Page 93 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

80 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

Here is another example that shows how context involves both people and
ideas. Students at university usually write for a knowledgeable academic and fail to
work carefully through all the issues, assuming that the academic will 'fill in the
gaps'. In doing so, they forget that they must also meet one of the contextual
requirements of scholarly work: that they not make too many assumptions, not
presume that the audience is clever and will 'get' the point of the essay. Hence many
essays fail to achieve the required standard because their authors have not
consciously considered and learnt about the context into which they fit. This point
is significant in all communication. Whenever we communicate we must actively
imagine and reflect on our context and how that might influence the way we
present our arguments and explanations.

Exercise 6.5

For the following argument, add claims that satisfactorily show why the given
premises (claims 2, 3, and 4) are relevant to the conclusion. Then indicate two
contexts for each: one in which you would explicitly establish relevance and one
in which you would not.
1. All Australians should learn about their own nation's history.
2. History helps us to understand what is happening now.
3. Australia's history tells many stories of the fight for democracy and
justice.
4. Learning about Australian history involves learning to write essays.

Strength of support

It is very important to think about the strength of the support that we can give our
claims. There are two distinct issues involved. First of all, we must have good
evidence. A well-founded claim, by virtue of the fact that it is well founded, will
have a number of good premises, which should be provided to assist our audience
in accepting and understanding it. But a more significant issue in communicating
our reasoning is to decide which of the supporting claims that we know about
should be explicitly stated in our argument or explanation. We should also be able
to decide when we need to do more research to find out if the claims we want to
make can be supported. The issue of well-founded claims must, in part, depend on
an analysis of whether or not the claims are true or not, but it also requires that we
consider carefully how we communicate our arguments and explanations. The
following discussion addresses this second consideration.

The burden of proof

Even if all the premises are acceptable, and even if they are relevant, you neverthe-
less still may not be effective in your reasoning. Why? Because, at base, you must