Building Better Academic Arguments
2008
Exercises and Notes
Jeb Livingood
1
Acknowledgments
As with most course packets, the bulk of the ideas presented
here are not my own. Many of the concepts in this document
are based upon “The Little Red Schoolhouse” program from
the University of Chicago and The Craft of Argument by
Gregory G. Columb and Joseph M. Williams. Additional
material comes from the Joint Military Intelligence Training
Center’s Intelligence Analyst Course. I have adapted ideas
from these sources to my own way of teaching. Errors and
omissions are of my own doing.
Special thanks to Dan Kois, who once told a student,
“Grammar is like paint: it’s important, but not the most
important thing on a house.” His idea was what led to the
construction analogy that appears throughout much of this
book.
2
Contents
Contents .............................................................................................................................. 3
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 5
A Chain of Argument and Debate ...................................................................................... 6
An Incomplete Argument ................................................................................................. 13
Claims and Evidence......................................................................................................... 15
Fighting vs. Arguing ......................................................................................................... 20
More on Evidence: Good and Bad .................................................................................... 25
Where Should Good Evidence Come From? .................................................................... 28
Credentials of Evidence .................................................................................................... 30
On-line Reference Sources ............................................................................................... 32
Subclaims: Making them Work Together ......................................................................... 33
Subclaims Review............................................................................................................. 36
More on Claims: The Five Basic Kinds of Claims ........................................................... 37
Problem Statements (or, How to Write an Introduction) .................................................. 39
Fairy Tale Worksheet ........................................................................................................ 41
Problem Statement Worksheet .......................................................................................... 45
Problem Statement Examples ........................................................................................... 49
Basic Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation ......................................... 54
Common Works Cited Examples...................................................................................... 56
MLA Exercise ................................................................................................................... 60
Plagiarism ......................................................................................................................... 61
Plagiarism Exercise ........................................................................................................... 65
Using Lead-Ins to Vary Evidence Presentation ................................................................ 67
Ways to Talk about Evidence in a Paper .......................................................................... 68
Talking about Your Evidence ........................................................................................... 70
The “Little Three” Elements of Argument ....................................................................... 72
Qualifiers........................................................................................................................... 73
Qualifiers Exercise ............................................................................................................ 74
What Qualifier Means What? ........................................................................................... 75
Acknowledgment and Response ....................................................................................... 77
Real World Examples of A&R ......................................................................................... 79
Acknowledgment and Response Exercise ........................................................................ 80
Warrants ............................................................................................................................ 84
Warrants Worksheet.......................................................................................................... 86
3
Logical Fallacies ............................................................................................................... 88
Logical Fallacies Exercise ................................................................................................ 90
Writing Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 92
Concluding Moves: An Example ...................................................................................... 97
Conclusions Exercise ........................................................................................................ 99
U.S. Drinking Age Reading Packet ................................................................................ 104
Honor Readings .............................................................................................................. 115
Gender Gap Readings ..................................................................................................... 132
Music Piracy Readings ................................................................................................... 143
4
Introduction
Every once in a great while, a thinker comes along who changes everything. You can
probably name of several from mathematics or one of the sciences—people like
Copernicus, Galileo, Curie, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein.
It’s not likely that you’ve ever heard of Stephen Toulmin. A British philosopher and
logician, Toulmin published a slim volume called The Uses of Argument in 1958. The
book has not exactly helped mankind develop fusion generators or decipher the meaning
of the universe, but it has helped us to better understand how we argue with one another.
Now, Toulmin is concerned with language and how it works, so he’s not much into the
emotions or psychological motivations that occur when folks yell at each other. That kind
of irrational bickering is studied by psychologists, sociologists, and sometimes, fiction
writers like me. Instead, Toulmin’s book tried to find elements common to human debate,
persuasion, and reasoning—i.e. argument in the rhetorical sense—whether that argument
is made by a lawyer before the Supreme Court or a computer geek who wants his boss to
purchase new software. Arguments, to Toulmin, occur when someone tries to convince
someone of something.
Toulmin argued (yes, even his book was an argument) that we must employ basic
rhetorical elements whenever we attempt to make a point. He called these elements
Claims, Grounds, Warrants, Backing, Qualifiers, and Rebuttals. We’ll give some of these
elements different names and stress some more than others, but the idea is still the same:
while arguments may vary in content, they almost always use the same equipment to get
the job done. Understanding that equipment and how it works is what this course is all
about. If you know how arguments are constructed, you will be able to produce better
ones in the future.
Back in 1958, Toulmin got quite a bit of resistance from folks who read his book and
essentially said, “It can’t be that simple.” You may feel that way from time to time in this
class. You’ll be thinking, “Well, I knew that,” or “That’s just common sense.” Maybe.
But by explicitly stating how most arguments are constructed, I hope that you can become
someone who decides how to build their argument instead of the way most people do it:
trial and error.
Don’t get me wrong. Good writers often have to “feel” their toward a solid draft. Still,
understanding Toulmin’s model will help you go back a revise with a more critical eye,
one that helps you build an argument in a calculated way. I can’t promise an “A” on
every essay from here on out. However, if your essays employ the basics of a good
argument, you’ll be better off than most of your classmates. You may also find yourself
becoming a more critical reader. How can that writer say that? Where’s his evidence?
What about the other side? So, let’s start by looking at a chain of argument and debate …
5
A Chain of Argument and Debate
To start with, it might be useful to have a good example of an “argument.” That term—
argument—often gets a pejorative interpretation: it’s two people yelling at each other.
But here, in this class, we mean argument in the rhetorical sense. Something happens,
people try to decide what it all means, and they try to convince you that they’re right. In
this course, argument is a matter of analysis and persuasion—skills you’ll need in almost
any job after college. Let’s look a very public argument that took place recently over a
Supreme Court ruling on handgun regulations.
First, a little background. The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment reads:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
(From the Bill of Rights completed in 1789, ratified in 1791)
Exactly what those words mean has long been a matter of debate. Some people read the
Second Amendment as meaning that an American only has a right to a gun only if they
are part of a militia (today, that would mean being in the U.S. military or National
Guard). Others argue that the words mean all U.S. citizens have the right to own guns
and the government cannot infringe or restrict that right.
In 1976, the city of Washington D.C. implemented a ban on handguns because of
rising crime and murder rates. The city argued that banning small, portable handguns
would help Washington D.C.’s streets become safer. Some Washington D.C. citizens
who owned a registered handgun before 1976 were allowed to keep them, but only in
their homes, and the guns had to be unloaded and stored with a trigger lock or
disassembled. No new handguns could legally enter the District of Columbia. Residents
could have a rifle or shotgun in their home, but those weapons also had to be stored
unloaded, and either disassembled or with a trigger lock. Technically, if a trigger lock
was removed, even for self defense, the weapon became illegal. The D.C. ban stood
essentially unchanged until the summer of 2007, when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled
it in Heller vs. the District of Columbia.
The most significant thing about the Heller ruling is that it argues that the U.S.
Constitution’s Second Amendment grants an individual right to own guns, and that the
D.C. gun ban went too far in restricting this right when it banned handguns. This is the
first time the Supreme Court has taken such a clear and far-reaching position. Earlier
court decisions tended to be very narrowly focused, and the ultimate meaning of the
Second Amendment was unclear. Gun advocates, like the National Rifle Association,
cheered the Heller ruling. Gun control advocates like the Brady Campaign thought the
Supreme Court overreached, and pointed to the close decision: five justices voting to
overturn the D.C. ban, but four saying it should be maintained.
Below is an article that briefly reports on the Supreme Court decision. After it are
some additional editorials and an article on suicide risk. After you read through the
articles, answer the questions that appear at the bottom of page 12.
6
#1 - “Justices, Ruling 5-4, Endorse Personal Right to Own Gun”
New York Times
By Linda Greenhouse
June 27, 2008
Section A; Pg. 1
The Supreme Court on Thursday embraced the long-disputed view that the Second
Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for personal use, ruling 5 to 4 that there
is a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.
The landmark ruling overturned the District of Columbia ban on handguns, the strictest
gun-control law in the country, and appeared certain to usher in a new round of litigation over
gun rights throughout the country.
The court rejected the view that the Second Amendment's ''right of the people to keep
and bear arms'' applied to gun ownership only in connection with service in the ''well regulated
militia'' to which the amendment refers.
Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion, his most important in his 22 years on the
court, said that the justices were ''aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country''
and ''take seriously'' the arguments in favor of prohibiting handgun ownership.
''But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices
off the table,'' he said, adding, ''It is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second
Amendment extinct.''
….
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens took vigorous issue with Justice
Scalia's assertion that it was the Second Amendment that had enshrined the individual right to
own a gun. Rather, it was ''today's law-changing decision'' that bestowed the right and created
''a dramatic upheaval in the law,''
….
Justice Stevens said the majority opinion was based on ''a strained and unpersuasive
reading'' of the text and history of the Second Amendment, which provides: ''A well regulated
militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear
arms, shall not be infringed.''
According to Justice Scalia, the ''militia'' reference in the first part of the amendment
simply ''announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the
militia.'' The Constitution's framers were afraid that the new federal government would disarm
the populace, as the British had tried to do, Justice Scalia said.
….
Despite the decision's enormous symbolic significance, it was far from clear that it
actually posed much of a threat to the most common gun regulations. Justice Scalia's opinion
applied explicitly just to ''the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of
hearth and home,'' and it had a number of significant qualifications.
''Nothing in our opinion,'' he said, ''should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding
prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the
carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws
imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.''
The opinion also said prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons would be upheld
and suggested somewhat less explicitly that the right to personal possession did not apply to
''dangerous and unusual weapons'' that are not typically used for self-defense or recreation.
….
7
#2 - “Sensible Gun Ruling Looks to Founders”
St. Petersburg Times (Florida) Editorial
Page 14A
June 27, 2008 Friday
For the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday the Second Amendment protects an
individual's right to own a firearm and not just the right of states to maintain militias. In a 5-4
vote, the court held that the Constitution does not allow, as Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for
the majority, "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the
home.''
To the relief of gun-control advocates, the court's conservatives, joined by the more
moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy, also said the right to possess a gun for lawful purposes is
not unlimited. It left room for government to impose reasonable regulations on firearms. "The
court's opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the
possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions
and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,'' Scalia wrote.
Overall, it was not an unreasonable decision on a politically charged issue. Even
Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, now says he believes that
lawful gun ownership is an individual right.
Before Thursday's ruling, the high court had refused to take a clear position. It had not
spoken on the amendment's meaning since 1939, and then only cryptically. Now, in District of
Columbia vs. Heller, the fundamental question has been answered. The ruling tells D.C. that
when it enacted a ban on handguns, it was infringing on the constitutional rights of its
residents to self-defense.
The case involved Dick Heller, a D.C. special police officer who applied for a
registration certificate in order to keep a handgun at home. The District refused Heller's
request under one of the strictest gun laws in the nation. The District restrictions amounted to
a wholesale prohibition against the possession of handguns, and beyond that, rifles kept in the
home had to be dismantled or bound by a trigger lock.
In striking down the D.C. ban, while keeping a gun-licensing process in place, Scalia
said, "We have observed that the American people have considered the handgun to be the
quintessential self-defense weapon ... and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid."
Much of the majority's decision was devoted to the historical bases for finding that the
founders intended to protect an individual right to possess arms. Scalia noted that in the 18th
century, militias consisted of all physically able white males and were considered vital to
preserving the common defense. Men at the time also would have possessed guns for selfdefense to secure their property and families. These were the interests, Scalia wrote, codified
by the Second Amendment.
To those who might believe such interests are no longer relevant, Scalia responded:
"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our
standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal
security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is
not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment
extinct."
8
Reasonable people, including constitutional scholars, disagree on how the Second
Amendment should be interpreted. The high court has now spoken, and its decision is unlikely
to affect gun-related crime rates or sensible gun-control laws.
#3 - “Lock and Load”
The New York Times
June 27, 2008
Section A; Pg. 18
Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year -- on the job, walking to school, at the
shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will
die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the
District of Columbia's gun-control law.
In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia,
writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right
to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service
in a ''militia.'' The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike
down gun-control laws across the nation.
This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering
and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world,
sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.
There already is a national glut of firearms: estimates run between 193 million and 250
million guns. The harm they do is constantly on heartbreaking display. Thirty-three dead last
year in the shootings at Virginia Tech. Six killed this year at Northern Illinois University.
On Wednesday, as the court was getting ready to release its decision, a worker in a
Kentucky plastics plant shot his supervisor, four co-workers and himself to death.
Cities and states have tried to stanch the killing with gun-control laws. The District of
Columbia, which has one of the nation's highest crime rates, banned the possession of nearly
all handguns and required that other firearms be stored unloaded and disassembled, or bound
with a trigger lock.
Overturning that law, the court's 5-to-4 decision says that individuals have a
constitutional right to keep guns in their homes for self-defense. But that's a sharp reversal for
the court: as early as 1939, it made clear that the Second Amendment only protects the right
of people to carry guns for military use in a militia.
In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens was right when he said that the court has
now established ''a new constitutional right'' that creates a ''dramatic upheaval in the law.''
Even if there were a constitutional right to possess guns for nonmilitary uses,
constitutional rights are not absolute. The First Amendment guarantees free speech, but that
does not mean that laws cannot prohibit some spoken words, like threats to commit imminent
violent acts. In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued soundly that whatever right gun
owners have to unimpeded gun use is outweighed by the District of Columbia's ''compelling''
public-safety interests.
In this month's case recognizing the habeas corpus rights of the detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Justice Scalia wrote in dissent that the decision ''will almost certainly
cause more Americans to be killed.'' Those words apply with far more force to his opinion in
this District of Columbia case.
9
The gun lobby will now trumpet this ruling as an end to virtually all gun restrictions,
anywhere, at all times. That must not happen. And today's decision still provides strong basis
for saying it should not.
If the ruling is held to apply to the states, and not just to the District of Columbia -which is not certain -- there will still be considerable dispute about what it means for other
less-sweeping gun laws. Judges may end up deciding these on a law-by-law basis.
Supporters of gun control must fight in court to ensure that registration requirements
and background-check rules, and laws against bulk sales of handguns -- a major source of
guns used in crimes -- are all upheld.
The court left room for gun-control advocates to fight back. It made clear that there
were gun restrictions that it was not calling into question, including bans on gun possession by
felons and the mentally ill, or in ''sensitive places'' like schools and government buildings.
That last part is the final indignity of the decision: when the justices go to work at the
Supreme Court, guns will still be banned. When most Americans show up at their own jobs,
they will not have that protection.
This audaciously harmful decision, which hands the far right a victory it has sought for
decades, is a powerful reminder of why voters need to have the Supreme Court firmly in mind
when they vote for the president this fall.
Senator John McCain has said he would appoint justices like Chief Justice John
Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito -- both of whom supported this decision. If the court is
allowed to tip even further to the far right, there will be even more damage done to the rights
and the safety of Americans.
# 4 - “Packing Protection or Packing Suicide Risk?”
The Washington Post
By Shankar Vedantam
Monday, July 7, 2008; A02
Seventeen years ago, a couple of criminologists at the University of Maryland published an
interesting paper about the 1976 District ban on handguns -- a ban that was recently
overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds it was inimical to the constitutional right of
Americans to bear arms to protect themselves.
The researchers employed a simple procedure: They tabulated all the suicides that
had taken place in Washington between 1968 and 1987. Colin Loftin and David McDowall
found that the gun ban correlated with an abrupt 25 percent decline in suicides in the city.
Loftin and McDowall, who now work at the University at Albany, part of the State
University of New York, also tabulated suicide rates in Maryland and Virginia over the same
period, to test whether suicide rates just happened to be declining in the entire region. There
was no difference in the suicide rate in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs before and after the
D.C. gun ban. The researchers also tabulated the kinds of suicide that declined in
Washington: The 25 percent decline was entirely driven by a decline in firearm-related suicide.
There are many ways to read the Second Amendment to the United States
Constitution, but all the versions point to one core idea: Americans have the right to own guns
to protect themselves against outside threats, whether the danger comes from a school
shooter, a vicious mugger, a robber breaking into a house, a lawless neighborhood -- even the
government itself.
10
What the authors of the Second Amendment did not foresee, however, is that when
people own a gun, they unwittingly raise their risk of getting hurt and killed -- because the odds
that they will one day use their gun to commit suicide are much larger than the odds they will
use their gun to defend themselves against intruders, muggers and killers.
States with high rates of gun ownership -- Alabama, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Montana,
Wyoming and New Mexico -- have suicide rates that are more than double the suicide rate in
states with low rates of gun ownership, such as Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Hawaii and New York, said Matthew Miller, an epidemiologist at the Harvard
School of Public Health. The difference is not because people in gun-owning states are more
suicidal than people in states where fewer people own guns, but that suicide attempts in states
with lots of guns produce many more completed suicides.
"The evidence is overwhelming," said David Hemenway, a professor of health policy
at Harvard. "There are a dozen case-controlled studies, all of which show the gun in the home
is a risk factor for suicide for the gun owner, for the spouse, for the gun owner's children."
Turning a gun on ourselves, or having a family member turn a gun on someone in the
household, doesn't intuitively feel as real a risk as muggers, robbers and murderers. Given the
choice between trusting our intuitions and trusting the evidence, most of us go with our gut.
If TV dramas about cops and violence were to actually depict the reality of how death
and mayhem usually unfold in America, however, these are the scenarios that would stream
into our homes each night: An elderly widower, lonely beyond words, shoots himself. A
middle-aged executive, who has lost everything in an economic downturn, throws herself off a
tall building. Two teenagers pull a Romeo-and-Juliet-style suicide as a protest against an
uncaring world.
The reason we can be sure that suicide -- and not assaults, break-ins, muggings,
school shootings and other fatal attacks by sinister strangers -- would account for most of the
stories is that suicide dwarfs homicide as a killer in the United States. There were 32,637
suicides in the country in 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available. That year, the
collective homicidal mayhem caused by domestic abusers, violent criminals, gang fights, drug
wars, break-ins, shootouts with cops, accidental gun discharges and cold, premeditated
murder produced 18,538 deaths.
Even the risk of terrorism doesn't begin to come close to the risk of suicide.
Only a tiny fraction of the 400,000 suicide attempts that bring Americans into
emergency rooms each year involve guns. But because guns are so lethal, 17,002 of all
suicides in 2005 -- 52 percent — involved people shooting themselves.
The grimness of these statistics repeats itself endlessly, year after year, but makes no
difference to our collective fantasies and fears about violence -- and the reasons millions of
people buy handguns for "protection." Muggers, robbers and gangs feel scary. Most people
don't think of themselves as potential threats -- after all, doesn't suicide happen only to the
insane?
Overwhelmingly, the research suggests suicide is usually an act of impulsive
desperation -- an impulse that passes. Most people who survive suicide attempts do not go on
to kill themselves later on. Gun owners are no more likely than non-gun-owners to be suicidal.
But within the window of a mad impulse, people who have lethal means at their disposal are
much more likely to kill themselves than those who lack such means.
"If you bought a gun today, I could tell you the risk of suicide to you and your family
members is going to be two- to tenfold higher over the next 20 years," Harvard's Miller said.
"There are not many things you can do to increase your risk of dying tenfold."
11
Questions:
The first article, #1, tries to be factual and unbiased. It is “news.” How are #2 and #3
different? What about #4?
Articles #2 and #3 respond directly to the Supreme Court ruling and what it means.
What about #4?
Do the articles seem to be talking “to” each other in any way? How would you describe
the tone of their argument?
Which articles do you find most persuasive? Why?
12
An Incomplete Argument
We’ve looked at a very public “argument” on guns in America. You may have found
some of the arguments credible, others less so. However, as a developing writer, your
most important task is to understand how they work. To do that, sometimes it’s easier to
start with an argument that doesn’t work: you can learn by avoiding the same mistakes.
Below is an article from The Washington Post where a religious sect claims to have
cloned the first human. Why do many people seem to doubt the Raelian’s claims?
Religious Sect Says It Cloned Human
Claim Draws Criticism From White House, Skepticism From Experts
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 28, 2002; Page A03
HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Dec. 27—The scientific director of a religious sect that believes humans
are clones of extraterrestrials today claimed that the first human clone, a seven-pound baby
girl nicknamed “Eve,” has been born at a secret location outside the United States.
Brigitte Boisselier, an industrial chemist and adherent of the Raelian religion, offered no proof
of the birth and refused to identify any of the scientists who purportedly participated in the
experiment. She said she would allow a freelance journalist—former ABC television science
reporter Michael Guillen—to appoint an independent group of experts to investigate her claim
and disclose its findings in about a week.….
The announcement drew skepticism from a host of experts who questioned whether
Boisselier’s company, Clonaid, has the know-how to pull off the scientifically challenging feat.
A clone is a genetic replica of a single adult and so has only one biological parent—in this
case, Boisselier said, the 31-year-old American woman who carried the pregnancy. Scientists
have cloned only six kinds of mammals since the first, Dolly the sheep, was born in 1996.
Most have not survived pregnancy or have been born with serious defects.
“Without any scientific data, you have to be highly suspicious,” said Robert P. Lanza, a cloning
expert with Advanced Cell Technology Inc. in Worcester, Mass. “They have no scientific track
record, no published research, they’ve never even cloned a rat or a rabbit. That said, the claim
cannot be completely dismissed because it may be rather easier than any of us thought to
clone a human.”
Boisselier’s claim, made at an unusual invitation-only news briefing at a seaside Holiday Inn
north of Miami, prompted immediate criticism from the White House.….
At today’s news briefing, Boisselier bantered with reporters while revealing little about her
project. “Nice try,” she said repeatedly, as she glossed over questions about the whereabouts
of the baby she claims to have engineered and about the scientists who worked with her.
She claimed vindication in the face of doubters who had labeled her a fraud or a threat to
humanity. “This is my day,” Boisselier said. “Is my science worse than the one that is creating
13
bombs to kill people?”
Boisselier—a leading member of the Raelian religion, which was formed by French journalist
and race car driver Claude Vorilhon, after he claimed to have been visited by extraterrestrials
in 1973—said her cloning work was backed by Clonaid investors who “expect a profit.” The
company plans to open clinics on every continent to sell cloning services, she said. The
company also plans to work on anti-aging technology, she said.
Boisselier said the child she called Eve—she would not reveal her real name—was born by
Caesarean section on Thursday at 11:55 a.m. at an undisclosed location. As a clone, she
would be both the daughter and identical twin of the woman who carried her—a woman whose
husband is unable to sire children, Boisselier said. The baby, who she said was healthy, grew
from an embryo created through the fusion of a skin cell taken from the woman and a human
egg whose genetic material had been removed—a standard cloning method.
So far, Boisselier said, her group has had 10 pregnancies, half of which spontaneously
terminated within the first three weeks. Four women are expected to deliver cloned babies in
late January or early February, she said, with the next—involving parents who are lesbians—
to take place somewhere in Europe next week. The five cases involve different cloning
methods, Boisselier said, with at least two cases using DNA collected from dead children.
If Boisselier’s claims are true, they would represent not only a medical milestone but also a
staggering success rate for a procedure that typically fails in animals. Without any scientific
evidence, experts said, it is impossible to know whether the Raelians have made history or are
perpetrating a hoax.
Perhaps more than anything, several cloning experts said, today’s announcement offered the
media a trial run for covering unsubstantiated claims of cloning—more of which are expected
in the near future. Boisselier said she plans to initiate 20 additional clonal pregnancies next
month, culling from what she said have been thousands of requests. Two other scientists—
Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori and a Kentucky semen specialist—have also said they
have cloning projects underway, with Antinori saying a clone will be born in Belgrade in
January.
“We don’t want a claim—we want a claim backed by data,” said Harold Varmus, former
director of the National Institutes of Health and now president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in New York. “The data should be fully available, and everybody should be able
to see it.”
Guillen, the freelance journalist who is to compile and reveal those data, said he agreed to
oversee the verification process only after being assured there would be “absolutely no strings
attached.” He said he is not being paid by anyone but might produce a documentary about the
cloning project.
“The whole story,” Guillen said, “makes me nervous.”
14
Claims and Evidence
Here’s an editorial that recently appeared in The Los Angeles Times. It has been edited to
make it shorter for this exercise.
Read the entire opinion column so that you understand what the author is trying to say.
Then go back over it again, this time trying to identify what each set of sentences is
(mostly) trying to accomplish. In the first column, identify whether the writer is mostly
making a claim, or providing evidence.
Fill in the first column of the table with a
“C” for a Claim (or series of claims), and
“E” for Evidence.
There may be paragraphs where evidence and claims are mixed together, but write down
which element seems to dominate. The bold boxes roughly correspond to
paragraphs/sections in the opinion column.
“Enforcement works; Crackdowns on illegal immigrants have opened up jobs for
Americans.”
Los Angeles Times
By Mark Krikorian
Part A; Pg. 15
Sept. 24, 2007
Background Immigration hawks have been on a winning streak lately. An
unprecedented surge of public outrage at the prospect of amnesty for
illegal immigrants led to the defeat in June of the Senate immigration bill
and the probable end of President Bush's dream for comprehensive
immigration reform. And that was merely the latest in a series of victories
for supporters of tighter controls, including the Real ID Act of 2005, the
Secure Fence Act of 2006, proliferating enforcement efforts at the state
and local levels and a new package of modest but meaningful enforcement
measures announced last month by the Department of Homeland Security.
What of the results? Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told
The Times that "there will be some unhappy consequences for the
economy out of doing this." While the enforcement climate is still too
new to show results in government data one way or the other, Chertoff's
prediction doesn't appear to be playing out.
15
On the contrary, there is extensive anecdotal evidence that enforcement is
actually having its desired effects: More illegal aliens are going home,
leading to improved conditions for American workers and communities.
The first consequence of stepped-up enforcement is attrition of the illegal
population—a steady decrease in the total number of illegal aliens as
more people give up and go home. Attrition is the real alternative to
amnesty, and we're seeing it work.
The Arizona Republic ran a story last month explaining how migrants
were leaving the state in anticipation of tough new immigration rules.
Public radio station WBUR in Boston reported that "in the midst of the
debate about immigrants coming to America, something unusual is
happening in Massachusetts: Brazilian immigrants are quietly packing up
and leaving." And the Chicago Tribune, reporting on the Pennsylvania
town at the forefront of the resistance to illegal immigration, has written
that "over the summer, when Hazleton officials created the nation's first
ordinance aimed at driving away undocumented residents, thousands of
people apparently packed up and left."
Far from having "unhappy consequences," these developments are
improving the economic bargaining power of less-skilled American
workers.
The Rocky Mountain News reported that in Greeley, Colo., "the line of
applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken
away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant . . .
was out the door." New England Cable News reported that only after a
raid on a plant making leather goods for the military in New Bedford,
Mass., were Americans and legal immigrants able to get hired. As one
new employee said of the raid: "In a way, you know, it's sad, and then in a
way it's good because at least it gives people that were not employed for
so many years . . . a break to be able to work and support their families."
16
Better enforcement doesn't result only in economic improvements. While
there is an ongoing scholarly debate about the overall crime rates of
immigrants versus the native-born, there's no doubt that tougher
enforcement has had a notable effect on gang activity.
In an upcoming study, my Center for Immigration Studies reports that
using immigration law against gangs has helped bring about a 39% drop
in gang activity in the Washington suburb of Fairfax County, and Dallas
police report a 20% drop in the murder rate as a result of the same
initiative.
Of course, the consequence of uncontrolled immigration that most
ordinary Americans see is what political scientist Peter Skerry calls
"social disorder."
Hazleton offers a good example: While cleaning graffiti from her
building, a local locksmith told the Tribune that "about the same time the
ordinance passed, the whole tone of the street changed. Virtually
overnight, it was a totally different place."
Conclusion
As recent enforcement victories are sustained and expanded, we can begin
to document the benefits in other areas: less stress on hospital emergency
rooms, less-crowded classrooms, slower growth in government social
spending. But the results we've seen so far are clear: We can get illegal
aliens to return home, and doing so will improve conditions in American
communities. Why didn't we start doing this a long time ago?
17
Look over the preceding paragraphs again.

What normally comes first, a claim or evidence?

In terms of communicating with your audience, what are the advantages of
following this pattern?

Using this article as an example, do authors spend more time presenting claims,
or evidence? Why?

If you make a claim, do you have to present evidence? If you provide evidence,
do you have to make a claim?

