Welcome

Hello everybody,

I'm pleased to be back in the hotseat again, and a warm welcome to all of you. Some of you I have already met, but for those I haven't...pleased to meet you!

I'll be in the hotseat for the next two weeks until the 30th May, so please make use of this opportunity to pose any question or raise points for discussion about academic writing or English language development.

The main theme of this hotseat is developing academic argument in your writing, so please begin by watching my powerpoint above, and thinking about the questions I ask in the last slide.

While you are working on your current assignment, you should be thinking about argument. How can you make your arguments stronger and more evidence-based? What forms of evidence are the most reliable and persuasive? How can you be critical of other people's arguments? How can you link your ideas in a coherent piece of writing?

You may even want to post up a paragraph with an argument in it that you are working on at the moment. We could all then make suggestions about any improvements that could be made to this. Sounds daunting, I know, but is an excellent way to get feedback about your writing!

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you all!

Gillian

Thanks Gillian for this very clear account. It would be very useful if students looked at their work in terms of a series of "propositions" supported by evidence or countered by evidence. I am very happy to have counter arguments based upon experience.
Not everything that finds it way into prionted books has to be true in all cases.

Sentences like:
"That may be true for the msot able children but experience of practice, carried out over the last 20 years, tells us that the least able do not display these benefits"

Thanks Ian.

I think the sentence you provide is an excellent example of how a teacher's own experience of practice can also be used as 'evidence' to support a claim. This 'experience of practice' could definitely be added to my list of different kinds of evidence in the slides.

Gillian

Hello Gillian,
What do you thinkk about this contrast? Is there some way I can add to it to give it more meaning?
‘Interaction in most classrooms is supported by some kind of routine or ritual which provides a structure or framework for the pupils and gives support to teachers.’ Downey M. Et al (1987). Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) as well as experienced teachers are encouraged to establish routines within their classroom. This however has its drawback. Pollard (2005) warns that routines could have negative effect of pupils’ performance when teachers become more concerned with their professional development than pupils achievement.

Dear Patricia,

Thanks for posting up this terrific example!

I like the way you use the word 'however' to signal the contrast to the reader. But perhaps it should be punctuated as follows: This, however, has its drawbacks.

I think one way you could give this more meaning is by explaining the connection/contradiction between your first sentence and your last sentence. The first sentence makes a claim about interaction, but your last sentence IMPLIES the contrast, rather than spelling it out. (Or maybe for a reader like myself, who does not know the field, it seemed quite indirect, rather than direct. I am sorry if I didn't get this.) Could you spell out the contrast by explaining it and then giving an example? How about something like this:

‘Interaction in most classrooms is supported by some kind of routine or ritual which provides a structure or framework for the pupils and gives support to teachers.’ Downey M. Et al (1987). Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) as well as experienced teachers are encouraged to establish routines within their classroom. This however has its drawback. Pollard (2005) warns that routines could have negative effect of pupils’ performance when teachers become more concerned with their professional development than pupils achievement. This may be because teachers are so concerned with establishing the routine that they do so quite rigidly, instead of responding to the needs of their learners. One example I observed in a classroom was.............

What do you think? Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Gillian

P.S. Just a quick reminder about referencing. After the quote, your reference should be as follows (Downey et al 1987). In other words, the surname of the author, but no first name, should come in the bracket, together with the date.

Dear Gillian,
Thank you for your feedback. I am finding it quite interesting, especially with the way you use simple connectives to give substance to my writing. The contrast I submitted was taken from my literature review. Bearing that in mind, should I include an example from my research here or should I leave that for my evaluation and impact section?
Thank you for 'flagging up' the referencing.

Hi Patricia,

This is an excellent point and thank you for bringing this to everybody's attention. The purpose of the literature review is to summarise, synthesise and evaluate past writings/research on a particular topic. You then go on in later chapters to situate your own work in relation to this. Given that, I would leave the example from your own research until the evaluation and impact section.

There is a general principle at work here. Whatever form of 'evidence'/support you use to back up your argument should:

- be valid for the subject/discipline you are studying (e.g. Ian has indicated that some evidence past on past teaching experience is regarded as valid on this course)

- fit in with the 'genre' of that section of the dissertation, whether this is a literature review, discussion of findings or evaluation.

Does this feel right to you?

Best
Gillian

Hi Gillian,
Thank you for the clarification, it helps alot. I will continue to follow the comments added.

Regard,

Patricia

This means:
1. comparing the same issue from different points of view
2.identifying an argument (analysis of opinions)
3.identyfying conclusions and spotting how different people arrive at different conclusions
4.deciding what you think, based on the evidence available

Am I right? Is that how we can construct arguments?

Oops, sorry, I forgot to say Hello to Gillian and all the participants.

Hi Magdalena,

Thanks for this and lovely to hear from you!

