{"id":717,"date":"2018-04-02T17:11:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T17:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca\/writehere\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=717"},"modified":"2018-07-12T19:45:57","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T19:45:57","slug":"choosing-and-analyzing-your-central-document","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/chapter\/choosing-and-analyzing-your-central-document\/","title":{"raw":"Choosing and Analyzing Your Central Document","rendered":"Choosing and Analyzing Your Central Document"},"content":{"raw":"By now, you\u2019ve probably noticed this chapter\u2019s repetition of the phrase \u201cyour own argument.\u201d The word argument is key. A professor never wants your opinion. Opinions are feelings and thoughts that cannot be proven and cannot be disagreed with. Evidence is the key difference between opinion and argument. While you may begin your essay writing process by examining our opinions, you should be ready to move them aside quickly and replace them with an argument grounded in evidence.\r\n\r\nThe first storey of your own argument should:\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Choose a central document and explain its significance to your argument<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Analyze that central document to focus on two key pieces of evidence<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nBased on your work in Chapters 1 through 6, you should be familiar with other authors\u2019 use of central documents or examples to make their arguments. For example:\r\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\r\n<h3 itemprop=\"educationalUse\">Example<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">In \u201cKids Around the World Just Want to Hang Out,\u201d Michael Welsh uses <strong>the responses given by two separate groups of high school students from Stockholm, Sweden, and Keene, New Hampshire, who were surveyed about their preferences and visions for their cities as his focused central document.<\/strong> Welsh argues that the students of Keene displayed considerably less vision than their Stockholm counterparts, \u201climited expectations\u201d of their government\u2019s ability or interested to help them attain their goals, and a worrying reliance on commercial companies to provide them the accessible, common, and entertaining spaces they desire.<\/li>\r\n \t<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">In \u201cThe Plot to Privatize Common Knowledge,\u201d David Bollier uses <strong>the focused central document of the book <em>Adios, Barbie: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity<\/em>, which outlines Mattel\u2019s aggressive litigation to protect its \u00a0intellectual property.<\/strong> \u00a0He uses this Barbie example to support \u00a0his larger argument that \u201cover-patenting,\u201d if continued unchecked, will result in much of what has been previously considered the shared and accumulated wisdom of humanity becoming \u201coff limits\u201d to the average citizen.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\nWhen choosing a central document, you want a specific document that will provide at least two focused pieces of evidence you can analyze meaningfully. Look again at the example assignment prompt from earlier in this chapter and note how that prompt explicitly identifies \u00a0the central document you need when it asks for \u201cONE protest movement and ONE social media.\u201d Not every assignment prompt will be that overt, but, at the undergraduate level, you are expected to focus on a small number of examples--your one or two central documents--that support your focused and complex argument within the context of the assignment\u2019s guidelines. For this textbook you are only going to focus on ONE central document to create your argument.\r\n\r\nTherefore, this central document should be short and manageable. As we do our example essay prompt about social media and protests, you will need to identify a precise central document that will provide your argument with strong supporting evidence of your argument. Imagine the scope of your essay. Let\u2019s say, for example, you are being asked to write an eight-page essay. It would be impossible to write an eight-page essay arguing anything about \u201cThe Internet\u201d \u2014 think how much you would have to discuss and consider; it would be everything from smartphones, to Internet-enabled appliances, to self-driving cars, and would include every app and website and function of \u201cThe Internet.\u201d That scale of argument would require a series of books! Similarly, you cannot write an eight-page essay about \u201cSocial Media.\u201d Think about all the different kinds of \u201csocial media\u201d and all the different users of those social media and then all the different ways all those different users engage on those social media. Again, that would be a series of books. You cannot even write an eight-page essay on \u201cFacebook.\u201d Instead, if you wanted to write an eight-page essay on \u201chow ONE protest movement used ONE social media to balance or unbalance the power dynamics between government officials and their citizens in harmful or useful ways\u201d from the prompt above, you would need to focus in on a specific part of Facebook (say a Facebook group) and then a specific aspect of that Facebook group (such as the photos posted, the front page, or one discussion thread). Only then are you at a level that is focused enough for an eight-page argument.\r\n\r\nIn response to the prompt above, we will chose Occupy Wall Street\u2019s Facebook page, as an example. By looking at a small slice of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OccupyWallSt\/\">Occupy Wall Street\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>, more specifically the comments in response to the posts on the Facebook page, you can gather two specific, focused pieces of evidence which you can then turn into a specific and focused argument in our second storey.\r\n\r\nRemember that at the undergraduate university level, you will only ever be asked to write one focused and precise argument at a time. \u00a0As such, you need to be focused and precise in limiting your scope to an appropriate central document.","rendered":"<p>By now, you\u2019ve probably noticed this chapter\u2019s repetition of the phrase \u201cyour own argument.