Two- Page Skills Writing Exercise #1 Due on Friday January 31^st:

Concession and Refutation and the Roles of Doubt and Another or The Other Side in Galileo and Descartes

This first writing assignment will exercise a number of analytic skills, namely paraphrasing and redefining major concepts in your own words (Section A), dealing with two texts by considering what they say or imply are key moves and tactics underlying their works (Section B), and then considering whether they do them (Section C) and applying them yourselves (Section D). It is fine if you do each of these in pithy parts without transitions or connections between each section. You do not need a title for this one!

Section A) restate in no more than 50 of your own words Beale’s explanation of what Concession and Refutation are (53-54).

These are based on “The Classical Scheme” for deliberative, persuasive arguments in writing based on Greek and Roman speechmaking and thus part of the “Antiquity” that has “founded” or “colonized” or _________ our ways of viewing the world in America in 2003. As Beale puts it, the “Classical Scheme” included five sections in the persuasive speech, namely introduction, narration, confirmation, refutation and conclusion. These correspond somewhat to a section which catches interest and gives the topic, another which gives background information and creates a sense of urgency, another which gives the “pro” or good reasons for agreeing with the speaker, another which concedes and refutes with the emphasis at least slightly towards refutation, and another which wraps up and reinforces the main pro arguments (Beale 35).

Section B) restate in no more than 200 of your own words and give page references for what Galileo and Descartes say about the need for concession or refutation or strong thinking into or exploration of “the other” or “another side” opposing their ultimate points (about planetary movement or existence).

Do not go into their arguments for or against planetary movement, biblical use, existence and so on. This is not about the subject matter but about what they say or imply by doing about engaging “another” or opposing view.

Section C) restate in no more than 200 of your own words and give page references for what Galileo and Descartes do in one or two places (do not try to handle all of them) to refute or concede or a mixture of both.

While this will include some content and close reading, it is about giving examples and testing or assessing for yourselves whether the authors are engaging in concession and refutation as they, Beale or you see it.

Section D) in no more than 50 words engage in one concession and one refutation of a point in Galileo or Descartes. These can be two separate sentences and do not need to relate to one another. I encourage you to deal with sub-points, rather than the major issue in the text (since that is the one you need as your point of agreement or disagreement in order to start the process of concession and refutation). These are issues you personally concede or refute while disagreeing with the main argument to which it relates.

Work Cited

Beale, Walter. Real Writing: Argumentation, Reflection, Information. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1986.