I think you have identified some important points. It is true that in order to arrive at our own arguments, we first have to understand, analyse and critically evaluate the arguments of other people. This would certainly involve these steps:

1. What are the different points of view being put forward?
2. What are the different propositions or claims being made for each point of view?
3. What conclusion is being arrived at in each case, and how is that conclusion reached/
4. Is the evidence available strong enough to support the conclusion?
5. What do you think, based on the evidence? This may include, as Ian has just pointed out, your own experience of practice.

This all sounds a little theoretical. Do you think it will make more sense if you apply it to a particular piece of work?

Do let me know,
Gillian

Hi Gillian,
Thank you, I found that very insightful. Would it still be effective if you arrange arguments and counter arguments into separate paragraphs?

Dear Hope,

I'm pleased the PPT is useful.

You ask a good question. It is very effective if you arrange arguments and counter-arguments into separate paragraphs. This will obviously depend on the length of each argument and counter-argument. (In my PPT, I kept it all short and in one paragraph for the sake of clarity.) For example, an argument might need a whole paragraph (or even a whole section of a dissertation) to be properly explained. In addition, there might be three of four different pieces of evidence which could be used to support that argument, and each one might take a different paragraph. So there are no rules about this, except to ensure that at each stage your reader can navigate through the discussion. You can help your reader to do this in these ways:

1. By using 'topic sentences' at the beginning of the paragraph to indicate the key idea of that paragraph, e.g.

A key experiment done to test this hypothesis was undertaken by..... (EVIDENCE for an argument provided by an experiment - this paragraph reports on the experiment)

Nevertheless, there were some serious flaws in the methodology of this experiment, which call it into question...... (CRITICAL ANALYSIS in next paragraph, which is the COUNTER-ARGUMENT - this paragraph discusses the weaknesses with the experiment, based on your ideas and those of others too where possible)

2. By using linking/connecting words to show the logical relations between sentences or paragraphs, e.g.

Words meaning ALSO: In addition, Moreover, Furthermore

Words meaning BUT: Nevertheless, However, In contrast, On the other hand

Words meaning SO: Thus, Hence, As a result, Consequently.

You can also have a look at a longer stretch of argument by going to my second paragraph in the blue box above. If you click on the link, you will see a longer stretch of argument from an MA dissertation. Here the student is writing up the results of her research, but notice how she provides support for her different propositions in quite long paragraphs.

Have a nice day,
Gillian

Hi Gillian,

I have found this powerpoint very useful. However, I am currently struggling to come up with counter arguments in a particular part of my literature reveiew. Part of my project is focussing on formative assessment and the use of teacher feedback and self-assessment in primary schools. While I can find plenty of evidence for these techniques (mainly in book form as opposed to research articles... is this good enough?), I am finding it difficult to find any arguments to counter the use of teacher feedback and self-aseessment - evryone seems to be PRO argument! Is this OK or should I just state that I came across no evidence to counter the argument??

Many Thanks

Emma Sheffield

Dear Emma,

You have asked a very interesting question. Sometimes, there is either a general consensus, or possibly even an 'orthodoxy' about something in the literature, which makes it difficult to find counter-arguments.

I think I would suggest the following:

1. Do try to find out whether there are any research articles, as well as books, which could be useful. Monica Johnson, the librarian who supports this course, could help you to do a literature search for this, so do get in touch with her at M.Johnson@mdx.ac.uk

2. If you still don't find anything, you could certainly say something like:
'There appears to be no literature available the use of teacher feedback... etc..' But I would still go on to point out any counter-arguments that you yourself may have about this. However, the literature review may not be the best place to do this, as you may feel it is more appropriate in later sections, in connection with your own research. You can come up with ideas by brainstorming some possible problems with formative assessment.

3. Rather than looking at counter-arguments for the use of teacher feedback overall, etc you could provide a critique of each piece of evidence that you have found in books. For example, is one study based purely on anecdotal evidence from teachers rather than serious academic research? In a particular study is only a small sample of pupils studied; therefore, is it possible to extrapolate these findings to all pupils? Do the views of a particular writer read like unsubstantiated claims, or are they actually backed up?

Ian and Ruth, any thoughts about what to do if there seems to be only an argument, and no counter-argument, in the literature?

What do you think Emma?

Gillian

I would be clear about separating practice literature, from research lieterature, from theory literature, from policy literture.

Merely the comment that this is all from policy and practice but there appears to be less from actual research is a good comment (and sets up your own work). Of course you should be sure there is less research by looking at research journals in the LR catalogue, in journals, at the very least on google scholar.

A counter counter arguement is that there may be relativley little research but that the practice literature makes good sense, is logical and would probabably work.

"Which bit?" is a good argument against.

AFL may produce desirable results but which bit does the most work. It is not clear. mention is made of the 10 point stratgey for AFL but which bit should be concentrated upon or are all equal.

