Page 152 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: NARRATIVE AND STRUCTURE 13 9

important in all kinds of written communication.]8 This paper will outline
these reasons before ending with a short exploration of why they might be
hard for some students to grasp.

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This paragraph is complex. For one thing, it does not have a clear conclusion.
It is both 'structuring' the paper and also advancing an argument for that structure.
I would imagine the implied conclusion, marked here as V, to be something like
'The cause of the problem is that students remain confused about these reasons'.
There are also a number of assumptions made which mean there are implied prem-
ises. Here are three interesting features of the paragraph:

d. This inter-paragraph reference clearly demonstrates how the analytical
structure cannot be easily read off'the words in front of us', but depends on
the surrounding narrative flow.
e. 'Since' tells us that, even though we might ourselves not imagine the claim
following it is a premise for the claim that precedes it, we have no choice
but to diagram it in this way. The author intends that we use the claim 7 as
a premise for 6, and we diagram as the author intended.
f. This question is not a claim, but prompts us to think about the implied
conclusion.
Here is the analytical structure of the first argument in this passage (what we
can call a sub-argument because it is subsidiary to, but part of the overall argument
in the paragraph), but this time making explicit the implied premise. See how
'obvious' it is?

5. Nevertheless, some students continue to struggle with the methods and skills of
correct referencing even when direct attention has been paid to learning it, as for
example in MCI 101: Research and Presentation Project.
7. All students at university are capable of learning to follow the kinds of