Look at the opinion section of a newspaper and read several editorials and
opinion columns. Do you see a similar pattern of claims and evidence? Bring
two examples to class.
18

A Generic Opinion Column
(Which is also the form used by a generic college essay)
INTRODUCTION
Description of something that has changed or needs to change.
MAIN CLAIM
Main claim must matter to most readers or explains why the issue should matter more
or needs greater attention.
BACKGROUND
Brief coverage of definitions, historical events, or other information most readers will
need to understand the argument
SUBCLAIM I
First main point of argument, usually stated directly in the topic sentence of the
paragraph. Then followed by evidence to back it up.
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
SUBCLAIM II
Second point of argument, usually stated directly in the topic sentence of the
paragraph. Then followed by evidence to back it up.
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
SUBCLAIM III
Third point of argument, usually stated directly in the topic sentence of the
paragraph. Then followed by evidence to back it up.
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
...
(More Subclaims, if needed.)
CONCLUSION
Often states or restates how to resolve the issue at hand (What good does it do to
complain about a problem when you don’t suggest a way to fix it?). The conclusion often
repeats or reintroduces the main claim or echoes beginning images, themes, or quotations
(More details to follow on how to do this).
19
Fighting vs. Arguing
In the “Second Amendment” articles, we saw how an event can spur debate. However,
some people, including writer Deborah Tannen, believe that our approach to argument is
changing. Especially in television and radio—where the time spent on a debate is very
limited—many “arguments” have become little more than having two people with
different ideologies yell at each other. Political campaigns are often not much better—
sometimes worse. Read Tannen’s article and be prepared to discuss when “anger” might
be an appropriate tool in argument and when a more academic approach would be better.
For Argument’s Sake; Why Do We Feel Compelled to Fight About Everything?
By Deborah Tannen
Washington Post Outlook, Pg. C01, Sunday, March 15, 1998.
I was waiting to go on a television talk show a few years ago for a discussion about how men
and women communicate, when a man walked in wearing a shirt and tie and a floor-length
skirt, the top of which was brushed by his waist-length red hair. He politely introduced himself
and told me that he’d read and liked my book “You Just Don’t Understand,” which had just
been published. Then he added, “When I get out there, I’m going to attack you. But don’t take
it personally. That’s why they invite me on, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
We went on the set and the show began. I had hardly managed to finish a sentence or two
before the man threw his arms out in gestures of anger, and began shrieking—briefly hurling
accusations at me, and then railing at length against women. The strangest thing about his
hysterical outburst was how the studio audience reacted: They turned vicious—not attacking
me (I hadn’t said anything substantive yet) or him (who wants to tangle with someone who
screams at you?) but the other guests: women who had come to talk about problems they had
communicating with their spouses.
My antagonist was nothing more than a dependable provocateur, brought on to ensure a lively
show. The incident has stayed with me not because it was typical of the talk shows I have
appeared on—it wasn’t, I’m happy to say—but because it exemplifies the ritual nature of much
of the opposition that pervades our public dialogue.
Everywhere we turn, there is evidence that, in public discourse, we prize contentiousness and
aggression more than cooperation and conciliation. Headlines blare about the Starr Wars, the
Mommy Wars, the Baby Wars, the Mammography Wars; everything is posed in terms of
battles and duels, winners and losers, conflicts and disputes. Biographies have
metamorphosed into demonographies whose authors don’t just portray their subjects warts
and all, but set out to dig up as much dirt as possible, as if the story of a person’s life is
contained in the warts, only the warts, and nothing but the warts.
It’s all part of what I call the argument culture, which rests on the assumption that opposition is
the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate. The
best way to cover news is to find people who express the most extreme views and present
them as “both sides.” The best way to begin an essay is to attack someone. The best way to
show you’re really thoughtful is to criticize. The best way to settle disputes is to litigate them.
20
It is the automatic nature of this response that I am calling into question. This is not to say that
passionate opposition and strong verbal attacks are never appropriate. In the words of the
Yugoslavian-born poet Charles Simic, “There are moments in life when true invective is called
for, when it becomes an absolute necessity, out of a deep sense of justice, to denounce,
mock, vituperate, lash out, in the strongest possible language.” What I’m questioning is the
ubiquity, the knee-jerk nature of approaching almost any issue, problem or public person in an
adversarial way.
Smashing heads does not open minds. In this as in so many things, results are also causes,
looping back and entrapping us. The pervasiveness of warlike formats and language grows
out of, but also gives rise to, an ethic of aggression: We come to value aggressive tactics for
their own sake—for the sake of argument. Compromise becomes a dirty word, and we often
feel guilty if we are conciliatory rather than confrontational—even if we achieve the result we’re
seeking.
Here’s one example. A woman called another talk show on which I was a guest. She told the
following story: “I was in a place where a man was smoking, and there was a no-smoking sign.
Instead of saying ‘You aren’t allowed to smoke in here. Put that out!’ I said, ‘I’m awfully sorry,
but I have asthma, so your smoking makes it hard for me to breathe. Would you mind terribly
not smoking?’ When I said this, the man was extremely polite and solicitous, and he put his
cigarette out, and I said, ‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ as if he’d done a wonderful thing for me.
Why did I do that?”
I think this woman expected me—the communications expert—to say she needs
assertiveness training to confront smokers in a more aggressive manner. Instead, I told her
that her approach was just fine. If she had tried to alter his behavior by reminding him of the
rules, he might well have rebelled: “Who made you the enforcer? Mind your own business!”
She had given the smoker a face-saving way of doing what she wanted, one that allowed him
to feel chivalrous rather than chastised. This was kinder to him, but it was also kinder to
herself, since it was more likely to lead to the result she desired.
Another caller disagreed with me, saying the first caller’s style was “self-abasing.” I persisted:
There was nothing necessarily destructive about the way the woman handled the smoker. The
mistake the second caller was making—a mistake many of us make—was to confuse ritual
self-effacement with the literal kind. All human relations require us to find ways to get what we
want from others without seeming to dominate them.
The opinions expressed by the two callers encapsulate the ethic of aggression that has us by
our throats, particularly in public arenas such as politics and law. Issues are routinely
approached by having two sides stake out opposing positions and do battle. This sometimes
drives people to take positions that are more adversarial than they feel—and can get in the
way of reaching a possible resolution. I have experienced this firsthand.
For my book about the workplace, “Talking from 9 to 5,” I spent time in companies, shadowing
people, interviewing them and having individuals tape conversations when I wasn’t there. Most
companies were happy to proceed on a verbal agreement setting forth certain ground rules:
Individuals would control the taping, identifying names would be changed, I would show them
what I wrote about their company and change or delete anything they did not approve. I also
signed confidentiality agreements promising not to reveal anything I learned about the
21
company’s business.
Some companies, however, referred the matter to their attorneys so a contract could be
written. In no case where attorneys became involved—mine as well as theirs—could we reach
an agreement on working together.
Negotiations with one company stand out. Having agreed on the procedures and safeguards,
we expected to have a contract signed in a matter of weeks. But six months later, after
thousands of dollars in legal fees and untold hours of everyone’s time, the negotiations
reached a dead end. The company’s lawyer was demanding veto power over my entire book;
it meant the company could (if it chose) prevent me from publishing the book even if I used no
more than a handful of examples from this one company. I could not agree to that. Meanwhile,
my lawyer was demanding for me rights to use the videotapes of conversations any way I
wanted. The company could not agree to that; it meant I could (if I chose) put videotapes of
their company on national television, make them look bad, reveal company secrets and open
them up to being sued by their own employees.
The people I was working with at the company had no desire to pass judgment on any part of
my book that did not involve them, and I had no intention of using the videotapes except for
analysis. These extreme demands could have been easily dismissed by the principals—
except they had come after months of wrangling with the language of drafts passed back and
forth. Everybody’s patience and good will had worn out. The adversarial nature of the legal
process had polarized us beyond repair.
Requiring people to behave like enemies can stir up mutual enmity that remains long after a
case has been settled or tried, and the lawyers have moved on. Because our legal system is
based on the model of ritual battle, the object—like the object of all fights—is to win, and that
can interfere with the goal of resolving disputes.
The same spirit drives the public discourse of politics and the press, which are increasingly
being given over to ritual attacks. On Jan. 18, 1994, retired admiral Bobby Ray Inman
withdrew as nominee for secretary of defense after several news stories raised questions
about his business dealings and his finances. Inman, who had held high public office in both
Democratic and Republican administrations, explained that he did not wish to serve again
because of changes in the political climate—changes that resulted in public figures being
subjected to relentless attack. Inman said he was told by one editor, “Bobby, you’ve just got to
get thicker skin. We have to write a bad story about you every day. That’s our job.”
Everyone seemed to agree that Inman would have been confirmed. The news accounts about
his withdrawal used words such as “bizarre,” “mystified” and “extraordinary.” A New York
Times editorial reflected the news media’s befuddlement: “In fact, with the exception of a few
columns, . . . a few editorials and one or two news stories, the selection of Mr. Inman had
been unusually well received in Washington.” This evaluation dramatizes just how run-of-themill systematic attacks have become. With a wave of a subordinate clause (“a few editorials. .
. “), attacking someone personally and (from his point of view) distorting his record are
dismissed as so insignificant as to be unworthy of notice.
The idea that all public figures should expect to be criticized ruthlessly testifies to the ritualized
nature of such attack: It is not sparked by specific wrongdoing but is triggered automatically.
22
I once asked a reporter about the common journalistic practice of challenging interviewees by
repeating criticism to them. She told me it was the hardest part of her job. “It makes me
uncomfortable,” she said. “I tell myself I’m someone else and force myself to do it.” But, she
said she had no trouble being combative if she felt someone was guilty of behavior she
considered wrong. And that is the crucial difference between ritual fighting and literal fighting:
opposition of the heart.
It is easy to find examples throughout history of journalistic attacks that make today’s rhetoric
seem tame. But in the past, such vituperation was motivated by true political passion, in
contrast with today’s automatic, ritualized attacks—which seem to grow out of a belief that
conflict is high-minded and good, a required and superior form of discourse.
The roots of our love for ritualized opposition lie in the educational system that we all pass
through. Here’s a typical scene: The teacher sits at the head of the classroom, pleased with
herself and her class. The students are engaged in a heated debate. The very noise level
reassures the teacher that the students are participating. Learning is going on. The class is a
success.
But look again, cautions Patricia Rosof, a high school history teacher who admits to having
experienced just such a wave of satisfaction. On closer inspection, you notice that only a few
students are participating in the debate; the majority of the class is sitting silently. And the
students who are arguing are not addressing subtleties, nuances or complexities of the points
they are making or disputing. They don’t have that luxury because they want to win the
argument—so they must go for the most dramatic statements they can muster. They will not
concede an opponent’s point—even if they see its validity—because that would weaken their
position.
This aggressive intellectual style is cultivated and rewarded in our colleges and universities.
The standard way to write an academic paper is to position your work in opposition to
someone else’s. This creates a need to prove others wrong, which is quite different from
reading something with an open mind and discovering that you disagree with it. Graduate
students learn that they must disprove others’ arguments in order to be original, make a
contribution and demonstrate intellectual ability. The temptation is great to oversimplify at best,
and at worst to distort or even misrepresent other positions, the better to refute them.
I caught a glimpse of this when I put the question to someone who I felt had misrepresented
my own work: “Why do you need to make others wrong for you to be right?” Her response: “It’s
an argument!” Aha, I thought, that explains it. If you’re having an argument, you use every
tactic you can think of—including distorting what your opponent just said—in order to win.
Staging everything in terms of polarized opposition limits the information we get rather than
broadening it. For one thing, when a certain kind of interaction is the norm, those who feel
comfortable with that type of interaction are drawn to participate, and those who do not feel
comfortable with it recoil and go elsewhere. If public discourse included a broad range of
types, we would be making room for individuals with different temperaments. But when
opposition and fights overwhelmingly predominate, only those who enjoy verbal sparring are
likely to take part. Those who cannot comfortably take part in oppositional discourse—or
choose not to—are likely to opt out.
23
But perhaps the most dangerous harvest of the ethic of aggression and ritual fighting is—as
with the audience response to the screaming man on the television talk show—an atmosphere
of animosity that spreads like a fever. In extreme forms, it rears its head in road rage and
workplace shooting sprees. In more common forms, it leads to what is being decried
everywhere as a lack of civility. It erodes our sense of human connection to those in public
life—and to the strangers who cross our paths and people our private lives.
Deborah Tannen is professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. This article is adapted
from her new book, The Argument Culture (Random House).
24
More on Evidence: Good and Bad
When you’re building a house, you have to start at
ground level. We’ll take on an even smaller project: a
backyard shed. There, too, one of the first steps is to
create a firm base on which to build. The most beautiful
shed in the world does you no good if it collapses later
on because you didn’t bother to lay a good foundation.
When it comes to arguments, you have to have a good
foundation, too. That foundation is evidence. It’s what
everything else will rest upon. But what do I mean by
evidence and what makes some evidence good and
some bad?
Evidence Type
When it’s “good”
When it’s “bad”
Personal Experience
Your own experiences,
which you can often use to
demonstrate that you are an
authority on a subject.
Outside Authority
In the humanities, usually
quotes from experts in the
field.
Factual References
Statements universally
accepted as being true.
- Humanizes argument
- Gives writer authority
- Demonstrates or implies
bias
- Seems more subjective
than factual
- Lends authority to
argument
- Shows that “others” have
similar views
- Showing vs. Telling
- Can have “overwhelming”
effect
- Tough to discount
- “Scientific quality”
- Tough to dispute
- Demonstrates bias
- Faulty authority or
expertise
Statistical
Results of surveys and
studies.
Tangible
Photographs, recordings,
video, imagery, etc.
- Indisputable
25
- Stacks the deck/Cherrypicked
- Implies faulty causal
relationships
- Figures lie and liars
figure: evidence
manipulated to fit claim
- Encourages a “Case
Closed” mentality
- Forged or faked
Here’s a column that was in the Cavalier Daily. It uses personal experience in the first
paragraph to argue that students would be better off banking with Bank of America. Is
Batten’s use of personal experience a good idea? Why or why not? What problems exist
with the other evidence in her column?
“Escape from Wachovia”
Stephanie Batten
Cavalier Daily Columnist
Cav daily, 10/1/2002
IMAGINE a bank that would claim you bounced two checks when you have proof that the bank
was clearly at fault. Imagine the same bank, in an effort to rectify its mistake, then closes your
checking account without notifying you and erases any record of your years as a customer.
Imagine this bank is Wachovia.
My experience this summer with Wachovia highlights problems with its customer service
department, and it’s difficult to believe that this is an isolated incident. Despite its strong
presence in the southeast and its recent merger with First Union, Wachovia’s customer service
record simply is not up to par. The University made a wise decision in failing to renew its
banking contract with Wachovia, and instead turning over banking services to Bank of
America. Students should follow suit and switch their accounts to Bank of America sooner
rather than later.
According to Steve Kimata, assistant vice-president for finance and University comptroller, the
University’s banking contract is put up for renewal every five years. For the past 10 years,
Wachovia or one of its mergers has been in control of the University’s banking services. Such
services include everything from lock boxes and depository services to on-Grounds branch
facilities and ATMs. Put simply, all money that comes in or out of the University runs through
the bank under contract.
All procurements of goods and services at the University are bid out. A request for proposal
gets posted as a public document so that anyone in the country may bid on the services,
promoting open and fair competition. Based on the criteria for selection, this year Bank of
America’s proposal best suited the University’s interests despite Wachovia’s record of
experience with the University.
Banking service’s transition is scheduled to begin today. The turnover starts with an
operational switch that deals primarily with administrative changes. Students will not notice an
immediate impact on their personal banking services until after winter break. During the
holiday, the Newcomb Hall branch and a number of on-Grounds ATMs will switch hands.
The numerical distribution of on-Grounds ATMs among different banking providers is still up
for debate. According to Kimata, “Wachovia has expressed a strong desire to maintain a
banking presence at the University.” Considering that all banking services will soon be under
the control of Bank of America, though, students would be better off getting out of Wachovia
before the mad rush begins.
26
When it comes to college student banking options, both banks offer a number of services.
Wachovia’s College Access Checking account offers no minimum balance or monthly service
fee, with unlimited check writing. The bank will charge you $2 for each teller-assisted
transaction you make beyond your two free transactions each month. Bank of America’s
Student Checking account provides unlimited electronic access and no charge for the first
order of 50 checks. The bank will charge you a monthly maintenance fee if you fail to keep a
minimum daily balance of $500 in your checking account or $5,000 combined in your checking
and linked accounts. And, Bank of America only allows one teller transaction each month,
after which you’ll be charged $3 per visit.
Although at first glance Bank of America’s maintenance charges, which can run from
anywhere between $4 and $7 per billing cycle, seem reason enough to stay with Wachovia,
more factors need to be considered. Bank of America is the only bank with a coast-to-coast
presence. With over 13,000 ATMs across the country bearing the Bank of America logo—
compared to only 4,900 between Wachovia and First Union, ATM transaction fees will be kept
to a minimum. Students travel all the time. Summer internships place University students
around the nation. Not everyone here is from Virginia or another Wachovia-friendly state.
Wachovia is convenient if you are planning to stay in the southeast. Venture off the east coast
or up north, though, and the situation gets tricky.
As Wachovia offers tips for college students looking for ways to manage their money, it
explains on its Web site, “Avoid other banks’ ATM charges: If you’re paying $1 to $2 to use
somebody else’s ATM, the charges can really add up. Whenever possible, try to use
Wachovia ATMs where you’re never charged an ATM use fee to access your Wachovia
accounts.” Translation: Outside of home base, Wachovia doesn’t really have that many ATMs.
Your ATM charges will be significant if you’re not careful. Better switch to Bank of America—
your chances of accruing ATM charges are lowered significantly, and you can keep track of
your finances through more sophisticated online services.
Currently Kimata, Student Council and various student organizations are working on ways to
effectively inform the student body about the banking switch. When students, especially first
years and those living on Grounds, return after winter break, they’ll notice the end result of the
banking services transition. It is best to be prepared for the switch now rather than wait until
the winter when everyone is leaving Wachovia for Bank of America. Avoid the hassle and the
lines. Go ahead and change banks now. It’ll make your life a whole lot easier.
27
Where Should Good Evidence Come From?
Below is a student research paper arguing for the legalization of marijuana. Some of the
evidence presented seems like it could be credible, but take a look on the next page at the
student’s sources. What’s the problem?
28
Discussion Points:
I.
What’s the problem with having too many pieces of evidence from the
same source?
II.
How can you determine if a source is biased? Go to www.druglibrary.org
evaluate how reliable you think its information is.
III.
Most people would say www.druglibrary.org “looks” unreliable. But
why? What specific criteria should you use when evaluating a Web site?
29
Credentials of Evidence
While many writers intuitively sense that one piece of evidence is better than another, it
is sometimes worth thinking about exactly how we make that evaluation. In most cases,
evidence must come with three credentials: relevance, credibility and strength.
Relevance:
First, evidence must be relevant to the claims you are trying to make. For example, a
student writing a paper on binge drinking among college freshman might discover an
interesting statistic: a new American Medical Association study concluded that children
raised in abusive relationships are at much greater risk for becoming alcoholics in their
lifetime. Even though the evidence comes from a good source and holds the writer’s
interest, it doesn’t appear to have much to do with a paper on binge drinking. In the
diagram above, having more evidence (concrete blocks) off to the side of the shed would
do no good. The blocks need to be right under the structure you’re trying to build. Same
with arguments.
If you can ask “So what?” after reading a piece of evidence, it probably does not have
enough relevance to your claims.
Credibility:
Good evidence must come from credible sources. Imagine that the same writer of the
binge drinking paper asks incoming freshmen during fall orientation if binge drinking is
really a problem among first years. Would any of these freshmen, after just a few days at
a university, be “authorities?” Probably not.
In the field of military intelligence, credibility is always a factor: whom can you believe
and who is likely to try and mislead you? In a student paper, biased sources of evidence
are usually a greater threat, especially when feelings on an issue run high. Student papers
30
on abortion, for example, frequently make the mistake of using large amounts of
evidence from Pro-Life or Pro-Choice Web sites. The problem is that Web sites with an
agenda often present one-sided evidence. It’s not so much an attempt to mislead, as it is
to present only evidence that fits a particular set of beliefs. So watch out.
In the shed analogy, do you want to build your shed on blocks make by JimBob down the road, or would you feel more comfortable getting them at a home supply
store. Depends, I guess, on how much you trust Jim-Bob.
If you wonder if you can trust a source of evidence, or you believe the source has bias,
the credibility of your evidence may be a problem.
Strength:
Good evidence should also be forceful. Think of a murder trial. While circumstantial
evidence can carry some weight, it is often not enough for a conviction. A witness might
report that “I heard the accused say she couldn’t stand living with her husband anymore.”
Would that sway a jury that the accused committed murder? Tangible evidence like
bloodstains on clothing or the discovery of a murder weapon would generally be more
persuasive.
In our shed example, blocks with major cracks in them (that will let in water and ice) are
less desirable than strong cement without imperfections.
If your evidence is relevant and credible but lends little support to your argument, it may
be weaker than you’d like.
31
On-line Reference Sources
A few easy places to go for good evidence:
The Cavalier Daily
The Cavalier Daily has plenty of good articles and opinion columns to get you started,
especially if your topic is one of interest to the student body.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com
Lexis/Nexis
An on-line database of newspaper, magazine, and legal publications. A great place to
start when looking for articles from major U.S. newspapers. As a UVa. student, this
service effectively gives you a subscription to every important newspaper out there—and
lets you search through the back issues.
Go to http://www.lib.virginia.edu/databases/, click on “Lexis/Nexis”
Academic Search Complete
This resource lets you search through academic journals (as well as more common
magazines and newspapers). See what your professors and professionals think about your
topic. Allows you to restrict searches to “full text” articles and provides full MLA
documentation for you.
Go to http://www.lib.virginia.edu/databases/, click on “Academic Search Complete”
VIRGO
Library’s virtual “card” catalog, indexing books, video, audio, photographs, magazines
and more stored in Alderman, Clemons, and other university libraries.
http://virgo.lib.virginia.edu
1. Note: These databases can be accessed by other routes. Also, their information is
often duplicated or enhanced in other online resources. These are a place to start
looking, not a place to end.
32
Subclaims: Making Them Work Together
The following examples are hypothetical main claims and subclaims for opinion pieces.
Read over each example and decide if such an argument would face any problems. Do
the subclaims and the main claim work together? Do any of the subclaims seem too broad
or too narrow in focus? Does a subclaim wander off-topic? Is it a subclaim at all?
Example 1.
MC:
The university bookstore’s recent donation of a “surplus” to buy lighting for
special events was a bad idea. When the bookstore generates a profit, that
money should go back to students through lower prices in the bookstore
itself.
SC:
Most bookstore textbooks are extremely expensive and force a largely “captive”
student audience to pay more than the market price.
SC:
The bookstore’s prices on other essentials—laundry detergent, computer disks,
notebooks—are similarly inflated.
SC:
The university’s computer labs are outdated and need funding to upgrade; they
represent a better way to spend surplus money than the outside lighting.
SC:
The bookstore’s “official” UVA baseball team caps cost $35.00.
33
Example 2.
MC:
Although terminated in 1972, the Tuskegee Experiment is still affecting the
black community today as it has led many African Americans to distrust the
government, particularly on issues relating to health concerns.
SC:
In 2002, influenza vaccination coverage among adults 65 and older was roughly
70% for whites and 52% for African Americans.
SC:
The Tuskegee Experiment has fueled many conspiracy theories among blacks.
SC:
While typically voting Democratic, many African Americans believe liberal
candidates are simply pandering for votes.
SC:
As an ethnic group, African Americans have a very low participation in assisted
health care and medical research.
Example 3:
MC:
Fashion magazines foster an unrealistic body image that can encourage
women to take on unhealthy eating and exercise habits, which can have
severe short-term and long-term effects.
SC:
Fashion models are often a “size 0”.
SC:
Fashion magazines tout a very slim, sometimes skeletal body-type that few
women can obtain through exercise.
SC:
Models often appear drawn and tired, a “morphine chic” that encourages drug
abuse.
SC:
To become “fashion model” slim, many women adopt unhealthy eating habits.
SC:
Even if they do achieve a “size 0” body, women have often suffer other effects—
ranging from dental problems to sterility—that they did not foresee.
34
Example 4:
MC:
Stock options foster a corrosive climate and tempt many executives be less
than truthful to investors.
SC:
Stock options have become a major part of most executives’ true pay.
SC:
The idea behind stock options seems sound: by tying an executive’s pay to stock
prices and making them partial “owners” of the company, they will be motivated
to hold down costs and boost earnings.
SC:
Stock options also invite abuse. For some managers, keeping the stock price high
can become more important than keeping it honest.
SC:
The collapse of a company like Enron shows that the market will always correct
itself.
35
Subclaims Review
So, a few points to remember when designing subclaims:
Like any claim, a subclaim must both be debatable and supportable.
OK:
China’s submarine fleet is not as much of a military threat as the U.S.
believes.
No:
China’s current population exceeds 1.3 billion.
Subclaims are neither too broad, nor too specific. They generally advance a claim that
the writer can “back up” with evidence in just one paragraph:
OK: Unlike the United States, some cultures do not perceive plagiarism as a
serious academic offense.
No: Immoral beliefs can lead to cheating. (Too broad.)
or
I knew a roommate who cheated on a term paper. (Probably too specific.)
Subclaims often break a main claim or topic into smaller pieces or controlling ideas
OK:
We should pass laws banning all cell phone use by automobile drivers.
- Cell phone use increases the likelihood of automobile accidents.
- Relatively few cell phone calls while driving are essential.
- Even “hands off” car cell phone systems present serious driver
distractions.
Subclaims should be complete sentences, but short, terse statements are usually better
than long, unwieldy propositions. You do not need to cover every nuance in your opening
sentences—just provide the basic “preview” of what is to follow.
OK:
While crime rates have indeed increased along the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal
immigrants are only a small part of the explanation.
No:
Illegal border crossing, a primarily economic activity, is something that occurs
regularly along the border between Mexico and the U.S., and it has minimal
effects on unwanted activity in the region; instead, drug cartels and organized
human smugglers often begin turf wars and exploit residents along the border
in a way that causes more damage to local populations.
36
More on Claims: The Five Basic Kinds of Claims
When it comes to roofs, you tend to see
certain types, right? There are, in fact,
“expectations” as to how most roofs are
going to be built. Depending on funding
and function, an architect generally picks
one of these types (or a few others). Same
thing with claims. They tend to fall into
general “types.”
Gable
Saltbox
Hipped
Gambrel
Mansard
37
Below are the five major types of claims that appear in academic arguments. Some
writers will combine two or more of these types to deliver a sophisticated claim. Even so,
understanding the basic claim types will help you design a better introduction. When
writing your own paper, if you have trouble assigning your own claim under these
headings, it may be a sign that your still have some work to do and that your claim could
become more focused. The definitions and many of the examples appearing below are
from Nancy V. Wood’s Perspectives on Argument, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall, pages 158190.
1. Claims of Fact: Did it happen? Does it exist?
- The ozone layer is becoming depleted.
- Democratic presidents have usually presided over weak economies.
- Women are not as effective as men in combat.
2. Claims of Definition: What is it? How should we define it?
- We need understand what “family” means before talking about family values.
- To determine if an art exhibition features pornography, we first need to define
the term “pornography”—something that is surprisingly difficult to do.
3. Claims of Cause: What caused it? Or what are its effects?
-.Global warming contributed to hurricane Katrina.
- With televised sports like football and basketball siphoning off more and more
funding from collegiate athletic budgets, smaller programs like lacrosse and
gymnastics are in danger of extinction.
4. Claims of Value: Is it good or bad? What criteria will help us decide?
- UVA’s recent decision to terminate its free dial-up connections is regrettable,
but given statewide budget cuts, turning off the modems was a logical place to
start saving tax dollars.
- Prayer has a moral and civilizing effect when introduced into the school day.
5. Claims of Policy: What should we do about it? What should be our course of
action?
- Repealing Virginia’s concealed weapons laws is the only way to ensure a safer,
saner Commonwealth.
- Charlottesville’s test use of “red light” cameras is a step in the right direction;
even more are needed in our increasingly urban city.
38
Problem Statements (or, How to Write an Introduction)
So, we’ve figured out that arguments have claims, subclaims, and evidence as their main
elements. Also, these elements tend to fall into predictable locations in most written
arguments. There are other rhetorical “moves” most readers expect in a piece of
persuasive writing, especially at the beginning and end of an essay. A young writer will
often just throw out a main claim and hope his audience is interested. Consciously or
unconsciously, experienced writers often define a Problem Statement in their essays.
Problem Statements comprise several rhetorical elements that explain to a reader
1) What has changed recently that makes the writer’s topic timely. A good essay
should answer the reader’s questions of “Why is this important now? What’s
changed?”
2) Why the writer’s argument matters to the reader, answering questions like “Why
should I care about his issue? What does it matter to me?”
3) What the writer’s main claim is.
And by the end of the essay,
4) How the writer proposes to address or resolve the problem at hand.
Many of these rhetorical elements also appear stories and fairy tales. We’ll tackle them
there first to get an idea of what we expect as a reader when we read that sort of writing.
Then we’ll try to apply the same principles to our own essays and opinion writing.
39
40
Fairy Tale Worksheet
Story basics
A change creates
the reason to tell a
story. There’s no
story if things are
the same at
beginning and
end.
Once upon a
time …
But then …
(What
changes?)
If we’re going to
write about
something, it
needs to matter.
Why does the
change matter to
the characters?
This is a
serious
problem for
the main
character(s)
because …
The story
“teaches” a child
something.
Moral:
What’s the
Lesson?
There has to be a
satisfactory
ending.
How is the
problem
resolved?
41
42
Fairy Tale Worksheet
Story basics
A change creates
the reason to tell a
story. There’s no
story if things are
the same at
beginning and
end.
Once upon a
time …
But then …
(What
changes?)
If we’re going to
write about
something, it
needs to matter.
Why does the
change matter to
the characters?
This is a
serious
problem for
the main
character(s)
because …
The story
“teaches” a child
something.
Moral:
What’s the
Lesson?
There has to be a
satisfactory
ending.
How is the
problem
resolved?
43
44
Problem Statement Worksheet
Problem Statement
A change creates
“occasion to
write.” If
everything
remains the same,
why bother telling
anyone? There’s
no story if things
are the same at
beginning and
end.
What was
What has
changed
or is about
to change
If we’re going to
Costs
write about
something, it
needs to matter.
The change must
create “Costs” for
the reader.
It must be
Claim
something you/we
can alter, address,
or understand in a
new way, and we
need to explain
that to the reader.
Readers will feel
cheated if all you
do is point out
that a problem
exists. You also
need to attempt to
provide possible
ways to fix or
study the
problem.
Resolution
45
46
Problem Statement Worksheet
Problem Statement
A change creates
“occasion to
write.” If
everything
remains the same,
why bother telling
anyone? There’s
no story if things
are the same at
beginning and
end.
What was
What has
changed
or is about
to change
If we’re going to
Costs
write about
something, it
needs to matter.
The change must
create “Costs” for
the reader.
It must be
Claim
something you/we
can alter, address,
or understand in a
new way, and we
need to explain
that to the reader.
Readers will feel
cheated if all you
do is point out
that a problem
exists. You also
need to attempt to
provide possible
ways to fix or
study the
problem.
Resolution
47
48
Problem Statement Examples
“We’re Feeding The Poor as If They’re Starving”
By Douglas J. Besharov
Washington Post, Sunday, December 8, 2002; Page B01
In the summer of 1967, as a civil rights worker in the Mississippi Delta, I saw American
starvation and malnutrition up close. Children there were sick and emaciated because their
families lacked money to buy food. Since then, we have seen massive expansions of federal
food aid for the poor. We now spend $18 billion annually on food stamps, $8 billion on school
breakfasts and lunches, and $5 billion on WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children.
Today, the central nutritional problem facing the poor—indeed, all Americans—is not too little
food, but too much of the wrong food. But despite a striking increase in obesity among the
needy, federal feeding programs still operate under their nearly half-century-old objective of
increasing food consumption.
Few experts are willing to say that federal feeding programs are helping to make the poor fat,
although the evidence points in that direction. But I know of no one who thinks those programs
are doing much to help fight this growing public health problem.
Being overweight is not simply a matter of aesthetics. The growing girth of Americans is a
major health catastrophe. Overweight people are three times more likely to have coronary
artery disease, two to six times more likely to develop high blood pressure, more than three
times as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, and twice as likely to develop gallstones as people
of normal weight. Obesity, of course, is more serious, causing an estimated 50 to 100 percent
increase in the risk of premature death.
About 65 percent of all Americans are overweight, and nearly half of those are obese. The
best estimates place the rates for the poor at 5 to 10 percentage points higher. Adolescents
from needy families are twice as likely to be overweight. Yet today, low-income families have
access to more free or low-cost food than ever before, and many can be enrolled in all three
federal feeding programs at the same time, plus Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a
welfare program that pays out $12 billion a year.
Consider food stamps, the largest of the programs. In 2002, it is serving about 20 million
people a month, providing up to $465 per month for a household of four. On the theory that the
poor would be tempted to use food money for other things, the government designed food
stamps as coupons (now largely using a credit card-like system) that can be used in grocery
stores.
Food stamps work as intended, raising calorie consumption by as much as 10 percent more
than if recipients were given cash, according to Department of Agriculture studies. It’s like
buying tickets for a set number of rides before entering an amusement park. The tendency is
to buy more tickets than one needs and, rather than throw away the unused ones, take those
extra rides before leaving. Like the tickets, unused food stamps can’t be turned in for cash. So
they are used for food that recipients wouldn’t otherwise buy.
49
“A chance for war on terror to regain its post-9/11 focus”
USA Today Editorial, www.usatoday.com, August 1, 2008
When President Bush launched the "war on terrorism" after the 9/11 attacks, few Americans
needed much explanation of its purpose. Al-Qaeda suicide attackers, in a plot hatched in safe
havens in Afghanistan, had killed thousands by flying planes into buildings in New York and
Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Those responsible had to be killed or captured. The
threat had to be eradicated.
Seven years later, after a disorienting detour into Iraq, that clarity is gone. But with the Iraq
war now winding down, two questions need re-asking. What is the goal of the war on terror?
How will we know if we've won?
The first step should be to reclaim the original focus. Al-Qaeda must be routed — in
Afghanistan, in Pakistan (where its leadership has retreated to) and anywhere else it has
appeared, including Iraq. The unmistakable message must be that anyone who dares attack
the United States will be destroyed. That by itself would constitute success and unlike the Iraq
war, draws broad and deep support.
A secondary goal is to erode the strength and appeal of radical Islam to at least pre- 9/11
levels, when it was a regional problem.
But how? A new report by RAND Corp. offers some insight…
Question: Here the “What was” and the “What’s changed” are pretty clear. But what about the costs?
Are they explicitly stated or just implied?
50
“Pricing the Fast Lane”
The solution to gridlock is to give drivers a financial incentive not to drive during peak traffic
hours
Friday, July 12, 2002; Page A21
A report released recently by the Texas Transportation Institute underscored what most of us
already know: Traffic congestion is getting worse. According to the study, American motorists
spend four times as much time stuck in traffic today as they did in 1984, an average of 15
minutes a day or a total waste of two days a year. Of course, for those of us in major
metropolitan areas, 15 minutes of congestion is a pipe dream. Commutes of an hour or more
are increasingly common, with all the lost productivity, unnecessary automobile pollution,
sacrificed family time and aggravation that go along with them. But it doesn't have to be that
way.
Roads are congested because they are free, and because no market mechanism exists to
allocate scarce road capacity. So we pay in the form of the time we're forced to sacrifice in
traffic. But we could pay for roads in the form of user charges. Advances in technology make
this a viable strategy, allowing us to collect tolls without the burden of toll plazas and gates
that can bottleneck traffic. The tolls would vary according to the time of day to ensure that the
lanes remain uncongested at all times. Such a system is in use on State Route 91 in Orange
County, Calif. Tolls vary from 75 cents during off-peak hours to $4 at peak times to travel 10
uncongested miles.
Question: The “what was” in this article is only mentioned briefly, and it comes after the “what’s
changed.” Is this approach acceptable?
51
“New Orleans’s Hurricane Problem”
New York Times, July 4, 2003
As Louisiana continues to clean up from Tropical Storm Bill, which knocked
out power in 200,000 homes and businesses across the state, New Orleans is
bracing for the new hurricane season. Because of its unusual geography, the
Big Easy is uniquely vulnerable—if a powerful enough storm hits, experts
warn, the city could be badly damaged and tens of thousands of people could
be killed. New Orleans, and the nation, need a better plan for protecting
the city.
New Orleans is one of the nation’s most distinctive cities. Tourists flock
to the French Quarter and the Garden District, and to landmarks like
Preservation Hall and Jackson Square. What is less well known is that New
Orleans is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The city is located
below sea level, and it is surrounded by water—the Mississippi River and
Lake Pontchartrain. If New Orleans is ever hit by the Big One, the city
could fill up like a bowl. Many residents would be unable to evacuate in
time because of crowded escape routes, flooding or lack of access to
transportation.
The most promising long-term solution is a major effort to restore the
area’s depleted coastal marsh and barrier islands, which form a natural wall
of defense. Louisiana has the nation’s highest rate of coastal erosion.
Since the 1930’s, one million acres of wetlands have been lost, and another
million acres could be lost in the next 40 years. During a major hurricane,
these coastal buffers could mean the difference between life and death.
Louisiana has begun a program called America’s Wetland to draw attention to
the problem, and to rally environmentalists, businesses and ordinary
residents to the cause of restoring marshes and barrier islands. The effort
could cost as much as $14 billion in the next 15 to 20 years. It is a
considerable sum, but the cost of not acting—measured in potential damage
to New Orleans, and to vital transportation and energy operations in
southern Louisiana—would be greater. The project will be rolled out in
stages. Members of Congress, who will be asked to foot much of the bill,
should view it as a national priority.
New Orleans also has to take more immediate steps to reduce hurricane risks.
Serious consideration must be given to a variety of proposals, like raising
the height of the levees around New Orleans and building a large, storm-safe
structure that could be used as a haven for residents who were unable to
leave. Tropical Storm Bill was a warning that it may be only a matter of
time before the Big One hits. The time to prepare New Orleans for that
frightening prospect is now.
52
“A Long Wait at the Gate to Greatness”
By John Pomfret
The Washington Post
7/27/2008, page B1
Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to
think that China is the one wielding the shovel. The People's Republic is on the march -economically, militarily, even ideologically. Economists expect its GDP to surpass America's
by 2025; its submarine fleet is reportedly growing five times faster than Washington's; even its
capitalist authoritarianism is called a real alternative to the West's liberal democracy. China,
the drumbeat goes, is poised to become the 800-pound gorilla of the international system,
ready to dominate the 21st century the way the United States dominated the 20th.
Except that it's not.
Ever since I returned to the United States in 2004 from my last posting to China, as this
newspaper's Beijing bureau chief, I've been struck by the breathless way we talk about that
country. So often, our perceptions of the place have more to do with how we look at ourselves
than with what's actually happening over there. Worried about the U.S. education system?
China's becomes a model. Fretting about our military readiness? China's missiles pose a
threat. Concerned about slipping U.S. global influence? China seems ready to take our place.
But is China really going to be another superpower? I doubt it.
It's not that I'm a China-basher, like those who predict its collapse because they despise its
system and assume that it will go the way of the Soviet Union. I first went to China in 1980 as
a student, and I've followed its remarkable transformation over the past 28 years. I met my
wife there and call it a second home. I'm hardly expecting China to implode. But its dream of
dominating the century isn't going to become a reality anytime soon.
Too many constraints are built into the country's social, economic and political systems. For
four big reasons -- dire demographics, an overrated economy, an environment under siege
and an ideology that doesn't travel well -- China is more likely to remain the muscle-bound
adolescent of the international system than to become the master of the world.
Question: Has something really changed here? Or is that that the writer is arguing for a change in
perceptions?
53
Basic Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation
PART I: One purpose of MLA documentation is to distinguish between the parts of
your essay you have thought up on your own and the ideas and information that have
come from outside sources. MLA documentation uses two key components. The first is
an in-text citation directly following the quotation, idea, or information you have used in
your paper from an outside source. If you are copying an author’s words verbatim, you
will need to put them inside quotation marks unless they are an extended quotation,
which you indent to the right. After your quotation, you generally insert the author’s last
name and the page number from which you copied the material inside parenthesis. If you
use the author’s name during a lead-in phrase, you can omit it from your citation. The
goal is to provide enough parenthetical documentation that a reader can turn to your
Works Cited page and know which source your evidence came from.
For a quotation:
“Sometimes—if we are writers—we have to talk to our characters. We have to
try and persuade them to do what they’ve only imagined doing” (Baxter 15).
For a quotation that uses the author’s name in an introductory phrase:
In his book Burning Down the House Charles Baxter says, “Sometimes—if we are
writers—we have to talk to our characters. We have to try and persuade them to do
what they’ve only imagined doing” (15).
For a paraphrase:
Writers often have to treat their characters as actual people. Part of that
involves coaxing those characters to attempt the sort of things they m ight
normally shy away from doing (Baxter 15).
For an extended (>3 lines) quotation:
Some authors try for a more active approach to character development, even treating
the characters themselves as though they are living, breathing beings:
Sometimes—if we are writers—we have to talk to our characters. We
have to try and persuade them to do what they’ve only imagined doing.
We have to nudge but not force them toward situations where they will
get into interesting trouble….That’s wonderful for them, it’s wonderful
for us, but it’s best of all for the story. (Baxter 15)
What if you are trying to cite and article that doesn’t have an author listed?
If no author is listed in your source material your in-text citation should use a
keyword that denotes which source your quotation came from. For example, if
your source was an anonymous article called “Creating Realistic Characters”
on a website http://www.writingfiction.com/creating.html, your in-text
citation might be just (“Creating”).
54
Part II: The second component of MLA documentation is a Works Cited page. On the
last page of your essay you should list your sources alphabetically by author’s last name
or, if there is no author listed, by the first word in the title. When a reader reviews one of
your Works Cited entries, they should be able to go to the library or online and find the
original.
Typical Works Cited entries start with the author’s lastname, firstname; then the title of
the work, where it was published, and the date of publication. The information you need
to provide varies depending on the source. A book requires only a brief entry. When you
pull an article using Lexix-Nexis from the UVA Library, there are more. Some online
services will organize Works Cited entries for you and prompt you for needed
information; one good site is www.citationmachine.net.
Works Cited
Baxter, Charles. Burning Down the House. Saint Paul: Graywolf Press, 1997.
“Creating Realistic Characters.” Writing Fiction Online. 1999. 7 Mar. 2002
<http://www.writingfiction.com/creating.html>.
Davis, Judy. “Imagining Protagonists.” Writing Fiction Online. 1990. 7 Mar. 2002
<http://www.writingfiction.com/imagining.html>.
Note: Book titles, like War and Peace, are italicized. An article or essay title goes inside
quotation marks.
55
Common Works Cited Examples
Basic format for a book
For most books, arrange the information into three units, each followed by a period and one space:
1.
The author's name
2.
The title and subtitle, underlined or italicized
3.
The place of publication, the publisher, and the date.
Author with an editor
Begin with the author and title, followed by the name of the editor. The abbreviation "Ed." means
"Edited by," so it is the same for one or multiple editors.
Kerouac, Jack. Atop an Underwood. Ed. Paul Marion. New York:
Penguin, 2000.
Work in an anthology
Give the elements in this order:
1.
The name of the author of the selection (not the name of the editor of the anthology)
2.
The title of the selection
3.
The title of the anthology
4.
The name of the editor, preceded by "Ed." for "Edited by"
5.
Publication information
6.
The pages on which the selection appears
Article in a magazine
List the following elements, in order, separated by periods:
1.
The author's name
2.
The title of the article, in quotation marks
3.
The title of the magazine, underlined or italicized
4.
The date and the page numbers, separated by a colon
Abbreviate the names of the months except May, June, and July. If the magazine is issued monthly,
give just the month and year.
56
Article in a daily newspaper
Begin with the name of the author, if there is one, followed by the title of the article. Next give the
name of the newspaper, the date, and the page number (including the section letter). Use a plus
sign (+) after the page number if the article does not appear on consecutive pages.
Murphy, Sean P. "Decisions on Status of Tribes Draw Fire." Boston
Globe 27 Mar. 2001: A2.
Editorial in a newspaper
Cite an editorial as you would an unsigned article, adding the word "Editorial" after the title.
"All Wet." Editorial. Boston Globe 12 Feb. 2001: 14.
An entire Web site
Give as many of the following elements as apply and as are available:
1.
The name of the author or corporate author (if known)
2.
The title of the site, underlined or italicized
3.
The names of any editors
4.
The date of publication or last update
5.
The name of any sponsoring organization
6.
The date of access
7.
The URL in angle brackets
In the following example, items 3 and 5 do not apply.
WITH AUTHOR
WITH CORPORATE (GROUP) AUTHOR
United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Values and Functions
of Wetlands. 25 May 1999. 24 Mar. 2001 <http://www.epa.gov-owow/
wetlands/facts/fact2.html>.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Margaret Sanger Papers Project. 18 Oct. 2000. History Dept., New York
U. 3 Apr. 2001 <http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/>.
57
Short work from a Web site
Short works are those that appear in quotation marks in MLA style: articles, poems, and other
documents that are not book length. For a short work from a Web site, include as many of the
following elements as apply and as are available:
1.
Author's name
2.
Title of the short work, in quotation marks
3.
Title of the site, underlined or italicized
4.
Date of publication or last update
5.
Sponsor of the site (if not named as the author or given as the title of the site)
6.
Date you accessed the source
7.
The URL in angle brackets
Usually at least some of these elements will not apply or will be unavailable. In the following
example, no sponsor or date of publication was available. (The date given is the date on which the
researcher accessed the source.)
WITH AUTHOR
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
"Media Giants." Frontline: The Merchants of Cool. 2001. PBS Online.
7 Mar. 2001 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
cool/giants>.
Work from a service such as InfoTrac or Lexis-Nexis
Libraries pay for access to databases through subscription services such as InfoTrac. When you
retrieve a work from a subscription service, give as much of the following information as is
available:
1.
Publication information for the source (author name, title in quote marks)
2.
The name of the database, underlined or italicized
3.
The name of the service
4.
The name and location of the library where you retrieved the article
5.
The date on which you retrieved the article
6.
The URL of the service
The following models are for articles retrieved through three popular library subscription services.
The InfoTrac source is a scholarly article in a journal paginated by volume (see item 21); the
EBSCOhost source is an article in a bimonthly magazine (see
an article in a daily newspaper (see
item 23).
58
item 20); and the ProQuest source is
InfoTrac
Johnson, Kirk. "The Mountain Lions of Michigan." Endangered Species
Update 19.2 (2002): 27+. Expanded Academic Index. InfoTrac.
U of Michigan Lib., Ann Arbor. 26 Nov. 2002 <http://
infotrac.galegroup.com>.
E-mail
To cite an e-mail, begin with the writer's name and the subject line. Then write "E-mail to" followed
by the name of the recipient. End with the date of the message.
O'Donnell, Patricia. "Re: Interview questions." E-mail to the author.
15 Mar. 2001.
59
MLA Exercise
Part I: Edit the following evidence to have the proper quotation marks and in-text MLA
citations. The evidence comes from “Fighting for Lincoln’s Soul,” an essay by Michael
Nelson in Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 2003 issue, Volume 79, Number 4.
Nelson’s words are set in bold.
1. (on page 608)
Lincoln spoke more frequently and seriously about God and quoted the Bible
more extensively than any other president.… On the other hand, he joined no
church, was never baptized, never took communion
2. (on page 608)
Michael Nelson, a scholar at the Rhodes College in Memphis, points out that
while Lincoln appeared religious, his actual beliefs were less clear: Lincoln
spoke more frequently and seriously about God and quoted the Bible more
extensively than any other president.… On the other hand, he joined no
church, was never baptized, never took communion
3. (from pages 610-611, set as a block quote)
Lincoln found everything about his father’s religious ridiculous
and repulsive from an early age. Dragged to church on Sundays,
he would regale his siblings afterward by mounting a tree stump
and mimicking the minister’s overwrought style. More
disturbingly to Lincoln was the doctrine that underlay the
histrionics—namely, the belief that a God worth praising would
create people with the intention of condemning them to hell for all
eternity.
Part II: Assume above quotes came from an Internet page,
www.lincolnhistory.org/lincolnandreligion.html, which was created on August 1, 2000,
and you accessed it on September 15, 2003. There is no author listed. How would you
document quotations #1 and #3 above? How could you reword the student text in #2 if
you did not know the author?
60
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as the presentation of words or ideas from an existing source
as if they were your own work. In academic circumstances, plagiarism can be
divided into three categories:
 Copying directly from another source without using quotation marks or a footnote;
 Changing a few words in a passage from another source without using quotation
marks or a footnote;
 Putting ideas (judgments, opinions, inferences experiments, etc.) from another source
in your own words without using a footnote.
The Source:
Take a look at the following source material, written by Richard Turco, which we’ll then
use to highlight different forms of plagiarism.
A nuclear explosion can readily ignite fires in either an urban or rural setting.
The flash of thermal radiation from the nuclear explosion, which has a spectrum
similar to that of sunlight, accounts for about a third of the total energy yield of
the explosion. The flash is so intense that a variety of combustible materials are
ignited spontaneously at ranges of 10 kilometers or more from a one-megaton air
burst detonated at a nominal altitude of a kilometer. The blast wave from the
explosion would extinguish many of the initial fires, but it would also start
numerous secondary fires by disrupting open flames, rupturing gas lines and fuel
storage tanks and causing electrical and mechanical sparks.
Types of Plagiarism:

