7.8 Critical writing 309
three of them from the honour of holding the
Games. Developing these themes would
provide a substantial paragraph or section in
the student’s eventual essay.Decision time:
‘resolving the dilemma’
All worthwhile arguments have two sides to
them. An argument with only one side – or an
argument to which there is no reply – may
exist but is hardly worth making. An argument
for something that is already a known fact
would fall into this category. It is
uninteresting.
Interesting arguments, on the other hand,
present us with dilemmas. A dilemma is a
difficult choice. It is difficult either because
there are good reasons for either side of the
argument; or because, whichever choice you
make, there are some unwanted consequences.
Therefore you will often hear people talk
about the ‘horns’ of a dilemma: if you avoid
one horn, there is another waiting for you!
The choices for the Olympic movement –
and for you now that you are involved in the
debate – are whether it would be better to keep
to the present system of rotating the Games at
different venues, with all the problems and
criticisms that gives rise to; or to opt for one
permanent site and risk angering some
member countries who want their turn to host
the event. The dilemma is that whichever the
IOC decides, it will not please everyone. The
dilemma is compounded by the fact that there
is no third way. This is a case where the
options are restricted to two, so there is no
fallacy in arguing that if one is not chosen,Synthesis
We now come to the final and most
demanding part of the exercise: drawing
together the various pieces of information,
inference and opinion to make a cogent
argument for one side or the other. This is the
part we call ‘synthesis’.
Activity
2 Review the points you have listed showing
what you consider the most relevant
items in the documents. (You may want
to add or delete some after comparing
your list with the one suggested above,
but if you are happy with yours, then use
it.) Look in particular for links between
the points, or natural ways to group them.
There are a number of different ways to
do this: highlighting, numbering, drawing
connecting lines, and so on.Commentary
Not wanting to do the work for you, just one
example of the kind of links that can be made
is shown below. It follows up on the inferences
we drew earlier from the data in Doc 2. Three
points are drawn together as being relevant to
the question of favouritism – or worse – in the
selection process. The student has highlighted
them and made a brief note as to the possible
connection between them: (1) the data adds to
any suspicion there may be about corruption;
and (2) even if there is no corruption there is
something wrong with a movement that
embraces five continents but usually excludes
so what does
symbol mean?adds
to suspicionDoc 3 – internet discussion site
- complex bidding system
- IOC then decide
- open to corruption e.g. Salt Lake City winter games
- ve continents / designed in modern times
shows most Games held in Europe or N. America