Page 157 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

144 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

Note how the reference to Smart Thinking serves to support the claim y, thereby
modelling the use of referencing which is the subject of the reason explained in the
paragraph.
The next paragraph is not reasoning. It summarises the three previous para-
graphs and their connection to the main theme.
These three reasons can be summed up as follows. Each newly
produced essay, article, presentation, or whatever, is always based
substantially in existing published or presented material and becomes
a part of the 'ongoing, knowledgeable conversation' expressed through
that material. Written work needs good referencing so as to refer its
readers elsewhere, to repay the debt to other writers, and to reinforce
its own arguments.
However, the next paragraph is an argument:

But what makes it hard for some students to grasp the essential elements
of this relatively simple argument as to why they must reference, even as
they dutifully follow out the instructions to 'reference correctly' laid out for
k
them by teachers? Without going into detail, it seems likely that [many
students do not yet believe themselves to be authors, with an audience,
and a comradeship with other authors. They see themselves primarily as
students, governed by a debilitating and unequal regime of inequality in
relation to their teachers.125 Thus, [the reasons I have just outlined are
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not rejected by some students because they are not understood, or are
unreasonably or wilfully ignored. Rather the reasons are rejected because
they are, quite rationally, not relevant to a 'student', even if they are
explained to students.]26 [A 'student' (by which I mean the abstract
identity rather than any particular individual) is governed by the impera-
tives of 'doing as one is told' by teachers;]27 [a student's audience is their
assessor;]28 [a student's sense of comradeship is with other students as
students;]29 [the goal of writing is not, usually, 'contributing to human
knowledge' but getting a good mark.]30

27 + 28 + 29 + 30

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