Copying
If a writer merely copies this entire text, without using quotation marks and a footnote,
he/she would be guilty of the most blatant type of plagiarism. A writer would not
be stealing from the original if he/she used quotation marks and a footnote; but if a
paper had many such quoted passages, the writer would be leaning too heavily on
the thoughts and words of others. The purpose of writing is to express your own
thoughts and feelings, not someone else's.

Patchwork Plagiarism
If a writer "borrows" phrases and clauses from the original source and weaves them
into his own writing, he/she is plagiarizing. Here is an example of a pasted-together
version of Richard P. Turco’s passage on the effects of a nuclear explosion. The
material "borrowed" from Turco is italicized.
61
An explosion from a nuclear bomb can start fires in either an urban or rural
setting. The light from the explosion, which has a spectrum similar to that of
sunlight, makes up about 1/3 of the energy produced. The light is so intense that
a variety of combustible materials are ignited spontaneously at ranges of 10 KM
or more from a one-megaton air burst detonated at a nominal altitude of a
kilometer. Although the wave of air produced by the blast would put out many of
the first fires, it would also start many other fires by disrupting open flames,
rupturing gas lines and fuel storage tanks and causing electrical and mechanical
sparks.
The writer of this version of Turco's prose could stay within the legal limit by
putting quotation marks around all the original working, but the result would appear
to be haphazard, ill-thought-out work. Avoid the patchwork, pasted-together job.
Either quote directly, or paraphrase. In either case, use footnotes!

Plagiarism By Paraphrasing
To paraphrase means to put someone else's ideas into your own words. This is a
valuable writing technique when you wish to summarize or simplify source
materials to make it easier to understand—particularly when you are studying
complicated information for a test. However, when you paraphrase materials for a
paper, you must acknowledge the source of the ideas with a footnote. In the
example below, the writer has put the passage into his own words; but unless he
footnotes the material, he will be stealing from the original. In other words, he will
be guilty of plagiarism.
Fires could readily be ignited by a nuclear explosion either in cities or in the
country because heat radiation from the nuclear explosion is equal to about 1/3 of
the total of the energy yielded. The flash of light from the heat is so strong that
many materials would catch on fire immediately as far as 10 kilometers away
from a one-megaton burst which exploded at around a kilometer in the air. There
would be a large wave of air from the explosion which would put out many of the
first fires, but it would also start many other fires by breaking gas lines and
storage tanks and causing electric and mechanical sparks.
Do NOT overuse paraphrase; instead, use your own ideas to support your thesis
statement. Using a paraphrase simply to avoid quoting original sources leaves you
too dependent on the ideas of others. A good writer thinks for himself or herself.
62
Example of a well-used research source
Following is an example of a paragraph that a student might write for a research
paper, using information from Richard Turco and properly documenting the
source. Note that the student does not rely on Turco's thoughts to give focus and
coherence to his writing; rather he concentrates on expressing his own ideas on the topic
of nuclear disaster.
In the event of a nuclear explosion, several severe consequences would follow.
For example, there would be immediate loss of life, destruction of property, and
emissions of radiation. But another effect, which is not readily apparent, is the
creation of a huge conflagration that would spread for many miles in all
directions. As Richard Turco observes: "The blast wave from the explosion
would extinguish many of the initial fires, but it would also start numerous
secondary fires by disrupting gas lines and fuel storage tanks and causing
electrical and mechanical sparks" (37). Such a holocaust would continue to
spread unchecked creating an inferno of unimaginable proportions. It is this sort
of nightmarish scene that reinforces the idea that mankind must seek ways to
prevent nuclear catastrophe.
Careful footnoting of material and ideas taken from other sources will allow you to
use such material without danger of inadvertent plagiarism.
Material in this handout was reformatted from:
Penna, Christopher. University of Delaware Writing Center Website. 21 Sept.,
1999<http://www.english.udel.edu/wc/plagiarism.html>.
63
64
Plagiarism Exercise
Source material, which is from John B. Bole’s essay “The Southern Way of Religion,”
appears in the first column. Extracts from a hypothetical research paper appear on the
right. Evaluate whether each student use is an example of plagiarism, a proper citation,
or an improper citation. Be ready to explain why you think so. Assume that the student
has included a proper Works Cited page, which includes a citation for Bole. (Bole’s
essay appears in Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1999, Vol. 75, No. 2, pp. 226-247)
Note: The answers here are not as obvious as you might think. Take some time …
Source
The South in 1740 consisted of but five
colonies: Maryland, Virginia, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia. While there
was a smattering of other denominations
and sects in the region, in all five colonies
the official religious body was the Church
of England. (229)
By about 1760 the Presbyterian growth
spurt ebbed and a period of what might be
called normal church life began, but the
result was a network of churches and
ministers and a shared belief system that
created a Presbyterian culture in Virginia.
(231)
One of the central and universal functions
of religion is to supply and interpretive
context for life, to provide a meaning
system that explains and makes sense out
of those events--both tragic and joyful--that
transcend everyday and obvious cause-andeffect relationships. (236)
The focus on personal conversion was so
all-consuming that southern Protestantism
was an intensely individualistic, privatistic
faith. (240)
The one great aberration in the history of
mainstream evangelical Protestantism in
the South was the reaction of the churches
to the perceived threat of abolitionism and
their consequent support for secession and
the Confederacy.(243)
Student Paper
Early southern colonies included Maryland,
Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, and Virginia.
As Bole notes in his essay “The Southern
Way of Religion,” Virginia’s Presbyterian
culture in 1760 comprised a network of
churches and ministers and a shared belief
system (231).
One thing religion does is to help us make
sense of the world. Whether it aids us in
accepting the death of a spouse or the birth
of a child, we use religion to explain and
accept the randomness life has to offer.
At the time, Southern Protestantism’s
emphasis on conversion made it an
“intensely individualistic, privatistic faith”
(Bole 240).
Bole maintains that southern Protestantism,
usually a politically progressive faith, took
a large step backward when faced with
abolitionist movements and the coming of
the Civil War (243).
65
Answers to plagiarism worksheet:
1. This is okay. It is factual information that is public knowledge and readily
available from a number of sources. It is not a product of Bole’s expertise or
something unique to his research.
2. Nice try, but not technically correct. Though the writer does provide the author’s
name and the page number, he also uses the author’s exact words but does not set
them off with quotation marks – “network of churches and ministers and a shared
belief system.”
3. Probably plagiarism. Though the wording is completely different, the ideas in the
right-hand column are pretty close to the original author’s. Some students might
argue that the ideas are not exactly the same. True. But it’s likely that the student
writer in this example “lifted” them from Bole—intentionally or
unintentionally—and reused them without ever acknowledging their source. It is
also possible that a student could independently draw the same conclusion as Bole
without plagiarizing, but probably not in the context of this exercise.
4. Good. Correct use of quote marks and cites info in MLA format.
5. Fine. No quotation marks but student writer has found a way to restate
information (and acknowledges author and page).
66
Using Lead-Ins to Vary Evidence Presentation
Plain quote and MLA citation:
“Under Virginia law, when race is a motivating factor for some misdemeanors,
charges can be upgraded to felonies with a punishment of five years in prison”
(Morello B4).
Lead-in with author name and source information:
A Washington Post article by Carol Morello reports that, “Under Virginia law,
when race is a motivating factor for some misdemeanors, charges can be
upgraded to felonies with a punishment of five years in prison” (B4).
A “lead-in” in the middle:
“Under Virginia law,” Carol Morello reports, “when race is a motivating factor
for some misdemeanors, charges can be upgraded to felonies with a punishment
of five years in prison” (B4). Because of these possible jail sentences, Morello’s
Washington Post article explained, local authorities were hesitant to label the
UVA assault a “hate crime.”
“Lead-in” before and after quote followed by elaboration:
The nature of the attacks became more serious “when a police investigator
announced that three of the suspects said they had chosen targets because they
looked different,” according to a recent Washington Post article by Carol Morello.
In each attack, the suspects were black and attended Charlottesville High School
while the victims were all white or Asian students from the University of Virginia
(B1).
Lead-in talking about someone besides the source’s author:
Alvin Edwards, head of the Mount Zion Baptist Church, believes class was more
to blame. He points out while black students were the only ones charged with the
assaults, two white girls from the high school were also present. “How can it be
an attack on whites when whites are involved?” he asks (Morello B4).
Morello, Carol. “College Town Confronts Issues of Race.” Washington Post. 27 Feb.
2002: B1.
67
Ways to Talk about Evidence in a Paper
These quotations are just made up, though I’ve cited them as you would need to do for
your papers using MLA format. See your Hacker text for specifics.
Establish the source’s credentials:
Margot Phifer, a child psychologist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, says,
“Children from single-parent homes perform no worse than their peers in the first few
years of education” (98).
Talk about the source’s biases or background:
Ernest Watkins is the author of two books on the Electoral College. He often
maintains a conservative stance when it comes to changes in the College. “The
Founders’ vision has held well over the years,” Watkins notes, “and the recent focus
on Florida resulted more from a very close election than any flaws in the system”
(42).
Contrast your source to another:
Unlike Stephen Greenblat, who maintains that Shakespeare intended a discourse on
colonialism when he wrote The Tempest, Hanson argues that Shakespeare was only
using settings and characters of interest: “Caliban and Ariel are not so much
representative of the islanders and ‘Indians’ being discovered on sailing voyages as
much as they represent the mystical and unknown. They are ennobled because of their
strangeness and their necessity to the play’s plot, not because they are vehicles for
Shakespeare’s views on the subjugation of natives” (94).
Discuss how your evidence was gathered:
One report showed that less than 20% of college students voted in the last presidential
election. These results came from surveys taken at ten college campuses in the
Northeast, and while the survey may not be exhaustive, it certainly supports a
growing, and disturbing trend (Wilson 114).
Acknowledge weaknesses or strengths of the evidence:
One report showed that less than 20% of college students voted in the last presidential
election. These results came from surveys taken at ten college campuses in the
Northeast, and while the survey may not be exhaustive, it certainly supports a
growing, and disturbing trend (Wilson 114).
68
Elaborate, elaborate, elaborate:
Jeb Livingood, a lecturer at the University of Virginia, maintains, “One problem in
student papers is that they present evidence and expect the reader to just understand
its significance” (12). Livingood’s complaint applies to papers that drop in a
quotation or statistic without bothering to elaborate. A student paper should explain
the importance of each piece of evidence, especially when it comes from unknown or
lesser-known sources.
69
Talking about Your Evidence
Below is a quote by George Garrett you want to use as evidence in a literature paper on James
Dickey, a writer known mostly for his poetry and one of his novels, Deliverance, which was
made into a movie. Below the Garrett quote is a short list of Garrett’s credentials. Find a way
to introduce Garrett’s quote about James Dickey that will also tell your reader something about
Garrett and why he might be a credible source.
YOUR EVIDENCE: “In any case, while he was still alive, Dickey was the subject of an
extraordinary amount of public critical (and personal) interest….[I]t can be argued, with the
strength of strong evidence, that a goodly number of academics and critics had acquired a
vested interest in the reputation of James Dickey well before his death” (Garrett 94).
ABOUT THE SOURCE: Author of thirty-two books (eight of them poetry) and editor or
coeditor of nineteen others, George Garrett recently retired from the University of Virginia
after a forty-year teaching career. Among his honors and awards are the Rome Prize of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Sewanee Review Fellowship in Poetry, and
fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations and the National
Endowment for the Arts.
Below is a quotation from Ernest Suarez on James Dickey’s main character in the novel To the
White Sea. Below that quotation is a brief summary of Suarez’s credentials, then another
quotation about Suarez by another scholar, Nelson Hathcock. Introduce the Suarez quote using
the information provided.
YOUR EVIDENCE: “To the White Sea ties [Muldrow’s] yearnings to romantic and
naturalistic impulses, a volatile combination that can be simultaneously thrilling and
destructive” (Suarez 112).
ABOUT THE SOURCE: Ernest Suarez was named the 1993–1994 James E. Dornan
Memorial Professor of the Year at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. He
is the author of James Dickey and the Politics of Canon: Assessing the Savage Ideal.
ANOTHER WRITER’S ASSESSMENT: “[T]he critical reception of To the White Sea tends
to divide sharply along ideological lines, but sympathetic readers like Ernest Suarez, Joyce
Pair, Laurence Lieberman, and Marion Hodge have taken what Suarez calls ‘Muldrow’s
primitive creed’ as a point of consensus” (Hathcock 26-27).
Garrett, George P. Going to See the Elephant: Pieces of a Writing Life. Edited by Jeb
Livingood. Huntsville, TX: Texas Review Press, 2002.
Hathcock, Nelson. “No Further Claim to Innocence: James Dickey’s Revision of the American
War Story.” The Texas Review, Volume XVII, Fall/Winter 1996/1997: 26-42.
Suarez, Ernest. “‘Real God, Roll’: Muldrow’s Primitive Creed.” The Texas Review,
Volume XVII, Fall/Winter 1996/1997: 112-127.
70
Example of one citation for multiple pieces of evidence:
In his essay “How U.S. Schools Are Stifling Male Students,” William S. Pollack cites
statistics showing that “eighth-grade boys are 50 percent more likely to be held back a
grade than girls.” He also tells us that once boys do get to high school, they make up a
majority of the children in special education programs. They receive most of disciplinary
actions—71% of suspensions—and are more likely “to be diagnosed with attentiondeficit disorder.” In college, Pollack argues, they fare no better. The number of women
attending our universities continues to rise while the percentage of men declines. Today,
“women earn about 55 percent of all bachelor’s degrees” and that figure is increasing
(263).


