Do you fully understand them? Western logical structures, which developed from the Ancient Greeks and were then developed by the Church Fathers and Enlightenment philosophers, tend to be what we mean when we say we want your argument to ‘progress logically’. Happily sailing along, readers would hardly find it thrilling if the river unexpectedly cascaded 600 metres down a cliff, abruptly dried up, or if a massive boulder were wedged between its banks. Students often think a text is boring. The syllogism is a good way to run through a logical checklist. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. A lot of great points but you have to admit, some of the unnecessarily abstruse sentences in academic writing are enough to turn anyone off. It is important to understand what readers are expecting as ‘normal’ to establish what you are doing and why its right for your project. Change ). The preface is the biggest picture you can get of the text. It’s similar to the map of a country. What are the facts? The narrator teaches you that a good argument will have, at minimum, a 5-part structure. you assume things are true when they are not true; you assume things are true for everything and they are only true for a specific set of those things; or you leave out an assumption that means you have a serious logical gap. I teach research and writing skills at the University of Melbourne. Below is a brief outline of a common structure for an academic textbook. So if you are doing quantum physics, post-modern philosophy, or Indigenous stonework, among others, you will be challenging these logical norms. If this is what we cut, imagine what we’re keeping! My book (with Inger Mewburn and Shaun Lehmann) How to Fix your Academic Writing Trouble came out in December 2018. What conclusions can we draw from our argument? This repetitive structure is probably one aspect of academic writing students find so boring. Perhaps the easiest and best known form of logical progression is the syllogism. In this tutorial video, you will learn the basic structure for a good argumentative essay. This is a very neat logical argument. However, this repetitive nature makes the write highly efficient in terms of understanding giving that the reader is aware of this. ( Log Out /  Thirdly, the author provides no evidence for the claims made. This is something that got cut from my new book, with the Thesis Boot Camp gang, called Your PhD Survival Guide. This yet another disconnect between students and textbooks. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. If you leave out an assumption (or step) which means you have a serious logical gap, your logical fallacy might be: I hope this post helped you to have the ‘ahah! Furthermore, in many university assignments the correct use of structure is part of the final assessment. For everyone else, understanding these logical norms means you can finally crack the code of why your supervisor keeps writing ‘I’m not sure this is a logical progression’ on your manuscript. The chapter zooms in somewhat and is similar to the map of a city. *** Perhaps the easiest and best known form of logical progression is the syllogism. Each is an abstraction of a higher level. The goal of academic writing is not to be entertaining. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. There is no development of premises which lead to a conclusion. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. This structure is how academic writing takes place. ( Log Out /  Any of these nas… Therefore, lecturers need to help students not only understand the ideas of a book but the actual structure of how those ideas are framed in a textbook. To illustrate, imagine that readers should ideally follow your thoughts as effortlessly as cruising down a river through the countryside. Academic writing is repetitive in terms of its structure. The narrator in this tutorial, makes a very important distinction in the video; a good argument versus an average or mediocre argument. “The book is boring.” This is a common complaint many lecturers receive from students about the assigned reading in a class. Is there causation, correlation or just coincidence? A student must see the structure in order to appreciate the details. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! In order to develop a logical argument, the author first needs to determine the logic behind his own argument. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! The main ways you could go wrong with your logical progressions: A tool like the syllogism can help you identify what they are, and then fix them. Lecturers forget that students are not scholars and thus do not quite understand how scholars organize their writing. Academic writing addresses complex issues that require higher-order thinking skills applied to understanding the research problem [e.g., critical, reflective, logical, and creative thinking as opposed to, for example, descriptive or prescriptive thinking]. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Welcoming you in to the secrets, techniques and taboos around succeeding in a Research Higher Degree. For everyone else, understanding these logical norms means you can finally crack the code of why your supervisor keeps writing ‘I’m not sure this is a logical progression’ on your manuscript. If students knew this they would no longer be students. Clearly, most reading relies on understanding words in the order they appear in a sentence. ( Log Out /  ( Log Out /  Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. A framework such as the Written Report Structure, above, will also allow you to break down the daunting task of writing a report into more manageable sections. What the student is really saying is that they cannot understand what they are reading. The missing ingredient for students to appreciate academic reading is to understand the structure of academic writing. Human beings love order, and we will try to impose order in almost every situation. ( Log Out /  Yay! In academic writing a clear structure and a logical flow are imperative to a cohesive text. Every time we ask if something is ‘logical’, we are asking questions like: As you have probably noticed when trying to construct your arguments for your thesis, there are lots of ways you could go wrong with your logical progression. Secondly, the argument does not follow a logical structure. This repetitive structure is probably one aspect of academic writing students find so boring. That role is normally set aside for fiction writing. If you assume things are true for everything and they are only true for a specific set of those things, your logical fallacy might be: 3. Each sub-section supports a higher section in the book. I don’t blame my fellow students for raising eyebrows at a sentence containing over 100 words…(I’m looking at you, Judith Butler and Jürgen Habermas)! However, few authors place fun as one of the purposes in their preface. That includes reading. View all posts by Katherine Firth. The structure is highly redundant but at different levels of abstraction. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  ( Log Out /  Structure is an important feature of academic writing. However, when they see the structure, they may not fall in love with academics but at least they will understand what the author is trying to say. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Academic writing is repetitive in terms of its structure. Each sub-section supports a higher section in the book. Look out for my next books, Level Up and Your PhD Survival Guide coming out in 2020. This post will try to explain the structure of academic writing in a general sense. The Classical period in Ancient Greece ended in 323 BCE. Lastly, the headings within a chapter are similar to have a neighborhood map of a city. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. I like your blog and the examples you gave are great examples of smart people with poor writing skills. Of course there are other forms of logic, both forms that are equally ancient and newer forms that challenge this pattern. The point is that academic writing is highly structured and organized. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Although this is discouraging to hear it is usually a cry for help. Change ). Follow educational research techniques on WordPress.com, Discrete-Point and Integrative Language Testing Methods, Approach, Method, Procedure, and Techniques In Language Learning, Ordering Main Points in Writing and Speaking, Behavioral vs Cognitive Perspectives on Learning Theories, Objectives/headings provide themes of the chapter, The paragraphs of a heading support the heading, The headings of a chapter support the chapter, The chapters of a book support the title of the book. A book is like a body, you have cells, you have tissues, and you have organs. The preface, chapter, and headings of a book are all the same in terms of purpose but at different levels of scope. Learn how your comment data is processed. It can be easier to understand this with some examples: 2. Here is what I consider to be a major secret of writing. ( Log Out /  A well-structured text enables the reader to follow the argument and navigate the text. Every piece of writing, whether it is a cover letter for a job application, a news article, or a fictional short story, has its own structure. Yes, the read it but they didn’t get it. My blog is dedicated to them. The elements in the structure include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The writing skill of ‘logical flow’ can be defined as all the aspects of your writing that help the reader move smoothly from one sentence to the next, and one paragraph to another. If you don’t know about syllogisms, they are a very simple kind of logical structure that can be very helpful to work out what claims you are making, what deductions you are making from those claims, and where you might be going wrong. Socrates is a man. However, this repetitive nature makes the write highly efficient in terms of understanding giving that the reader is aware of this. Even beyond that, we anticipate patterns and shapes that particular types of writing will take, and we build expectations based on the first few sentences that we read. Developing a structure or framework for your writing will ensure that the most important points are covered at the appropriate point in the writing. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Discover six logical writing structures that can help you find more success with every piece of writing, whether it's a query letter, short story, news article, or blog post. This section will help you understand what you can learn from a piece of reading based on the shape it takes, in addition to what the words themse… ‘Turning the dial’: a more sustainable way to make New Year plans, Three secrets in MSWord that will supercharge your productivity, 7 articles to help you do a mixed-methods thesis. !’ moment to sort out your logical arguments. Since most students enjoy entertainment they expect academic writing to use the same formula of fun. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I was part of the team that founded, and still run, #thesisbootcamp with the Graduate Students Association at the University of Melbourne. Another way to look at this is as follows. The Ancient Greek philosopher and father of the syllogism, Aristotle, uses the formula: All men are mortal. Cells combine to make tissue, tissues combine to make organs, etc. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account.