Kantz, writer of “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively,” had more similarities to my own research methods than I had expected. While I have come a long way from my old research ways, some ideas brought forth by Kantz are still applicable today.
First, one idea that Kantz addresses is the difference between fact and an argument. Kantz uses the example of the Earth is round. The status of fact that the Earth is round is because we have a “mutual agreement that ’round’ is an adequate description of the Earth’s actual imperfectly spherical shape” (67). Here, Kantz wants us to see that what makes a statement fact is not how “true” the statement is, but that the statement is what is most agreed on (67). In extreme cases and in my own research, I am a victim of accepting facts because I agree with it. That is not to say I do not deny statements backed with factual tests, I merely mean to state that when conducting research from here on out, I need to know I am analyzing arguments that may seem like fact. In other words, facts are just a “consensus of opinion” we encounter (67-68).
Margaret Kantz – Source
Second, is the way in which I list my evidence. Evidence that is presented as a list—First ___, second ___, etc.—is comfortable to us writers because it reflects the structure of a story. A story is easy to follow and often times has a moral lesson in the end. These morals of stories are just like the arguments we are presented and then have the choice of accepting. The story method is one method I use many times when presenting information I receive.
It is very simple to tell a story from experience because our experiences are the facts of our story. Sometimes, however, we tell a story and we have no emotion from our audience. Maybe we did something wrong, or maybe they just didn’t care. Either way, one way to help enhance our storytelling is when we retell an experience with facts, one should strategically place the more powerful events near the end as the punch-line; hoping to impress our audience.
The same type of structure is what Kantz emphasizes. In other words, we should veer away from storytelling and gear our writing towards synthesizing in order to gain more confident persuasive evaluations by our audiences.
Kantz arguments in favor for strategically displaying of our argument, coupled with my reformed idea of facts and arguments, helps my research improve. The improvement is effective once I can present facts as arguments and back arguments with facts, all while presenting them in an orderly fashion that gains the trust of my reader. In all, my story telling has evolved into a form of synthesis.