Works because of constant acknowledgment of Pollack as author.
All cited evidence on one page or sequential pages.
Sources:
Pollack, William S. “How U.S. Schools Are Stifling Male Students.” Dialogues: An
Argument Rhetoric and Reader. Ed. Gary Goshgarian, Kathleen Krueger, and Janet
Barnett Mink. New York: Longman, 2000. 262–265.
71
The “Little Three” Elements of Argument
While it may seem obvious, it’s worth remembering that you rarely write
arguments for people who are already in agreement with you. For example, an
editorial with the main claim “We should not allow people to walk into restaurants
and randomly shoot other people with a gun” will not have many readers after the
first paragraph. Who in their right mind would disagree with a statement like that?
Even the most rabid, pro-gun NRA member will support such a claim.
Similarly, if you believe marijuana should be legalized, there’s not much point in
writing an opinion column to that effect in The Cannabis Smoker’s Newsletter.
Most folks who read that sort of publication already have the same beliefs as you.
Accordingly, we usually write arguments when
1) We’re trying to change or soften the opinion of those who disagree with our
argument.
2) We’re trying to solidify the opinion of those who neither agree nor disagree
when they start reading our argument.
3) We’re trying to inform those who agree with our main claim but are not
fully able to express why.
So, isn’t a good main claim, subclaims, and evidence enough to accomplish all
this? Well, sort of. The problem is that only using claims, subclaims, and evidence
can create an argument that sounds more like a rigid legal pr oof than a wellconsidered academic argument.
To persuade those who might not agree with us, we need to use three additional
elements of argument: qualifiers, acknowledgement and response, and warrants.
72
Qualifiers
Qualifiers—words or phrases like most,
some, hardly ever, many, often, usually,
etc.—allow you to take sweeping,
generalized statements and make them
more accurate. Since you rarely write an
argument for an audience that already
agrees with you, it’s usually a good idea to
temper your speech. Obviously, you don’t
want to dilute things to the point of
waffling: “It sometimes could be a fairly
good idea to slightly modify the honor
code.” Still, a few modifiers, well placed,
can help sway a skeptical reader—or at
least keep them reading.
In construction, you sometimes have to
reinforce a wall with steel bands or
plywood to give it added strength.
Qualifiers work similarly to the steel bands
shown at left: they add strength to a
wobbly claim.
73
Qualifiers Exercise
Alter the sentences below using modifiers to make them more accurate. Feel free to
delete or add words to make the statements more acceptable, especially to someone who
might disagree with the present version.
First-year students become binge drinkers.
When an author’s first novel is a success, his second is a failure.
Shakespeare never created a character—especially an “evil” one—that did not have clear
motivations.
Psychologists can be used to solve every crime.
Americans see “motherhood” as sacred—and not a job for a man, especially a gay man.
This last season, the basketball team crumbled whenever they faced full-court pressure.
Out-of-state students test higher on SATs.
Muslim students have faced discriminatory practices since Sept. 11.
When it came to setting domestic policy, President Clinton used opinion polls more than
his common sense.
States have sales taxes that thwart small business owners.
74
What Qualifier Means What?
For most of us, qualifiers are just a tool to let us state something with greater accuracy.
But take a look at that last sentence. When I say “most” people, “most” of you would say
that means a solid majority, say 85% or so. But wouldn’t also be technically correct for
someone to assume I meant a narrow majority, say 55%? Or 70%? Who defines what
“most” means?
In some jobs, it’s critical for a reader to understand exactly how sure you are when you
use a qualified statement. If I tell an Army Captain in charge of a tank that she will
probably face some enemy resistance over the next hill, she’s likely to ask me to define
what I mean by “probably” and “some.” Are we talking about a guy with a grenade or a
dozen enemy tanks?
Back in 1964, Sherman Kemp wrote a classified article that tried to define these
standards. The full (and now declassified) article is on the CIA’s Website at
http://www.odci.gov/csi/books/shermankent/6words.html. Here’s a table adapted from
his work:
Percentage of Certainty
100%
93%, give or take about 6%
75%, give or take about 12%
50%, give or take about 10%
30%, give or take about 10%
7%, give or take about 5%
0%
Qualifiers
Certain
Almost certain
Probable
Chances are about even
Probably not
Almost certainly not
Impossible
Kent was arguing, among other things, that everyone should agree on what qualifiers
meant what so that decision makers could understand the odds they were facing.
However, Kent realized that restricting writers to five or six qualifiers would impose
“intolerable restraints upon the prose.” So, he drew up a list of synonyms, grouping them
by order of probability:
Possible
Almost certain
Probable
50-50
Probably not
conceivable, could, may, might, perhaps
virtually certain, all but certain, highly probable, highly likely,
odds [or chances] overwhelming
likely, we believe, we estimate
chances about even, chances a little better [or less] than even,
improbable, unlikely
we believe that . . . not, we estimate that . . . not, we doubt,
doubtful
75
Almost certainly not
virtually impossible, almost impossible, some slight chance,
highly doubtful
The point here is not that you should adopt Kemp’s probability chart. But you should
begin to realize that qualifiers can mean very different things to different readers. Keep
that in mind as you pick out which ones to use.
76
Acknowledgment and Response
Why bother?
As we’ve seen in presidential debates or
shows like “Judge Judy,” argument often
appears an unforgiving squabble between
groups who refuse to consider the
reasons or evidence presented by an
opponent. Some would argue that this
behavior is the only practical approach to
an election or a legal situation. Perhaps.
There may be times when you do not
wish to “give anything away” or provide
an opponent with any sort of opening.
However, in academic arguments, it is
essential to show that you understand the
other side.
In doing so, you help convince the reader that you can provide a relatively unbiased take
and are constructing an argument based more on evidence and reasoning than pure
opinion and invective.
Using my (now tiresome) construction analogy, it is not enough to erect walls and a good
roof. You also need a structure that will withstand the elements. In the shed above, tar
paper has been stapled to the walls to have a waterproof surface on the sides of the shed.
Later, siding will go over this weatherproof barrier. But the (now belabored) point is that
when you build an argument, you want it to be able to withstand criticism. One way to
“weatherproof” your claims is to at lease acknowledge that other people might have
different ones.
Remember old T.J.’s quote: “For here we are not afraid to follow Truth no matter where
it may lead nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” He is talking
about academic pursuit—and that’s what we’re after in these papers. Open, thoughtful
dialogues on difficult issues. And with that openness comes a responsibility to avoid
trashing the opposition. People who disagree with you usually have at least some good
reasons for believing and arguing what they do. It’s part of your job to at least be willing
to see that, even if you think their conclusions are faulty.
77
The following examples of Acknowledgement and Response are adapted from The Craft
of Argument by Gregory G. Columb and Joseph M. Williams.
The Language of Acknowledgment and Response
Despite declining crime rates (acknowledgment), there is still a need for
vigorous enforcement of … (response)
Although Congress claims it wants to cut taxes (acknowledgment), the
public believes that … (response)
In his letters, Lincoln expresses what seems to be depression
(acknowledgment). But those who observed him… response
Smith’s data appear to support these claims. acknowledgment However,
on closer examination… (response)
Some evidence [might/ may / could / would / does] [suggest/ indicate/
point to / lead some to think] that we should (acknowledgment)… but
(response)
There are some who [might/ may / could / would] [say / think / argue /
claim / charge/ object] that Cuba is not (acknowledgment). . . however
(response)
The above examples are, in my opinion, the minimum amount of A&R you should do.
Real writers tend to spend a lot more time on A&R. Let’s take a look.
78
Real World Examples of A&R
Here are four examples of real-world writers using A&R from just one day’s editorials
and opinion columns in The Washington Post. This ought to tell you a few things: 1) real
writers use A&R all the time, 2) real readers expect to see A&R, and 3) acknowledging
that another side exists can strengthen your argument more than it weakens it.
Acknowledgment is italicized. Response in grey highlight.
1.)
This is an Iraqi process, and American diplomats have been right, so far, to stay mostly
out of it. But the United States still has influence, as the events of the past few days have
shown, and it should use that influence—sparingly—to discourage either the eventual
emergence of an Iraqi Islamic republic or the destruction of the country.
Washington Post editorial “A Constitution for Iraq,” August 2, 2005; Page A12
2.)
Mr. Bolton, as we have noted before, would not have been our choice for this job. As a
State Department official for the past several years, he has been a contentious figure who
has made many enemies, a bureaucratic power player who has played for keeps. At a
time when the United Nations is facing a momentous period of reform and fallout from
the oil-for-food scandal, it would have been wiser to name someone more suitable to the
post. Moreover, Democrats are correct in noting that Mr. Bolton, by dint of the recess
appointment, will go to the United Nations under less than optimal conditions. An
ambassador who lacks the explicit support of Congress speaks less securely for the
nation than one who enters the U.N. Security Council with the Senate’s blessing. But,
again, whose fault is that? Democrats had every chance to muster the votes to defeat the
nomination; they couldn’t do it. If Mr. Bolton is now heading to New York without the
Senate’s imprimatur but with a figurative asterisk beside his name, that’s only because,
having failed to defeat him, a minority refused to lose gracefully.
Washington Post editorial “Ambassador Bolton*”, August 2, 2005; Page A12
3. )
Yes, any inquiry related to a nominee’s religion risks being seen as a form of bigotry, and
of course there should be no “religious tests.” This nomination will properly be settled
on other issues, particularly Roberts’s views on the court’s right to void economic, labor
and environmental laws. Most Democrats will, in any event, run far away from any
religious questions.
But why are we so afraid of acknowledging the obvious? At this moment in our
history, religion is playing an important part in our public debates. If Roberts’s religious
views are important to him, why should they be off-limits to honest discussion?
Dionne, Jr., E.J. “Why It’s Right to Ask about Roberts’s Faith,” Washington Post, August
2, 2005; Page A13
79
Acknowledgment and Response Exercise
Read the first two paragraphs of the following opinion column by Goodwin Liu and write
down his main claim. Then, starting again from the beginning, read the article and look
for places where Liu acknowledges views that are different from his own and how he
counters those views with his own argument. Is he effective?
The Myth And Math of Affirmative Action
By Goodwin Liu
Washington Post, Sunday, April 14, 2002; Page B01
With the arrival of spring, thousands of high school and college seniors have been anxiously
checking the mail for word from the nation’s most prestigious universities. Although some
envelopes are thick with good news, most are thin and disappointing. For many white
applicants, the disappointment will become bitterness if they suspect the reason for their
rejection was affirmative action. But such suspicions, in all likelihood, are misplaced.
Affirmative action is widely thought to be unfair because it benefits minority applicants at the
expense of more deserving whites. Yet this perception tends to inflate the cost beyond its real
proportions. While it is true that affirmative action gives minority applicants a significant boost
in selective admissions, it is not true that most white applicants would fare better if elite
schools eliminated the practice. Understanding why is crucial to separating fact from fiction in
the national debate over affirmative action.
Any day now, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati will issue a decision in a major test lawsuit
challenging the use of race as a factor in selective admissions. In that case, the University of
Michigan denied admission in 1995 to a white undergraduate applicant named Jennifer Gratz.
Charging reverse discrimination, Gratz said, “I knew of people accepted to Ann Arbor who
were less qualified, and my first reaction when I was rejected was, ‘Let’s sue.’”
The Michigan case will likely end up at the Supreme Court. If it does, Gratz will try to follow in
the footsteps of Allan Bakke, a rejected white applicant who won admission in 1978 to the
University of California at Davis’s medical school after convincing the high court that the
school’s policy of reserving 16 of 100 seats each year for minority students was
unconstitutional. For many Americans, the success of Bakke’s lawsuit has long highlighted
what is unfair about affirmative action: Giving minority applicants a significant advantage
causes deserving white applicants to lose out. But to draw such an inference in Bakke’s
case—or in the case of the vast majority of rejected white applicants—is to indulge in what I
call “the causation fallacy.”
There’s no doubt, based on test scores and grades, that Bakke was a highly qualified
applicant. Justice Lewis Powell, who authored the decisive opinion in the case, observed that
Bakke’s Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores placed him in the top tier of testtakers, whereas the average scores of the quota beneficiaries in 1974 placed them in the
bottom third. Likewise, his science grade point average was 3.44 on a 4.0 scale, compared
with a 2.42 average for the special admittees, and his overall GPA was similarly superior.
Given these numbers, the only reason for Bakke’s rejection was the school’s need to make
room for less qualified minority applicants, right?
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Wrong. Although Justice Powell pointed out that minority applicants were admitted with grades
and test scores much lower than Bakke’s, he did not discuss what I found to be the most
striking data that appeared in his opinion: Bakke’s grades and scores were significantly higher
than the average for the regular admittees. In other words, his academic qualifications were
better than those of the majority of applicants admitted outside the racial quota. So why didn’t
he earn one of the 84 regular places?
It is clear that the medical school admitted students not only on the basis of grades and test
scores, but on other factors relevant to the study and practice of medicine, such as
compassion, communication skills and commitment to research. Justice Powell’s opinion does
not tell us exactly what qualities the regular admittees had that Bakke lacked. But it notes that
the head of the admissions committee, who interviewed Bakke, found him “rather limited in his
approach” to medical problems and thought he had “very definite opinions which were based
more on his personal viewpoints than upon a study of the total problem.”
Whatever Bakke’s weaknesses were, there were several reasons, apart from affirmative
action, that might have led the medical school to reject his application. Grades and test scores
do not tell us the whole story.
Of course, affirmative action did lower Bakke’s chance of admission. But by how much? One
way to answer this question is to compare Bakke’s chance of admission had he competed for
all 100 seats in the class with his chance of admission competing for the 84 seats outside of
the racial quota. To simplify, let’s assume none of the special applicants would have been
admitted ahead of any regular candidate.
In 1974, Bakke was one of 3,109 regular applicants to the medical school. With the racial
quota, the average likelihood of admission for regular applicants was 2.7 percent (84 divided
by 3,109). With no racial quota, the average likelihood of admission would have been 3.2
percent (100 divided by 3,109). So the quota increased the average likelihood of rejection from
96.8 percent to 97.3 percent.
To be sure, Bakke was not an average applicant. Only one-sixth of regular applicants (roughly
520) received an interview. But even among these highly qualified applicants, eliminating the
racial quota would have increased the average rate of admission from 16 percent (84 divided
by 520) to only 19 percent (100 divided by 520). Certainly a few more regular applicants would
have been admitted were it not for affirmative action. But Bakke, upon receiving his rejection
letter, had no reason to believe he would have been among the lucky few.
In fact, Bakke applied in both 1973 and 1974 and, according to evidence in the lawsuit, he did
not even make the waiting list in either year.
The statistical pattern in Bakke’s case is not an anomaly. It occurs in any selection process in
which the applicants who do not benefit from affirmative action greatly outnumber those who
do.
Recent research confirms this point. Using 1989 data from a representative sample of
selective schools, former university presidents William Bowen and Derek Bok showed in their
1998 book, “The Shape of the River,” that eliminating racial preferences would have increased
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the likelihood of admission for white undergraduate applicants from 25 percent to only 26.5
percent.
The Mellon Foundation, which sponsored the study, provided me with additional data to
calculate admission rates by SAT score. If the schools in the Bowen/Bok sample had admitted
applicants with similar SAT scores at the same rate regardless of race, the chance of
admission for white applicants would have increased by one percentage point or less at
scores 1300 and above, by three to four percentage points at scores from 1150 to 1299, and
by four to seven percentage points at scores below 1150.
It is true that black applicants were admitted at much higher rates than white applicants with
similar grades and test scores. But that fact does not prove that affirmative action imposes a
substantial disadvantage on white applicants. The extent of the disadvantage depends on the
number of blacks and whites in the applicant pool. Because the number of black applicants to
selective institutions is relatively small, admitting them at higher rates does not significantly
lower the chance of admission for the average individual in the relatively large sea of white
applicants.
In the Bowen/Bok study, for example, 60 percent of black applicants scoring 1200-1249 on the
SAT were admitted, compared with 19 percent of whites. In the 1250-1299 range, 74 percent
of blacks were admitted, compared with 23 percent of whites. These data indicate—more so
than proponents of affirmative action typically acknowledge—that racial preferences give
minority applicants a substantial advantage. But eliminating affirmative action would have
increased the admission rate for whites from 19 percent to only 21 percent in the 1200-1249
range, and from 23 percent to only 24 percent in the 1250-1299 range.
These figures show that rejected white applicants have every reason not to blame their
misfortune on affirmative action. In selective admissions, the competition is so intense that
even without affirmative action, the overwhelming majority of rejected white applicants still
wouldn’t get in.
Still, isn’t it true that minority applicants are admitted at rates up to three times higher than
white applicants with similar SAT scores? Isn’t that unfair?
To answer that question, it’s important to observe that racial preferences are not the only
preferences that cause different groups of applicants with similar test scores to be admitted at
different rates. Geo- graphic, athletic and alumni preferences also weigh heavily, to the
detriment of applicants such as Jennifer Gratz at Michigan. Gratz hailed from a Detroit suburb,
not from a rural area or the inner city. She was not a star athlete. And her working-class
parents were high school graduates, not University of Michigan alumni.
Yet preferences for athletes, though occasionally criticized, have never galvanized the kind of
outrage often directed at affirmative action. Similarly, there is no organized legal campaign
against geographic preferences, even though where one grows up is as much an accident of
circumstance as one’s skin color. And neither Gratz nor her lawyers at the Washington-based
Center for Individual Rights have publicly denounced alumni preferences, much less launched
a moral crusade against them.
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Such preferences reflect institutional interests that are unrelated to an applicant’s grades or
test scores. But the same is true of affirmative action when it is used to enhance educational
diversity. The question, then, is not whether unequal treatment is unfair as a general rule, but
whether unequal treatment based on race should be singled out for special condemnation.
As the Supreme Court said in 1954, unequal treatment based on race can inflict on members
of a disfavored race “a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect
their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” But social stigma is not the
complaint pressed by white applicants such as Bakke or Gratz. Despite 30 years of affirmative
action, white students continue to dominate most of the nation’s best colleges and all of the
top law and medical schools. Against this backdrop, not even the most ardent foe of
affirmative action would say that it stamps white applicants with a badge of racial inferiority.
Indeed, just as athletic and geographic preferences do not denigrate applicants who are
uncoordinated or suburban, affirmative action is not a policy of racial prejudice.
For white applicants, the unfairness of affirmative action lies not in its potential to displace or
stigmatize, but in its potential to stereotype. Minority applicants are not the only ones who
contribute to educational diversity. Were a school to use race as its sole “plus” factor in
admissions, then white applicants could legitimately complain that the school failed to take into
account non-racial attributes essential to genuine educational diversity.
Putting the complaint in these terms is an important first step toward rethinking the
conventional view that a race-conscious admissions policy pits whites against minorities in a
zero-sum game. Instead of attacking affirmative action, white applicants such as Jennifer
Gratz might do better to urge top schools committed to educational diversity to place a higher
premium on first-generation college attendance or growing up in a blue-collar home. Ironically,
the stories of affirmative action’s “victims” could spur America’s colleges to further widen the
elite circles of educational opportunity. And that would be a result students of any color could
applaud.
Goodwin Liu, a Washington attorney, was a Supreme Court law clerk during the 2000-01 term.
His essay is adapted from “The Causation Fallacy: Bakke and the Basic Arithmetic of
Selective Admissions,” to be published this month in the Michigan Law Review.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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Warrants
Common Usage (From Merriam-Webster):
1 Sanction, Authorization; also: evidence for or token of authorization
2 A commission or document giving authority to do something.
“We have a warrant and we’re coming in!”
In other words, we have the authority to come inside your house. A judge has considered
our reasons for wanting to do so and has found them acceptable.
Rhetoric Usage
Warrants are general principles that

Assert a connection between your evidence and claims.

Are normally assumed rather than stated.

Represent shared beliefs and values without which an argument
cannot get off the ground.
It’s cheesy, but think of it this way: Your audience has to accept your
warrants to “let you in” and consider your argument.
Three Doors Example
Imagine a large hotel convention center with three national conventions happening at
once. In one room, the American Medical Association (AMA) is meeting. In the next
room, a convention of Christian Scientists. In the last room, a group of Animal Rights
Advocates. Now imagine a convention speaker gets confused and tries to deliver a
speech in the wrong room. What would happen if



A Christian Scientist, in the AMA room, tries to argue that prayer is the best
healing tool for breast cancer?
An AMA member, in the Christian Scientist room, argues for Caesareans
whenever fetal heart rates fall below 45% of normal?
An medical researcher, in the Animal Rights room, presents his argument for
more funding on testing brain implants in monkeys to learn about Alzheimer’s?
But what if



