fallacies are bad for ethos, even though they can be good for pathos (for example, argumentum ad populum).

Ad hominem: At the man; attacking the person instead of his or her argument.

Ad populum: At the people; appealing to the people’s emotions, prejudices, etc.

Ad Authoritate: Appeal to authority; using a celebrity rather than expertise as authority.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: After this, therefore, because of this; faulty cause and effect, jumping to conclusions.

Non sequitur: It does not follow; conclusion does not extend from the argument.

Circular logic: Begging the question; using a statement to prove itself.

False dilemma: Giving only two options in a situation when others may be possible.

False analogy: Argument based on incomplete comparison.

Faulty generalization: A conclusion that inappropriately makes a claim for all based on conclusions about a few.

Hidden premise: An unexpressed assumption, hidden agenda.

Reductio ad absurdum: (reduction to the absurd); argument in which a position is refuted by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.

Special Pleading: Basically, invoking a double standard–arguing that a particular case is an exception to the rule based on an irrelevant characteristic that is not in fact an exception.

Tu Quoque: Turning the criticism back onto the critic.

For a comprehensive listing, see Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies. Also this discussion of Logos and Logical Fallacies from Purdue OWL.

Conclusion

The conversation of your argument ends with the conclusion, of course. But as we have seen throughout the semester, it is important for raising implications that both reiterate the argument and give the reader somewhere to go, to take your argument into their next project (and thus continue the conversation when you are gone).

Here are some additional ways to think about weaker and stronger conclusions (borrowed from an Inquiry and Analysis (AAC&U) that applies equally to the sciences and social sciences as it does to the humanities.

Very Strong: Conclusion presents a logical extrapolation from the inquiry findings

Strong: Conclusion responds specifically and solely to the inquiry findings.

Average: General conclusion presented that applies beyond the scope of the inquiry findings because it is so general.

Weak: Ambiguous, illogical, or unsupportable conclusion regarding inquiry findings.

Some additional digital tools for editing to consider–ways to go hyper with your text!

Workshop: Counterargument

Posted: April 16, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Dr. Meehan | Tags: | 1 Comment

For Project 3, counterargument is an element that needs to show up in your essay, a rhetorical element we are developing. However, counterargument can also be useful as a composting and revising strategy, as you move from ideas, to outline, to draft, to revised draft. It gets at one of our 4 revision questions: What Else? Imagine another perspective that is out there, or a different perspective from yours, or a perspective that your emerging argument responds to (a basic need for any argument or thesis). In other words, considering counterargument can help you sharpen the focus, purpose, stake of your argument and essay. So use the counterargument exercise (what’s the opposite of my argument? who disagrees with me and why?) to go back to your thesis and refine; to draft out an introduction; to revise one or more of your body paragraphs (strengthen by further complicating); potentially, to find a different and stronger argument.

If the opposite of your initial thesis/hypothesis turns out to be stronger or more compelling than your thesis, that’s a good thing–and a good thing to know in time to revise and change your essay and argument.

If countering in general terms means challenging or resisting or–as Harris puts it in Rewriting–finding the useful limitations of a critical perspective or assumption, then counterargument is when writers turn to countering their own perspective. It is a rhetorical move in critical writing–useful in exploring, anticipating, and answering the limitations of one’s own argument.

An argument, as we have seen, in effect is a counter to a previous argument (or view, idea, understanding, position) that you believe is limited, in need of further thinking, if not rethinking. Thus, counterargument helps us clarify our argument and its stakes–the problem that we are addressing and responding. For a reminder, recall this discussion of stakes in an argument, and the ways that you might counter others, as well as counter your own argument toward clarifying and strengthening what you are arguing for:

1. Challenge an initial read.

2. Challenge a published view.

3. Explain an inconsistency, gap, or ambiguity.

4. Explain unexpected conclusions.

5. Intervene in a debate.

6. Point out how a piece of evidence encapsulates a larger issue.

7. Point out how an insignificant moment is actually critical.

8. Point out the limits of the existing literature.

9. Point out a problem others don’t usually see.

 

We also have as a model for countering the three basic moves that Harris identifies in his chapter in Rewriting:

  1. Arguing the other side
  2. Uncovering values
  3. Dissenting

Counterargument: Some Guidelines

From Harvard Writing Center Copyright 1999, Gordon Harvey (adapted from The Academic Essay: A Brief Anatomy), for the Writing Center at Harvard University

When you write an academic essay, you make an argument: you propose a thesis and offer some reasoning, using evidence, that suggests why the thesis is true. When you counter-argue, you consider a possible argument against your thesis or some aspect of your reasoning. This is a good way to test your ideas when drafting, while you still have time to revise them. And in the finished essay, it can be a persuasive and (in both senses of the word) disarming tactic. It allows you to anticipate doubts and pre-empt objections that a skeptical reader might have; it presents you as the kind of person who weighs alternatives before arguing for one, who confronts difficulties instead of sweeping them under the rug.

