Academic Literacies 2: Lecture Week 8: Establishing Credibility and Authority Persuasion in Academic Writing

Academic Literacies 2
Lecture Week 8:
Establishing Credibility and Authority
Persuasion in Academic Writing
Portfolio Stage 2 (Week 9)
 Bring a copy of the draft of your chosen assignment to lab in
Week 7. E-mail a copy of the draft to you tutor for feedback.
(You will repeat this process in Week 9 for the second
assignment.)
 Engage in a peer-review session and compete the peer-
review form.
 Grades will be rewarded for participating in the peer-review
session as both a writer and a peer-reviewer; therefore, you
must attend the class and review your peer’s paper while
s/he reviews your paper.
 Following the class, you will be expected to take on board
the feedback from your peer and the feedback from your
tutor when redrafting the assignment. This redraft will
comprise Stage 3 of the portfolio.
2
Lecture outline
 Establishing credibility and authority
 Using evidence effectively to support
arguments
 Persuasion
 Balance and intertextuality
 Hedging and qualification
 Signalling
 Transitions and transitional devices
 Signposting
Regional Writing Centre 3

The Rhetorical Triangle
Message
LOGOS
Audience Writer/speaker
PATHOS ETHOS

LOGOS
 How can I make the argument internally consistent and
logical?
 How can I find the best reasons and support them with
the best evidence?
ETHOS
 How can I present myself effectively?
 How can I enhance my credibility and trustworthiness?
PATHOS
 How can I make the reader open to my message? How
can I best appeal to my reader’s values and interests?
 How can I engage my reader emotionally and
imaginatively?
(Rammage, Bean and Johnson 2007:76)
STAR Criteria
 Sufficiency: Is there enough evidence?
 Typicality: Is the chosen evidence
representative and typical?
 Accuracy: Is the evidence accurate and
up-to-date?
 Relevance: Is the evidence relevant to
the claim?
(Fulkerson, cited in Rammage et al. 2007:110)

STAR Criteria: Sufficiency
 Is there enough evidence?
 What factors will determine how much
evidence it too little/too much?
 What is the effect of having too little
evidence?
 What is the effect of having too much
evidence?
 How can you guard against having too
little or too much evidence?

ETHOS: The appeal to credibility
 […] the writer’s credibility determines the
effectiveness of the argument” (Ebest et
al. 2005:262).
 Be knowledgeable about your issue
 Be fair (in your treatment of alternative
views
 Build a bridge to your audience (grounding
your argument in shared values and
assumptions)

Ethos:
Credibility and trustworthiness
 How can I enhance my credibility and
trustworthiness?
 Can the reader trust the sources that you are
using?
 Can the reader be sure that you are not coming to
hasty conclusions?
 Can the reader trust that you are using the most
accurate and up-to date evidences that you can
find?
 Can the reader have faith in the accuracy of the
data being presented?

Ethos:
Credibility and trustworthiness
 How can I enhance my credibility and
trustworthiness?
 Tone
 Word choice
 Arrangement of reasons/evidence
 Treatment of alternative views

Types of evidence
 Primary research/ Field research
 Secondary research

Types of evidence
 Observations
 Field research
 Surveys
 Questionnaires What are some of
 Interviews the strengths and
 Experiments
limitations of
 Testimonies
 Cases these kinds of
 Facts research?
 Examples
 Hypothetical examples
 Statistics
 Personal experiences
Selecting and framing evidence
Rhetorical effects
 The way you select and frame evidence depends
on your purpose.
 They way you select and frame evidence will be
influenced by your beliefs, values and
assumptions.
 The way you select and frame evidence will limit
and control what your audience reads.
 The way you select and frame evidence will
influence how you move your audience towards
you angle of vision.

 How much space will you give to supporting
and contrary evidence?
 How much contextual and interpretative
comments will you add when presenting
data?
 Where will you place the contrary evidence?
Will you put it in subordinate positions; for
example, will the contrary evidence appear in
the main clause or in a subordinate clause?
 Although mosh pit accidents are rare, the
danger to the city of multimillion-dollar liability
lawsuits means that the city should
nevertheless ban them for reasons of fiscal
prudence.”
 Will you focus on lots of facts/statistics or will
you focus on a detailed case?
 What kind of influence does the way you label
and name data have on your reader’s response
to your data?
 What type of influence does your use of
imagery have on the reader’s response to your
data?
 How will you present numbers and statistical
data? (raw numbers or percentages, median
versus mean)
(Rammage et al. 2007:118-120)
 Attributive tags (shaping the reader’s
response to a source)
 What types of attributive tags can you
think of?
 What influence have these on the
reader?
 What types of tags enhance credibility?
 What types of tags decrease credibility?