A Christian Scientist, in the AMA room, argues that a patient’s religion should
influence a doctor’s treatment decisions?
An AMA member, in the Christian Scientist room, delivers a paper arguing for
holistic approaches to patient care?
An AMA member, in the Animal Rights room, argues the benefits of a Vegan
diet?
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During the construction of the above shed, the slope of the land was a problem. Note that
base of the shed rests right on the footer at the far right, but not on the one at the far left.
To secure the base to the footer, the builder (me) used a
4”x4” post bolted to the frame and running down to the
footer. This is pretty solid (I hope). But it is inherently
less stable than when the base rests right on the footer.
In arguments, warrants behave similarly. Warrants are
what connects your evidence to your claims. The closer
your evidence is to your claims—that is, the smaller the
assumptions between the two—the better off you are.
You’ll note that I’ve added some wood underneath the
base to help it rest right on the footer. I’m trying to
make that connection between footer and base
(evidence and claims) more solid.
Remember, too, that warrants play very differently to different audiences. An assumption
that is totally unacceptable to one group might be “just common sense” to another.
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Warrants Worksheet
For the following claims (in bold), read the subclaims below them and write what warrant
the claim and subclaim imply. You will probably disagree with some of the claims,
subclaims, or warrants. Be ready to talk about which ones you don’t buy, and why.
Microsoft should be broken up by the U.S. government.
Microsoft is a virtual monopoly; it has only a few competitors, and at best,
they account for a very small portion of PC operating system sales.
because
Warrant:
Microsoft should not be broken up by the U.S. government.
Microsoft is a prime example of the “American Dream,” rising from its
meager start in Bill Gates’s garage, and we should not punish it for being successful.
It is an example others should follow.
because
Warrant:
Candidate X would make a better governor than candidate Y.
Candidate X has been working in state government for 10 years; Y has never
held an elected position.
because
Warrant:
Candidate Y’s campaign is mostly funded using millions of dollars from
profits in his dot-com business.
because
Warrant:
Parents should circumcise male babies after birth.
The Bible explicitly calls for males to be circumcised as a symbol our
covenant with God.
because
Warrant:
because
Using modern anesthetics, circumcision is relatively painless for the newborn.
Warrant:
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We should not alter the Honor Code’s single-sanction rule.
If we allowed multiple sanctions, two different students who committed the
same offense could receive very different penalties from the Honor Committee.
because
Warrant:
because
If you want to prevent cheating, the consequences have to be severe.
Warrant:
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Logical Fallacies
Sometimes, warrants fail because they are illogical. Since our assumptions/warrants are
what ties evidence to the claims we make, a weak link can easily undermine an argument.
Listed below are several examples of logical fallacies. The fallacy names often
use Latin terms, partially harking back to their rhetoric origins, but mostly to sound more
important and intimidating than they really are. You will instinctively see something
“wrong” in most of the statements: defining them as “logical fallacies” and categorizing
them by terms just makes it easier to recognize similar ones in the future. This list is not
exhaustive, by the way. There are dozens of other fallacies—these are just the ones that
often appear in student writing.
The important thing is recognizing and limiting these fallacies in your own
thinking and writing. Experience with logical fallacies can also help you deconstruct
someone else’s argument, especially in heated debates. The more emotional people get,
the more logical fallacies seem to crop up.
Who could ever trust a wimp like Al Gore to lead our armed forces?
Ad hominem – a statement that attacks an individual or group rather than their
views, opinions, or statements.
Gay marriage is simply wrong and is not supported by the majority of Americans.
Bandwagon appeals – tries to convince you to support a position because that is
how most everyone else thinks.
It’s time to pull out of Iraq; otherwise, we’re perpetuating a slaughter of U.S. soldiers.
False dilemma/either-or fallacy – a statement that advances two extremes
without acknowledging that a middle ground may exist.
My father, a noted historian, believes the Raiders will win the Superbowl.
Faulty use of authority – advancing an authority in one field as expert in
another.
While Coach Johnson admits helping his star quarterback cheat on a Chemistry final,
let’s not overlook Johnson’s fine work with inner-city youth.
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Red herring – introduces a new and unrelated element into an argument to
distract the reader.
Forcing gun shows to perform background checks will allow the left to continue it work
at stripping the Constitution of the second amendment.
Slippery slope – argues that allowing one thing to happen will cause a long chain
of events, when that is not necessarily so.
George W. Bush’s authority is certainly tenuous: he lost the popular vote in the 2000
election.
Stacking the deck – statements that advance an idea by intentionally presenting
only favorable information and evidence.
If he failed out of U.Va., how can we trust him to run the family business?
Hasty generalizations – statements that make overly broad, often untrue
assumptions.
Wesley Clark shook my mother’s hand. You should vote for him.
Non sequitur – Latin for “does not follow,” a non sequitur fallacy draws an
illogical conclusion from an earlier statement.
Bob Wilson uses a lot of long sentences in his recent novel. When he was young, he must
have read Faulker.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “after this, therefore because of this”; draws the
conclusion that because event A happened before B, A caused B.
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Logical Fallacies Exercise
Identify which logical fallacy appears in each of the statements about Flight 800, an
aircraft that exploded and crashed off the Atlantic Coast on July 17, 1996.
The missile theory has expert witnesses. For example, just before Flight
800 broke into flames, private pilot Sven Faret reported that he saw “a
little pin flash on the ground.” In his view, that flash “looked like a
rocket launch.”
No fallacy
ad hominem
false authority
red herring
If we begin considering theories other than the one the NTSB is
pursuing, the investigation will run in so many directions that we’ll
never solve anything.
No fallacy
red herring
false authority
slippery slope
Mr. Kadlec believes that this downing won’t be solved. “Amelia Earhart
crashed,” he said. “No one knows why she crashed.”
No fallacy
ad hominem
false analogy
post hoc, ergo propter hoc
slippery slope
The FBI is still convinced that it was a bomb that brought down the
aircraft. “The public believes it was a bomb,” said Agent John Hunt.
“Polls taken the day after the crash indicate that more than 75% of
Americans believe it was terrorist’s bomb.”
No fallacy
bandwagon
either/or fallacy
hasty generalization
slippery slope
Now that we know explosives had been placed aboard the plane for
dog-sniffing tests five weeks before the crash, the FBI’s discovery of
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bomb traces in the cabin is a “dud.”
No fallacy
either/or fallacy
hasty generalization
false analogy
The missile theory has no merit. It arose from Pierre Salinger, and he’s
a kook. Not only is he a reporter, but he’s French.
No fallacy
ad hominem
begging the question
false analogy
slippery slope
One thing that people aren’t considering enough is that the plane went
down during an election year. Elections bring out the worst in people, a
clear example being the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1920.
No fallacy
ad hominem
either/or fallacy
circular reasoning
red herring
Another reason this could have been a missile attack is the report that
a Yemenese official sold shoulder-fired missiles to an unknown party
two years before tragedy.
No fallacy
non sequitur
circular reasoning
red herring
post hoc, ergo proper hoc
Source:
http://www.me.vt.edu/writing/exercises/
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Writing Conclusions
I. - Conclusions in General
Like every element of an academic argument, conclusions do not have firm rules
that apply in every case. Still, there are rhetorical patterns most readers expect as an essay
winds down. For example, writers often bring back images or ideas from their
introduction or spend a little time restating their thesis. There are also common mistakes:
many closing moves are ineffective and can even undermine your earlier work. The goal
of this section is to give you a few things to avoid and other techniques to use as models.
Select those that seem to apply best to your own essay. Some writers love anecdotal
endings and use them to great effect. Others take a more logical, deductive approach.
Almost every conclusion, however, will do at least two things. First, conclusions
often restate the introduction in some form or fashion. In speech classes, students are
instructed:
 Tell them what you’re going to tell them (Introduction)
 Tell them (Body)
 Tell them what you’ve just told them (Conclusion)
Though seemingly dull, such repetition is often necessary to get across complex
or new ideas. Accordingly, many writers use the beginning of their conclusion to restate
their main claim and outline the main points of their argument one last time.
The second thing most conclusions do is to “broaden” the paper’s problem
statement. This is somewhat difficult to define, but one way to think of it is that while
introductions tend to focus on the past and present, conclusions generally look toward the
future. For example, toward the beginning of an August 6, 2000 Washington Post
column, “Let’s Get Real About Risk,” David Ropeik says:
In a frenzy of fear we are pouring millions this summer into protecting ourselves from the
West Nile virus, and spending only a fraction of that sum on public education
encouraging people to wash their hands, which would eliminate far more disease
transmission than killing every mosquito in America.
Ropeik goes on to argue that we need to use risk analysis to make “decisions that are
more rational and informed.” Notice that he kicks things off with very dramatic costs,
and then gives an example of a present “crisis” (West Nile virus) to make his point.
Toward the end of his essay, he introduces the idea of forming an institute outside
of government to do risk analysis and make policy suggestions. “It’s time,” he says, “to
create a vehicle to promote credible, reliable science to help develop policymaking that
looks beyond our fears to what will do the most good.” Now, he’s shifted into the future.
He’s talking about what we should create, what we should do.
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That leaves us with two things a conclusion often does:
1) It restates or alludes to the paper’s introduction
2) It broadens the implications of an argument, often pointing toward the
future
Okay, but how are introductions structured? What approaches are common to most
writers? Below are a few of the techniques commonly used to broaden a basic ending
into a conclusion with more substance that keeps a reader’s interest.
II. - Some “Good” Concluding Moves
1. Resolution Conclusions
Conclusions are often the best place to explain your own fix for a problem, especially
if you’ve spent the majority of your essay criticizing another view. Complaining is
the easy part; the hard work comes in thinking of a way to solve, or at least start to
solve, a problem. Another closing move is the “Call for action” approach, which
does not propose a hard solution but tells the reader that more research or study is
needed. In general, this is less satisfying since it often feels like the writer is taking
an easy way out—rather than come up with a solution, the writer says there must be
one out there someplace. Still, some papers will tackle such large or complex issues
that a call for more study is the only option.
2. Pan-To-A-Larger-Landscape Conclusions
Many argumentative papers tackle narrow issues because they allow a writer to take a
detailed, in-depth look at one problem rather than superficially covering a host of
related topics. For example, a paper on advertising might focus on how the fashion
industry has contributed to the number of eating disorders among teenagers. Along
the way, the paper might give convincing evidence showing a causal relationship
between magazine advertising and teenage body image. However, as the paper
concludes, it might show that the problems do not end with adolescence. Instead, it
could outline the effects of teenage eating disorders during subsequent pregnancies or
parenting. The idea is to demonstrate to a reader that the problem you’ve tackled may
have even broader implications—thus highlighting costs again (showing the reader
why your paper matters) (Ramage).
3. Scenic or Anecdotal Conclusions
In creative writing classes, students are often instructed, “Show, don’t tell.” This
applies to academic arguments in that it is often more effective to show a reader why
your argument matters than to simply restate your thesis. For example, one student
paper about Pete Rose and his lifetime ban from baseball ended with a description of
how Rose could not even watch his own son in batting practice because he was
forbidden to be in certain areas of a baseball stadium. The writer described the son’s
swings in the batting cage, Rose’s pacing in the parking lot. Though running the risk
of appealing to a reader’s pity, this kind of rhetorical move can “paint” the
implications of a problem in ways a simple conclusion might not—in this case, the
seemingly bureaucratic response that forbids a father from seeing his son play.
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4. Bookend Conclusions
Writers often use a quotation, metaphor, or image when beginning a paper. In one
essay on religion, a student compared the formation of Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, arguing that like a river, they share a common “headwaters” of polytheistic
beginnings. The image of a river branching and rejoining became the writer’s tool to
show that these religions share much more than they often acknowledge. The writer
brought up the same image of a river in the conclusion, arguing that for the three
“religions to look forward, they must remember their past. Today, they may be on
three distinct rivers, but looking upstream, there is a common source.” Though
risking a constructed cleverness, repeating an early image, etc. often gives a paper a
sense of closure. Seeing an image from the beginning of a paper crop up again is an
implicit statement that the paper is winding down (Can you think of examples of this
from movies? Saving Private Ryan, for example.) Again, however, notice that the
above example is also pointing toward the future, broadening the implications of the
early claim.
5. Delayed Thesis Conclusions
Decidedly the most dangerous approach in an academic conclusion, the delayed thesis
is nevertheless something that many “real world” writers use. In such papers, the
introduction poses a problem, the body develops an argument, and the conclusion
finally states the paper’s main claim. The problem in academic papers is one of
harried graders: frazzled professors and TA’s with a stack of fifty essays often do not
have the patience to wait until the end of an essay to find out what the paper is about.
Talk to your professor beforehand if this is that approach you want to take.
6. Buffet Conclusions
As you might guess, any one of the above techniques does not necessarily exclude the
others. Both a scenic and bookend approach is possible. An essay on gun control
might begin with a dramatized scene of a woman in a Ford Explorer who, in a fit of
road rage, fires a handgun at another car. The same paper might conclude with yet
another dramatized scene, perhaps even the same woman and what would happen
without the handgun. But like any buffet, certain techniques can overwhelm others,
and too many lead to indigestion. Moderation is key.
III - Some “Poor” Concluding Moves
1. Waffling and Apologetic Conclusions
This occurs when writers are unsure of their arguments. “Well,” they say, “you may
not agree that such advertising causes teen smoking, and that’s okay, but there is a lot
of evidence that might indicate that it does.” Apologies also weaken your essay:
“There might be another side to this, but I can’t seem to find it, though I’m not really
an expert.” In short: take a firm stand, though not one that comes across as dictatorial
(Troy State).
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2. “I Know My Rights” Conclusion
This occurs when a writer says, “I believe cigarette advertising is unethical and
nobody can tell me otherwise. I’m an American. I can believe and say what I want.”
Yes, you can, but not in an academic paper if you want better than a C. The fact is
most professors couldn’t care less what you believe when you write an argument;
they’re only interested in what you can support.
3. Emotional Appeal Conclusions
Like logical fallacies, conclusions can go off track when they appeal to emotion over
evidence. Here’s an example: “Because of the efforts of fine Americans like
Frederick Douglass, countless other have seen the shining beacon of light that is
education. His example was a torch that lit the way for others. Frederick Douglass
was truly an American hero.” You can almost here the fife and drums in the
background, right? Similar conclusions are the “I am woman, hear me roar”
approach or “We shall overcome” or the “Guns are part of the flesh and blood of
America” argument (UNC).
4. Sudden Focus Conclusions
Another faulty conclusion technique is a sudden focus on a small portion of the essay.
For example, an argument for stricter gun control laws might spend the entire
conclusion talking about hunting accidents—a relatively minor point in the paper. If
hunting accidents are what really bothers you, then they need to be more of a focus
earlier in the essay.
5. New Idea Conclusions
Similar to sudden focus conclusions, some students make the mistake of introducing
an entirely new theme or idea in their final paragraphs. A paper on the ethics of using
animals in medical labs might suddenly introduce the idea of vegetarianism. Jumping
off on such a tangent confuses readers. They have already invested a great deal of
time in your argument about medical research, and now a new and fairly unrelated
topic comes into play. Such moves tend to raise questions, often undercutting earlier
arguments.
6. Grab Bag Conclusions
Faced with piles of notes and unused 3” x 5” cards, many writers are tempted to
throw in a wealth of information and topics at the very end. An example: “Frederick
Douglass provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the American South.
He also offers historians an intriguing glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts
the overseer. His relationships reveal the importance of family in the slave
community.” Writers must be a ruthless bunch. Even if you spend three hours in the
library to research a part of Douglass’s life, that doesn’t mean the research has to go
in your paper. It’s hard to leave the extraneous research and evidence out—but
necessary (UNC).
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7. Back Fill Conclusions
This occurs when a writer promises to cover all four of an author’s novels when
writing the introduction, but only discusses two in the paper’s main body. It’s
tempting to hurriedly discuss the last two in your conclusion. Don’t. Revise the
introduction instead, especially if you can indicate why the two novels you do discuss
are the most relevant or important (Troy State).
8. Perfect Mirror Conclusions
In high school, many students are taught to “reflect” their introductions in their
conclusions, simply restating their thesis and outlining the beginning of their essay.
While such repetitiveness may be a necessary part of a conclusion, most college
instructors expect more. Simply repeating the elements of an introduction will
generally get a poorer grade than an essay that restates its main ideas but also finds a
way to broaden their implications.
9. Question Conclusions
While asking and evocative question in a conclusion can sometimes be effective, it
often leaves a reader with the impression that the writer doesn’t know the answer.
Similarly, ending an essay with a rhetorical question—“Who can dispute that more
handguns will lead to more deaths?”—is generally not effective. Such approaches
assume the reader has been entirely converted to the author’s point of view, when this
is rarely the case. There are plenty of exceptions to this advice. Many prominent
writers have used questioning conclusions to great effect. Still, ending on a question
introduces an element of risk to most student efforts.
Sources:
Ramage, John D. and John C. Bean. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Writing. New York:
Prentice Hall College Div, 1999.
Troy State Writing Center webpage. “Writing Conclusions.” 2 Nov. 2000
<http://www.troyst.edu/studserv/html/writingcenter/writing_conclusions.html>
UNC Writing Center webpage. “Conclusions.” 2 Nov. 2000
<http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/conclusions.html>
96
Concluding Moves: An Example
Afghanistan's Women Still Need Our Help:
Despite some post-Taliban improvements, many restrictions remain in place.
By Zama Coursen-Neff
Washington Post, Tuesday, December 17, 2002; Page A33
Nineteen-year-old "Rana" had been in Kabul's women's prison for 41/2 months when I met
her. She was charged with the "crime" of "running away with a boy," a common allegation
levied against girls and women in Afghanistan's prisons.
After being married at age 15 to a man who beat her, Rana fled to another man's home, lived
with him and bore a child. She later contacted her family, but her uncle decided to kill her for
her infidelity. To protect her, Rana's mother turned her in to the police. Holding her 18-monthold baby, Rana told me she is afraid her family will kill her if she is released. In prison, she
said, "I am safe."
No, this is not a story of women living under the Taliban, the most misogynistic regime the
modern world has known. This is the reality that women and girls face today in post-Taliban
Afghanistan.
The common perception outside Afghanistan is that when the U.S.-led forces overthrew the
Taliban, women and girls were liberated. The truth is somewhat different. Despite
improvements in access to education and an end to the Taliban's ban on working outside the
home, an array of Taliban-era restrictions on women remains in place. One of the worst places
is the western province of Herat, ruled by local warlord Ismail Khan.
For Herati women and girls, every decision, every day presents dangers or challenges from
the government: where they can go, how they can get there, whom they can go with and how
they can dress. Herat police now arrest women and girls found alone with men to whom they
are not related—even when walking in the street or riding alone with a taxi driver. The police
then take them to the hospital for forced medical examinations to determine whether they have
recently had sexual intercourse.
Women in Herat still wear the all-enveloping burqa or chador. Government officials enforce
this dress code by harassing women and girls on the street, at school and university, and at
work.
Freedom to work also is threatened. Ismail Khan has publicly chastised women for working for
international organizations and imposed burdensome conditions on them. Officials of the
United Nations and other international organizations say this makes it more difficult to
administer aid programs to women.
Many girls are back in school but must study separately from boys, even at Herat University.
The few women studying law, journalism and engineering despair of being allowed to practice
these professions. "Only the doors to the schools are open. Everything else is restricted," a
21-year-old Herati woman told me.
97
Things are getting worse, not better. The few women and girls who have dared to challenge
Khan's policies have been harshly intimidated. At a public meeting in Herat, one woman tried
to read an article she had written stating that women have the same human rights as men, but
government officials castigated her. She was badly shaken by the experience. Still in the ninth
grade, trying to make up for time lost under the Taliban, she has all but lost hope: "I think it is
too late for me. The government will change but not in time for me."
Conditions in the capital of Kabul are better, but resurgent Taliban-era restrictions are starting
to sprout up even there. Government employees of a renamed "Vice and Virtue" office have
patrolled Kabul's streets in recent months to harass women wearing makeup and "calling
attention to themselves." Elsewhere, a girls' school in Sar-e Pol was recently burned down by
a group formerly allied with the Taliban that now holds power in several districts. In Zabul
province, troops have threatened men who allow their wives to teach or their daughters to
attend school.
Aid officials understand the problems, but not enough is being done to address them. Many
U.N. and development agencies too readily accept culturally relative arguments about women
and girls, somehow giving higher priority to tradition than rights. Some suggest that pushing
too aggressively on women's rights in Afghanistan would be destabilizing and would cause a
backlash. But no one is suggesting forcing women and girls to adopt norms they don't want.
What is necessary is to allow women and girls in Afghanistan to make choices for themselves.
More than a year after the Taliban's fall, it is time for the United States, United Nations and
others to follow through on their rhetoric of change and freedom. More aid and technical
assistance must be provided to Afghan women and girls who are working to articulate,
demand and obtain their basic human rights, not just in Kabul but in the provinces as well.
A first step is to make the protection of human rights a larger part of the U.N. mandate in
Afghanistan. In addition, the Afghan government must protect those rights by changing the
law: On the same day the government released 20 women in Kabul jailed for "moral crimes,"
Kabul's police chief vowed to keep arresting them.
The outside world must lend material and moral support to Afghanistan's women so they can
stand up to the male-dominated warlord culture all around them. So long as women continue
to see prison as a better alternative to their lives in Afghanistan, the rest of the world should
know it has failed.
The writer is counsel to the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch. She recently
returned from an investigation of human rights abuses in Afghanistan.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
A few questions for discussion:
What are some of the techniques this writer uses in her conclusion?
Her introduction?
What “comes back” in the conclusion?
How does the conclusion look forward?
98
Conclusions Exercise
Below are the opening paragraphs of two opinion pieces from the Washington Post. See
if you can draft a concluding paragraph that uses some of the techniques we’ve talked
about in class. Hint: In the actual pieces, both writers returned to images they mention in
the first paragraph or two.
Nothing Exceeds Like Excess
By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, November 5, 2003; Page A29
Ours is an era of excess. It's everywhere—in my case, just around the corner. Someone is
building a three-floor "mansion." An architect friend estimates the floor area at about 6,600
square feet, roughly triple the size of a median new home (2,100 square feet in 2002). The
roofline seems about 8 to 10 feet above the surrounding homes, which look like shacks next to
their new neighbor. The question about this home is not why people spend so much to build
something so oversized but what they are going to do with all the space. A similar question
applies to Dick Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, and his $140
million pay package. What is he going to do with all the money?
Some of the article’s major subclaims or points:
The answer is that the excess itself is the point.
Becoming a millionaire once signified great wealth. No more. Millionaires are too ordinary.
It's not enough to be a millionaire if the idea is to have stuff or do things that most of your pals
and peers don't or can't—to set yourself apart.
In 1980 only 4.5 percent of Americans bought "luxury" cars—mainly Cadillacs and Lincolns….
So far in 2003, "luxury" vehicles (including Lexuses, other new brands and Mercedeses and
BMWs) account for 10.5 percent of sales.
With the trappings of success so common, the race for distinction grows more frustrating.
And the conclusion is …..
99
Fight Less, Win More
By Nathaniel Fick
Washington Post
Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page B01
On a highway north of Kabul last month, an American soldier aimed a machine gun at my car
from the turret of his armored Humvee. In the split second for which our eyes locked, I had a
revelation: To a man with a weapon, everything looks like a threat.
I had served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan in 2001-02 and in Iraq in 2003, but
this was my first time on the other end of an American machine gun. It's not something I'll
forget. It's not the sort of thing ordinary Afghans forget, either, and it reminded me that heavyhanded military tactics can alienate the people we're trying to help while playing into the hands
of the people we're trying to defeat.
Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare -- the kind of war you
win by not shooting.
Some of the subclaims and points from the article:
The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to
persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause.
The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding
creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems.
The second pillar [is that the] more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be
effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people.
The third paradox … is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian
casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have
probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes.
The … final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in
Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war.
And the conclusion is …
100
101
Actual Conclusions:
Samuelson
As old privileges expire, great exertions are needed to invent new ones. Keeping up with
the Rockefellers and Gateses is a stressful and often self-defeating struggle. Grasso got
his money and lost his reputation. But the quest is deeply rooted in the culture. In 25
years, all the homes in my neighborhood—which now seem normal and adequate—will
have been demolished for bigger replacements that will then seem normal and adequate.
People will need something else to impress. It will drive them to excess.
Fick
Winning that consent will require doing some difficult and uncomfortable things: deescalating military force, boosting the capacities of the Karzai government, accelerating
reconstruction, getting real with Pakistan. It won't be easy. But the alternative, which I
glimpsed while staring down the barrel of that machine gun, is our nation going zero for
two in its first wars of the new century.
102
All done?
103
U.S. Drinking Age Reading Packet
Accessed through Lexis-Nexis at the University of Virginia Library on 15 May 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education
April 6, 2007 Friday
Pg. 35 Vol. 53 No. 31
“Taking On 21”
by PAULA WASLEY
John M. McCardell Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College, is a
respected Civil War scholar. His lectures on the Gettysburg Address command
large audiences at alumni meetings, and his seminars on the war always attract
eager undergraduates.
Recently the genteel academic threw himself into another conflict. Call it
the Battle of the Binge.
Mr. McCardell believes that underage drinking is one of the most pernicious
problems on college campuses. He also believes that lowering the drinking age to
18 would significantly reduce the harmful effects of alcohol consumption among
students. In January he founded Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit group that
seeks to start a grass-roots movement to change drinking-age laws.
He proposes giving "drinking licenses" to 18- to 20-year-olds who complete an
alcohol-education program, which he compares to driver-education classes. Such a
plan, he says, would allow parents and educators to become role models for
responsible drinking and to educate young people about the effects of alcohol.
If teenagers who violated drinking laws forfeited their eligibility for the
drinking license, he says, it would create a strong incentive for them to abide
by the law.
On a March evening, Mr. McCardell is here in Denver to charm potential
donors, sway university administrators, and court student leaders. It is his
first stop on a national tour, an effort he hopes will prompt "an informed and
dispassionate conversation" about underage drinking.
At a private reception with local business and community leaders, he compares
his nascent campaign with Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. Lincoln, he says,
described the war as a test of the proposition that all men are created equal.
Mr. McCardell wants to test his own proposition that, after 22 years, the
current legal minimum drinking age has had a host of unintended consequences.
"Most of those effects have been negative," he says. "We have come here to
test the degree to which folks like you feel strongly, as I do, that the law
needs to be changed."
Reactions to Mr. McCardell's message vary. Some observers describe his
venture as brave. Others call it quixotic. His opponents say it's downright
dangerous.
104
Reconsidering the Law
During his 13 years as president of Middlebury, Mr. McCardell dealt with his
share of campus alcohol problems: Students who drank themselves sick. Pressure
from the town to crack down on off-campus partying. Complaints from parents who
said the college's alcohol code punished students too severely for participating
in the rites of young adulthood.
Mr. McCardell came to resent the drinking-age law, which he believes fosters
a culture of surreptitious, high-risk drinking and forces administrators to
choose between policing their students and looking the other way.
He also believes that behind the closed doors of dormitory rooms and
fraternities, a few drinks are likely to turn into several, increasing the odds
of alcohol-related death and injury, assault, date rape, and vandalism.
"Legal-age 21," he says, "creates a situation where the risks are increased and
the ability of any of us to manage those risks is put into jeopardy."
While he was president, Mr. McCardell kept those views to himself. But two
months after retiring, in 2004, he published an opinion column in The New York
Times denouncing the drinking age as "bad social policy and terrible law." The
piece caught the eye of Julian Robertson, founder of the Robertson Foundation, a
philanthropic organization, which gave Mr. McCardell a $50,000 grant to study
the effects of the law.
A year's worth of research confirmed Mr. McCardell's suspicions, he says. He
challenges the conventional wisdom about the drinking law's positive effects.
For instance, proponents of the law credit it with saving lives, citing
statistics showing that the number of drunk-driving fatalities has decreased
during the last two decades.
But Mr. McCardell says that conclusion ignores other changes that occurred
during that period, including advances in seat-belt and airbag safety, stricter
drunken-driving laws, and a sustained public-information campaign about the
dangers of driving after drinking. "If we're going to talk about cause and
effect," he says, "we can't be selective in determining cause-and-effect
relationships."
If anything, he says, the drinking age has only postponed the problem of
drunken driving, since the greatest number of alcohol-related car crashes occur
among 21-year-olds. "Seat belts have saved more lives in two years than
legal-age 21 has saved in 22 years," he says.
Researchers have overlooked the fact that the current drinking age has led to
more reckless underage drinking, Mr. McCardell argues. "Binge drinking is a
problem that didn't exist 21 years ago," he says, citing studies showing that
while fewer college students drink today than a decade ago, those who do are
drinking excessively, with sometimes fatal consequences.
According to data collected by Henry Wechsler, a researcher at the Harvard
School of Public Health who studies the drinking habits of college students, the
number of 18- to 20-year-olds who have been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning
has increased significantly in the past 10 years. Other surveys indicate that
nearly half of college students who drink say they do so to get drunk.
"There are parents who have lost a child to alcohol-related incidents that
have nothing to do with drunk driving," Mr. McCardell says, "and everything to
do with environments created on college campuses by legal-age 21."
105
Mr. McCardell is taking on a law that owes much to Mothers Against Drunk
Driving. The Texas-based organization has an annual budget of $53-million and
considerable political clout.
Until the 1980s, states had varying minimum legal drinking ages. During the
Vietnam War, more than half of the states allowed people to drink at 18, 19, or
20. In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, declaring
that states with drinking ages lower than 21 would forfeit 10 percent of their
federal highway funds. One by one the states complied -- the result, in part, of
MADD's lobbying efforts -- and the debate over the drinking age fell silent.
The organization's leaders see no reason to break that silence. Charles A.
Hurley, MADD's chief executive officer, calls Mr. McCardell's proposition a
"cavalier recommendation ... guided more by philosophy than science."
He faults Mr. McCardell's interpretation of federal drunken-driving
statistics. Analyzed correctly, Mr. Hurley says, those numbers prove that the
drinking-age law saves 1,000 lives a year. "This isn't fundamentally an issue of
opinion," he says. "It is literally a matter of life and death."
Mr. Hurley agrees with Mr. McCardell that heavy drinking is a serious problem
on campuses but says there are no data to suggest that lowering the legal age
would alleviate it. "The fact is, legal-age 21 is working better in blue-collar
America than in Ivy League America," he says.
Support From Researchers
Mr. McCardell is also treading in the domain of several prominent health
researchers who support stricter enforcement of the age-21 law.
William DeJong, a professor at Boston University's School of Public Health
and a former director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug
Abuse and Violence Prevention, in Newton, Mass., worries that lowering the
drinking age would increase high-school students' access to alcohol and displace
the problems of underage drinking to a younger and even more vulnerable
population. He accuses Mr. McCardell of cherry-picking research that supports
his view.
For example, he says, Mr. McCardell has overlooked data showing an increase
in drunken-driving deaths in states where the drinking age was lowered in the
1970s.
"Age-21 law is the most defensible public-health policy we have when it comes
to dealing with youth alcohol problems," Mr. DeJong says. "To strip away that
effective policy and replace it with an education program that research suggests
won't succeed is just dangerous."
Mixed Reviews
Mr. McCardell's biggest opponent may be apathy. In the decades since the
minimum drinking age was enacted, the American public has accepted it as the
status quo.
"I don't see that there's a public outcry to change the age back, and
therefore the likeliness of it is slim," says Drew Hunter, executive director of
the Bacchus and Gamma Peer Education Network, a national association of college
health educators. He believes that Mr. McCardell would be better off working
106
within the framework of the current law to reduce harm on campuses through
programs like peer education.
Underage students -- most of whom get alcohol from older friends or with fake
ID's -- have little reason to challenge the current law.
"Students will drink alcohol regardless," says Brandon E. Collins, a
20-year-old junior at St. John's University, in New York, and a peer educator
for Bacchus. "It doesn't matter what the age is."
He thinks lowering the drinking age is a bad idea. Recalling that his
freshman-year roommate was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, he says students
already get themselves into enough trouble with alcohol, regardless of their
age. Lowering the drinking age, he believes, would cause more recklessness and
mayhem on campuses.
Jack R. Gilles, a junior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, favors
changing the law, provided that teenagers receive a better education about the
risks of alcohol use. Three years ago, Mr. Gilles rushed a fraternity with a
friend and neighbor, Gordie Bailie. The morning after their initiation, Mr.
Bailie was found dead of alcohol poisoning. Now Mr. Gilles heads a Boulder group
that teaches college and high-school students about the warning signs of alcohol
poisoning.
The penalties associated with underage drinking dissuade many students from
getting help if they see their friends in trouble, Mr. Gilles argues. Lowering
the drinking age, he says, would allow for more safety controls, such as
requiring bars and fraternities to have someone present who is trained to handle
alcohol-related health emergencies.
"When drinking is done illegally or underground, that potential does not
exist," he says. "The best you can hope for now is that somebody happens to be
there who knows what they're talking about."
'They Don't Listen to Me'
Mr. McCardell believes he can sway administrators who are on the front lines
of campus drinking issues.
He already has the vote of J. Lee Peters, vice president for student affairs
at the University of Hartford. Mr. Peters says the current law undermines his
relationship with students by forcing him to spend time catching and punishing
underage drinkers instead of educating them about responsible alcohol use. If
the drinking age were lower, he says, he could focus on bad behavior associated
with drinking, rather than on the drinking itself.
As the enforcer of what students consider an unfair law, "I become an
illegitimate resource, and they don't listen to me when I tell them they
shouldn't binge drink or you shouldn't have more than one or two drinks per
hour," he says. "The law actually gets in the way of us trying to teach them
something."
Robert N. Maust, a student-affairs coordinator at Boulder, agrees that a
lowered drinking age, if phased in slowly, might make interactions between
students and administrators less adversarial.
But such a change would also increase colleges' responsibility to ensure that
students drink in safe and supervised environments, he warns. "If we do not help
