The Principles of Good Research
Lesson 2 - Master the Academic Essay
In lesson one, I introduced you to the thesis statement. There, I asserted the thesis statement comes at the end of your research. In order to write a good thesis statement, we first have to know how to do good research. Therefore, research will be the focus of the next few lessons.
Rhetoric as Research
Frequently, novice writers make the critical mistake of inventing a thesis, then scavenging evidence for their assertion. The dilemma is this: one almost always finds what he is looking for. Cherry-picked support is inevitably interpreted eisegetically and almost always misapplied, leading to claims that are at best incomplete and without nuance, and at worst misleading and false. Good research and writing must be receptive, humble, and truthful. It may surprise you, then, that good research starts with rhetoric.
Although rhetoric frequently gets a bad rap, it’s usually because the term is confused with sophistry—the deliberate use of fallacious arguments for the purpose of deceiving.1 Aristotle famously wrote that
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not the function of any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes, arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and that is why we say that, in its technical character, it is not concerned with any special or any definite class of subjects. (Rhetoric, 1355b)
Aristotle is explaining that rhetoric does not belong to any particular science or field, but is concerned, generally speaking, with all the ideas that exist within the realm of human knowledge. It is, moreover, the faculty of the mind that observes the best means of persuasion regarding these ideas.
In his book, The Office of Assertion, Scott Crider observes, “The Greek word for ‘faculty’ is dunamis, ‘power’ or ‘capacity’; dunamis is the root of the English word, ‘dynamism.’ Rhetoric is the power or capacity of the mind to discover, the actualization of a human intellectual potential that, when actualized, releases energy” (6). Crider’s point, one he goes on to demonstrate extensively, is that as a faculty of the mind, rhetoric “often helps us discover what we believe about a subject as well, even as we are learning how to convince an audience of its truth” (7).
In other words, rhetoric is an intellectual art that gives us the power to discover what can be said about a subject as we seek to find the arguments (logos) that will persuade our audience. If approached honestly, and not as a sophist, the art of rhetoric will free the researcher of his own ignorance and reveal the weakness’s in his own beliefs about an idea. Therefore, rhetoric can be defined as a good person discovering the best possible arguments for persuasion and offering them in the most appropriate manner.
Ethical Principles of Research
Since the point of research is to discover what can be said—as well as what is being said (i.e., written)—about any particular topic, subject, or idea of interest, the following principles must be carefully observed when conducting research: ask good questions and be intellectually humble.
Said another way, a good researcher will pay attention to others who’ve gone before, will not be fixed in his position or pretend to know everything, will commit to going where the truth leads and approximating his life to the truth as much as possible.
Only then will a writer be prepared to formulate a working thesis: a hypothesis.
In her book, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day, Joan Bolker provides some helpful guidance on the first of our principles. She writes,
Think of research as active inquiry into a subject in order to work on it using the singular quality of your own intelligence…research is not merely a matter of accumulating data that you then swallow. That is a relatively passive occupation. Research requires that your mind engage with the material, ask it questions, and act upon it in such a way as to change the material—and, incidentally, yourself. (16)
What Bolker means by “change the material” is not something like manipulating the text—far from it. She means something Heather Hoover calls “critical listening,” a term she borrows from therapist Nixaly Leonardo. Critical listening is a strategic combination of passive and reflective listening.
Passive listening means careful reading, taking in and following the various voices in the conversation related to your topic.
Reflective listening means compiling questions and observations about those voices and their positions and opinions, followed by annotating their relevance, and documenting the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments.
In Composition as Conversation, Hoover quotes Leonardo as explaining, “Critical listening requires the most effort. It involves processing a message while using your own judgments to differentiate between facts and opinions. It also requires creating your own analysis and opinions of the message being conveyed.” (31-32)
Finally, A. D. Sertillanges reminds all intellectual workers that life is unified and one cannot separate his character from his work. In his acclaimed book, The Intellectual Life, He asserts,
There is something shocking in a dissociation which dislocates the harmony of the human being. One has no faith in jewel merchants who sell pearls and wear none…The true springs up from the same soil as the good: their roots communicate…by practicing the truth that we know, we merit the truth that we do not yet know.” (18-19)
By extension, I derive from his argument that if a researcher is unwilling to live the truth that has been revealed so far, he will not only be ill equipped to discover truths still undiscovered, he likely cannot be trusted to follow the conversation in his research, humbly and honestly, either.
In the next lesson, we’ll tackle the methods of good research.
Technically, Aristotle says the essence of sophistry consists in the moral purpose, the deliberate use of fallacious arguments. In Dialectic, the dialectician has the power or faculty of making use of them when he pleases; when he does so deliberately, he is called a sophist. In Rhetoric, this distinction does not exist; he who uses sound arguments as well as he who uses false ones are both known as rhetoricians. Nevertheless, Aristotle defends rhetoric, making the distinction between those who would use the art of persuasion just and those who would use it unjustly (Rhetoric, 1.1.13). The designation for the deceitful user of dialectic, sophists, was later in history also applied to the unjust rhetorician as well. Aristotle, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Translated by J. H. Freese., ed. J. H. Freese, vol. 22 (Medford, MA: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd., 1926).