Page 147 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

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Bringing It All Together:

Narrative and Structure

In this final chapter, I provide a fully worked example of a substantial written
argument, which I have cast and commented upon, so as to demonstrate the
way in which the main form in which we encounter reasoning—the narrative
flow—is perhaps better understood as an expression of an underlying process
of linking premises and conclusions. This longer example also demonstrates
in more detail how you might end up writing something based on an analyt-
ical structure, pointing out the subtleties of expression that provide a
structure and meaning surrounding that logical core.
First, read the example, which is an argument I use to convince students
of the need to reference properly when they write essays. Second, read care-
fully my analysis of the logic, broken down paragraph by paragraph (you might
even want to try casting it yourself). Third, look at the way I try to capture the
essence of the text in a simpler argument. Finally, consider my overall
assessment of the ten paragraphs that make up this text.

Example text

The value of referencing

One of the problems that confronts teachers of first-year university units each
semester is the need to ensure that students learn, quickly, the methods and
skills of correct referencing. In some courses, students are very much left to
fend for themselves, relying on, perhaps, the services of the university library,
advice offered by individual staff members, or simply muddling through on the

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