give direction to new policies and laws and just hope that people understand and
107
abide by them, the culture still takes over ..." he says. "Making sure there are
education and incentives and disincentives to go along with the whole plan is
exactly the right way to go."
Mr. McCardell says he is prepared to submit his proposition to public
scrutiny. In the coming months, he hopes to challenge the notion that cracking
down harder on underage drinking is a sound policy for colleges.
"It is naïve to believe that 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds are not going to
drink," he says. "The question before us isn't do they or don't they drink,
should they or shouldn't they, but how to make it the safest environment for
these young people."
Accessed through Lexis-Nexis at the University of Virginia Library on 15 May 2007
Washingtonpost.com
April 19, 2007 Thursday 12:00 AM EST
SECTION: OPINION
“Drinking Age Paradox”
by George F. Will
Public policy often illustrates the law of unintended consequences. Society's
complexity -- multiple variables with myriad connections -- often causes the
consequences of a policy to be contrary to, and larger than, the intended ones.
So, when assessing government actions, one should be receptive to
counterintuitive ideas. One such is John McCardell's theory that a way to lower
the incidence of illness, mayhem and death from alcohol abuse by young people is
to lower the drinking age.
McCardell, 57, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont and a
professor of history there, says alcohol is and always will be "a reality in the
lives of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds." Studies indicate that the number of college
students who drink is slightly smaller than it was 10 years ago, largely because
of increased interest in healthful living. But in the majority who choose to
drink, there have been increases of "binge drinking" and other excesses.
Hospitalizations of 18- to 20-year-olds for alcohol poisoning have risen in
those 10 years.
This, McCardell believes, is partly because the drinking age of 21 has moved
drinking to settings away from parental instruction and supervision. Among
college students, drinking has gone "off campus and underground," increasing
risks while decreasing institutions' abilities to manage the risks.
Although all 50 states ban drinking by persons under 21, technically there is
no national drinking age. Each state has the right to set a lower age -- more
than half had lower age limits in the 1970s -- but doing so will cost it 10
percent of its federal highway funds and cause significant uproar from
contractors and construction unions.
This pressure on the states by the federal government was put in place in
1984, under Ronald Reagan. He was famously susceptible to moving anecdotes, and
108
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, founded in 1980, had a tragically large arsenal
of them. MADD has been heroically successful in changing social norms, nudging
society toward wholesome intolerance of the idea that intoxication is amusing
(today, the 1981 movie "Arthur," featuring Dudley Moore as a lovable lush, is
embarrassing) and that drunken driving is a peccadillo.
The hope was that a drinking age of 21 would solve two problems. One was that
of "blood borders" between states with different drinking ages: People from
age-21 states drove into neighboring states with lower drinking ages, then drove
home impaired. The other problem was immature and reckless drinking. The hope
was that proscribing drinking by people under 21 would substantially delay
drinking until that age.
That theory, McCardell believes, has been slain by facts. What is needed now
is some "mechanism other than moral suasion" to regulate alcohol use by the
under-21 cohort.
The drinking age of 21 was one of 39 measures proposed during the 1980s by a
presidential commission on drunken driving; various measures adopted did
dramatically reduce the problem. But according to the National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, about 5,000 people under 21 die every year from
vehicular accidents, other injuries, homicides and suicides involving underage
drinking. Supporters of the drinking age of 21 say there is nothing wrong with
the law that better enforcement could not cure.
McCardell thinks that, on campuses, a drinking age of 21 infantilizes
students, encouraging immature behavior with alcohol and disrespect for law
generally. Furthermore, an "enforcement only" policy makes school
administrations adversaries of students and interferes with their attempts to
acquaint students with pertinent information, such as the neurological effects
of alcohol on young brains. He notes that 18-year-olds have a right to marry,
adopt children, serve as legal guardians for minors and purchase firearms from
authorized dealers, and are trusted with the vote and military responsibilities.
So, he says, it is not unreasonable to think that they can, with proper
preparation, be trusted to drink.
McCardell -- gray hair, gray suit, soft voice; he says he is a "social
drinker" -- and his group, Choose Responsibility, suggest merely that drinking
by 18-year-olds be treated like driving by young people: as an activity
requiring a license earned after instruction, with provisions for suspending the
license when the right it confers is abused.
Students may not care about McCardell's cause because they have little
trouble finding fake IDs or getting older friends to purchase their alcohol. His
strongest argument, however, may be that delaying legal drinking until 21 merely
delays tragedies that might be prevented with earlier instruction in temperance.
The age that has the most drunken driving fatalities? Twenty-one.
109
From Monitoring the Future Web site
Accessed 15 May 2007
Full document available at:
http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/occpapers/occ28.pdf
“MINIMUM DRINKING AGE LAWS:
EFFECTS ON AMERICAN YOUTH 1976-1987”
Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 28
Patrick M. O’Malley
Alexander C. Wagenaar
Institute for Social Research
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
1990
From Page v:
ABSTRACT
The research described in this report had two separate but related purposes: (1) to delineate
cross-sectional differences among American high school seniors and young adults that may be
due to variations in recent years in state-level minimum drinking age laws, and (2) to examine
the effects of recent changes in minimum drinking age laws on alcohol consumption, and on
other relevant attitudes and behaviors.
The analyses utilize existing data collected by the Monitoring the Future project, an ongoing
study involving (a) annual, nationally representative surveys of 15,000 to 19,000 high school
seniors, and (b) annual follow-up surveys by mail of recent graduates. Thus, it was possible to
assess the effects of different minimum drinking ages on young people in the critically important
age range from 17 to over 21.
A separate, coordinated part of the research utilized official reports to examine effects on rates of
fatal crashes following increases in the minimum drinking age in several states. These official
report data are compared with the findings from self-report data available from high school
seniors.
The major findings are: (1) higher minimum drinking ages are associated with lower levels of
alcohol use among high school seniors and recent high school graduates, even after multivariate
controls; (2) lower levels of alcohol use are observed across a broad spectrum of demographic
variables; (3) the lower levels of use persist into the early 20’s, even though everyone is of legal
age; (4) lowered involvement in alcohol-related fatal crashes among drivers less than 21 years of
age appears due to less drinking of alcohol—in particular, less drinking in bars or taverns.
110
From Page 31:
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
What can we conclude from the results of the various analyses described above? Perhaps the
principal conclusion is that a minimum drinking age of 21 versus a minimum drinking age of 18
does indeed affect the behavior of high school seniors; it leads to lower consumption of alcohol.
The several studies cited earlier (page 5) have demonstrated rather conclusively that alcohol
involved highway crashes decline among the 18 to 20 year old population, and the present
research makes it clear that the decline is directly due to lower levels of consumption. And it
also seems clear that a major factor in the reduced rate of crashes is that the under- 21 group
spend less time in bars and taverns when the minimum drinking age is 21. Another contribution
of the present research is that the lower rates of drinking appear to be continued as young adults
mature, at least through the early twenties. Thus, the lowered rates of drinking in the 18- 20 age
range are not compensated for by a higher rate of drinking after enfranchisement is achieved.
From Page 33:
Although the empirical data seem clear in showing a salutary effect of a high minimum drinking
age, it can be argued on other grounds that minimum drinking ages should not be set at 21 when
so many other “adult” roles can be assumed at age 18. On the surface, it seems unfair to many
observers to allow 18-20 year olds to marry, to have children, to own cars and homes and
firearms, to be financially and socially independent, and yet to be legally prohibited from
drinking a glass of wine in a restaurant, or even a glass of champagne at their own wedding. A
number of observers have worried about the effect this seemingly inconsistent situation may
have. By stretching out adolescence (that is, by holding back the time when full adulthood is
achieved), are we creating other problems? These issues may continue to be debated. The
contribution of the present research is to demonstrate that whatever one wishes to make of other
factors, there is a clear specific effect of a higher minimum drinking age: there is less drinking
and consequently fewer fatalities. The effects are really rather modest; nevertheless, modest
differences in rates of drinking can be very important, particularly when those differences lead to
lowered rates of fatal crashes. However, it should also be remembered that drinking remains a
popular activity among high school seniors, even when the minimum drinking age is 21.
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Accessed through Lexis-Nexis at the University of Virginia Library on 15 May 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
March 22, 2007 Thursday
SECTION: METRO; Pg. S-2
“LOWER DRINKING AGE TO FOSTER RESPONSIBLE DRINKERS”
by Ruth Ann Dailey
If we want to stop the alarming rise in the number of high school and college
kids abusing alcohol and drugs, we have to figure out first why they're doing
it.
Chances are pretty good the fault lies with us grown-ups, but not
necessarily, or only, for the reasons we might first assume.
Mt. Lebanon District Judge Blaise Larotonda spoke out last week about the
serious upswing in underage drinking arrests in his district. The numbers nearly
doubled from 2005 to 2006, rising from 106 to 199. The first two months of 2007
have already seen 51 arrests.
Commenting on some parents' worries that no-partying rules will make them
hypocrites or harm their kids' social lives, Judge Larotonda said, "Sorry.
You're a parent. That's what your job is." Amen to that.
But the numbers don't improve once the kids are out of their parents' houses.
Last month, Columbia University released a study showing that 49 percent of
full-time college students abuse drugs or alcohol or both.
While the share of the college population engaging in this behavior is no
greater than in 1993, the frequency of their bingeing has increased, including a
26 percent rise in the number of students who get drunk at least three times a
month.
Let's set aside abuse of illegal or prescription drugs, and limit ourselves
to asking, "Why are so many kids heavy drinkers?" Maybe, in part, for the same
reasons their parents are. It's self-medication, a liquid fix for anxiety,
depression, alienation or despair: You name it, alcohol will help you forget it.
But the study also shows that 23 percent of full-time students meet the
medical threshold for substance abuse or dependence -- 21/2 times the rate in
the general population. Our kids aren't just drinking like we do, they're
drinking much more than we do, and most of them are under age.
The next logical question is: Are we adults fostering unhealthy attitudes
toward alcohol among our young people? Other studies support my hunch that we
are, especially when considered alongside recent history.
Here's the thumbnail sketch: Until Prohibition was enacted in 1919, drinking
was not regulated. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, most states
established a minimum drinking age of 21.
In 1970, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18, a change that
coincided with the Vietnam War and the draft for all men 18 and older. This
redefinition of American adulthood led to the familiar complaint: "I'm old
enough to vote and go to war but not to discuss it over a beer?"
By 1974, 29 states had lowered their drinking age to 18, but differences from
state to state led to border-crossing and a rise in teenage drunk-driving. By
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the mid '80s the federal government stepped in to mandate 21 as the national
standard.
Indiana University professor Ruth Engs released a 1989 study showing that
young adults' alcohol abuse actually increased markedly after the nationwide
raising of the drinking age. In 20 years of studies, she's repeatedly found that
significantly more underage drinkers than college students of legal age are
heavy drinkers. These findings underscore the truth of human nature that making
something forbidden increases its allure.
When Columbia University released its recent study, Joseph Califano, former
U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare, accused college officials of
being "Pontius Pilates" who have "facilitated a college culture of alcohol and
drug abuse."
On the contrary, the bravest and wisest educators are pointing out that
"latter-day prohibitionists" have driven drinking underground, making it more
attractive and more dangerous.
University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor Roderic Park proposed a return to
the lower drinking age as early as 1996, advocating a system of education and
permits that mirrors our approach to driving. Middlebury (Vt.) College President
John McCardell wrote an essay for The New York Times in 2004 arguing that
"colleges should be given the chance to educate students, who in all other
respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol."
That's how it was when I attended college in the early 1980s. University
officials chaperoned "social mixers" where beer was available. I was still a
teetotaller then, and the most responsible drinker I knew was the friend who'd
had wine at her parents' dinner table since her early teens.
Statistics from other cultures bear out the benefits of moderation. A recent
European Union study reveals that the countries where moderate daily drinking is
the norm (Italy, Spain and France) have the fewest binge drinkers (2, 2, and 8
percent, compared to 34 percent in Ireland and 27 percent in Finland).
We'll never get rid of all substance abuse. But if we adopt a more reasonable
approach to alcohol and adulthood, we can eliminate much of the drinking born of
simple defiance and focus our attention on the kids who really need help: the
ones drinking to escape mental, emotional or spiritual problems. They deserve
better than what we've given.
“Should the U.S. Drinking Age be 21?”
Accessed through Lexis-Nexis at the University of Virginia Library on 15 May 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
April 5, 2007
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. S-3
“SIMPLISTIC APPROACH”
by ROSA DAVIS
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Last week Ruth Ann Dailey suggested lowering the drinking age "to foster
responsible drinkers." Her simplistic approach does a disservice to an extremely
complicated topic.
As the director of POWER [Pennsylvania Organization for Women in Early Recovery],
an organization that provides gender-specialized alcohol and other drug treatment and support
to women struggling with substance use disorders, I strongly disagree with her suggestion.
Ms. Dailey acknowledges that perhaps most people drink to self-medicate. I
agree; this notion is well supported by research and is particularly relevant
for women. So the critical question is how would lowering the drinking age
change that fact in any way? She also says that it's human nature that makes the
forbidden more alluring. I think we're way past a simple explanation given that
23% of full-time students meet the diagnosis for substance abuse compared to 2.5% of the
general population.
Ms. Dailey goes on to ask if adults are fostering unhealthy attitudes toward
alcohol among our young people and links the increase in use to the history of
prohibition and again the attraction to the forbidden.
Yes, we as adults are fostering unhealthy attitudes but not because it's
"underground" or "forbidden" but because we have created a culture that includes
alcohol and other drugs in almost every aspect of our lives.
Alcohol and other legal and illegal drugs change the way we feel, think and
act. If we're unlucky enough to be biologically predisposed to addiction, what
happens after our first use may be totally out of our control, whether that
first experience happens at age 14, 18, or 21.
While I laud Ms. Dailey for putting the issue of addiction and its causes on
the table for discussion, she would have done more justice to the millions of
individuals who suffer from the disease, and their devastated families who
struggle to support but not enable their stricken family member, by asking
thought-provoking questions and challenging all of us to think and act
creatively as we seek to find effective, lasting approaches to this frightening,
modern-day epidemic.
NOTES: The writer is executive director of POWER
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Honor Readings
Accessed from www.cavalierdaily.com on 5 May 2007
Cavalier Daily
September 26, 2006
“Honoring the honor system”
By Maryann Li, Cavalier Daily Columnist
Tradition has always been one of the most defining characteristics of our University. When
talking about our school, we reinforce the idea that we have a "living history" -- that the
principles Jefferson used to found the University are the same today as they were in 1819.
One of the best examples of this "living history" is the honor system.
There are lots of myths surrounding the honor system, from long ago and still today.
Debunking these myths can help us to better understand its importance as a foundation of our
University culture.
Myth: Thomas Jefferson invented the honor system as a way to ensure that his students
would be models of gentlemanly behavior.
Thomas Jefferson was dead long before the honor system was created. At the time of his
death, he was very disappointed in the rowdy behavior of his students.
Contrary to his vision of a dignified Southern gentleman, the University's first students were
lazy drunkards whose favorite pastime was "calathumping." Instead of streaking, they rode up
and down the Lawn on their horses, shooting off guns.
On Nov. 12, 1840, a group of students were calathumping on the Lawn as Prof. John Davis
was walking back to his Lawn room. As he tried to quiet the students, one of them shot and
killed him.
The students and faculty were shocked. On July 4, 1842, Prof. Henry St. George Tucker
proposed the idea of an honor system to ameliorate the student-faculty tension.
Myth: The honor system has always been the same from its inception.
Tucker's honor system consisted of each student writing this statement on their written
answer: "I, A.B., do hereby certify on my honor that I have derived no assistance during the
time of this examination from any source whatsoever."
The students were so passionate about being graded fairly for their work that they took more
responsibility for the system. During the Civil War, the honor system evolved into a
gentleman's code of conduct.
As the student population grew, the honor system continued to evolve. Today, it is the studentgoverned code of "no lying, cheating or stealing" that creates our community of trust. It has
been student-run for over 146 years.
Myth: Very few people have honor cases initiated against them.
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Last year, 70 cases were investigated. As a result, six students left admitting guilt and 35 trials
were initiated, resulting in 17 guilty verdicts.
One of the most famous cases in honor history is the "Bloomfield Trial." In April 2001, Prof.
Lou Bloomfield initiated 158 honor cases from his "How Things Work" course. Twenty-eight of
those students left admitting guilt, and 20 were found guilty.
Myth: The honor system has been controversy-free until recently.
The honor system has always been challenged by the University student body. Referenda on
the single sanction come up about every five years.
Several law suits have been filed against the University as a result of the honor trials. On Nov.
30, 1999, Jonathan Cobb brought a $1.05 million lawsuit against the University for refusing to
give him an appeal and not giving him an honor advisor until the fall semester after he was
charged in March.
Throughout its history, the honor system has experienced ups and downs, faced challenges
and worked to overcome them. Regardless, it has remained a strong presence in our
University culture. By taking responsibility for the honor system, believing in it and challenging
its weaknesses, it will continue to evolve to establish a community of trust of which Jefferson
can be proud.
Maryann is a University Guide. Her column runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. She can be reached
at maryann@cavalierdaily.com.
Accessed from www.cavalierdaily.com on 5 May 2007
“One strike, you're out”
By Christopher Smith And Christie Graham
Cavalier Daily
March 20, 2003
WE BELIEVE that two characteristics distinguish the University's honor system from the
multiplicity of honor systems in this country. First and most importantly, our honor system is
completely student-run—at no point is the administration directly involved. The other
distinguishing characteristic of our system is the single sanction, which flows from student selfgovernance. The sole sanction for students convicted of an honor offense is expulsion
because the students of this institution have chosen it to be so. Neither the Board of Visitors
nor the administration mandates the sanction: It is completely the choice of the student body.
Since it is our choice, it is important that the single sanction remain an integral part of the
continuing dialogue about the honor system.
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Tradition is important at our University, and our single sanction honor system is certainly part
of University history. While tradition may be important, it is not a sufficient reason for
continuing our sanction. The single sanction should not be continued out of mere inertia. We
believe that it should continue because it is the best policy for our honor system at this time.
Many other representatives of the Honor Committee, including Thomas Bird (SCPS),
Christopher Blythe (GSBA), Joe Gay (SEAS), Charles Leddy (GSBA) and Saket Narula (SCC)
have expressed their support for the single sanction.
From the very beginning of our student experience here, we are told the importance of living
up to the high standards of honor and academic integrity. The severity of the single sanction
stresses this importance. Some consider this to be an onerous burden and a sanction too
harsh for some honor offenses; however, it is important to remember that there is an
extremely easy way to avoid the single sanction. We simply ask that our students not lie, cheat
or steal. These are simple rules to follow, and the resulting benefits are enormous. Living in a
community of trust for several years, where the expectation of honesty is uncompromising, not
only provides tangible benefits, such as unproctored exams, but also provides an education in
and of itself. Our honor system and its sanction are an important part of a University of Virginia
education.
The honor system is not a negative freedom; it is a positive one. It is the freedom to trust, and
the single sanction preserves this freedom. Because of the single sanction, we know that no
student currently at the University and no students who have graduated from this institution in
the last 160 years have been convicted of an honor offense. This leads to the respect and
trust of University students around Grounds and around the country. There are students at the
University who have committed an honor offense and have not been brought up on Honor
charges; the honor system is not perfect. Many multiple sanction systems, however, have
similar problems: Students are reluctant to initiate cases, and faculty handle infractions outside
the system. These are common problems across honor systems with several different
sanction structures.
When honor cases are initiated, the single sanction provides the ultimate consistency within
our honor system, as all honor convictions are treated equally. This consistency eliminates the
possibility of bias at the sanctioning stage of a trial. Certainly, the severity of the sanction
requires that we provide extensive due-process rights to accused students, and we believe
that the provision of these rights ensures the fairness of our system, a sound practice under
any sanction. Furthermore, in a multiple sanction system, it is possible that some students
might receive a different sanction for an identical offense due to their particular status within
the University. The issue of spotlighting has often been raised, and it is truly an important one.
While the honor system works fervently to combat the external bias of spotlighting, we should
not open up a possibility of internal bias by removing the single sanction.
The single sanction manifests the great importance placed on honor at this institution. Before
the University rose to national prominence, a University degree signified that the recipient bore
the honor of the institution. Although the significance of the degree has grown to encompass
many other accomplishments, the existence of the single sanction continues to exhibit to
employers, graduate programs and even friends the importance placed on honor here. In a
world of Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia, honor is a valuable commodity.
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We, the students, have single ownership of our stance on the importance of academic and
personal integrity. It is our belief that each of us is capable of an unwavering commitment to
honesty, and for this reason we deserve nothing less than to choose for ourselves the highest
standards possible.
The single sanction is an important issue regardless of one's opinion. With the upcoming open
forum on the single sanction, hopefully there will be an increase in public discourse about this
issue.
(Christopher Smith is a fourth-year College student and chairman of the Honor Committee.
Christie Graham is a fourth year in the Commerce School and the Vice-Chair for Investigations
for the Honor Committee.)
Accessed from www.cavalierdaily.com on 5 May 2007
Sept. 13, 2002
“No honor in saving single sanction”
Preston Lloyd
Cavalier Daily
RECENTLY, the Honor Committee announced that it would soon be reevaluating the single
sanction. Darden School Rep. Lamont Soverall proposed that once students leave the
community of trust, we should not shut the door permanently, but instead be open to the
possibility of re-enrollment. Although we constantly should be evaluating the place honor holds
in our culture, this debate is headed in the wrong direction. Instead, the discussion should
center around the single sanction itself. Because of a lack of student participation in the honor
system, the Honor Committee should revoke the single sanction.
The honor system is a glorious ideal for which alumni and students alike hold a great amount
of esteem. However, the system has become threatened over the years by an increasingly
litigious society and a changing demographic of students at the University itself. The first
threat has been defeated in the courts time after time, as suits against the student-run system
fail to win the support of the law.
The second threat results from a change that the University has sought with incredible vigor: a
diverse and eclectic student body. The University today welcomes students from every
imaginable background, culture, geographic region and socioeconomic sphere. Our institution
has come a long way from the finishing school where white landowners of the Commonwealth
sent their sons. Even in the time since our parents' generation matriculated, the University has
increased in size by a third and admitted women and minorities. The student body has gone
from holding a homogeneous ethic of southern chivalry, where an honor offense might include
insulting a lady, to a culture of diverse belief systems. This evolution challenged the honor
system to the point where a formal constitution had to be drafted in the late '70s to map out
exactly how the system would function.
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As a result of this ever-diversifying environment, it is much more difficult to find similar ideas of
honor among students. What to one student might validate expulsion for dishonorable conduct
might to another seem overly draconian. Herein lies the dilemma within the honor system.
Although random students on a jury panel are encouraged to first judge whether a student has
intentionally committed a dishonorable act, Honor Committee Chairman Thomas Hall believes
that some simply judge whether the act warrants dismissal from the University. This, combined
with the lack of precedent in honor cases, could lead to inconsistent decisions. Students
accused of cheating on petty homework assignments or quizzes are acquitted, if they are even
reported to the Committee in the first place.
Teachers and graduate assistants only will endure the frustratingly long process of initiating a
case for a short period of time when the accused are acquitted so frequently. Students initiate
less than 25 percent of cases because they do not want to be responsible for the dismissal of
a peer.
Ideologically, it makes sense that our system acknowledges honorable conduct as universal
and implies that such a concept cannot be broken into a continuum of small infractions versus
large infractions. However, this is unrealistic. The idea of a single response to dishonorable
conduct is pleasing and may have functioned well in an earlier time at the University, but the
all-or-nothing system of a single sanction is only a hopeful relic at the University today.
Let us retune the Honor Committee to a system that engages students to encourage
honorable conduct among themselves. The honor system should drop the single sanction and
employ a range of verdicts appropriate to the "seriousness" of a given case, already a criterion
in honor trials. Then students will be held responsible for all implications of honor. This will
actually achieve what was intended in the single sanction: Students will begin to hold their
peers responsible for a range of honorable conduct. A student will have the ability to bring a
peer up on honor charges, thereby helping the accused student learn from a transgression,
instead of potentially terminating the student's academic career at the University.
As the Committee begins to debate the single sanction in the coming months, let us hope that
the focus of the discussion will stay at the central issue to preserving our honor system:
dismantling the single sanction all together. That way the honor system will still be in existence
long after we leave this institution, and it will be the same source of pride and inspiration as it
is to the alumni of today.
“Faculty Survey on the UVA Honor System, 2006”
These selections taken off Web site 05 May 2007.
Full survey appears at http://www.virginia.edu/surveys/honor/
Overview of Results UVa Faculty Survey on the Honor System
In the Fall of 2005, the University of Virginia's Honor Committee and the UVa Center for
Survey Research conducted a survey of UVa faculty. The results of the Faculty Survey on the
Honor System offer a unique look at the current views of faculty about the system and their
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experiences with it in recent years. The Honor Committee and the Office of the Vice President
and Provost provided funding for the effort.
The survey was undertaken to determine how the faculty’s understanding of the Honor System
affects its interactions within the "Community of Trust." The survey had three specific goals:
To collect information on the knowledge, experience, and perceptions of the faculty;
To evaluate the correlation between the faculty’s knowledge, experience and perceptions; and
To create a forum to provide feedback from the faculty to the Honor Committee.
In order to achieve the most accurate measure of faculty opinion possible, the Center for
Survey Research obtained a list of all teaching faculty, including teaching assistants, from the
UVa Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies. Staff at the Center for Survey Research
and the 2005-2006 Honor Committee developed the survey questionnaire. After pre-testing
and revision, the survey was administered via the Internet during February and March 2006. A
total of 1,564 respondents completed the survey, including 1059 faculty members (including
166 adjunct or graduate instructors) and 505 teaching assistants. More than one-half (52.6%)
of eligible teaching faculty responded to the survey.
All schools in the University were represented, with respondents in the School of Arts and
Sciences accounting for nearly half, at 47 percent. Respondents from the School of
Engineering and Applied Science accounted for 10.4 percent of respondents, and 16.7
percent were from the School of Medicine. Slightly more than 2 percent were from the School
of Continuing and Professional Studies, 7.3 percent were from the Curry School of Education,
2 percent were from the McIntire School of Commerce, 2 percent were from the School of
Architecture, and 2.9 percent were from the School of Nursing. The fewest respondents were
from the Graduate School of Business Administration and the School of Law, at 1.9 percent
each. About 6 percent did not identify their school affiliation. The margin of error for the
overall sample is ± 1.7 percentage points.
The results of the survey are summarized below and are treated in detail in the chapters of the
full report.
Knowledge of the Honor System
On the whole, UVa faculty and teaching assistants say they are familiar with the Honor
System, but most think of themselves as only somewhat familiar with it. Responses to factual
questions about what constitutes an Honor offense and what the penalty is for an Honor
offense bear out their self-perception. About 41 percent of the respondents know exactly what
constitutes an honor offense: lying, cheating, or stealing. Slightly more than two-thirds of the
respondents (68%) know that permanent dismissal from the University is the only penalty
applied in the case of a guilty verdict in an Honor trial.
Expressed Support for the Honor System
The survey shows both support for the Honor System and a significant level of opposition to it.
More than two-thirds of respondents (66.3%) express support for the system, including nearly
a third of respondents (30.1%) who say they strongly support the system. A somewhat larger
percent (36.2%) temper their support with reservations. In addition,
12.6 percent are neutral in their view of the system. A total of 17.0 percent of respondents
express opposition to the system, including 10.0 percent who somewhat oppose it, 4.5 percent
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who oppose it and think it should be changed, and 2.5 percent who completely oppose it and
think it should be abolished.
Those 560 respondents who expressed support for the system "with reservations" were asked
to elaborate upon their reservations in an open-ended question. The "single sanction" was
mentioned by 200 (35.9%) of those who have reservations. Other concerns, each noted by
fewer than 10 percent of respondents to this question, include: student abuse of the system,
the time-consuming process, issues of fairness, ineffectiveness of the system, selective
enforcement, lenience in the system, the scope of offenses being too narrow, and lack of
faculty input into the System. Nearly a third of those who said they support the system with
reservations did not provide a response to the open-ended question.
Those who said they are neutral or somewhat opposed the system (N=343) were asked about
their main concerns. Of those, 41 percent did not elaborate, but 25.7 percent mentioned the
single sanction. Other responses, each mentioned by 9 percent of respondents or fewer,
include the belief that the system is ineffective, concerns about fairness, the "seriousness
clause,"1 the time-consuming nature of the process, lack of student reporting of Honor
offenses, the belief that more supervision by adults is required, that it is too hard to convict,
and that faculty are attacked for reporting an Honor offense.
Those who think that the system should be changed were also asked to elaborate. Two-thirds
of them said that the single sanction needs to be abolished, while others call for more faculty
involvement in the Honor Committee, changing the trial process, increasing student support
and adding other misconduct to the list of Honor offenses.
Respondents were also asked to evaluate the level of support of the Honor System they
believe their colleagues express. More than two-thirds of survey respondents believe that their
colleagues support the system, with 24.8 percent reporting that they believe colleagues
strongly support the system. An additional 42.7 percent believe that colleagues support the
system with reservations. Nearly 16 percent said that most of their colleagues are neutral, 10
percent said most do not support it, 6 percent said most oppose it and think it should be
changed, and less than 1 percent said their colleagues think the Honor System should be
abolished. Respondents were asked whether their experience with the Honor System had
affected their impressions of it. Two-thirds (66%) said it has not, while 15 percent said that
their experience with the Honor System has positively affected their impression of it and 18
percent said the effect was negative.
Classroom Discussion of the Honor System
Faculty respondents were asked a series of questions about how the Honor System affects
their teaching methods. Two-thirds reported that they “always” or “regularly” ask students to
sign the Honor pledge on work and tests, and nearly two-thirds regularly (or always) state
clear expectations about honorable conduct on the assignments they give. Nearly half (46.9%)
“always” or “regularly” discuss the Honor code on their course syllabus. Most faculty members
do not regularly give exams without proctoring, and most do not regularly give closed-book or
time-limited take-home exams.
Cheating: Perceived Prevalence and Actual Encounters
A series of questions asked instructors about their perception and experience with cheating in
their courses. Asked about how common they think cheating is in their own courses, the
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survey respondents were quite optimistic, with more than three-quarters (76.7%) stating that
they think cheating is either very uncommon (38.8%) or uncommon (37.9%). Only 1.3 percent
think cheating is very common in their courses, and nearly 13 percent say they don’t know.
Regarding cheating in general at the University, the total who stated that cheating is very
uncommon or uncommon is 44.4 percent. Thirty percent of respondents think cheating is
somewhat common at the University, and 4.3 percent said they think cheating is very
common. Twenty-one percent said they don’t know about its prevalence.
Nearly a third (31.6%) of survey respondents reported that during their employment at the
University, they clearly have observed a student cheating on work for their course. More than
half (55%) of those respondents have observed cheating in the past two years. On the whole
17.5% of respondents have observed cheating in the past two years.
All respondents to the survey were asked whether they have suspected cheating on an exam
or assignment in the past two years. They were asked to exclude from their response any
instances of which they have been certain, and to which the prior question referred. Nearly a
third (32.6 %) said that they have suspected cheating. To summarize: of all respondents thirtynine percent have observed or suspected cheating at least once during the same time period.
Responses to Encounters with Cheating
When cheating is observed, what do teaching faculty at the University do about it? Offered a
list of possible actions, from discussion with colleagues or the student involved to taking
academic action (lowering the grade or failing the student), to involving the Honor Committee,
most faculty members responded that they took more than one action. Only 2.6% said they did
nothing. The majority had discussed it with the student (57.3%) or with colleagues involved in
teaching the course (51.5%). Thirty-four percent discussed it with colleagues not involved in
teaching the course. Forty-one percent failed the student on the assignment. Most faculty and
teaching assistants who observed cheating did not report the incident to the Honor Committee.
Only 16.4 percent did.
When cheating was suspected, a larger proportion (28.3%) did nothing, and 31 percent
discussed it with the student. Less than 1 percent failed the student on the assignment, though
7.3 percent lowered the student's grade. Only 1 percent reported their suspicion to the Honor
Committee, and 1.4 percent reported that they discussed it with an Honor Committee advisor
or representative.
Of the 1,564 survey respondents, 585 (37.4%) have ever observed cheating or suspected
cheating in the past two years but have not reported it to the Honor Committee. Asked why
they did not report these incidents, nearly two-thirds of respondents said that there was not
enough evidence. About 31 percent said that the punishment is too strong for the level of
infraction. Twenty-three percent lack confidence that a guilty student would be punished, and
22 percent said that the process is too time-consuming. Twenty-one percent said that they did
not want to be responsible for the student's dismissal from the University.
Faculty Experience with the Honor System
Those faculty members who have in fact reported a case to the Honor Committee were asked
about their experiences in doing so. Eighty-five percent reported that the Honor Advisors were
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either very helpful or somewhat helpful to them. Asked about the time commitment required,
the majority (53.7%) think that the process is "time-consuming but manageable." Eighty-two
percent of those working with the Honor Committee feel that the student involved was treated
very fairly or somewhat fairly in the process. Only 3.7 percent feel that the student was not
treated fairly at all. Overall, 62.9 percent were satisfied with the process, while 37.1 percent