Is self assessmnet as effective and teacher feedback or do you have to do both for any effect?

Where is the research?

This is so helpful for me, Ian, as I don't know anything about this area. Thank you!

To change tack, I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I will be with you all again next week. While the discussion about argument has been fruitful and interesting I believe, do remember that you do not have to confine your comments, queries, etc to this topic. I will be happy to answer any other questions about academic writing! So do keep comments, questions, etc coming.

Gillian

Thankyou Gillian and Ian for your comments.
I do have some evidence for which bit... that the types of teacher feedback that are most useful and some research into how self assessment affects pupil's confidence and believed progress. Lots of the research has good ecological validity as it was conducted in schools, the limitations to this are that there is insufficient quantitative data with regard to progress, as with most educational research it is difficult to disentangle the effects of one program from another on pupil progress data, as all may have effects! Do you think this is a reasonable argument?

Thanks again,

Emma

Dear Emma,

I think that Ian can better comment on this as an educational specialist than I can. But it definitely seems to me that your points about quantitative data and the 'spill over' from different programmes are correct. In general, I think that the issues of quantifying data sufficiently and also isolating causal factors are problematic not only in education research, but more generally in social science research. However, if you point all of this out in your writing, this shows that you are able to critique a particular proposition/conclusion, or at least identify possible shortcomings in arriving at it.

Thus, we can never make dogmatic claims about educational outcomes as there always have to be some caveats, etc. Interestingly, this is why academic style is often tentative and includes what linguists call 'hedging' or 'modality'. We use phrases such as the following:

It could be said that.....
We may/might conclude....
It is likely that.....
It appears that/seems that.... in some cases.....

Verbs such as 'appears'/'seems' and modal verbs such as 'may', 'might' and 'could' allow us to signal a certain doubt to the reader...thus avoiding over-stating our claims.

Hope this helps!

Gillian

I have been reading the comments about the constructing the arguments and I found it very useful in my own research. The PowerPoint made by Gillian is very good and I have started to use it already.
What came to my mind while reading the comments is that it might be very useful and productive if we could find and work in cooperation with other researchers who are researching the same topic. For example, the common questions could be researched, but in different schools and then compared the findings. Also, one might share the practices in their own teaching and learning, argue their own specific approach and construct the arguments in that way.
I know that this is very difficult to implement, but there are so many researchers who might be doing very similar topics. I have been personally attending some subject specific courses (ICT in my case) and have been talking to my colleagues from the different part of UK and different types of schools. We allways tend to engage in conversation about the syudents, learning and teaching styles and very often we find the common ground when sharing our experiences.
What are the possibilities for something like this ?

Dear Zeljko,

Thanks for this - I think your suggestion about collaborative working is very good. Perhaps people would like to make some practical recommendations about how this could be taken forward?

Gillian

Hi Gillian,
Thanks for the powerpoint, it was really useful to help me think about how to structure the arguments within my assignment, I have saved it to refer back to.
When using our own opinion in our writing am I right in assuming that we need to back it up with that of a professional/published piece of work, and that the counter-argument is optional, to add a second opinion/dimension to the argument?
Kerri

Dear Kerri,

Thanks for this - you have raised an interesting point.

I would not say it is compulsory to back up your own opinion with a published piece of work every time. Rather, it is important to back up your opinions nearly every time in whatever way you choose. Obviously, if you can use professional/published sources then that is testimony to the fact that you are doing some conscientious reading and research....one of the aims of academic study! But you could use a variety of ways to support your opinion including:

- examples from your own classroom experience/practice
- logical reasoning in which you go clearly from point A to point B
- professional sources, such as government documents relating to education, etc or school policy docs, etc
-published sources

I think it is important to avoid diary-like writing which looks like a string of opinions based on personal anecdotes. The aim of writing at MA level is partly to demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, which is why we place quite a bit of emphasis on published sources as a way of either backing up or providing a counter-argument to your opinions. On the other hand, we don't want mere reportage of other people's ideas - we want to see how you have used these to think about your own experience, and arrive at your own conclusions.

Counter-argument is not compulsory either, but obviously if you can include quite a bit of it, you are demonstrating that you can see matters from different perspectives. It also shows that you can critique a particular view.

Hope this makes sense.

Gillian

Hello Gillian

Thanks for being here again. Your support is very much appreciated.

I have a question but I do not know whether I should be asking it here. It is about analysing the data. One stage for anaysing data is hypothesis testing. But if through searching the literature you found that there is a lot of evidence supporting the research you are doing, what hypothesis should be tested ?

I do not know if I am being clear enough. Sorry but I find it hard to explain myself sometimes.

Thanks
Jacqueline

Dear Jacqueline,

It's nice to hear from you, and I find your question clear.