\u201d The word argument is key. A professor never wants your opinion. Opinions are feelings and thoughts that cannot be proven and cannot be disagreed with. Evidence is the key difference between opinion and argument. While you may begin your essay writing process by examining our opinions, you should be ready to move them aside quickly and replace them with an argument grounded in evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The first storey of your own argument should:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Choose a central document and explain its significance to your argument<\/li>\n<li>Analyze that central document to focus on two key pieces of evidence<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Based on your work in Chapters 1 through 6, you should be familiar with other authors\u2019 use of central documents or examples to make their arguments. For example:<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\n<h3 itemprop=\"educationalUse\">Example<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">In \u201cKids Around the World Just Want to Hang Out,\u201d Michael Welsh uses <strong>the responses given by two separate groups of high school students from Stockholm, Sweden, and Keene, New Hampshire, who were surveyed about their preferences and visions for their cities as his focused central document.<\/strong> Welsh argues that the students of Keene displayed considerably less vision than their Stockholm counterparts, \u201climited expectations\u201d of their government\u2019s ability or interested to help them attain their goals, and a worrying reliance on commercial companies to provide them the accessible, common, and entertaining spaces they desire.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\">In \u201cThe Plot to Privatize Common Knowledge,\u201d David Bollier uses <strong>the focused central document of the book <em>Adios, Barbie: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity<\/em>, which outlines Mattel\u2019s aggressive litigation to protect its \u00a0intellectual property.<\/strong> \u00a0He uses this Barbie example to support \u00a0his larger argument that \u201cover-patenting,\u201d if continued unchecked, will result in much of what has been previously considered the shared and accumulated wisdom of humanity becoming \u201coff limits\u201d to the average citizen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>When choosing a central document, you want a specific document that will provide at least two focused pieces of evidence you can analyze meaningfully. Look again at the example assignment prompt from earlier in this chapter and note how that prompt explicitly identifies \u00a0the central document you need when it asks for \u201cONE protest movement and ONE social media.\u201d Not every assignment prompt will be that overt, but, at the undergraduate level, you are expected to focus on a small number of examples&#8211;your one or two central documents&#8211;that support your focused and complex argument within the context of the assignment\u2019s guidelines. For this textbook you are only going to focus on ONE central document to create your argument.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, this central document should be short and manageable. As we do our example essay prompt about social media and protests, you will need to identify a precise central document that will provide your argument with strong supporting evidence of your argument. Imagine the scope of your essay. Let\u2019s say, for example, you are being asked to write an eight-page essay. It would be impossible to write an eight-page essay arguing anything about \u201cThe Internet\u201d \u2014 think how much you would have to discuss and consider; it would be everything from smartphones, to Internet-enabled appliances, to self-driving cars, and would include every app and website and function of \u201cThe Internet.\u201d That scale of argument would require a series of books! Similarly, you cannot write an eight-page essay about \u201cSocial Media.\u201d Think about all the different kinds of \u201csocial media\u201d and all the different users of those social media and then all the different ways all those different users engage on those social media. Again, that would be a series of books. You cannot even write an eight-page essay on \u201cFacebook.\u201d Instead, if you wanted to write an eight-page essay on \u201chow ONE protest movement used ONE social media to balance or unbalance the power dynamics between government officials and their citizens in harmful or useful ways\u201d from the prompt above, you would need to focus in on a specific part of Facebook (say a Facebook group) and then a specific aspect of that Facebook group (such as the photos posted, the front page, or one discussion thread). Only then are you at a level that is focused enough for an eight-page argument.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the prompt above, we will chose Occupy Wall Street\u2019s Facebook page, as an example. By looking at a small slice of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OccupyWallSt\/\">Occupy Wall Street\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>, more specifically the comments in response to the posts on the Facebook page, you can gather two specific, focused pieces of evidence which you can then turn into a specific and focused argument in our second storey.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that at the undergraduate university level, you will only ever be asked to write one focused and precise argument at a time. \u00a0As such, you need to be focused and precise in limiting your scope to an appropriate central document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-717","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":194,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1959,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/717\/revisions\/1959"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/194"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/717\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/writehere\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}