reported that they were dissatisfied. But, when asked about the outcome, 45.7 percent said
the outcome was just, 32.6 percent said it was not, and 21.7 percent said they were not sure.
Getting Information about the Honor System
The Honor Committee was interested in determining the sources faculty and teaching
assistants use to obtain information about the Honor System. The most common sources of
information are the Honor Committee website, other faculty colleagues, and Honor Committee
members. However, 85.8 percent of faculty and TAs reported that they do not know their
Honor Committee representative (a student elected from their school as a member of the
Honor Committee).
Asked about their preferred methods of communication with the Honor Committee, the
respondents reported that they prefer electronic methods. Nearly half (48.8%) prefer to obtain
information from the website, 40.3 percent prefer a web-based training option, and
35.1 percent mentioned email. Honor Committee presentations at faculty meetings are also
popular, mentioned by 32 percent of survey respondents.
Suggestions for Improvements
Respondents to the survey were asked to identify factors that work to reduce the effectiveness
of the Honor System. More than half of the survey respondents did not reply to this question,
which was open-ended. The single sanction is the most frequently mentioned response, noted
by 16 percent of all survey respondents (including those who did not answer the question).
Other factors mentioned, each by less than 14 percent of those answering the question (and
less than 7 percent of all respondents), are lack of knowledge or communication issues, lack
of enforcement, lack of full support from students, faculty and the administration, time
concerns, UVA culture, perceived biases in the system, distrust of the Honor Committee, the
nature of the trial process, and the seriousness clause that allows for the acquittal of small
offenses.
Suggestions for improvements reflect the respondents' opinions about the factors that reduce
the system's effectiveness. This question was also asked in an open-ended format. In all, 721
respondents provided suggestions for improvement. Nearly 15 percent of all respondents
suggested changing the single sanction by creating alternative punishments. Improving
communication, increasing faculty participation, changing trial procedures, and including other
offenses, such as rape, are also suggestions.
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“Honor for Honor's Sake?”
BYLINE: ERIC HOOVER
The Chronicle of Higher Education
May 3, 2002, Friday
SECTION: STUDENTS; Pg. 35
Accessed via Lexis-Nexis at UVA Library 02 Feb 2004
The graduate student at the University of Virginia had hoped to spend his last semesterplaying
softball, drinking beer, and hanging out with friends. He didn't know that the path to truth would
nearly lead him over the edge.
It all began on a spring morning in 1999 when the student (who asked not to be identified in
this article) received a telephone call from a member of the university's Honor Committee, who
told him he was under investigation for cheating. He hung up the phone feeling weak and sick.
He knew the stakes. UVa's honor code forbids lying, cheating, and stealing, and the only
punishment is permanent expulsion. He had heard about the grueling investigations, the
closed trials. He might have felt the cold grip of guilt, but for one thing: He was innocent.
His accuser was a fellow student and a member of the Honor Committee who claimed to have
seen him using his textbooks while taking a closed-book exam. The professor in the class later
wrote a letter asserting that the student did not cheat and recommending that the matter be
dropped. The Honor Committee, however, pushed the case forward.
For weeks, he did little else besides prepare his defense with two appointed honor counsels.
He pored over the system's arcane rules and procedures. The shrouded interior of the
university's honor system—operating in secrecy and run entirely by students—frightened him.
He stopped studying. He lost his appetite. When he couldn't sleep, he grounded himself by
blasting Grateful Dead albums.
"I was afraid of not graduating, and I was afraid of losing the job I was supposed to start in
August," he says. "Guilt and innocence didn't matter to [the Honor Committee]. All they cared
about was their system. And no one seemed to have any understanding of what would
actually happen to me if I was expelled in my last semester of school."
The case was a fiasco. According to internal committee documents obtained by The
Chronicle, members of the committee at one point denied the student's motion to dismiss the
case after an "exhaustive review" of the key evidence, audiotapes from an evidentiary hearing.
But as the student's honor counsels later discovered, the tapes that the executive members of
the committee claimed to have reviewed in making their decision were almost completely
inaudible; the microphone apparently malfunctioned at the hearing. The committee finally
dismissed his case.
He packed his belongings in a U-Haul and left here the morning of graduation, skipping the
ceremony.
124
Three years later, he is still bitter that the system—in his case—only operated for the system's
sake. "It's a black mark on UVa," he says. "There's a little club of [students] who get to decide
who's in their club and who's not, except that the people they decide to exclude have their
lives ruined."
He is not the only UVa graduate who says the university's 160-year-old honor system falls
short of its promise. The code started leaking credibility decades ago and lost even more last
spring: In April, a physics professor, using a homemade computer program to detect
similarities among term papers in his class, accused 122 students of plagiarism. The worst
cheating scandal in UVa's history has led to widespread questioning of the code's
effectiveness.
Some students have charged that the honor system is racially biased and excessively harsh.
And lawyers have argued that accused students have no guarantee of due process in the
secret trials, run by students who, though they may not even be old enough to drink, have the
power to expel. Many faculty members and students are reluctant to turn in violators,
suggesting there is little buy-in to the idyllic system that makes UVa, according to the
committee's Web page, a community "unfettered by distrust and temptation."
Of the fewer than 100 American colleges and universities that have traditional honor codes,
UVa's is the oldest and most storied. The collision of its antebellum honor code with cyber-age
technology has been carefully watched by other colleges that are also confronting the
question: How do you preserve the timeless values of academic integrity in an era of cut-andpaste plagiarism?
With cheating on the rise, many institutions are developing strategies to curb the problem,
including revamping existing honor codes or establishing new ones. But do they work?
Numerous studies show that students are less likely to cheat at institutions with honor codes
than at those without. But that brand of honor comes at a steep price. UVa's system has
created an atmosphere of distrust and fear, spawned numerous lawsuits, and brought UVa its
share of bad press. Other colleges considering the question might be better served by a less
rigid system, called a "modified code," which gives more authority to the administration than to
students, and metes out milder punishments. The tradeoff is that students at these institutions
may have less involvement in the systems.
The Georgia Institute of Technology has had just such a system for the last six years. And in
an incident similar to UVa's, professors in Tech's computer-science department accused 187
students of cheating last December after a homemade computer program found similarities in
their homework assignments. But at Tech, academic careers are not on the line. Students who
have been found guilty so far received a range of punishments, from a zero on the assignment
to an F in the class. None have been suspended or expelled.
"We're seeing a generation in which more and more students are most concerned about doing
whatever it takes to get ahead," says Donald L. McCabe, a professor of organization
management at Rutgers University's Newark campus and a founder of the Center for
Academic Integrity, a consortium affiliated with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke
University. "There's no question that honor codes can have a significant impact on cheating ...
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but simply having a code doesn't necessarily mean that you have a culture of integrity."
Cast for the Role
Thomas Hall, the chairman of UVa's Honor Committee for the last two years, is well cast for
his part. He sports a short haircut and a smile as comfortable as his button-down shirt. The 22year-old senior makes casual comments like, "Cheating is a cancer," and "If we can't trust
each other, what kind of society do we have?"
Colleagues describe him as "fair," and "calm," the kind of young man that Thomas Jefferson
had in mind when he dreamed up a system of student self-governance for his university.
There is also that irresistible biographical detail: In the sixth grade, Mr. Hall was caught
cheating on a French test. His shoulders still shiver when he talks about the incident.
Mr. Hall spent his senior year juggling government and history majors with nonstop honor
investigations and trials, all while managing a complex bureaucracy. The committee is
composed of 23 students—undergraduate and graduate—elected annually by the student
body. The committee chooses its five executives and appoints nearly 200 "support officers"—
students who serve as educators, counsels during investigations and trials, and advisers, who
guide accused students through the system's labyrinthine procedures.
The honor process is triggered when a professor or student notifies the committee of a
violation. Between 60 and 100 investigations take place each year, so the 122 students who
were accused by Louis A. Bloomfield, the physics professor, posed a logistical challenge.
Despite the size of the case, however, the investigations of the students in Mr. Bloomfield's
class generally followed established procedure. First, advisers notified the accused that a case
had been initiated against them. Next, investigative counsel interviewed witnesses and
gathered evidence. In this case, Mr. Bloomfield had already handed over the actual papers
that students had turned in, copies of the essays from which portions reportedly were copied
(dating back as many as five semesters), and printouts underlining sentences that allegedly
were identical in both papers.
A "confrontation," in which the accused student is asked a series of questions prepared by the
investigators, is the first major step in the investigation. Advisers are on hand to assist the
accused students, recommending what he or she should or shouldn't say. An evidentiary
hearing determines whether cases should proceed. At these so-called "investigative panels,"
three committee members weigh testimony and decide—using a standard of "more likely than
not"—whether the honor offense occurred, whether it was intentional, and whether the offense
is "serious" enough for expulsion. A two-thirds yes vote on all three questions is required to
formally accuse the student.
An accused student can admit guilt then and leave the university, or proceed with the case,
choosing an honor counsel to defend him. Conducted in private, honor trials resemble court
proceedings, with witnesses, cross-examinations, and closing statements. The accused
chooses whether the 8-to-12-member jury is comprised of committee members, randomly
selected students, or a mix of both. Trials usually begin on Saturday or Sunday mornings and
often run into the evening. Juries decide the cases then and there. A student found guilty has
48 hours to leave campus. Barring a successful appeal, which can only be heard by the
committee, the student's academic transcript is expunged from UVa's records.
126
'Downward Spiral'
While many UVa honor cases unfold according to plan, many do not. A number of the
Bloomfield cases have been wending their way through the system since last spring.
Although 25 students from Mr. Bloomfield's class left UVa admitting their guilt before going to
trial, other students under investigation were uncooperative. After a number of students failed
to return e-mail and phone messages, honor investigators resorted to calling at odd hours or
obtaining the students' class schedules to stake out their classes.
"Insanity" pleas also slowed a number of cases. At UVa, students under investigation can
request a hearing before a psychological evaluation panel of two psychiatrists and a UVa
dean. Students who request such a hearing implicitly admit guilt, but the diagnosis of a
"contributory mental disorder" clears them of honor charges. Seven Bloomfield students were
found to have such disorders. (A total of 31 student requested psychological evaluations last
year; the committee's statistics do not differentiate between Bloomfield and non-Bloomfield
cases.)
Meanwhile, the cases have taken an obvious toll on some Honor Committee members. Cara
Coolbaugh, who served as the committee's vice chair for investigations until her term ended
last month, struggled to balance her life with her honor duties. For 12 months, she managed a
staff of 150 honor advisers and counselors. In one memorable week, Ms. Coolbaugh, a
triathlete, competed in one race, took three midterms, and presided over six investigative
hearings. A business major, she created Excel spreadsheets to monitor the efficiency of each
case, but her thoughts were occasionally harder to order.
"Sometimes, the whole thing just hit me in the back of the head," Ms. Coolbaugh says. "I had
the names of all the accused students memorized. There were case numbers coming up in my
dreams."
Several committee members recall particularly emotional displays at the trials. Some students
tried to bring up personal issues, including family disputes and drinking problems, in their
defense, but trial rules barred them from doing so.
"We see this so many times. Students caught cheating are on a downward spiral, and the
honor trial is just a checkpoint on their way down," Mr. Hall says. "The hardest thing is to look
them in the eye and tell them they're expelled."
A total of 158 students were eventually implicated in the Bloomfield case. As of mid-April,
besides the 25 students who had left UVa admitting guilt and the seven with contributory
mental disorders, 16 had received guilty verdicts, 3 had been acquitted, and the trials of 15
were pending. The committee had dropped 90 cases; many of those involved students who
had lent their papers to other students without the knowledge that the recipient planned to
copy it, according to committee members. In addition, one student charged with cheating had
been previously expelled by the committee; another was convicted for a separate honor
offense.
Two of the students whose honor trials are pending have filed lawsuits in the U.S. District
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Court in Charlottesville. The plaintiffs—one who graduated in 2000 and another who
transferred before being accused of cheating—argue that the committee no longer has
jurisdiction to try them. Ed Lowry, the plaintiffs' attorney, would not comment on the cases.
Mr. Bloomfield, on the advice of counsel, declined a request for an interview.
An Inside Look
The lawsuits, assuming they are not settled, could give the public a glimpse of the system that
has long frustrated some professional legal advocates, including Frederick T. Heblich.
Mr. Heblich, who graduated from UVa in 1971, also has a UVa law diploma hanging in his
Charlottesville office. He works near the campus, lectures at the university's law school twice a
week, and attends a few UVa football games every year. Still, says Mr. Heblich, "I'd rather go
to trial in Pakistan than go before the Honor Committee. It's just amazingly unfair."
In the mid-1990s, he represented a UVa student who had been accused of stealing textbooks
from a dormitory. The student denied it, and the Honor Committee dismissed the case after an
investigation.
The following semester, the student learned that he was again under investigation for the
same violation: This time, the best friend of his first accuser had initiated the case. The
accused student retained Mr. Heblich, who was puzzled to find a clause in the Honor
Committee's bylaws that seemed to preclude the committee from bringing students up twice
on the same charges. The Honor Committee gave Mr. Heblich a simple explanation: They had
no record of the previous case.
When students are acquitted at trial or their cases are dropped, all records of the case are
destroyed. Many new committee members had been elected since the first investigation, and
apparently nobody else on the committee remembered (or knew of) the student's first case, so
the investigation proceeded. The student was finally acquitted after an eight-hour trial, ending
a semester of stress.
Mr. Heblich, who had advised the student's honor counsel, didn't participate in the
proceedings; committee rules forbid lawyers from defending students at trial.
"They're reluctant to let lawyers in there because lawyers would shred the system," Mr.
Heblich says.
A string of cases over the years has highlighted the system's inconsistencies. In 1990, shortly
after he graduated, Maurice G. Goodreau III was convicted in a Charlottesville court of stealing
money from a UVa karate club. Shortly thereafter, the Honor Committee notified Mr. Goodreau
that it too was investigating the matter. He did not request an honor trial because he believed
that since he had graduated, he couldn't be punished, according to an account in The
Washington Post. In 1991, the committee convicted him in absentia.
There was a flood of bad press in 1994 after Christopher Leggett, a student convicted of
cheating on a computer-science exam, hired a high-power law firm and threatened to sue
UVa. The administration, finding that his case had been mishandled, ordered the committee to
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grant Mr. Leggett a new trial, at which he was acquitted. UVa paid Mr. Leggett's $40,000 legal
bills and invited him to return to the university.
A half-dozen former committee members who spoke to The Chronicle say the system has a
built-in zeal for prosecution, applies justice inconsistently, and attracts too many students
seeking a high-stakes adrenaline rush.
"The rules can change week to week, and many decisions are made based on who in the
committee is friends with whom," says Gregory T. Hunter, a former Honor Committee counsel
and 1999 graduate of UVa's law school. "It's a system where people can hide behind egos and
confidentiality."
Racial Bias?
Perhaps nothing has hurt the system's image as much as the perception that it is racially
biased. In 1997, the committee convicted Jonathan Cobb, a black student, of cheating on an
exam. Mr. Cobb sued UVa, alleging procedural unfairness (he allegedly was convicted 10
months after being accused) and racial discrimination. Although his suit was dismissed, the
case furthered suspicions about racial disparities in the honor system. Most students elected
to the committee are white. But the Honor Committee expels a disproportionate percentage of
minority students. In 1998-1999 academic year, 63 percent of those expelled were black,
Asian, or Hispanic; UVa's campus was then 68 percent white.
The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ruled that such statistics alone do
not prove that the system is biased. Michelle Jones, one of six black members of last year's
Honor Committee, agrees. The system, she says, is only "a mirror" of racism and prejudice on
campus.
But Ms. Jones is troubled by the combination of two things: "spotlighting," in which minority
students may be watched more closely than white students, and the system's controversial
punishment, the "single sanction." In UVa's honor system, the only way a student guilty of an
honor offense can clear his name is to acknowledge that offense in writing. For a
"conscientious retraction" to be valid, however, the admission must be made before a student
knows he is a suspect.
Ms. Jones recently led a petition drive that prompted a universitywide vote on an "informed
retraction" proposal, in which an accused student who admitted his guilt—even after being
accused—could return to the university after a three-semester suspension. Although the
amendment did not pass, nearly 40 percent of voters supported change.
"People are fallible," Ms. Jones says. "We call this an honor system, but as it is now, the
system provides no incentive for a guilty student to do anything but lie if he wants to stay on
campus."
A More Forgiving Code
Georgia Tech's code is far more forgiving of violators. Expulsion is possible, but exceedingly
rare. Occasionally, students found guilty of cheating receive one-semester suspensions. Firsttime offenders usually get an F in their course and community service. Additional sanctions
129
might include mandatory attendance in a two-hour ethics seminar led by faculty members and
administrators.
"We hope there is some learning element involved, something that helps students to be better
people," says Sara Cames, a junior and chair of Georgia Tech's Honor Advisory Council, a
group that educates students about the system.
Georgia Tech's honor code is only six years old, the product of a student-led effort to set more
clear-cut definitions of cheating. Cases are referred directly to the Dean of Students Office,
whose staff gathers evidence and interviews witnesses. After an accused student is notified of
charges against him, he meets privately with the dean of students. A student who admits guilt
typically receives a stern talking-to and walks out of the office knowing his punishment. When
there is a disagreement over guilt at the meeting, the case goes before Tech's honor
committee, comprised of four faculty members, two undergraduate students, and one
graduate student. Hearings are less formal than standard trials; students can mention
personal circumstances that might have contributed to their mistakes.
Although Georgia Tech's fledgling code has won over some students, others complain that the
punishments are too light and that professors don't take it seriously.
"Many students feel like there is not enough student input," Ms. Cames says. "It's been difficult
to make students feel like they're really connected to the system. Some students don't even
know there is an honor committee."
As at many colleges, there is confusion over what constitutes academic fraud. In a recent
survey, half of students in Tech's College of Computing said showing their computer
programming codes to other students was OK, while three-quarters of professors and teaching
assistants said it was not.
Mr. McCabe, the co-founder of the Center for Academic Integrity, says such growing pains are
inevitable when institutions attempt to create a shared culture, but says Tech's young system
has advantages over UVa's old one.
"A code functioning only out of fear doesn't help students internalize honor," says Mr. McCabe.
Though he was once a proponent of all-student honor committees, like UVa's, he now believes
that faculty members help maintain an honor system's institutional memory.
Mr. McCabe also believes that a properly maintained honor system creates a "culture of
disapproval" of cheating. In a 1995-96 survey by the Center for Academic Integrity, fewer than
one in 14 students on campuses with honor codes said they cheated repeatedly on tests, as
compared with one in six at institutions without honor codes. Make it socially unacceptable to
use crib sheets or plagiarized papers, the theory goes, and many would-be cheaters will resist
temptation.
Perhaps that's partly because many institutions with strict codes, including small residential
colleges, religious colleges, or military academies, tend to have students who have values in
common. But UVa has a large, diverse student body, and despite its entrenched code,
students there may suspect their peers tolerate cheating. In a survey of 1,600 students last
year, UVa's Honor Committee found that only 15 percent said they wouldn't initiate a case if
130
they witnessed a clear violation. Of the students who said they believed they had witnessed an
honor offense, however, less than 1 percent had initiated a case. The most common reasons:
"I did not think the offense was serious enough to warrant an initiation" and "I did not want to
be responsible for dismissing another student."
UVa's system—defined by its lone sanction—might actually punish, and deter, more cheaters
if it allowed for less absolute punishments.
'Gung Ho'
Like many supporters of the honor code, UVa's president, John T. Casteen III, says it is a
misconception that the system is punitive. He writes in an e-mail message that "honor
accusations and trials are so rare that most alumni will say ... the system taught them how to
live, not how to punish." He continues: "The vast majority of alumni identify it as the
distinguishing feature of their studies here. They stand behind the [university] because of it."
He is right on both counts, which is why the code will likely remain unchanged: It is not only an
ideal, it is also a product that, if nothing else, builds brand awareness for the university. At
least that's the feeling inside the Honor Committee's trial room one Friday afternoon when Mr.
Hall, the outgoing chairman, sits down at a long wooden table with a half-dozen other
committee members to hammer out their marketing pitch. Today they are working on
revamping the official video, "On My Honor: An Introduction to the Honor System at the
University of Virginia," which thousands of incoming students view each summer during
orientation.
Key changes are in store. A "hip" tone will replace "poignant" music and visuals, according to
the production notes in the script. There will be a new host: Brit Hume, the seasoned television
journalist who graduated from UVa in 1965, will be bumped for a more recent UVa graduate,
the blond, telegenic Melissa Stark, a sideline reporter for ABC's Monday Night Football.
This afternoon, a producer is on hand to discuss costs, lighting options, and filming locations,
but students are more interested in editing the script. For more than an hour the students sit in
red leather armchairs, marking up the pages. One line ignites a debate. It reads: "The honor
system ... is not perfect, of course, but as we believe in education that a man's reach should
exceed his grasp, so too with the honor system." One student worries that the line "suggests
too much" that the system is flawed. Another concurs, adding that the script needs more "gung
ho" students praising the system.
For a moment, the room falls quiet. From a pedestal in the corner, a bronze bust of Jefferson
looks on. Only after someone suggests leaving the line out altogether does Mr. Hall look up
from the table.
"I don't think we should deceive people," he says. "It's honest to say it's not perfect."
131
Gender Gap Readings
Accessed via Lexis-Nexis at UVA Library, 5/11/2007
Brown Daily Herald
April 16, 2007 Monday
“Gender gap at Brown U. reflects national trend”
By James Shapiro
In line with a national trend, women outnumber men in terms of applicants to
Brown University, those accepted to the College and undergraduates enrolled.
The admitted class of 2011 was 53 percent female, while the current
undergraduate population is 52 percent female. Women made up an even greater
proportion of the applicant pool -- 59 percent of applicants to the College this
year were female, down slightly from 60 percent last year.
Women have a lower acceptance rate than men do primarily because of low
female representation in certain disciplines, said Dean of Admission Jim Miller
'73. "As we shift our emphasis slightly to science and engineering in the
admission process, that tends to be more male-heavy in the applicant pool than
some of the other disciplines," Miller said, adding that Brown is "looking for
female scientists and engineers."
The higher percentage of women at Brown mirrors a broader national trend. In
1970, women made up 42 percent of the U.S. undergraduate population, according
to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Department of
Education. That figure rose to 57 percent as of July 2006, according to a report
by the American Council on Education, a higher-education research organization.
According to a 2006 NCES report, "women's undergraduate enrollment has
increased more than twice as fast as men's" since 1970. "From 2006 to 2015, both
men's and women's undergraduate enrollments are projected to increase. ...
Women's undergraduate enrollment is projected to continue growing faster than
men's enrollment."
The growing gender gap extends beyond the United States, said Tom Mortenson,
senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher
Education.
"When I look at the international data, what's going on in the U.S. is
typical," Mortenson said. "It's true in almost every country in the world,
except in sub-Saharan Africa."
At 52 percent, the percentage of Brown students who are female is slightly
larger than it is at other Ivy League schools. Columbia University had a 48
percent undergraduate female enrollment rate in the fall of 2005, and Cornell
University was then 50 percent female. This academic year, Princeton
University's female enrollment rate was 46.5 percent, Yale University was 49.3
percent female and the University of Pennsylvania was 51.9 percent female.
Dartmouth College was 49 percent female, according to an undated figure on its
Web site. Mortenson said the gender gap is more evident at most colleges and
universities than at elite schools. "Highly selective schools can pick anybody
132
they want. Less selective schools are more driven by the underlying demographic
forces," he said.
"There is a much more even gender distribution at more elite schools," said
Sara Mead, senior policy analyst at Education Sector, an education policy think
tank. "These are schools where they have many more qualified applicants than
they can serve, so they're able to choose who they enroll. They have plenty of
qualified men and plenty of qualified women to fill their class."
Mead and Mortenson both said the gender gap is especially pronounced among
black college students -- the gap shows up more at "historically black
universities where 60 percent or over 60 percent of African-American students
are women," Mead said.
Miller said the gender gap is a complex issue. "There are myriad theories
about the gender imbalance, and it really is a national issue. It extends
through all different populations and all different racial and ethnic groups."
Mortenson said the gender gap is partly due to inferior male academic
performance in elementary and secondary schools. "It looks like the classroom
environment is far more favorable to girls and almost hostile to boys," he said,
leading to lower college attendance.
"There are also some differences in economic incentives facing women," Mead
said. "The opportunity cost (of college attendance) would be higher for
lower-income men than for women. The types of jobs that men could get right out
of high school pay more than the jobs that women could get."
The gender gap could affect the U.S. economy in the long run, Mortenson said.
"Jobs that are being created require ever higher levels of post-secondary
education and training," he said. "Men are not adapting to the new world, and
women certainly are. The concern I have is that men's lives are going to be very
rough unless many more of them start going to college."
Students interviewed by The Herald said Brown's open curriculum and
progressive atmosphere may make it more attractive to female applicants.
"A lot of the guys I know were kind of nervous about how it's so unstructured
here, as far as the curriculum goes," said Chantal Tape '09. "Maybe girls are
more flexible about that."
"Because of other progressive aspects of the University, perhaps women
applicants feel like they can be more accepted as women who are striving to
succeed in academia or whatever else they are trying to succeed at," said Will
Emmons '09.
But most students said they were not particularly concerned about the gender
gap. "It just seems like more of a curious phenomenon than a problem," said Jake
Kline '10. "I don't think it's a huge issue if there are more women than guys."
"If the trend continues, I think Brown needs to think about what it's doing
that isn't attracting men," Tape said.
133
Accessed via Lexis-Nexis at UVA Library, 5/11/2007
USA TODAY
October 13, 2006 Friday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 11A
EDITORIAL
“Educators slow to wise up to the gender problem”
Last month, Melissa Roderick, a University of Chicago professor and leading
authority on school reform, arrived at a startling conclusion: The traditional
measurements of the nation's progress in improving education, which use race and
income as markers, are flawed.
Why? Because boys and girls coming from the same race, families, incomes,
neighborhoods and schools are turning out very differently. The girls are doing
better.
Nearly half of all boys graduate from Chicago Public Schools with less than a
2.0 average, compared with a fourth of the girls. Only 8% of the system's
African-American boys have a 3.0 average -- a key indicator of the ability to
complete college -- compared with 18% of the girls.
The numbers are jarring, which explains Roderick's revelation that Chicago
schools won't improve without strategies that focus on boys' achievement -- the
same kinds of strategies used so successfully to boost math and science skills
among girls.
Roderick is on to something important. Some researchers contend the
educational gender gap is strictly a function of race and class. Those are
undoubtedly factors, particularly for boys from poor, single-parent families
growing up without father figures. But anyone thinking gender issues affect only
minorities or the poor needs to go 15 miles from downtown Chicago to the
Wilmette public schools, one of the nation's wealthiest and most successful
districts.
There, educators discovered that targeting boys -- who were badly trailing
the girls in achievement -- was the smartest strategy for boosting overall
student performance. This school year, Wilmette boosted its hiring of male
teachers and trained teachers in classroom strategies that benefit boys.
Other educators are beginning to wake up to the gender problem. What's needed
is a national task force, put together by Education Secretary Margaret
Spellings, that would consider doing for boys what was done for girls a decade
ago.
In addition to being a matter of fairness, a shift to boy-oriented policies
has the potential to produce other gains:
*Raise parents' and teachers' awareness. Parents with struggling boys often
are told not to worry because boys are slow to pick up reading skills and math
is their strong point. That conventional wisdom is outdated. Many boys don't
catch up in reading, and they don't always do better in math.
This month, a Massachusetts education think tank, the Rennie Center, reported
that 41% of girls in the state are proficient or better in reading, compared
with 29% of boys. Paul Reville, who runs the center, said the biggest surprise
134
was finding that girls outperform boys in math as well. That shouldn't be a
surprise: Reading is a key link to understanding math and science.
*Boost college graduations. Lagging literacy skills result in many boys
ending up unprepared for college, which in turn explains declining percentages
of men on campus. Currently, 133 women graduate from college for every 100 men.
If boys can't make it through high school, they certainly can't make it
through college. For better or worse, in today's information-based economy,
college has become the new high school.
What's striking about the gender gaps is that most school districts do little
or nothing about them. In his survey of Massachusetts schools, Reville kept
expecting to find a school carrying out reforms that target boys, as Wilmette
did. He never found one.
Reville, like Roderick, is an education outsider. Until the insiders -teachers, principals and superintendents -- recognize the problem, too many boys
will continue to flounder.
Accessed via Lexis-Nexis at UVA Library, 5/11/2007
USA TODAY
October 13, 2006 Friday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 11A
411 words
OPINION COLUMN
“There is no 'boy crisis'”
By Kim Gandy
The so-called boy crisis has received more than its fair share of media
attention this year. Those fueling the fire claim that boys are falling
perilously behind girls academically, and that the percentage of young men
enrolled in college has dropped frighteningly low.
First, let's put the "crisis" in perspective. At the risk of sounding
unimaginative, we should start with the facts: The most reliable data do not
support the theory that boys are failing at school.
In most age groups, boys' achievement has risen since the early 1970s. Older
boys have shown a slight decline of late, but then so have older girls. And male
college attendance has increased -- it's just that women's attendance has grown
even faster. A recent Education Sector publication said, "The real story is not
bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better."
It's true that more women than men are enrolled in four-year colleges, but
they're still outnumbered at Ivy League schools. And because the average woman
with a bachelor's degree makes about the same as a man with only a little
college, the degree starts to look like an economic necessity for women.
Second, take a look around. Are we in danger of women taking over? Only a
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handful of women are Fortune 500 CEOs. Of 535 members of Congress, just 84 are
women. Women working full-time make only 77 cents to a man's dollar. When NOW
was founded in 1966, it was 58 cents. Forty years later, we have closed the wage
gap by less than half.
With odds like these, it's no wonder more women are earning degrees. After
all, education is about building skills, developing knowledge and gaining
credentials that allow you to compete in the working world -- a world still
dominated by men.
Finally, part of the boy-crisis alarm is about competition, and about women's
changing roles in our society. Too many men have a problem seeing women as
equals, and would just as soon not have to compete. We see this in employment
discrimination, sexual harassment, rape, and all forms of violence against
women.
One proposed solution has been to segregate boys from girls in school, but
not only does that fail to improve performance, it also sends a message that it
is difficult for the sexes to work and learn together, and that the best remedy
is to give up trying. If we want women and men to compete on a level playing
field as adults, they must start in school.
Kim Gandy is president of the National Organization for Women.
Accessed via Lexis-Nexis at UVA Library, 5/11/2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 26, 2007 Friday
SECTION: STUDENTS; Pg. 36 Vol. 53 No. 21
“The New Gender Divide”
By ROBIN WILSON
As a professor lectures, Clayton Winkelvoss slouches low in his seat,
surrounded by a group of young women. When he volunteers to solve a mathematical
problem, they whoop and holler, cheering him on as he approaches an overhead
projector at the front of the class.
The women shout instructions. "Change that line again!" one of them barks
when Mr. Winkelvoss adjusts some calculations to make a line move on a graph. He
deftly completes the task and takes his seat. The young women applaud. Some
direct quips and glances at Mr. Winkelvoss, whom they treat like a mascot.
For the rest of the lesson, the women greet each new concept with a
high-pitched chorus of oohs and aahs. When they are stumped, they yell out "Are
you serious?!" and "This is insane!" After one exercise, a few collapse into
giggles, nearly slipping off their chairs.
The gathering sounds like a boisterous bachelorette party. But it is an
honors course in statistics at Elon University -- a class of 10 women and just
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one man. That imbalance is becoming more familiar at Elon and on many other
campuses where women constitute a firm majority of undergraduates and an even
greater proportion of the very top students. At Elon, for example, 61 percent of
the university's 4,800 undergraduates were female in each of the last six years,
and in the honors program women outnumber men nearly five to one.
Nationwide, women make up about 58 percent of undergraduates, according to
the U.S. Education Department's most recent statistics.
"Women are leading the charge here," says Jason Zelesky, associate dean of
students at Clark University, in Massachusetts, where 60 percent of the students
are female. "They are controlling our classrooms, they're dominating what have
traditionally been male-oriented programs like business management and
chemistry, and they tend to be getting our academic prizes and fellowships."
In fact, Mr. Zelesky started a support group for male students last year. "We
have these great conversations about what it's like to be a man in our culture,"
he says. But some of the young men, he notes, have begun to feel "they are
losing the race" -- both academically and socially. Because the campus is
dominated by women, it is not uncommon for the university to make changes to
accommodate them. A residence-hall suite that may have been open to men one
year, for example, may be converted to a women-only suite the next.
"We are always trying to move men around," says Mr. Zelesky, "to open up
whole spaces for women."
Engineering and Football
Nationally, women's enrollment began to overtake men's in the early 1980s. In
the last couple of years, the gap has widened enough to alarm state education
boards, researchers, and higher-education policy wonks, who worry that men are
falling behind even as women are succeeding.
Colleges are responding by trying to entice more young men to enroll -adding engineering programs and football teams, changing the color palette of
their admissions brochures from pastel to primary, and quietly tweaking their
standards to give male applicants a leg up (see story, Page A39). The gender gap
is already changing classroom dynamics, rerouting social relationships, and
paving a dangerous path toward a lopsided future, say some policy analysts.
"Girls are beating the pants off boys," says Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar
at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. "We have
to get boys more engaged so they persist longer in education, and that just
isn't happening."
Some women's groups, however, say the picture is not that clear-cut. Yes,
more men than women are forgoing higher education. But those men are primarily
from low-income and minority groups, making the gap more about class and race
than about gender. The number of men attending college is still increasing,
those analysts point out, just not as fast as the number of women. And men still
out-earn women after college, taking the top jobs in most professions.
"There is this echo of fear when women are achieving a lot and doing well,
but when girls do better, it doesn't mean that boys are necessarily doing
worse," says Catherine Hill, director of research for the American Association
of University Women. She calls concern over the rising proportion of college
women a backlash that masks "a discomfort with women's achievement."
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There are two ways to look at the gender gap -- one in terms of college
