Page 130 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

RESEARCH, REASONING, AND ANALYSIS 117

exploit national patriotism and sentiment to further their own profit-making goals.
Whether we agree or disagree with this conclusion, whether we can refute it or not,
we can nevertheless try to understand why he might have made such a conclusion.
We can ask, what is the political and intellectual position that is implied by such
claims? From the overall thrust of Turner's analysis, we judge that he is opposed to
unfettered capitalism, seeking instead a greater degree of regulation in the national
interest. In making this judgment, we can understand the assumptions that
underlie the information in Turner's book, and the context in which it was written
and presented to us. Without such analysis, you will always tend to respond to
reasoning from your own point of view, without understanding why others might
disagree with you. Whether or not you wish to change their minds or accept their
right to be different is immaterial: neither goal can be achieved if you do not know
why they believe what they do.
Finally, there are occasions on which we take nothing away from what we are
reading or observing—except more questions! This outcome may be frustrating at
times, but if we are seeking to be smart thinkers, we must be prepared to delve
deeply into an issue and not rush too quickly to a satisfying answer. Remember
analysis continues through every stage of research, but smart thinkers are aware of
this and draw encouragement from the way in which a book that tells you 'nothing'
might prompt the question 'Why does it not tell me anything?'. And, further, you
can ask if the problem is with the book, with you, or perhaps with your original set
of analytical questions.

Exercise 8.4

Using a long piece of written work that you are reading at the moment, practise
getting each of the five possible outcomes just discussed. Make sure that, in each
case, you express your answers in the analytical structure format (except, of
course, for the last category, for which you will simply have a list of further
questions).

Review
We have seen in previous chapters how the context in which we create our texts
of reasoning are crucial in making successful judgments about the effective-
ness of our arguments and explanations. In this chapter, we have concentrated
on learning about the process of searching for knowledge in a way that allows
us to take the information from one context (someone else's text) and put it
into another context (our text). The context influences our interpretation and
understanding of information, and so if we do not understand and recognise
these contexts, our analysis will not be sound. Knowledge, then, needs to be
understood generically, not as specific 'facts' or issues, but as a series of
classes and types that relate to our research project. The sources from which
it comes, again, must be analysed for the way they create and constrain that