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Techniques for Documenting with Proof or Supporting Evidence, and Related Strategies for Problem Solving By David Alderoty © 2017
Chapter 17) Technique-15, Creating Explanations and Statements that are Logical and Believable, And Related Strategies for Good Writing
This e-book presents 28 techniques for supporting the validity of the statements you write. Left click on the above for a list of the techniques
This chapter contains a little over 2,800 words
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Table of Contents, and an Outline of this Chapter The following is a hyperlink table of contents, as well as an outline of this chapter. If you left click on a blue underlined heading, the corresponding topic or subtopic will appear on your computer screen. Alternatively, you can scroll down to access the material listed in the table of contents, because this chapter is on one long webpage.
Topic 1.) Technique-15, Creating Explanations And Statements that are Logical and Believable Subtopic, Writing Logical, and Believable, Explanations and Statements Subtopic, Examples of Documents and Explanations That Must Written in a Logical and Believable Way Additional and Supporting Information For this Subtopic, from the Web Additional and Supporting Information For This Topic, From Web-Based Articles Additional and Supporting Information For This Topic, from Web-Based Videos Subtopic, Asking Yourself a Series of Questions when you are Writing Additional and Supporting Information For This Subtopic, From Web-Based Articles Additional and Supporting Information For This Chapter, From Web-Based Articles Additional and Supporting Information For This Chapter, from Web-Based Videos
This E-Book Provides Additional and Supporting Information from other Authors, with Web Links
This e-book contains links to web-based articles and videos from other authors, for additional, alternative, and supporting information. The links are the blue underlined words, presented throughout this e-book. However, some of these links are to access different sections of this e-book, or material on my own websites. Quotes and paraphrases in this e-book have hyperlinks to access the original source. The quotes are presented in brown text, which is the same color of these words. (The precise text color is RGB Decimal 165, 42, 42, or Hex #a52a2a) Some of the web links in this e-book will probably fail eventually, because websites may be removed from the web, or placed on a new URL. If a link fails, use the blue underlined words as a search phrase, with www.Google.com If the link is for a video, use www.google.com/videohp The search will usually bring up the original website, or one or more good alternatives. |
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Topic 1.) Technique-15, Creating Explanations And Statements that are Logical and Believable ||| Technique-15, creating explanations and statements that are logical and believable is a basic strategy for good writing. This involves focusing your efforts on creating sentences and paragraphs that your readers can easily understand, and believe. One of the main advantages of this technique, is it can eliminate or reduce the need for supporting evidence for some of the statements you write.
Subtopic, Writing Logical, and Believable, Explanations and Statements ||| The details can be arranged in a step-by-step explanation, such as how a goal was achieved, how an accident occurred, how a business failed. This can also involve explanations based on time or history, involving seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. Explanations can also be based on a series of cause-and-effect sequences that lead to a specific outcome, such as an accident, the spread of a disease, and the outbreak of conflict. The idea to keep in mind is if your readers know how something happened, or how something was achieved, in terms of time, components, and dynamics, they are probably more likely to believe it, without additional supporting evidence. Note, in the above sentence the word components mean the equipment, work facilities, personnel, material, and/or other entities that contributed to an outcome. The word dynamics, in the bold underlined statement above, refers to actions, series of steps, mechanical or manual movements, and/or cause-and-effect sequences, which led to a specific outcome.
Subtopic, Examples of Documents and Explanations That Must Written in a Logical and Believable Way ||| A school assignment, an essay, or an article that is not entirely believable might result in minimal adverse consequences. However, there are documents and explanations that will result in failed efforts, if they are not written in a logical and believable way. The following are examples of documents that must be written in a way that is logical and believable:
● Any document that is written to convince individuals, businesses, or government agencies to invest money in a project (For additional information see: wikiHow to Write an Investor Proposal Letter and How-to-guide on writing the perfect investment template summary)
● Any document that is written to persuade, such as advertising leaflets, a business proposals, cover letters to obtain employment (For additional information see: Persuasive business documents and Writing persuasive request letters: business letter format, tips and samples )
● Business reports that contain recommendations that require money (For additional information see: wikiHow to Write a Business Report, Video: Writing a Business Report: Structure & Examples, and Business and Report Writing Skills)
Project reports (For additional information see: Writing Effective Project
● Grant proposals, and project proposals (For additional information see: Project Proposal Writing and How to Write a Grant Proposal
The following are examples of explanations that must be written in a logical and believable way.