 Using evidence ethically
 Using evidence responsibly
 Using evidence persuasively

Message
LOGOS
Audience Writer/speaker
PATHOS ETHOS
LOGOS
 How can I make the argument internally consistent and
logical?
 How can I find the best reasons and support them with
the best evidence?
ETHOS
 How can I present myself effectively?
 How can I enhance my credibility and trustworthiness?
PATHOS
 How can I make the reader open to my message? How
can I best appeal to my reader’s values and interests?
 How can I engage my reader emotionally and
imaginatively?
(Rammage, Bean and Johnson 2007:76)
PATHOS
 What forms can this appeal take?
 Concrete language (using language that
evokes positive feelings, for example)
 Specific examples and illustrations
 Narratives
 Words, metaphors and analogies with
appropriate connotations (that guide the
reader toward your angle of vision)
(Rammage et al 2007:133-135)
 Example: The decision is “bold and decisive”
versus “haughty and autocratic”.
PATHOS
 Can emotional appeal be used effectively
to enhance an academic argument?
 Is emotional appeal legitimate?
 What care needs to be taken when

presenting an argument using pathos?
Balance and intertextuality
REMINDER
 Bias or suppressed evidence
 “A conclusion reached from self-serving
data, questionable sources, or purposely
incomplete facts is illogical and dishonest”
(Ebest et al. 2005:375).
 Accounting for other viewpoints in your writing:
what language will you use?
 Summarising opposing views:
Caution:
 Loaded summarises,
 Biased summaries,
 Oversimplified, distorting the opposing argument
 Refuting opposing views:

 Are you refuting the writer’s reasons and grounds
(evidence)?
 Are you refuting the writer’s warrants and backing
(underlying assumptions)?
 What strategies will you employ for refuting evidence?
 Conceding to opposing views.
 Strategies for rebutting evidence (Rammage et
al. 2007:148-9)
 Question
 the truth of the data,
 the representativeness or sufficiency of the
evidence/examples?
 the relevance/regency of the examples
 the credibility of the author
 the accuracy or context of quotations
 the way statistical data has been produced or
interpreted
 Cite counterexamples and countertestimony
Hedging and qualification
 Overstating problems
 Overstating the case
 Overstating the evidence
 Overstating the results
 Overstating the outcomes
Hedging and qualification
 How do authors present reality and qualify their
statements in order to present information
accurately.
Examples (Gillet 2010)
 There is experimental work to show that a week
or ten days may not be long enough and a
fortnight to three weeks is probably the best
theoretical period.
 Conceivably, different forms, changing at different
rates and showing contrasting combinations of
characteristics, were present in different areas.
 It appears to establish three categories: the first
contains […]
Examples (Gillet 2010)
 The lives they chose seem overly ascetic and
self-denying to most women today.
 Weismann proved that animals become old
because, if they did not, there could be no
successive replacement of individuals and
hence no evolution.
 Recent work on the religious demography of
Northern Ireland shows a separating out of
protestant and catholic, with the catholic
population drifting westwards and vice versa.
 There are cases where this would have been
the only possible method of transmission.
Signalling
 Signalling
 Transition signals
 Signposting
Resources
 Ebest, S.B., Alred, G., Brusaw, C.T. and Oliu, W.E.
(2005) Writing from A to Z: The Easy-to-use Reference
Handbook, 5th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
 Gillet, A., Hammond, A. and Martala, M. (2009)
Successful Academic Writing. London: Pearson
Education Limited.
 Norton et al. (2009) Writing Essays @ University: A
guide for Students by Students. London: Write Now
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.
Available online at:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/londonmet/fms/MRSite/a
cad/psychology/writing/WritingEssaysatUniversity.pdf
 Ramage, J.D., Bean, J.C. and Johnson, J. (2006)
Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readers, 7th ed.
London: Longman.

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 What care needs to be taken when

 Refuting opposing views:

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