The Turn Against

Counterargument in an essay has two stages: you turn against your argument to challenge it and then you turn back to re-affirm it. You first imagine a skeptical reader, or cite an actual source, who might resist your argument by pointing out

  • a problem with your demonstration, e.g., that a different conclusion could be drawn from the same facts, a key assumption is unwarranted, a key term is used unfairly, certain evidence is ignored or played down;
  • one or more disadvantages or practical drawbacks to what you propose;
  • an alternative explanation or proposal that makes more sense.

You introduce this turn against with a phrase like One might object here that… or It might seem that… or It’s true that… or Admittedly,… or Of course,… or with an anticipated challenging question: But how…? or But why…? or But isn’t this just…? or But if this is so, what about…? 

The Turn Back

Your return to your own argument—which you announce with a but, yet, however, nevertheless or still—must likewise involve careful reasoning, not a flippant (or nervous) dismissal. In reasoning about the proposed counterargument, you may

  • refute it, showing why it is mistaken—an apparent but not real problem;
  • acknowledge its validity or plausibility, but suggest why on balance it’s relatively less important or less likely than what you propose, and thus doesn’t overturn it;
  • concede its force and complicate your idea accordingly—restate your thesis in a more exact, qualified, or nuanced way that takes account of the objection, or start a new section in which you consider your topic in light of it.

 Where to Put a Counterargument

Counterargument can appear anywhere in the essay, but it most commonly appears

  • as part of your introduction—before you propose your thesis—where the existence of a different view is the motive for your essay, the reason it needs writing;
  • as a section or paragraph just after your introduction, in which you lay out the expected reaction or standard position before turning away to develop your own;
  • as a quick move within a paragraph, where you imagine a counterargument not to your main idea but to the sub-idea that the paragraph is arguing or is about to argue;
  • as a section or paragraph just before the conclusion of your essay, in which you imagine what someone might object to what you have argued.

But watch that you don’t overdo it. A turn into counterargument here and there will sharpen and energize your essay, but too many such turns will have the reverse effect by obscuring your main idea or suggesting that you’re ambivalent.

_____________

Nicholas Carr’s model: counterargument just before conclusion

Maybe I’m just a worrywart. Just as there’s a tendency to glorify technological progress, there’s a countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.” And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.” They would be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” Socrates wasn’t wrong—the new technology did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).

The arrival of Gutenberg’s printing press, in the 15th century, set off another round of teeth gnashing. The Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men “less studious” and weakening their minds. Others argued that cheaply printed books and broadsheets would undermine religious authority, demean the work of scholars and scribes, and spread sedition and debauchery. As New York University professor Clay Shirky notes, “Most of the arguments made against the printing press were correct, even prescient.” But, again, the doomsayers were unable to imagine the myriad blessings that the printed word would deliver.

So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism. Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn’t the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman  eloquently described what’s at stake:

I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available.”

As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”

I’m haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computer’s emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—“I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m afraid”—and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL’s outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.

Counterargument example from a recent critique of generative AI by Naomi Klein. Note how the author takes much less time in turning away from the argument–employing a series of rhetorical questions, basically answered: No, I disagree.

Is all of this overly dramatic? A stuffy and reflexive resistance to exciting innovation? Why expect the worse? Altman reassures us: “Nobody wants to destroy the world.” Perhaps not. But as the ever-worsening climate and extinction crises show us every day, plenty of powerful people and institutions seem to be just fine knowing that they are helping to destroy the stability of the world’s life-support systems, so long as they can keep making record profits that they believe will protect them and their families from the worst effects. Altman, like many creatures of Silicon Valley, is himself a prepper: back in 2016, he boasted: “I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”

I’m pretty sure those facts say a lot more about what Altman actually believes about the future he is helping unleash than whatever flowery hallucinations he is choosing to share in press interviews.

Sample from a former student:

Literature in Video Games

Abstract: The advancement in technology has caused literature to take many new forms. One of these new forms is playable literature in the form of video games. At first glance, video games may appear to be a mindless, substanceless addition to society, and there might appear to be no connection with what makes literature literature. In actuality though, many video games, such as Red Dead Redemption 2, have all the aspects that traditional literature does. These games tell stories, communicate ideas, incorporate their own form of figurative language, and forward works from other authors.