● Explaining how much time and money are needed to complete a project
● Explaining what led to the failure of a major project
● Explaining cost overruns of a major project
● Explaining why a major project was not completed on time
● Explaining the sequence of events that led to an accident
● Explaining the need for repairs and/or modification equipment, work facility, or products, to prevent accidents
● Explaining how a business failed
● Explaining how you obtained your skills and expertise
● Explanations in a project proposal
Additional and Supporting Information For this Subtopic, from the Web ||| How to write Excellent Explanations
How to Write an Explanation Essay
How to Write an Explanation Essay, by Alicia Anthony
How to Write a Scientific Explanation
Explanation Texts Structure and features of explanation texts
Video: Explanation of Evidence for Essay Writing
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Topic 2.) Evaluating Your Writing from the Perspective of Your Readers, with the Goal of Creating Documents that are Relatively Easy to Understand, Logical, and Believable ||| The idea here is to create explanations and statements that are relatively easy to understand, accurate, valid, as well as logical and believable, from the perspective of your readers. If you believe the text you are writing fits the above criteria, keep in mind your reader(s) may or may not have a similar perception. The yellow highlighted words actually represent a relative concept. This is because the life experiences, knowledge, skills, and educational and technical background of the readers will most likely influence their perception of the material you are writing. A document that is easy to understand, logical and believable to one reader, might be seen by another reader to be illogical, unbelievable, and/or incomprehensible. To be reasonably certain that your readers perceive your text as logical and believable, ideally you should obtain feedback from your reader(s). This is feasible when you are writing for a small group of people that you know, or for one individual, such as a college instructor. Another alternative is to obtain feedback from individuals that are similar to your readers, or anyone that is willing to read your initial draft of your document. This is useful when you do not know your readers, such as when you are writing for the web or for any type of mass communication. The feedback you obtain from people that read your document should not be evaluated in terms of correctness, especially if they provide negative evaluations. This is because you are evaluating the way people perceive your document, not their reading comprehension, knowledge of writing or their experience with the topic in your document. However, under certain circumstances you can obtain erroneous feedback. For example, if the people that read your document are significantly different from your readers, some or all of the feedback you obtained might be invalid. This can happen if you cannot find qualified readers, for a document that requires specialized knowledge or technical training to comprehend. You might get unrealistic praise from readers that like you, especially if they perceive you as an authority figure. You might obtain unrealistic negative comments from readers that are angry and/or overworked. If you obtained any relevant feedback, you should make modifications in your document, so that it will be perceived as logical, believable, and relatively easy to understand by your readers. The modified document ideally should be reevaluated, by people that are willing to read it, and provide feedback.
Additional and Supporting Information For This Topic, From Web-Based Articles ||| Checklist for Assessing Your Readers
Consider Your Audience WRITTEN BY JOE MOXLEY PARENT
Writing for an Academic Audience Writing Program
5 Types of Audiences in Writing
Online Technical Writing: Audience Analysis
Additional and Supporting Information For This Topic, from Web-Based Videos |||
Identifying Your Target Audience: The Top 8 Mistakes Writers Make Kimberley Grabas
Audience Analysis: Determining the Needs of Your Audience, by Victoria McCrady
Considering Audience in Writing, by Prof. Beaudin
Academic Writing Tip: Your Audience, by Leigh A Hall
Writing for the Web, Understanding your audience, by Deborah Chaddock Brown
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Topic 3.) Other Alternatives, for Evaluating and Improving The Explanations and Statements you are Writing ||| As explained in the previous paragraphs, using feedback from people that read your document is the ideal way to evaluate and improve it. This is assuming your goal is evaluating and improving the way readers perceive a document, in terms of logic, believability, and readability. The techniques described in this section can be used with the above, or even as an alternative, if you cannot obtain qualified people to read your document. I frequently use the techniques presented in this topic.
Subtopic, Asking Yourself a Series of Questions when you are Writing ||| Asking yourself a series of appropriate questions as you write, can help you identify statements that can be improved. The questions more or less act as a checklist, to make you aware of any text you wrote that is less than optimal. There is a list of these questions presented below. Under each question, there are suggestions on how the text can be improved. You might find it useful to create your own personal list of questions, focused on your writing habits.
Question 1) Are the readers likely to understand the statement I am writing? If the answer is no, modify or rewrite the statement. This might involve adding additional explanations, defining terms, or improving the sentence and paragraph structure.
Question 2) Are the readers likely to perceive the statements I am writing as believable? If the answer is no, try to make appropriate corrections, such as the following. Provide logical explanations that support your statements. You can also provide any type of supporting evidence, such as from published sources. Sometimes it is best to eliminate statements that the readers might not believe, if you do not have sufficient supporting evidence. Another alternative is to rephrase statements so that it will not be evaluated in terms of true or false by the readers. For example, if you state that you are knowledgeable and highly skilled in XYZ, your readers might question the validity of your statement, unless you have adequate supporting evidence. However, if you change the statement to one of the following it becomes believable without any supporting evidence:
· XYZ has been a hobby of mine for many years, and I have devised a number of techniques with XYZ. This can include the description of the techniques.
· I have been interested in XYZ for many years, and I want to work on projects involving XYZ
Question 3) Are the readers likely to perceive the statement I wrote as logical? If the answer is no, rewrite or modified the statement. A statement might appear more logical if you provide additional details and/or explanations. This can also involve rewriting the statement in a logical sequence, based on a series of steps, or a set of cause-and-effect sequences. This can include an explanation of how something occurred, or how something was achieved.
