Most of us have received the cryptic comment from an English teacher: "Develop" or "Develop this idea more fully." English teachers make this comment often, because we get paid to teach students how to fully develop their thinking and writing. In fact, teachers in general spend a lot of time talking among ourselves about "teaching critical thinking, reading, and writing skills." It's one of the many tasks with which industry and government charges us. More important from your viewpoint as a student, learning the trick of demonstrate what you think by backing up your opinions will result in much, much higher grade much earlier in your student and professional career.
What do we mean by "critical thinking, reading, and writing," and why does everyone make such a big deal about students learning the skill?" We want you to be able to zero in on essential aspects of whatever you are reading and thinking about; and, to understand the world, you need to be able to know which aspects of a problem are essential and which can be ignored. How do you know which aspects of a text or subject is critical or essential? You get taught, and you learn through error and trail and experience.
For instance, this semester you've been learning to think critically about communication and to pull out essential aspects of communication situations. The critical or essential aspects you've been taught to notice and analyze are things like the author's goals, the audience's needs, and noise. Through practice, you've learned to think critically--to think more fully and to notice more--about how an author uses the three appeals to craft their messages. Every profession has a set of such ways to break down their area of study. They call these "ways to break down or things a professional is expected to notice" a rubric or paradigm.
For instance, one History rubric or paradigm is to look at past events, trying to isolate critical figures, causes, and actions and fit them into a coherent narrative of what caused what in the past. Historians train history students to fit each figure and action into a chronology and to notice similarities and differences between the past and the present, all to predict the future. Literary analysis trains students to use an interpretive rubic in which they notice and analyze imagery, genre, period, author's biography, and symbolology. As with all critical thinking rubrics, the idea is to train students to notice and analyze speicific things in a piece of literature to gain a fuller, more critical understanding of what the iterature as a whole means. Health care has its own rubrics, as does law enforcement, and every other profession.
However, while different disciples and professions differ in what they think of as essential or critical to the texts they study, all academic disciplines and professions share one thing in common in terms of how to present one's insights to others. What is this one essential characteristic you have to learn to be considered a professional? You have to learn to back up your opinions. That's the whole secret to success in the professional world. Let me say this again, so you can sear it into your mind: "Western trained professionals back up their opinions." To be considered a professional or to participate fully in academic discourse (read: to get good grades in college), you *must* learn not only to offer a valid opinion but to back it up with evidence, examples, illustrations, and/or clarification of your thinking.
The upshot? English teachers spend a lot of time harping on development, and students spend a lot of time saying, "I just like to say what I want to say without a lot of BS." It's not BS. What is often lacking from student writing is the backup half of the necessary pairing of opinion/claim + warrants/reasons your audience should believe your opinion. In short, to sound like a professional, you have to do more than sound like a confident, well informed author(ity), you have to be willing and able to back up your claims and opinions. When you don't do so, people suspect your claims as being "just an opinion" rather than a well reasoned, professional opinion.
Let me offer you an illustration. Recently, a student sent me a glowing assessment of their group in which he said:
"My assumptions that we would all learn from one another is correct. [By the way, 'assumptions (plural) are correct' would be proper usage.] I have learned a wealth of information from everyone in this team."
In these two sentences he made two claims: 1) "my assumptions are correct" and 2) "I have learned a wealth of information from everyone." Notice, however, he presented his claims without doing anything *but* making the claims. He didn't go on to develop them with examples, illustrations, or clarification of exactly what he means. He leaves it up to the auduience--in this case me--to fill in the gaps. Those trained in critical thinking are trained to regard claims offered without supporting information with suspicion. Why? Because people are lazy, and while they may have very good reasons for holing their stated opinion, when it comes to a professional opinion--"We should use steel X to made this bridge."--other professionals need more than just a bald opinion, they need good reasons to believe.
When students have difficulty developing papers, it is usually a signal they haven't been trained in the need to give more than just a bald option; and, they miss golden opportunities to fully explain explain their thinking *and* to gain ethos by using a structure which marks them as speaking to an academic audience. For instance, the author of the sentences above could clarify what he meant by "assumptions" by providing his audience with a list of the major assumptions he made in regards to his group. He could explain more fully what he meant by "a wealth of information" by providing a couple of examples or illustrations, and he could make brownie points (that is, improve his group member's ethos as students in the eyes of his professor) by linking specific lessons he had learned to specific team members' names. You get the idea:
claim + support = a demonstration of fully developed critical thinking + signals a way of presenting yourself as an educated professional
Learn how to recognize opportunities to back up your claims with support, and not only will your grades improve, you will find people mysterisouly giving creedence to what you say. Try it. It works.
What does all this have to do with process writing and revision? Well, you remember that revision comes after one has produced a draft and before proofreading. When you revise, you are looking at places where you can craft a better message by making changes to deep level meaning. One of the aspects of a draft you should train yourself to look for--at least in academic writing--is a lack of development. To notice where a piece needs development, you have to train yourself to notice where someone has made a claim or offered and opinion without backing it up.
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