Key words: literature, technology, game, mindless, story, communicate, expand [cites: Murray, Harris, Carr]

            [Last Body Paragraph] Nicholas Carr in Is Google Making us Stupid argues that our constant use of fast-paced technology is changing how our brains function, rendering us unable to read long blocks of text. I agree that this is a valid concern and could be seen as a limitation to video games. If people were to start using video games and technology as their primary or only source of literature intake, this could continue rapidly altering people’s brains. While technology is in fact changing the way our brains function, I also do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. Technology is not going to go away, it is going to continue developing and becoming more advanced, so I believe that instead of fighting against it we should accept it and adapt. I in no way think that we should completely disregard books, but I think that we should be open to accepting new mediums as forms of literature. Murray argues that computers “reshape the spectrum of narrative expression, not by replacing the novel or the movie but by continuing their timeless bardic work within another framework” (Murray 10). I completely agree with her; new forms of technology and literature are not replacing books but expanding them in another framework. Games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 do just that.

Here is another example of counterargument (placed as last body paragraph) by Shana, a writer from a previous class.

Electronic Literature: polymorphous possibilities

Posted: April 11, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Dr. Meehan | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

In the electronic poem “the dreamlife of letters,” the phrase “polymorphous possibilities” floats and twirls around the screen. The poem is grouped in the Ambient text section of the archive. This type of text is described in this way:

Work that plays by itself, meant to evoke or engage intermittent attention, as a painting or scrolling feed would; in John Cayley’s words, “a dynamic linguistic wall-hanging.” Such work does not require or particularly invite a focused reading session.

I think this particular text, and this kind of text (ambient), represents something larger about electronic literature that you are likely to experience as you explore this new media type of literature this week. “Dreamlife” is interested in “letters.”  All verbal texts are, to some extent. Some texts more than others. This one takes its interest more deliberately, and perhaps (so I might argue) more fervently, than many others. When you read–or watch–this poem, you witness the polymorphous possibilities of language. The poem reminds us, it seems to me, of the fact that any poem, any text, is made of such things. And made from the possibility of making and unmaking words and combining and moving letters.

It doesn’t “invite a focused reading session.” This is true. And yet, poetry is hard for many people, readers and non-readers alike. Consider the poem “Poem” by Charles Bernstein–a well-known, academic poet (and a co-founder of the Electronic Poetry Center at SUNY Buffalo). Is it so different from “Dreamlife”–except that it is static? Might we think of reading “Dreamlife” more like listening to a song: moving and morphing along? Does the poetry (or more broadly, the literary) reading experience need to be difficult? Must it be a focused reading session? What about, instead, an experience of reading? “Ambient” suggests that the environment and the experience of the text and its reading (its watching, its playing…) matters more than a conventional view of focusing on the meaning within a text.

Focus is a concern for Sven Birkerts; it point to a difference between linear print texts and many, if not all, of the electronic literary texts available at the archive. But what if focus implies, or derives, from participation rather than concentration? Isn’t poetry difficult, in part, when we are sitting too quietly or silently, waiting for it to speak to us? Consider some of the Oulipoems [constraint-based texts] which invite reader activity while also working something like a mad-libs game. It might surprise you, but these computer-generated texts are based on print poems from the mid-twentieth century, including the famous “Hundred Thousand Billion Poems” by Queneau. Andrew Piper refers to this group of poets in his chapter “By the Numbers.”

Can or should the experience of reading literature be something like a game? Or an algorithm? Can composing literature–poem or story or essay or argument–be processed like information, combined and re-combined like numbers or letters in a slot machine? What if it already is?

Or, perhaps hypermediacy means the hyperactivity of print culture, rather than its disappearance. Recall what Murray says–electronic text is the child of print culture. Here is one text, as sort of nightmare of digital communication: Out of Touch.

A text by Moulthorp (the hypertext author Birkerts reads in his chapter) titled Radio Silence–showing an interest in the ideas of play (rules for reading) and the interest in pattern.

A well-regarded hypertext–that emphasizes a different kind of linking nonlinearity: The Jew’s Daughter.

For some further exploration of how a text might be composed algorithmically, using a random text generator, consider The Apostrophe Engine. Can a machine compose a poem? That question is a version of the Turing test or the imitation game devised by Alan Turing. Check out this version of the test applied to poetry Bot or Not. You could experiment with your own version of machine composition. Put a word like “Poetry” into a text; then proceed to select the first or second word suggested by your text program, and continue to do that. Is the result poetic? literary? Is it a composition?

AI tools

With regard to the new forms of generative AI, what have you used and how might you explore those tools further as a reader and writer? By the way, for those interested in exploring an AI platform, it is entirely voluntary (not required by the course) and you should do so carefully since there are data privacy concerns to consider. Just as we don’t know where the information is coming from, we also don’t know where our information we put into the chat is going–but it can be used for training.

Some history: the new chatbot interface echoes back to Eliza, a computer-mediated therapy session from the 1960s.

You could co-create with ChatGPT or another generative AI platform a text. Ask it for ideas, write in response to those ideas, then ask it to regenerate ideas and sentences from your sentences. Is that collaborative writing? Is ChatGPT your co-author? Here is an article from Wired about a fiction writer who used an earlier version of OpenAI’s chatbot to write a story.

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