Implicit Structures and Persuasive Techniques in Scientific Papers, Part I
ŠT—v
A successful scientific careers depends greatly on successful
publishing of scientific papers. In scientific writing, the pro-forma
goal is the sharing of scientific facts with the scientific community,
but the true goal is persuasive: to persuade people to believe that a
person's research is important and deserving of support (both
financial and otherwise). The tactics used to attain this goal are
those of argumentation, the arrangement of facts in such a way that
the reader accepts your intended conclusion. Thus the appropriate
sequencing of the facts depends on the higher level of tactics. And
the tactics, in turn, depend on the highest level of the persuasive
strategy. An understanding of the persuasive goal of scientific
papers in every discipline.
This lecture series will be in two parts. The first part will describe
the Cognitive Science basis for the typical structure of scientific
papers. It will show how the "problem-solution" cognitive process
forms the framework for the structuring of information in a
scientific paper and how content selection must be done in terms of
readers" preferences in order to encourage them to accept one's
findings. Finally, it will explain the key persuasive role of the
abstract, and give examples of how effective abstracts can be written
in various scientific discipline.
The second part of this series will discuss effective argumentation
from the point of view of both content and logical validity. The kind
of content that is most effective differs, depending on the
discipline, but the issue of the validity of the argumentation is the
same for all sciences. This part of the series will also explain the
Cognitive Science basis for elliptical explanations and help writers
decide what level of ellipticalness is best for their intended
readership.