If you like to learn through story and you'd like to learn more about building persuasive arguments, this is the resource for you!
Dr. Gilbert Wilkes, who formerly taught in the RRU Professional Communications program, kindly gave permission for his "liber.rhetoriae" to be posted within this topic. Dr. Wilkes' expertise in rhetoric shines through in his writing, and it's an excellent resource to refer to (and an interesting read too) if you're looking for a better understanding of how to build an strong argument.
Image credit: falco via Pixabay
He was the Commissioner of Roots and Tubers. This is one of his many adventures.
What a day. I arrived at the hollow. I walked about. I saw rocks and lots of dirt. Birds that could not fly darted about, and lizards too. The sun was bright and hot; the air, dry; the area, desolate. I wonder if we made the right decision about cultivating here. I wonder what I should do.
Yours etc.
C. of R&T
This was the report of the newly appointed Commissioner of Roots and Tubers to the esteemed members of the board.
Here was the response, written by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), no less.
Dearest, dearest Commissioner of recent vintage. Thank you for your report, a report as mysterious as it is unexpected. This is because you write in a paratactic, running style. This is where you juxtapose clauses, phrases, or sentences, without benefit of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions. At best this style reads like a stream-of-consciousness novel; at worst it reads like incoherent gibberish, as your reasoning is opaque to your reader. What you are doing when you write in a running style is allowing your reader to make the connections, as when Caesar writes “I came; I saw; I conquered.”
Were we to rewrite Caesar’s aphoristic claim in a more hypotactic style—this is where we organize our terms and concepts using coordinating and subordinating conjunctions that make our reasoning more explicit—it might read, “Since it was me, Caesar, when I arrived on the scene I made a thorough inspection of the situation. Confident in myself and in the disposition of our newly arrived forces, I took decisive action that resulted in the complete defeat of the enemy.”
Hypotactically, dear Commissioner, is how we need you to write, because what we expect from you is analysis, not poetry, and because we cannot read your mind to puzzle through all of the connections in your thinking that you leave in your head instead of committing to the page. Please, instead, organize your prose into a lattice of logical relations and you will prosper mightily.
Oh, and also, please try to write in a pointed style. What does this mean? Begin with your point, a point in the form of a topic, a topic in the form of a topic sentence, and allow the rest of your paragraph to explore, investigate, or elaborate upon that topic only. If you discover that you have two topics, then please break your paragraph in two so that you have two separate paragraphs governed by two separate topics.
Yours etc.,
CEO of the universe
Not a day had passed until the CEO of the Universe had received the Commissioner’s revised report. It read as follows:
I arrived at the hollow and visually inspected the area on foot. Based on my observations, observations that included fauna typical of hot, arid regions, e.g. flightless birds, earth-bound reptiles, and flora that existed only in the from of grass and scrub where it existed at all, I conclude, at least for now, that the area may not support the sort of cultivation that we planned for it. Please advise.
Yours etc.
C. of R&T
This is less poetic, concluded the CEO of the Universe. In fact, the Commissioner's account is a whole lot uglier. But it is certainly more clear and explicit, because now I know, clearly and explicitly, what the Commissioner is claiming, and I know on what grounds he is basing his claim.
The commissioner and the sandy hollow
He was the Commissioner of Roots and Tubers. This is one of his many adventures.
Dispatched to a sandy hollow to explore its possibilities as a source of tasty-starchy vegetable matter to enrich the diets of the wandering masses, our hero, the newly appointed Commissioner of Roots and Tubers, interviewed the much-to-be-feared Lord High Director of Earthworks and Irrigation, who assumed the form of a jewel-encrusted serpent crested with the fiery plumage of his noble rank.
“Mr. Lord High Director,” asked the Commissioner of Roots and Tubers, “what about this sandy hallow? Will it support the cultivation of savoury roots and tubers?”
The director’s eye, a massive slit of deep-black-dark across an orb of opalescent gold-flecked green, narrowed menacingly upon the Commissioner as he paused to consider the Commissioner’s question.
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, the Director finally hissed his reply: “The soil, little one, is too sandy, too poor in nutrients to support savoury roots and tubers.” The inner eyelid of the massive green eye of the Director then closed over the orb of green. The Director himself disappeared within his own enfolding, jewel-encrusted coils, signalling that the interview was over.
The Commissioner of Roots and Tubers composed his report to the board of the directors. It read:
The soil in the hollow is too sandy, too poor in nutrients to support savoury roots and tubers, said the Director of Earthworks and Irrigation. Thus and therefore—hence, and in grim conclusion—we may rest confident in the metaphysical certainty that the soils of our hollow will not support the savoury roots and tubers that will bring delight to our stewpots and joy to our soup-bowls.
Yours etc.,
C. of R&T
The Commissioner did not have to wait long to receive a reply from the board, from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), no less.
