Analysis of Lines of Reasoning in Written Argumentation

Abstract

Written texts play an important role in the activity systems generating knowledge in professional and educational settings. Empirical studies of the social construction of scientific knowledge in scientific and school settings have identified a range of purposes, uses, and genres of written communication (Kelly & Chen, 1999; Knorr-Cetina, 1999). The persuasive discourse of written argument is one such type of written communication that has played a significant role in the development of scientific knowledge (Bazerman, 1988; Gross, 1990). As noted by Yore et al. (2006), written communication provides a means to articulate evidence, warrants, and claims; reflect on proposed ideas; critique the scientific work of others; and establish proprietorship of intellectual property. An important dimension of science learning is the ability to use, assess, and critique evidence (Hodson, 2003; Yore et al., 2003). This ability includes understanding the relationships among questions, data, and claims, as well as how these relationships can be organized to formulate evidence for a given task and audience (Wallace et al., 2004). While the use of evidence in reasoning is a noted goal of scientific inquiry, little research has focused on the difficulties students may have integrating data with text to formulate coherent arguments. This chapter examines specific rhetorical demands necessary to prepare a successful scientific argument. The theoretical framework for this study incorporates research of writing to learn science and argumentation in science. We investigate these issues in a technology-rich university oceanography course designed for undergraduate non-science majors. The objective of this chapter is to identify and analyze the nature of the claims being made by the student writers and how these claims are developed as the lines of reasoning supporting a thesis. These analyses illustrate ways that large-scale earth data-sets can be used to prepare students to examine and employ evidence in scientific and socio-scientific domains. Drawing from the fields of argumentation theory and rhetoric of science as well as previous studies of an ongoing research program, specific epistemic and rhetorical criteria are developed and applied for the purposes of assessing the strength of the students’ arguments. These criteria were brought to bear on two types of writing tasks with differing rhetorical demands. In one case, the students use geological data to develop and sustain theoretical arguments regarding plate tectonics. In a second application, the students consider broader earth-climate issues, using similar evidence-based argumentation practices,