How to Write Better Essays

be terminal. Given all this, it now seems a reasonable claim to make.

It’s founded on a common-sense understanding that you share with

others, including the reader, and you’ve demonstrated that the case is

argued consistently.

6.3 Report

However, if you lack hard evidence, or you’re in a timed exam and you

can’t remember any, and you don’t feel confident enough to argue for

the reasonableness of your case, then you’re left with only one alter-

native: shift the weight of responsibility from your shoulders onto

someone else’s. You do this by attributing the view to some named

authority or, if you can’t remember who advocated the view, to some

impersonal authority, like ‘many believe... .’, ‘some people claim... .’,

‘it is argued... .’ and so on.

Clearly this is the weakest form of support for your argument and,

although it can be useful under timed conditions, you must be aware

of the degree to which it weakens your argument. Hard evidence and

explication will earn higher marks, because, as you take on the respon-

sibility of defending the argument as your own, you are obliged to use

the abilities in the higher cognitive domains to argue and justify it with

evidence of the appropriate quality and strength.

In contrast, by shifting the responsibility to others you merely exer-

cise abilities in the lower cognitive domains: you’re merely recalling

and describing a case developed by somebody else. Nevertheless,

without this, without any attempt to support your argument, it will be

dismissed as merely a statement of opinions, of no particular value,

beyond the fact that you can remember it. And, as we said before,

anyone can express opinions.

228 Writing

Practice exercise 20

Explication

Listed below you will see three statements. Give three or four reasons

why you think these might be reasonable statements to make. Most of

us believe these statements are reasonable, but, if you don’t, set aside

your doubts and give the sort of justification that you think someone

would give who does in fact believe them.

Compare your reasons with those listed in the answer that follows.

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