Then the drill in laying out the
logical skeleton of an argument, so plainly that no false or broken
connection can escape detection, will strengthen the conscience for
clearness and coherence of thought; and the necessity for getting back
to ultimate facts for every assertion, and putting down the source from
which the facts are derived, will help to implant a wholesome respect
for facts as something different from assertion.
Since the argument written out is the final test of the thinking, some
care must be taken that students do not obscure by careless paragraphing
and slovenly sentences such clearness of thought as they have attained
in their brief. I have found it useful to prescribe marginal titles to
the paragraphs: a student who has struggled to find a single phrase that
will cover all of a sprawling paragraph will have learned some respect
for firmness of paragraphing. In general, an instructor has a right to
insist that his class shall apply in practice all that they have learned
about the ordinary devices for getting clearness and emphasis.
In the third place, this practice in writing arguments ought to leave
with students a more developed idea of how to make readers look
favorably on a proposition which they are urging. I have insisted, at
the risk of seeming repetitious, on the need of considering the audience
whose minds are to be won over; for what persuasiveness can mean apart
from specific persons to persuade I cannot conceive.
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