enrollment and the other in terms of students' educational achievement. On both
fronts, education experts differ on the scope and the significance of the
problem. Their differences highlight a schism between longtime advocates for
women and a growing number of educators who are increasingly concerned about
opportunities for young men.
The strongest data on the gender gap in enrollment come from a report
published last year by the American Council on Education, which says women now
dominate in almost every measure of college attendance. Girls are more likely
than boys to take college-preparatory courses in high school, more likely to
enroll in college immediately after high-school graduation, and more likely to
earn a bachelor's degree.
The report, "Gender Equity in Higher Education: 2006," found that the gender
gap was greatest among low-income students of all races, and disappears among
students whose families are at the top of the economic ladder.
Mr. Mortenson predicts dire consequences if the situation for young men does
not improve. Older men today are more likely to be college-educated than are
younger men, he says. That has not been true since the end of World War II. It
is a particular problem, he says, because men who forgo college don't have as
many career options today as they once did.
"Men without jobs appear to be lost," Mr. Mortenson wrote in the September
issue of his newsletter, Postsecondary Education Opportunity, "and men who are
lost too often seem to find trouble for themselves and for others."
But Jacqueline E. King, who directs the ACE's Center for Policy Analysis and
wrote the gender-equity report, cautions that it is important to identify which
men are most at risk. "We shouldn't put upper-income white men at the top of
that list," she says. The gender gap, she adds, is not nearly as big a problem
as the gap between the college-going rates of black students and white students.
"Let's keep this in perspective," she urges.
Sorting out gender differences in students' educational performances is even
trickier. Fifteen years ago, the university women's asociation issued a report
called "How Schools Shortchange Girls." It said that schools' curricula did not
meet the needs of girls, that teachers paid more attention to boys, and that
girls lagged behind academically.
According to the Education Sector, a nonprofit think tank, boys continue to
perform well. "Boys are scoring higher and achieving more than they ever have
before," says a report the group published last summer called "The Truth About
Boys and Girls." It notes, however, that girls have improved their performance
even faster.
"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," says the report,
"it's good news about girls doing better." As for the "boy crisis," the
Education Sector says it has been manufactured by "a dizzying array of so-called
experts [who] have seized on the boy crisis as a way to draw attention to their
pet educational, cultural, or ideological issues."
Data show, however, that in college young women do outperform young men by
many measures. College women earn better grades, hold more leadership posts,
spend more time studying, and earn more honors and awards. They report being
more involved than young men in student clubs and volunteer work.
And what are young men doing? Studies show they spend more time than their
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female counterparts exercising, watching television, playing video games, and
partying. (See graph on this page). Young men are 10 percentage points more
likely than young women to report that they sometimes oversleep and miss a
class, says Linda J. Sax, an associate professor in residence at the University
of California at Los Angeles who is writing a book on the gender gap.
The gender differential is not lost on parents. Marilee Jones, dean of
admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hears about it each
time she gives a talk to parents about the college admissions process. "The No.
1 complaint is that their sons are not on top of the process, they're not
dedicated, they just don't have their act together compared to the daughters,"
says Ms. Jones.
The dean considers herself a feminist, and believes that schools, colleges,
and other institutions have wisely created more opportunities for girls. But
those efforts have thrown off the traditional gender balance between males and
females, she says.
Girls, says Ms. Jones, "are expected to be fun, well-mannered, pretty, and
thin, but they're also expected to be leaders and athletes and dynamic decision
makers." What roles does that leave for boys?
"A lot of boys can be kind of lost," she says. "I think the needs of boys are
being neglected."
Elementary, middle, and high schools, for example, are designed for girls,
she says. Students are expected to sit quietly at their desks, and teachers
stress skills that require fine motor control -- something that boys typically
have in shorter supply. Boys, say other experts, are more likely than girls to
be medicated for hyperactivity, to be disciplined by teachers, and to drop out
of school.
At least two dozen scholars who are concerned about these issues have formed
the Boys Project. The group's Web site says it wants to do for boys what the
women's movement did for girls. It collects data documenting the gender gap,
fields questions online from parents and teachers, and is planning a national
meeting in May.
The project's scholars were assembled in 2005 by Judith Kleinfeld, a
psychology professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks who studies
gender. She says the gender gap affects even young men from middle- and
upper-income families, who may go to college but are not necessarily engaged.
"They are going with the flow and being dragged along," says Ms. Kleinfeld.
Young women, she says, are much better writers than young men, on average.
"I'll get two-page essays single-spaced from the girls that are grammatically
correct, and the guys will dash something off, or won't bring it in at all,"
says Ms. Kleinfeld. It used to be, she says, "we would measure our classes to
see if girls were talking as much as boys. Now, boys just hang back."
The 'Advance Guard'
The heated debate between experts has prompted public higher-education
systems in states like California and Maine to study the gender gap. The
California Postsecondary Education Commission issued two reports on the subject
last year. One said that in 2004, females made up 58 percent of the white
students, 64 percent of the Latino students, and 67 percent of the black
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students who attended the California State University and the University of
California combined.
The gaps between women and men are wide at private institutions, as well,
including liberal-arts colleges and historically black universities. At some
private black colleges, the proportion of women is as high as 70 percent, says
Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund.
"I think that minorities in this case are the advance guard," says Mr. Lomax,
who was president of Dillard University until 2004. He recalls having to
reprimand female students at Dillard who fought over male students because they
were so scarce. "I would say to the white community: Don't get complacent on
this issue," he says. "The trends, if they are not reversed, are going to be in
your community as well."
Indeed, Harvard University saw its first majority-female freshman class in
the 2005 academic year. The trend continued this year, with an entering class
that is 52 percent female. William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial
aid at Harvard, says the university considers that an accomplishment. "We'd been
stereotyped as a 'male place,'" he says. "We had a lot of history working
against us."
But some colleges are pushing hard in the other direction. Nearly 65 percent
of Dickinson College's students were female in 1999 when Robert J. Massa was
hired. "That was getting to what I would call the danger zone," says Mr. Massa,
who is vice president for enrollment and college relations. This year Dickinson
is 55 percent female.
Neither young men nor young women want to attend a co-ed institution that
enrolls too many women, Mr. Massa contends. "My hunch is that when students see
a 30-70 male-female split, the women react as if it were a single-sex school -which they previously decided was not for them -- and the males worry that their
friends will think they are going to a 'girls' school," he says.
Mr. Massa has worked hard to turn the numbers at Dickinson around. The
admissions office has used a variety of tools to find more qualified men -including buying more names of male students who have taken the PSAT. To
encourage those men to apply, the college has made more personal contact with
them, and ensured it has men on its admissions staff.
Dickinson also tells stories of successful male students on its Web site and
in its alumni magazine. "There are a higher percentage of women who are really
significantly engaged on campus than men, and it would be natural to feature
women in all of our stories," says Mr. Massa. "But we purposefully look for
men."
Some campuses have made even bolder moves. In 1976, 51 percent of the
students at Tulsa Community College were male. By 2005 the proportion had fallen
to 37 percent. When the college studied the issue, officials were surprised to
find that the most underrepresented population was white men from rural areas,
says Lauren F. Brookey, vice president of external affairs. The community
college started a Web site last year that lists careers the college believed
would appeal to those young men, including Web-site designer and laboratory
technician. The site (http://www.fastforwardtcc.com) depicts a delivery man
quickly transforming into a man wearing a white lab coat.
The campus also associates its name with male-oriented events, sponsoring a
local minor-league football team. This spring it is considering holding an Xbox
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video-game tournament.
A few years ago, Elon University started a small engineering program, in part
to attract male students, and it bumped its football team up to the NCAA's
Division I. "One of the things guys like is sports teams that are notable, that
they see on the ticker at the bottom of ESPN," says Greg L. Zaiser, dean of
admissions at Elon.
The university has also changed its admissions standards, moving from a
rolling-admissions program to one with some hard and fast deadlines. Because
young men are generally less conscientious than young women when filing
applications, says Mr. Zaiser, the strict deadlines motivate male applicants to
"be more on top of the process."
The university has also enrolled men to a greater degree than they apply. For
example, in this year's freshman class, men made up only 37 percent of the
applicants but 42 percent of those matriculated. Mr. Zaiser says that is because
compared with women, a greater proportion of men who apply and are accepted end
up enrolling. He is not exactly sure why, but suspects that since men typically
wait longer to apply than women, perhaps they apply to fewer colleges or are
more sure of where they will attend once admitted.
Some of Elon's efforts may be starting to pan out. After six years of
enrolling a student body that was 61-percent female, the proportion of young
women at the university has slipped slightly, to 60 percent this year.
Mr. Zaiser knows that giving special consideration to male applicants would
be controversial, and he is quick to add that Elon does not do that. "We'd love
to admit as many men as possible," he says. "That said, there is no point
system, no giving men a bump up. There is no affirmative action for men."
Dickinson's Mr. Massa acknowledges that colleges do give some men extra
consideration, although he contends that the efforts fall short of affirmative
action. "Affirmative action is a whole program geared to correct past wrongs,"
says Mr. Massa. Colleges, he says, treat being male like any other desirable
trait that is in short supply. "What we're doing is trying to build a freshman
class, and we take into account a number of student characteristics," he says.
"Some of those are academic, some are leadership, others are geographic."
Another is gender.
Jennifer Delahunty Britz calls that "the dirty little secret of admissions."
Ms. Britz, who is dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College, wrote
about it in an opinion article for The New York Times last March. "I said what
guidance counselors have been dealing with for years," she says. "Some amazing
girls aren't getting in" to top colleges, while boys with less-sterling
credentials are.
Michael A. Anselmi is general counsel at Towson University, which has
carefully crafted a program that attracts male students but does not exclude
females. He warns colleges to be careful in choosing less-qualified male
applicants over better-qualified female ones. Institutions that do so could face
problems if young women who are denied admission decide to challenge colleges in
court. "Men have not as a category been discriminated against," he says. "If
anything, historically they have been favored."
Social Imbalance
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That history, however, is lost on most campuses today. Students who are
undergraduates now do not remember a time when young men were dominant in the
classroom.
"In high school the Top 10 was primarily females," recalls John L. McMillian,
a sophomore at Elon. "The girls just worked harder."
Mr. McMillian is one of only 30 young men among 139 students enrolled in
Elon's honors program. Last year only five men lived with 16 women in a
red-brick Georgian residence hall reserved for honors students. This year, to
strike a better balance, the university created spaces for 12 women and nine men
in the honors dorm.The change has given the young men a critical mass, making it
easier for them to find other guys to gather with around the hall's TV or to
play an impromptu game of Frisbee at midnight.
"I've been here for four years," says William J. Allen, a senior majoring in
chemistry who lives in the honors dorm. "I didn't do any of these things before,
because the time I spent was hanging out with the girls."
It is not unusual for the men in Elon's honors program to find themselves in
a distinct minority in classes, as well. At times that can make it uncomfortable
for them to speak out. Jonathan Mahlandt, a freshman, says his honors course
last semester, "The Global Experience," had only four men and 12 women. "We
couldn't really say certain comments about girls and women because we were
afraid we'd be shot down," he says. "But there were a lot of jokes about men and
guys."
The imbalance affects the young women here, too. Several of the girls living
in the honors dorm still have boyfriends from high school -- in part, they say,
because there just aren't many guys here to choose from. "When I first came to
campus, there were jokes about how you have to get the guys before someone else
does," says Molly McGowan, a first-year honors student who counts herself lucky
to be dating a young man in the honors dorm. "My friends go to Duke to frat
parties because there's guys there."
During January at Elon, many students participate in off-campus programs. In
the honors hall, more women than men are gone this month, creating a male
majority for the first time. It's a situation the young men here say they have
been looking forward to. "There will be eight guys and four girls," says Mr.
McMillian. "We're excited because the balance of power will change."
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Music Piracy Readings
“Copyright Silliness on Campus”
Washington Post
Accessed on Washingtonpost.com Web Site, 8/1/2007
By Fred von Lohmann
Wednesday, June 6, 2007; A23
What do Columbia, Vanderbilt, Duke, Howard and UCLA have in common? Apparently,
leaders in Congress think that they aren't expelling enough students for illegally swapping
music and movies.
The House committees responsible for copyright and education wrote a joint letter
May 1 scolding the presidents of 19 major American universities, demanding that each school
respond to a six-page questionnaire detailing steps it has taken to curtail illegal music and
movie file-sharing on campus. One of the questions -- "Does your institution expel violating
students?" -- shows just how out-of-control the futile battle against campus downloading has
become.
As universities are pressured to punish students and install expensive "filtering"
technologies to monitor their computer networks, the entertainment industry has ramped up its
student shakedown campaign. The Recording Industry Association of America has targeted
more than 1,600 individual students in the past four months, demanding that each pay $3,000
for file-sharing transgressions or face a federal lawsuit. In total, the music and movie industries
have brought more than 20,000 federal lawsuits against individual Americans in the past three
years.
History is sure to judge harshly everyone responsible for this absurd state of affairs.
Our universities have far better things to spend money on than bullying students. Artists
deserve to be fairly compensated, but are we really prepared to sue and expel every college
student who has made an illegal copy? No one who takes privacy and civil liberties seriously
can believe that the installation of surveillance technologies on university computer networks
is a sensible solution.
It's not an effective solution, either. Short of appointing a copyright hall monitor for
every dorm room, there is no way digital copying will be meaningfully reduced. Technical
efforts to block file-sharing will be met with clever countermeasures from sharp computer
science majors. Even if students were completely cut off from the Internet, they would
continue to copy CDs, swap hard drives and pool their laptops.
Already, a hard drive capable of storing more than 80,000 songs can be had for $100. Blank
DVDs, each capable of holding more than a first-generation iPod, now sell for a quarter
apiece. Students are going to copy what they want, when they want, from whom they want.
So universities can't stop file-sharing. But they can still help artists get paid for it. How? By
putting some cash on the bar.
Universities already pay blanket fees so that student a cappella groups can perform
on campus, and they also pay for cable TV subscriptions and site licenses for software. By the
same token, they could collect a reasonable amount from their students for "all you can eat"
downloading.
The recording industry is already willing to offer unlimited downloads with subscription
plans for $10 to $15 per month through services such as Napster and Rhapsody. But these
services have been a failure on campuses, for a number of reasons, including these: They
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don't work with the iPod, they cause downloaded music to "expire" after students leave the
school, and they don't include all the music students want.
The only solution is a blanket license that permits students to get unrestricted music and
movies from sources of their choosing.
At its heart, this is a fight about money, not about morality. We should have the
universities collect the cash, pay it to the entertainment industry and let the students do what
they are going to do anyway. In exchange, the entertainment industry should call off the
lawyers and lobbyists, leaving our nation's universities to focus on the real challenges facing
America's next generation of leaders.
The writer is a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He
represented one of the defendants in MGM v. Grokster, a landmark case concerning peer-topeer file sharing.
Associated Press Worldstream
May 13, 2007 Sunday 6:49 PM GMT
“College students caught in music industry crackdown on online music
Piracy”
By ANNA JO BRATTON, Associated Press Writer
At first, Sarah Barg thought the e-mail was a scam.
Some group called the Recording Industry Association of America was accusing
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore of illegally downloading 381 songs
using the school's computer network and a program called Ares.
The letter said she might be sued but offered her the chance to settle out of
court.
Barg could not imagine anyone expected her to pay $3,000 (euro2,224.53) $7.87
(euro5.84) per song for some 1980s ballads and Spice Girls tunes she downloaded
for laughs in her dorm room. Besides, the 20-year-old had friends who had
downloaded thousands of songs without repercussion.
"Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it," Barg
said.
But Barg's perspective changed quickly that Thursday in March, when she
called student legal services and found out the e-mail was no joke and that she
had a pricey decision to make.
Barg is one of 61 students at UNL and hundreds at more than 60 college
campuses across the country who have received letters from the recording
industry group, threatening a lawsuit if they don't settle out of court.
"Any student on any campus in the country who is illegally downloading music
may receive one of these letters in the coming months," said Jenni Engebretsen,
an RIAA spokeswoman.
Barg's parents paid the $3,000 (euro2,224.53) settlement. Without their help,
"I don't know what I would have done. I'm only 20 years old," she said.
At least 500 university students nationwide have paid settlements to avoid
being sued, Engebretsen said. Students who don't take the offer face lawsuits
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and minimum damages of $750 (euro556.13) for each copyrighted recording shared
if they lose.
UNL officials have been told 32 more letters are on the way. At least 17 UNL
students who did not take the settlement offer have been sued, according to the
RIAA, although the university has been asked to forward only five subpoenas.
But the students coughing up the cash question why they're the ones getting
in trouble.
"They're targeting the worst people," UNL freshman Andrew Johnson, who also
settled for $3,000 (euro2,224.53)."Legally, it probably makes sense, because we
don't have the money to fight."
Johnson got his e-mail in February, with the recording industry group's first
wave of letters targeting college students. He had downloaded 100 songs on a
program called LimeWire using the university network.
The money to settle came from the 18-year-old's college fund. He'll work
three jobs this summer to pay back the money.
Johnson compares what he did to people driving 5 miles per hour over the
speed limit.
"It's not like I downloaded millions of songs and sold them to people,"
Johnson said.
But just one song can bring a lawsuit, Engebretsen said.
"It is important to send the message that this is illegal, you can be caught,
and there are consequences," she said.
The industry realizes attitudes need changing, and money from the settlements
is reinvested in educational programs schools and other groups can use to spread
the word that song sharing can have severe consequences.
Some of the programs are tailored to start with third-graders.
"We do recognize that by the time students reach college, many of their music
habits are already formed," Engebretsen said.
Earlier this month, members of Congress sent a letter to officials from 19
universities, including UNL, asking for information about schools' anti-piracy
policies.
According to the letter, more than half of college students download
copyrighted music and movies. The information requested is intended to help
assess whether Congress needs to advance legislation to ensure illegal
downloading "is no longer commonly associated with student life on some U.S.
campuses," the letter says.
Barg is still angry about her letter from the recording industry group, which
she calls bullying. But she agrees sharing music is common, and that other
students don't understand the consequences.
"Technically, I'm guilty. I just think it's ridiculous, the way they're going
about it," Barg said. "We have to find a way to adjust our legal policy to take
into account this new technology, and so far, they're not doing a very good
job."
Barg thinks the university should send an e-mail to all students, warning
them that the recording industry won't look the other way.
As campus clears out for the summer, UNL officials are considering launching
a new educational campaign in the fall.
"If we can do anything to help educate students about what illegal
file-sharing is, we're willing and interested in doing that," said Kelly
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Bartling, a university spokeswoman.
Bartling said no one wants students to have to worry about how to pay tuition
because of an expensive settlement. "It is a hugely expensive lesson," Bartling
said.
Johnson, the UNL freshman, doesn't think the threats from the recording
industry group are going to solve the problem. Friends who know he got in
trouble still share music online.
"People are still going to do it until they get caught, and they can't catch
everyone," Johnson said.
“Despite lawsuits, digital music downloads grow”
USA Today
2/7/2007
Accessed on 8/1/2007 via USA Today web site at:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-02-07-illegal-music-downloads_x.htm
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Despite success in suing people who download music illegally and
in reaching deals with personal networking sites like YouTube, the music industry is still
bleeding millions of dollars in sales to online piracy.
It is a major issue for an industry that is desperately trying to boost revenue from legal
downloads to make up for falling sales of Compact Discs, which declined 23% globally
between 2000 to 2006.
To get an idea of the size of the problem, Eric Garland of Web consultants Big
Champagne estimates that more than 1 billion digital tracks are illegally traded for free each
month.
By comparison, Apple's iTunes Music Store, which has more than 70% of legal digital
music sales in the United States, has sold only a bit more than 2 billion songs since its launch
in 2003.
The problem is so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Gnutella and BitTorrent
that link millions of personal computers and allow anonymous users to exchange digital music
files for free over the Internet.
Since the music industry started winning lawsuits against individuals in the last few
years, the growth in the number of people using illegal file-sharing software has slowed
significantly, but nonetheless it is still growing.
Russ Crupnick, an analyst at consumer research group NPD, said the number of U.S.
households engaged in P2P over the last year rose 7%, while the number of illegal downloads
were up by 24%.
"P2P remains an unacceptable problem," said Mitch Bainwol, president of the
Recording Industry Association of America. "The folks engaged in the practice are doing more
of it.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) succeeded in closing some
companies behind file-swapping, such as Grokster and KaZaa starting in 2005.
But shutting down the companies that marketed the applications does not always kill the
network.
"If you've got the software you can still file-share. The rulings just means you can't
distribute (the software) anymore," said Wayne Rosso, a former chief executive of Grokster.
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Pirates as partners
In the last year, the music industry's focus has been on more high profile websites like News
Corp.'s social networking site MySpace and YouTube, Google's online video sharing site.
French media group Vivendi's Universal Music Group, along with fellow record companies
Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, have signed revenue-sharing agreements with YouTube
to let its users legally distribute their music on the site.
Universal Music Group also sued MySpace last year for letting users distribute its
artists' works, a case that Universal has it expects to end in a settlement.
The record companies are now partners with "what they used to call pirates," Rosso said. The
reason is that a company like YouTube has tens of millions of young music fans that music
companies want to sell to.
"The record labels are saying on the one hand it's piracy so we've got to provide
protection," said Jon Diamond, chief executive of ArtistDirect. "But on the other hand, it's their
audience and they want to figure out ways to monetize that audience."
ArtistDirect's MediaDefender targets users of P2P networks and redirects them to
video commercials when they search for files to swap illegally.
Even if record companies could eradicate all illegal downloading, there is no
guarantee that people who swap songs for free would actually switch to buying music legally.
But the industry's strategy is to slow down P2P sharing and hope that legal digital
music sales will eventually make up the shortfall.
"Obviously it's been a huge impediment to the growth of the legal market," said Larry
Kenswil, Universal Music's top digital executive.
"But the growth of the legal market has been spectacular, he said. "P2P is not going to
go away but the relative problem will drop for us."
“Students score music perks as colleges fight piracy”
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Posted 8/24/2004
Access via USA Today Web site on 8/8/2007 at
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/music/2004-08-24-streaming-1a-cover_x.htm
LOS ANGELES — When Lisa Staib was choosing colleges this spring, her cousin, a Penn
State student, helped sway her decision by describing an unusual campus perk: free Napster.
A onetime Internet music outlaw, Napster's gone legit. And it's competing with the biggest
firms in the industry — including Sony, Apple, Microsoft and Wal-Mart — to get students and
other music fans to buy songs online instead of stealing them.
Colleges are hotbeds of music piracy. To give students a legal alternative, digital
music meisters are wooing campuses with generous deals on Internet music-on-demand.
Penn State struck the first deal with Napster in January. The trial program was so
successful that many other schools took notice. Now, when students return to school at Penn
State and many other top colleges, they'll find free, legal digital music as the latest amenity,
alongside cable TV and campus concerts.
About 25 of the nation's 3,300 colleges will offer music to their students on campus
networks this fall. An additional two dozen or more are finalizing deals in coming weeks.
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"There are very few things in life that are more important to students than music," says Penn
State President Graham Spanier. "Any school that buries its head in the sand on this is not
serving its students well."
Students at schools such as Penn State and Cornell University will have access to
Napster as part of tuition. Normal subscription rates are $9.99 a month. Other schools are
cutting deals to make subscriptions available to students at discount rates. University of
California-Berkeley is expected to announce a deal with RealNetworks' Rhapsody for a
subscription rate of $2 a month. Yale students can get competing service Cdigix for $3.95 a
month.
Some schools subsidize at least part of the cost: Cornell says it will spend more than
$200,000 for one year of Napster; an alumnus is picking up the check. Tennessee was quoted
$18 million to install Napster at all of its state colleges. It backed out, saying it wasn't worth the
money.
At Penn State, Spanier says he's delighted with the investment.
He was one of the first school administrators to call for weaning students from unauthorized
swap networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey. Spanier cut the first deal with Napster and is
expanding it this month from 12,000 students on one campus to 75,000 at all of Penn State's
campuses.
He expects daily downloads to jump to 1 million songs — from 100,000 in the spring
— when Napster goes campuswide. "The program has been phenomenally successful," he
says. "It clearly has reduced the need to pirate songs."
It certainly hasn't eliminated the problem. Licensed services still have gaping holes in
their catalogs — no Beatles or Led Zeppelin, for instance — while so-called peer-to-peer
(P2P) programs such as Kazaa and eDonkey seem to have everything, plus movies, TV
shows and yes, Mom and Dad, oodles of porn.
Even with a celestial jukebox that amounts to a well-stocked virtual record store, the
industry has a ways to go to change consumer behavior, if Staib's experience with Napster is
any indication.
Staib, 18, who began her Penn State career early this summer as a freshman, says
Napster is "nice to have, when you can find the songs you want."
While much of the 750,000-song catalog is available for listening, some titles are
available for purchase only — such as tunes from Maroon 5 and Ashlee Simpson's new
albums.
To find those, Staib went back to Kazaa, which she used back home in Great Falls, Mont.
'Colleges are P2P factories'
Weaning college students from peer-to-peer services "is going to be a significant hurdle," says
P.J. McNealy, an analyst at American Technology Research. "Colleges are P2P factories."
The services argue that they have many attributes that make them attractive to
students. P2P programs such as Kazaa and Grokster are laced with pesky pop-up ads,
spyware and, often, viruses. Additionally, songs on P2P are often not as advertised or are
incomplete.
Napster has been the most aggressive in pursuing the college market. It has eight
schools signed up. But it says it won't make much money on the deals. Napster Senior Vice
President Aileen Atkins describes student discounts as "slightly" above half price of its normal
$9.95 subscription. Napster's interest in the collegiate market is future-oriented.
"Once we can get people to use the service, we have a powerful convergence tool,"
she says. "The college audience is a very active breeding ground for future music consumers."
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She says students also purchase songs to own at 99 cents a song. "Not at the same rate as
regular subscribers, but in good numbers," she says.
David Galper, the co-founder of Napster competitor Ruckus Network, calls a campus
digital music alliance "one of the best bangs for the buck. The buzz around the cafeteria will be
unlike anything else a school can buy."
Galper, 29, is a recent graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He helped
start Ruckus because of what he calls an "extremely frustrating" experience trying to get music
in his dorm room. "It would take hours to track down what we wanted. There were viruses and
spyware, and throw into that the impending threat of lawsuits. It seemed there had to be a
better way."
After a year of knocking on university doors, Ruckus signed up one school to try out its
service: Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, about an hour west of Chicago.
Also wooing universities is 27-year-old Brett Goldberg, who runs Englewood, Colo.-based
Cdigix.
Ruckus and Cdigix differ from Napster and Rhapsody in that, besides music, they offer
video: movies and TV shows, both available as pay-per-view downloads. Rates range from
$1.99 to $3.99 per title. Cdigix has educational material available for download, as well.
"Not every student has a TV, but there's an increasing amount of students who bring their PC
to campus as their media center," says Goldberg. "This is where students listen to music,
watch movies, do everything."
But in accessing the campus online networks, students will find fine print galore. With
Rhapsody, students can listen to their heart's content, but they can't download any songs.
Downloading or burning them to CD costs 79 cents a song.
While listening is free on Napster and songs can be downloaded free to a computer, it
costs $1 a song to move them to a CD or portable digital music player.
The original Napster was created in Boston in a Northeastern University dorm room in 1998 by
Shawn Fanning as a tool to help students get easier access to Internet music files, commonly
referred to as MP3s.
The music industry hasn't been the same since. Many record stores, especially in
college towns, have shut down as students responded to free MP3s by no longer buying CDs.
Even in the face of record-label lawsuits against song swappers — nearly 4,000 have
been sued since September — online swapping is bigger than ever. Internet measurement
firm BigChampagne says 1 billion songs were available for online trading in June.
Last week, the music and movie industries took a huge hit when the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco said file-sharing companies weren't liable for
copyright infringement.
More file swapping takes place on college campuses than anywhere else, says Cary
Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has been fighting
to recover from a three-year, 18% drop in CD sales. The association says $4.2 billion is lost
each year from file swapping.
The fall college digital musical alliances will teach students "that music isn't something
that should be stolen but paid for," says Sherman. "Hopefully, they will carry that with them for
the rest of their lives."
In its lawsuits, the RIAA has targeted students in lawsuits at such schools as New
York University, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, George Washington
University, Princeton, Michigan Tech and Indiana University.
Apple dominates the legitimate digital music industry with its iTunes music store and trendy
iPod music players, but it has been surprisingly quiet in the push to bring legal music to dorm
rooms through a campus master contract.
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ITunes is on a few campuses but not in a big way. Duke University cut a deal with
Apple to give 1,600 incoming freshmen free iPods for educational uses. And it's a rare campus
that doesn't find students toting sleek, white iBook Apple laptops or sporting the iPod's
distinctive white earphones.
But iTunes is a download-only service at 99 cents a song and $9.99 for most albums.
Savvy schools have been more interested in the more economical streaming or unlimited
listening.
"We got Cdigix at below-market rates," says Chuck Powell, Yale's director of
academic media and technology. "We weren't able to do that with iTunes. My job is to
encourage the right behavior, and if I can help do that by getting my students better rates for
music, I'm all for that option."
Napster, Cdigix, Ruckus and Indianapolis-based MusicRebellion all wrap their songs
in copyright protection from Microsoft that prevents the songs from playing on the iPod. Apple
uses a different copy-protection method. Songs plucked for free from Kazaa and eDonkey are
in the open MP3 format, which moves easily onto both iPods and devices from Rio, Creative
Technology and RCA and others that work with Microsoft's Windows Media format.
Choices mean controversy
The iPod issue "will be a disappointment to students," says Cornell University student Stephen
Blake, who served on the advisory committee that helped select Napster.
The decision to align with any one service can be controversial. Students vocally protested
Penn State's alliance with Napster because "we didn't have a say in the decision process,"
says Penn State student Bridget Smith, managing editor of the school paper. "It just popped
up there."
Blake liked Napster for the breadth of selection and the ability to both stream and
download songs.
But he's prepared for criticism because moving songs to a CD or portable player will
still cost $1 a song.
"The big complaint I expect to hear is, 'Why go to the bother when the songs are still
free on the peer-to-peer services?' " he says. His reply: "With the lawsuits, the music industry
is making a very good case for why we should use the legitimate services."
UCLA Daily Bruin
via U-Wire
Accessed using Lexix-Nexis at UVA Library on 8/1/2007
February 21, 2007 Wednesday
“Turn down the guilt: Piracy doesn't kill sales”
I remember the day I first discovered that music could be downloaded for free
on the Internet.
I even remember the first song I ever downloaded: "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors
Down. But what I remember most was, several weeks later, feeling guilty, as if I
had stolen something.
Most of today's college students have been in the midst of debates about
150
piracy for nearly as long as they've been listening to music and their reactions
have ranged from one extreme to the other.
Some have decided that downloading illegally isn't worth the financial blows
it causes the artists. Some are thrilled to have access to so much music they
otherwise couldn't afford. Others have found a happy medium.
But a recent article in the Journal of Political Economy may have something
to offer these debates in the way of answers. The study, conducted by Felix
Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, found that peer-to-peer (P2P) downloads have
a negligible effect (in this case, less than 0.7 percent) on music sales.
The position held by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), of
course, would have consumers think otherwise, claiming that piracy costs the
industry $4.2 billion each year.
There could be several reasons for this discrepancy in numbers. It could be
that the RIAA is simply misplacing blame for plummeting CD sales. It could be
that a yet-unknown element in the relationship between sales and piracy is
responsible.
But the most obvious culprit is the RIAA's method of tracking CD sales. What
the recording industry considers "sales" is not actually monitored by how many
CDs a record company actually sells, but rather how many CDs the record company
ships. Which means that, though less CDs are shipped to distributors throughout
the country, nearly the same amount of them are actually purchased.
Services like iTunes Music Store would be an obvious reason for this, as many
albums that sell through iTunes are not "shipped," per se. Another reason would
be that music retailers have become less optimistic and don't want a lot of
extra stock sitting around in the backs of their stores.
The real question, however, is this: Does this new study mean that those of
us who download music illegally are off the hook? Can we put aside any residual
guilt once and for all?
In a way, yes. We have rather dependable evidence that P2P users have "an
effect ... that is statistically indistinguishable from zero" on music sales.
But it also gives us more responsibility as consumers. The fact that pirating
has so little effect on the music industry is precisely because the people
downloading music keep up their old buying habits. The average music enthusiast
is still buying CDs and downloading albums from iTunes. As long as we keep up
this trend, the effect of music piracy on sales will remain the same.
We must also keep in mind that downloading works differently for the sales of
indie bands, who often release their own material or sell their album through
low-profile record companies. Piracy hurts them more than major label bands, as
losing an album sale means one less album in 1,000 rather than in 1 million.
Also, recent do-it-yourself success stories like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have
encouraged many bands to work free of the RIAA, so we cannot say with certainty
what effect illegal downloading has on their sales.
The important thing to remember, as has always been the case, is to be a
responsible consumer and to support the artists that you feel are worthy of your
support. No matter what new statistic the Journal of Political Economy or the
RIAA may dig up, a bi-monthly trip to Amoeba Music will remain a part of my
routine.
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