Question 4) Are my sentences too long? If the answer is yes, try to shorten the sentences. This can sometimes be done by breaking up long sentences and to two or more sentences. Rewriting the statement or paragraph with shorter sentences can be achieved by removing unnecessary details. If all of the details are necessary, present the details with shorter sentences, which may require more text than the original statement. Another alternative is to present the material in a list format, but this is not always feasible. However, sometimes it is necessary to write long sentences, and attempts at shortening sentences in some cases might cause other problems. If this is the case, make every effort to make the long sentences easy to read. This can sometimes be achieved by using more commas, or and/or by underlining portions of the sentence.
Question 5) Do the readers have the required educational or technical background to adequately understand the statement I am writing? If the answer is no, rewrite the material using words and sentences that they will most likely understand. This may require defining technical terms and adding additional explanations. In some cases, it may be best to eliminating some of the technical details and concepts. This can be very feasible if you are writing an article for the general-public. If you are writing instructional material, such as for students, this option might defeat the purpose of the document you are writing. . Note, keep in mind that highly educated people, might not have the specialized knowledge to understand the text that you are writing. For example, if your reader has a PhD in English literature, he might have difficulty understanding an article that involves calculus.
Question 6) Am I writing this sentence, paragraph, statement, explanation, section, or document excessively lengthy. If the answer is yes, there are two solutions to the problem. The first is the typical recommendation, which is to reduce the number of words, and make paragraphs and sentences shorter, by writing more concisely. This can also require removing unnecessary details. If you cannot remove any details, you can still make the text easier to read, even if your paragraphs, sections, chapters, or document is excessively lengthy. This involves rearranging lengthy paragraphs into two or more paragraphs. This can also involve rearrange the text into short sections or subsections, with descriptive headings. The heading should be written to help the reader understand the text under the heading. With the headings, the readers can skip over sections or subsections that they are not interested in reading. This e‑book is written with this strategy explained above.
Question 7) Does the document I am writing service its primary purpose, and does it provide an adequate amount of information and detail for the readers? If the answer is no, rewrite or modified the document, and add more details and other relevant information.
Question 8) Are there any feasible modifications I can make in the text to improve it? If the answer is no you probably have a well-written document. If the answer is yes, you should make the needed improvements, especially if improvements will be significant, and there is adequate time to do so.
||| You can imagine a hypothetical reader as you write. This involves asking yourself how the imaginary reader might respond to your text. When using this technique, it is usually best to imagine a reader that is critical, and is likely to misunderstand the text if it contains any inadequacies. This will result in feedback from the imaginary reader, which you can use to improve your text. Another variation of this technique involves putting yourself in the reader’s place. This involves imagining that you are one of your typical readers. Then try to imagine how the reader will respond to your text. Will they perceive the text as logical, believable, and readable? If the answer is no, rewrite the text so that it will be perceive by the reader is as logical, believable, and readable? With both versions of this technique, the feedback you obtain of course is self‑generated. You should ideally evaluate the feedback you obtained with this technique, by obtaining evaluations and related opinions from people that read portions of your text. The idea here is to see how closely your self-generated feedback is to the feedback obtained from people that read your text.
Additional and Supporting Information For This Subtopic, From Web-Based Articles ||| The Red Ink: How to Put Yourself in Your Reader’s Place
Short Reports: Think of Your Reader First
Checklist for assessing your readers
Writing for the Reader: A Problem-Solution Approach, BY TOM MILLER and DEE PARKER
||| In some cases, using technique 15 may be counterproductive, if it requires lengthy explanations to support the validity of your claim, request, or statement. Sometimes explanations by themselves might not be adequate to convince the readers of the validity of your statement. In such a case, use other techniques to support the validity of your text, such as supporting information from published sources.
Additional and Supporting Information For This Chapter, From Web-Based Articles ||| Google search pages: How to write in a logical and convincing way
How to Use Logical Reasoning to Support Your Essay, By Jane Sumerset
Writing to Persuade: Convince People With Your Pen By Matthew Johnson
CONSTRUCTING A LOGICAL ARGUMENT
Advanced Power Tools for Opening Up a Text
Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques, by BRIAN CLARK
Tips on Writing a Persuasive Essay
Google search pages "Persuasive writing"
Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques
Google search pages “Marketing psychology”
The Writing Process Capella University
Technical Communication Today - Richard Johnson- Sheehan Ch. 7
Additional and Supporting Information For This Chapter, from Web-Based Videos ||| YouTube search pages: How to write in a logical and convincing way
How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure
What is a "STRONG" argument? Kevin deLaplante
Opinion Essay or Persuasive Essay
YouTube search pages Persuasive language
Persuasive language, by Vicky Ross
YouTube search pages Marketing psychology
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