1. Wrt 105: practices of academic writing
Dr. Rusty Bartels
Friday, October 19th, 2018
Week 8, Day 3

2. Overview New Unit: Argument Argument: Your (Academic) Experience
In Sum
Wrap-up

3. New Unit: Argument
I’m going to ask you all a question, and I’d like everyone to write down some thoughts, because then we are going to go around the room and I am going to ask everyone to share their thoughts.
Question:
When I say “argument”, what are some things that you associate with that word? Either definitions, turns of phrase, concepts, etc.

4. Argument: Your (Academic) Experience
Each discipline has its own “arguments”
“claims” that have become established norms
Ongoing debates and conversations
Settled arguments with minority counter-arguments
Arguments accepted in one sub-field (or field) but not yet reached another

5. Argument Arguments often occur in response to questions:
What do we know?
How do we know it?
What impact, relevance, or pertinence does it have to [a group]?

6. Argument
“Doing is the middle term that links writing and knowing in the disciplines.”
Carter, Michael. “Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 3, (Feb. 2007): 389.
Different disciplines have different expectations and conventions for writing
BOTH in terms of style
AND in terms of how to engage with the field (e.g. citation practices)
the “doing” that each discipline does is rooted in part in their different methodological approaches.
e.g. What does it mean to “do” research in your major?

7. Argument
In groups of 1, 2, or 3, please work to answer the following questions about your major (if you are undeclared, think about either the college that you are in (e.g. Arts & Sciences) OR an intro class that you are taking):
What does your major/school/class ask you to know?
What does your major/school/class ask you to do? How are the things that you do a reflection of what you know?
What are you asked to write in your major/school/class? How are these texts a reflection of what you know? Of what you do?

8. Argument: In Sum
My goals are to help us be able to understand and see:
how knowledge is produced, reproduced, and circulated
how we, as students, are being asked to participate in those systems.
So as we think about argument — about the arguments we make, about the conversations we enter into — we can start to think about:
how do we know these things?
how do we convey the knowledge that we know these things?

9. Wrap-up Today we: Introduced argument as a concept, as a unit.
Interrogated our thoughts about argument.
Interrogated disciplines and argument.
Next time:
Reading: Jones
Models and background of argument within a rhetorical tradition
Monday (10/22) office hours cancelled. Rescheduled for Wednesday (10/24) from 1:00 – 3:00pm