Dearest, dearest Commissioner. Your report, such as it is, reduces to a quote to which you attach a comment as if it were a conclusion, when it is not a conclusion but is rather a paraphrase of the chief claim of the quote itself. In other words, you lead your reader in a circle, and not a very broad one.
Let me ask you, dear Commissioner, do Directors of Earthworks and Irrigation speak infallibly like Popes? Are we to receive their claims uncritically, un-inferred, entirely on their face (prima facie) and without question, as if their words descended to us from on high? No, I say! Please allow yourself to weigh, test, and to evaluate the claims of those whose voices you recruit to support you reasoning. Please allow yourself to ask the hard questions, to investigate further, to search, to understand, and to infer. Otherwise, I would ask that you resign your position in favour of a candidate with guts and brains enough to interrogate his or her sources, whether they are people or texts or whatever. Then you can take your rightful place in our kitchen as a scrubber of crusty pots, a position that requires far less intellect combined with initiative.
Yours etc.,
CEO of the universe
“But what do I know of sandy hallows and intensive agriculture?” wrote the Commissioner to the CEO. “Am I wrong to defer to an expert?”
“You may not be an expert, dear Director,” wrote the CEO in response, “but you are, I presume, gifted with ordinary powers of reason, are you not? Expert knowledge must never be accepted on its face. Rather, it must be applied to the circumstances, to the concrete conditions of a particular problem, challenge, or goal. Apply, little one! Apply! Now get you to work!”
"A-HA! I think I have it!" shouted the Commissioner, and, running, he returned to the dark and clammy lair of the Lord High Director all nested within his own bejeweled coils. The Director lifted his reptile head from within his nest of coils only high enough so that a single massive reptile eye could gaze unbelievingly upon the ridiculous figure of the Commissioner, who was jumping up and down and firing question after question. However, as the Director began to realize that the Commissioner was finally asking the hard questions, he began to slough his hideous reptile hide. That is, he began to molt, to cast off in long and raggedy shreds his slithery form in favour of the more familiar form of an ordinary person.
After the interview, the Commissioner composed and submitted his final report. It read as follows:
“The soil in the hollow is too sandy, too poor in nutrients to support savoury roots and tubers,” reports the Lord High Director of Earthworks and Irrigation. Yes, esteemed members of the board, that is the Director’s position, and were I to simply accept what the Director tells me on its face, that is what I, too, would conclude, and move on to other business. But no, esteemed members of the board, I am one who weighs, tests, and evaluates every claim with respect to the concrete conditions of a particular case. I am one who is never content to accept any claim on its face (prima facie). I am one who reasons, who questions, who infers, and it is therefore that I returned to the Lord High Director—who turns out to be a rather ordinary guy, by the way—to puzzle through his position as it applies to our particular case, to our particular goals.
“Just what will this hollow support?” I asked of the Director.
“Good question,” he responded, “grass and scrub, for the most part.”
"Why do you suppose this is the case?" I asked as I pursued the issue.
“Good question,” said the Director, “the sad, small hollow was long ago deforested by a beetle infestation that left the loamy soils exposed to wind and sun and driving rain. The hollow never recovered.”
So what does this mean, esteemed members of the board? From the Director’s testimony, we may infer several courses of action if it is our goal to use our hollow to produce savoury roots and tubers.
First, I researched deforestation and reclamation; then, I researched what people can do with sandy soils. The first option I developed is reclamation in the form of planting stands of trees in deep beds of imported soils that we net and cover to protect from erosion. This would be expensive and only return benefits over a long period of time.
The second option is to select roots and tubers that the dry, sandy soils will support. Grass and scrub do have root systems, however shallow. As long as we are willing to carefully limit the intensity of our cultivation—this means spacing out our root and tuber plants, and allowing other vegetation to grow side by side with it as opposed to developing a monoculture—we can probably, in a few years, develop a yield at least enough to pay for the operation itself.
What I would suggest is that we combine the two approaches, as the material investments for each—irrigation, earthworks, skilled personnel—overlap, which would help us economize. As we slowly re-forest and re-soil parts of the hollow, it will gain in productivity, but only over time. In the meantime we can still enjoy, though in a limited sort of way, the tasty results of our enterprise.
So, as you can see, comrades, I accept completely the testimony of the Director. I do not disagree with him at all. He is an expert, after all. But I too am possessed of the warm and searching light of human reason, and I was therefore prepared to ask the hard questions. I was prepared to investigate, to research, and to infer. And based on that I have developed a plan in the form of recommendations even though I am not an expert in this field. Oh, I am certain there is still more investigating to do, more questions to address. But it is my hope that you, the esteemed members of the board, will accept this as at least a preliminary report, as a beginning for our discussions, as a lamp to light our way forward.
