Bryan Yu –
Thinking Before
Writing
In this course you
have been
asked to write a series of short papers in the hopes that you will
learn to
express your thoughts textually in a clear, concise and coherent
manner.
Whether you realize it or not, the goal here is to add to your future
success
either in the private/ public job market or in academia. Success in
both
requires that you can explain ideas in the simplest and clearest way to
those
who may not specialize in your field. However, writing is a skill that
has to
be learned through practice; it does not happen automatically and
requires more
than just a basic understanding of language.
The skills that need to be learned to clearly convey an
author’s thoughts to a reader may seem overwhelming at first. You may
ask
yourself the question “What is the best way to show the reader my
thoughts on a
particular subject????” Your answer may be, “This subject has so much
information, and therefore, I’ll tell them everything I possibly can
about it.
More information must always be beneficial for the reader.” However,
more
information is good only if it is relevant information. This is true
not only
in writing. Think of econometrics. More information or data is good if
they
pertain to relevant variables, but adding irrelevant variables does
nothing
significant to add to the explanatory power of a regression. If
anything, it
tends to weaken the explanation of the model’s structure.
This therefore leads to the next logical question, “How do
we determine what is relevant information?” The relevance of supporting
information depends upon the pointed question that is being answered in
your
paper. It is true that not every discipline is the same; Sciences are
quite
different than the Social Sciences and Humanities and this is reflected
in
their particular writing styles. However, it is assumed that the
majority of
you are economists, and therefore, most everything you write is trying
to
answer some question.
In this course, you have been given a number of questions
or statements to mull over. This culminated in you stating a position
and
arguing for or against it. This position should never be immediately
certain
from the outset. Otherwise, it is likely that you are lacking in
research. Your
position on a topic really should come after you have studied,
synthesized, and
reflected on the implications and interrelationships of the material.
This can
be both difficult and take some time. However, it is necessary in order
for you
to really understand your content and build a logically sound and
flowing
argument. There are many ways that writers attempt to analyse the
questions
that they are faced with. What works for some will not work for others;
you
need to realize this and find the system that works for you. A popular
way for
writers to organize their thoughts and materials that they have
researched is
through the use of concept maps.
Concept maps are likely to be familiar since it seems we
all have seen these at some point in our lifetimes, although we may
have
disregarded or ignored them. Nonetheless it is quite a valuable tool to
use. A
concept map is basically a web of thoughts:
What
we have here is a relatively simple concept map, although it may look
somewhat
confusing (you can attribute that to my lack of Word skills). In
essence what
it is saying is that to answer a question you must do some research.
The
research yields the main concepts or arguments in the literature that
pertain
to the question to be answered. The realization of the main ideas or
concepts
allows you to delve further in order to understand some of the
fundamental
concepts that drive these main points. It may be the case that ideas
generated
through this process may not be clear. If it is not clear to you, more
than
likely it will also be confusing to the reader. As a result, you may
wish to
clarify what these points or concepts mean in the body of your paper.
This is
also true when you are mentioning concepts that are specific to your
trade, for
example the use of economic terms. Depending on your audience, you may
or may
not need to go into much detail here.
What is also evident from this concept map is that not all ideas and explanations are independent of each other (this is shown through the use
of double arrows). Ideas can be interrelated both across sub-topics and main topics through linkages. As mentioned in the grading scheme, these
interrelationships are important in that they allow for a smoother flow when moving from topic to topic. However, the use of linkages is not only for
aesthetic purposes. I neglected to mention, but was thoughtfully reminded by Dr. Strachan that these links “are the clues to meaning and understanding
and without them, relationships between ideas can only be guessed at by the reader”. This conveys to the reader that you fully understand the material
that you are presenting, instilling a sense of confidence in your own work.
Through a concept map, you can logically map out how fundamental concepts can answer pointed questions. It allows and pushes you to
reflect on why these main points in the literature are important to the task at hand. Through this exercise, you can analyse the important as opposed to
irrelevant points of the subject. A strong paper will have a clear focus on the important aspects, while those irrelevant ideas, just like in econometrics
will be swept away into some unobservable variable that won’t affect the final results. Understanding the arguments, the counterarguments, the
underlying logic and the interrelationships between variables will allow you to weigh the cost and benefits of the question and settle on a position,
which should guide you to a pointed thesis statement for your paper. A thesis statement should be strong rather than neutral, which entails an adequate
amount of research.