For the Good of All Humanity, Imperatives Must Be Abolished
As a Walden
student, you likely have an interest in using your research to make a positive
change in people’s lives—most Walden students do, and the university strongly
supports efforts to apply scholarship that might otherwise remain abstract and
theoretical to concrete, real-world situations. This is, on balance, a good
thing. Sometimes, though, students’ enthusiasm for social change can overwhelm
their writing, introducing biases that could lead a reader to question their
objectivity as researchers and doubt the validity of their results.
Let’s look
at two examples of what I’m talking about:
• Teachers
must use differentiated instruction because students deserve to benefit from
the best instructional methods available (Erickson, 2014).
• This
prenatal education program should be implemented to help mothers in developing
countries avoid disease.
Both of
these statements are grammatically sound, and readers can easily comprehend
their meanings. However, they are both imperatives, or statements that
implore the reader to do something because it is essential or fundamental in
some way. Imperatives can powerfully underscore a writer’s overall point and
convince the reader to take action. Imperatives, though, do not really belong
in your scholarly writing as a Walden student because in the social sciences,
your arguments must be based (as much as possible) on logic and evidence.
You may
have heard, in an English or writing course, of the three classical modes of
persuasion: pathos, ethos, and logos, which basically mean
persuading via emotion, authority, and logic, respectively. These are all
effective ways of persuading a reader, and you can see them in your everyday
life: Look at any television commercial, political ad, or opinion column, and
you’ll likely find some or all of these persuasive appeals at work, making you
desire a product, trust a respected official, or believe in the significance of
a piece of data.
Imperatives,
by appealing to our sense of right and wrong, are a potent application of
pathos, and they can profoundly affect our judgments. Sometimes imperatives
serve us well: When world leaders argue to take action to prevent atrocities
like genocide or slavery, they often use imperatives because they’re appealing
to our sense of compassion and decency. They’re not arguing that preventing
these crimes is true; they’re arguing that it is right. In other
cases, though, imperatives are misused to bolster arguments that lack evidence
or logical coherence (a quality aptly captured by the term truthiness)
and lead readers to draw false conclusions. In those situations, imperatives
distract us into believing something is right without concern for
whether it’s true.
Our
susceptibility to pathos is one reason why scientific research is based on the
principle that we should not trust a judgment unless we can verify it with
objective observations of the world around us. Consequently, social scientists
avoid—and are skeptical of—appeals to our emotions or morals; social scientists
use logos (and ethos, to some degree, by doing things like citing
sources and maintaining a scholarly tone to establish their credibility) to
articulate their research. Put another way, using imperatives in
social-sciences writing is akin to sculpting marble with a bulldozer: It's the
wrong tool for the task at hand, and it can destroy the very thing you’re
trying to create.
With this
in mind, let’s look at revisions of my two examples:
• In
several recent studies, differentiated instruction has been identified as a
more effective method than more traditional instructional techniques (Erickson,
2014).
• If
implemented, this prenatal education program could help new mothers in some
developing countries minimize the risk of their children being born with
nutrition-related health problems.
Even though
I might personally feel strongly that all students deserve to benefit from the
best teaching methods available or that we should fund health education
programs in developing countries, those sentiments don’t belong in my
social-sciences writing. Limiting your claims to only what your evidence and
analysis will support will make your arguments more precise and more compelling.
.png)
Matt Sharkey-Smith is a writing instructor and the coordinator of graduate writing initiatives at the Writing Center says, "It's at once paradoxical and commonsensical, but it's true: You get better at writing by writing."
.png)
Never miss a new post; Opt-out at any time
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
No comments :
Post a Comment