Yours etc.,
C. of R&T
Lessons to draw from the commissioner parables
The two parables dramatize the three developmental stages that writers, in my experience, pass through as they attempt to write discursively. The Commissioner's first report represents the first developmental level:
What a day. I arrived at the hollow. I walked about. I saw rocks and lots of dirt. Birds that could not fly darted about, and lizards too. The sun was bright and hot; the air, dry; the area, desolate. I wonder if we made the right decision about cultivating here. I wonder what I should do.
At this level the writer is sharing with you his or her narrative of story--he or she is recounting events, or reporting in a narrative style what he or she read in an article. This is reportage; capable, competent, and appropriate in some rhetorical situations or genres of discourse, but it falls short of analysis or argument. Note the revision:
I arrived at the hollow and visually inspected the area on foot. Based on my observations, observations that included fauna typical of hot, arid regions, e.g. flightless birds, earth-bound reptiles, and flora that existed only in the from of grass and scrub where it existed at all, I conclude, at least for now, that the area may not support the sort of cultivation that we planned for it. Please advise.
In the revision, the writer simply recasts the information articulated in a paratactic, running style, into a more hypotactic, expository (or explanatory) style, a style in which the elements are now linked on logical-conceptual grounds in a discursive order. The structure is no longer this and this and then that, but rather this, therefore that, and based on that I conclude this and this. The revision demonstrates how you can take the same information and organize it by means of logical-conceptual relations specified in terms like because, although, unless, in conclusion etc.
At the second developmental level--and I have no idea why this style of discourse always appears when and where it does, as the intermediate stage between narrative-parataxis and argument-analysis--the writer quotes from a source and then appends a comment in the guise of a conclusion, as the writer's interlocutor notes:
The soil in the hollow is too sandy, too poor in nutrients to support savoury roots and tubers, said the Director of Earthworks and Irrigation. Thus and therefore—hence, and in grim conclusion—we may rest confident in the metaphysical certainty that the soils of our hollow will not support the savoury roots and tubers that will bring delight to our stewpots and joy to our soup-bowls.
The bold part is the quote; the italicized portion is the comment. The writer's interlocutor responds correctly:
Your report, such as it is, reduces to a quote to which you attach a comment as if it were a conclusion, when it is not a conclusion but is rather a paraphrase of the chief claim of the quote itself. In other words, you lead your reader in a circle, and not a very broad one.
In the revision the writer intrudes multiple times to tell you what he is doing, how is no longer simply quoting-and-commenting, but rather developing a genuine argument by means of interrogating his source. Even so, the writer's revision reflects the final developmental level, genuine argument and analysis.
This is the sort of reasoning that I am attempting to teach you.
Learning how to think independently
Consider the testimony of Ibn Khaldun about how to reason:
Ibn Khaldun: The necessity of knowledge as a pre-requisite (for the institution of the imamate) is obvious. The imam can execute the divine laws only if he knows them. Those he does not know, he cannot properly present. His knowledge is satisfactory only if he is able to make independent decisions. Blind acceptance of tradition is a shortcoming, and the imamate requires perfection in all qualities and conditions. (Khaldun, 1967/2005, p. 158)
Note that for the jurist knowledge alone is inadequate. Knowledge becomes satisfactory only when the jurist can render independent decisions. This is because anyone with basic literacy skills can read or recite or repeat from a book and therefore "know" a principle. So too you, as a researcher attempting to use case data to draw conclusions on grounds of practical reasoning, need to do more than
Instead: you need to be able to think independently. How do you that? Again: the parables show you the way.
Regard: Not thinking independently, i.e. blindly accepting the news of the world, was the mistake of the director depicted in the parables
Thinking independently requires that you use two important discursive strategies: inference and analogy.
Umar's letter to Abu Musa on his appointment as judge in al-Kufah (Khaldun, 1967/2005):
Use your brain (emphasis mine) about mattters which perplex you and to which neither Qur'an nor Sunnah seem to apply. Study similar cases and evaluate the situation through analogy with them (p. 173).
Paraphrasing Umar: Use your brain--please, please use your brain instead of merely reciting from the course texts--about matters which perplex you and to which neither your own experience nor the research literature seem to apply (at least on their face).
Do this: evaluate the situation described in the case through analogy and inference with the findings of the research literature and with the situations depicted in the research literature. Analogy and inference are your tools.
For example: Baym describes a special interest group (people who enjoy soap operas) that uses a newsgroup as the basis for community.
This is how practical reasoning (and legal reasoning) works: when confronted by a novel issue or challenge, you do not simply give up or shut down.
Instead:
Your conclusions are hypotheses. Were you to go a step further in your research you would begin to develop a research design--e.g. an experiment or a observations in the field--to test your hypothesis. But for the purposes of this course your task is only to develop hypotheses in the form of the recommendations specified in your case reports.
Reference
Khaldun, I. (2005). The Muqaddimah: An introduction to history (F. Rosenthal, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1967)