Great. Thank you, Lindemann, for presenting different ways of composing academic works. I am not being sarcastic*. I agree that there is something a bit curious about forcing students to write in an argumentative voice, that there is only one way, that there are sides to be taken. Coming from a reader who pushes away competition like the bubonic plague, and who accepts collaboration (see my Student Research Day abstract here) and open mindedness like the homies from Creed, I think that in a way argumentation in academic papers is a necessary evil/not evil but necessary.
Sure you (the student - the prof - the writer- what have you) are writing as if what you are saying is the correct and ultimate "right" but how would we prove any points if we were not to make a stand? And is taking an argumentative state not helping writers with self assurance, self esteem, self projection? Stating an argument in papers where teachers ask you to answer a prompt is inevitable. There will always be other "sides" and there will always be other "ways" of doing, thinking and theorizing, which is why many times we teach students to use terms such as "many people think..." or "often times we..." so that it is not so set in stone. So that the argument we are making is not also a claim to our superiority.
That is all.
*I was totes being sarcastic.
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