I think that if you find there is already a lot of evidence supporting your research, then you have a number of choices:

1. You still go ahead in testing your original hypothesis, and if your final results are the same as the research evidence, then you can use the evidence to give more weight to your own results. You could use phrases such as: 'The same results were obtained in X's study which suggests that...'
                           'This conclusion is supported/confirmed by the work of Y which......'

2. You find some differences between your study and that of others. (This is highly likely since in education it is very hard to test out the same hypothesis in exactly the same circumstances.) For example, perhaps all the evidence in the literature relates to primary school children, but you investigate those at secondary schools. Or the literature relates to children who speak English as a second language, whereas your cohort are bilinguals. Or your cohort is a different age group to all the studies. Then your your hypothesis could be that you will get the same results, even if the sample for the research is different from other samples (you would need to say how.)

3. You come up with a new and totally different hypothesis. If you were doing a PhD this might be expected, since the requirement is that your work is original and breaks new ground, but it is not necessary on this course. You may just want to tweak your hypothesis slightly (as in 2) so that you are investigating in a modest way something 'new', but which can be backed up with lots of evidence from the literature.

When you think about your own work, do the above options make sense? Please do post up your actual hypothesis if you think it would help for us to discuss this further.

Best
Gillian

Dear Gillian,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I think the options you have suggested make a lot of sense. You have answered my question very clearly. I will follow your suggestions.

Thanks again

Jacqueline

Hi Gillian and other colleagues,
Thanks for an informative presentation and comments.
What turns a fact or piece of information into evidence?
Is my tutor’s or my audience’s rhetorical stance important to consider when presenting my arguments and if so, how can I gauge his/ her stance on a particular subject/topic? How can I determine his/ her biases, values, expectations, knowledge? Can writing for a specific audience bias my evidence?
Lorrise

Hi Lorrise,

Thank you for your message and I am sorry if it has taken me a while to respond.

You seem to be asking two (fascinating!) questions.

First of all, what turns a fact or piece of information into evidence? It is quite hard to respond to this without having a specific piece of evidence in mind. But generally, I would say that a fact or piece of information becomes evidence when it seems to provide logical and persuasive support for a particular point of view or opinion. This is where critical thinking skills come in, as you need to critically evaluate whether or not you think that fact or piece of information does, in fact, provide valid evidence for a particular proposition.

The point you raise about stance is very interesting. I think that good writers probably do have in their minds a sense of 'intended audience', what literary critics call 'the putative reader'. This is the construct of a reader you have in mind when you write. As you quite rightly say, this sense of reader will include your assumptions about his/her biases, values, expectations and knowledge. If we can apply this to academic writing in the context of your MA, I think we could say the following:

1. Your ultimate reader is obviously your lecturer since they are marking your work. You may well know that they have a lot of knowledge about a particular topic. In other forms of writing, you could assume they have that knowledge and not even allude to it. However, arguably academic writing has a 'display' function. This is an idea advanced by a linguist called John Swales, who claims (quite rightly in my view) that one of the functions of academic writing is to 'display' what you know or have learned, even if you know that your reader may well be familiar with quite a bit of it. So you need to assume that your reader has a lot of knowledge (probably of theory, even if not of your own context), but nevertheless you still need to show that you have that knowledge too. Sometimes, this may feel like a statement of obvious knowledge, but it is still necessary.

2. In terms of reader expectations, assignment guidelines and assessment criteria are the way that we, as academics, formally transmit our expectations to our students. I know that sometimes these guidelines and criteria (usually found in module handbooks) may not feel very clear. In that case, please check with your lecturers as to what they might mean.

3. With regards to biases and values, I would say that inevitably all of us do have values and biases, however objective we try to be. Nevertheless, in academic writing, you should be aiming to move away from this, by going back to 'first principles' on any topic. Thus, if you come to a particular point of view which you do not believe accords with the bias or values of your lecturer, then your point of view should be completely acceptable PROVIDED that you can back it up with decent evidence or support...which brings us right back to the theme of argument all over again.

So, in answer to your last question 'Can writing for a specific audience bias my evidence' I suppose the answer is that yes, it probably can in some cases if you are trying to respond to the biases and values of that audience in a favourable way. But, I would argue that you should not try to do this. Rather, you should try to arrive at your own conclusions and support these as best you can.

What do you think? Does this seem right to you, and have I addressed your very interesting questions?

Gillian

Thanks Gillian. Indeed you have!!

Hi everybody,

Just to say that I will be around on and off for the rest of today to respond to any questions or comments.

But then this hotseat will be finishing. Once again, I have really enjoyed my time with you all and thanks for your interesting and thoughtful contributions.

Do remember that you can contact me at G.Lazar@mdx.ac.uk if you would like an e-tutorial.

Keep honing those arguments and have a good summer!

Gillian