Justifying Your Assertions

Justifying Your Assertions

In Language Delicacy we look in depth at some of the less-discussed aspects of language use which influence the reading of a text. In this section, we return to the 3 basic questions a reader will ask in response to the claims of a writer:

•	‘What grounds does the writer have for this assertion?’
•	‘How does s/he know this?’
•	‘On what authority does the writer make this assertion/assumption?’

The skills needed to justify what we say or write involve rhetorical awareness as much as writing or argumentative ability. You need to show that you have a sense of the relationship between the strength of a claim (a position or assertion) and the support that you have for that claim. As part of the persuasive presentation of their arguments, hypotheses and findings, academic writers tend to make claims which

•	are in proportion to evidence they present, &
•	carry the kind of support expected (e.g. authoritative citations, elaborating the argument, offering documented examples, etc.)

See Citation & Attribution for the strategy of citing the work of other published writers or researchers, as means of adding authority to your assertion.

Task: Analysing argument and counter-argument: Criticising weak arguments