Lecture 17 - Close Analysis - Part 1

So far, we've looked at the language of
argument in some detail. because we've

separated the reason markers from
conclusion markers. And we've talked about

assuring and guarding and discounting and
evaluative words. So we've picked out a

lot of different words in language that
play distinct roles in arguments. But what

we need to do for a real argument is to
bring it all together and show how these

types of words can work together in a
single passage. And to do that, we're

going to learn a method called close
analysis. And what you do with close

analysis is you simply take a passage and
you mark the words in that passage that

play those roles. so a reason maker you
can mark an R and a conclusion marker you

can mark with a C, assuring term you mark
with an A, a guarding term you mark with

G, a discounting term you mark with D, an
evaluative term you mark with E. And if

it's clear, you put a plus or a minus to
indicate whether it's positive evaluation

or negative evaluation. Now, these marks
will just be scratching the surface.

There's obviously a lot more that you can
do, and need to do, in order to fully

understand the passage. So, when it's a
discounting term, you ought to think about

which objection is being discounted. And
you also ought to think about the

rhetorical moves, the metaphors and irony.
We'll look at rhetorical questions. And

we'll basically go through the passage
very carefully word by word in order to

figure out what's going on in that
passage. So, how do you learn the

technique? The answer is very simple. You
practice, and then you practice again. And

then you practice, and practice, and
practice and practice. Practice won't make

perfect, because nothing's perfect. But
practice will surely help a lot, and we'll

get better and better the more we
practice. So in this lecture, what we're

going to do is go through one example in a
lot of detail and mark it up very

carefully in order to practice the method
of close analysis. The particular example

we chose for this lecture is by Robert
Redford. It's an opiad that was written

for the Washington Post. We chose it
because it's an interesting issue. It's

about the environment. But it's not an
issue that people will necessarily have

very strong emotions about. Because you
might not even know the particular part of

the environment that he's talking about.
We also choose it because it's a really

good argument. You learn how to analyze
arguments, and how to formulate your own

arguments by looking at good examples. Of
course it's fun to tear down bad examples,

but we need a nice model of a good
argument in order to see what's lacking in

the arguments that are bad. So we're going
to go through an example partly because

it's actually a pretty good argument.
We're also going to go through this

passage because it's really thick with
these argument words. So, you'll see that

we're marking a lot of different things,
and we'll have to go through it paragraph

by paragraph, and sentence by sentence,
and word by word, in great detail. This

lecture will seem like it's looking at the
passage with a microscope. and that's the

point, to learn to analyze with a
microscope, the passages where people give

arguments. Okay. So the first sentence is,
just over a year ago, President Clinton

created the Grand Staircase Escalante
National Monument to protect once and for

all some of Utah's extraordinary red rock
canyon country. Word number one, just.

Well, justice is a good thing, right? So
that must be an evaluative word. No. One

of the first lessons in close analysis, is
that simply because you have the word

just, doesn't mean you're talking about
justice. When he says, just over a year

ago, he means slightly over a year ago, or
somewhat over a year ago, or sometime over

a year ago. So maybe he's guarding. You
might want to mark this one as a guarding

term by putting a G out there. But. He's
not using an evaluation. To say, just over

a year ago. Well, why would he guard?
Because, he's not very precise. He's not

going to say, seventeen days over a year
ago. He's saying, just over a year ago, so

that nobody will raise a question at this
point. He does not want people raising

questions this early in the op-ed. So
let's keep going. Just over a year ago,

President Clinton created the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument to

protect once and for all, some of the
extraordinary red rock country. Okay. What

about the word, to. Might seem like not
much cuz it's such a short word. But it's

actually doing a lot of work there if you
think about it. We actually I think should

market as a, an argument marker of some
sort. Is it a reason marker or is it a

conclusion marker? We'll come back to
that. But first let's get clear that it's

an argument marker of some sort. When he
says that he created the monument to

protect once and for all, he means in
order to protect, because he wanted to

protect, once and for all, some of that
country. It's an explanation of why he

created it. It's giving you the
teleological explanation, which tells you

the purpose for which he created it. So,
the bit that comes out protect once and

for all some of the country, is the reason
why he created it. It explains the

conclusion that he did create it. So this
is a reason marker. Now the next word,

protect. Well you might think that protect
is a neutral word because after all,

protectionism is criticized by some
people. But actually to protect something

is to keep it safe. To keep it safe from
harm to keep it safe from bad things

happening to it. So, to explain what
counts a protection and what doesn't count

as protection you have to cite what's good
or bad and that makes it an evaluative

word. And, in this case protecting is a
good thing so, it get's marked as E plus.

Okay, the next words are once and for all.
What is once and for all do. Nothing. Some

of these words are going to get marked as
nothing whatsoever. Because once and for

all doesn't guard. It says, once and for
all, its the absolute limit, but the next

word. Some, what does that do? That
guards. It's saying that what's protected

is not all of Utah's red rock country ,
it's only some of it and it's important

for him to guard that, because he wants to
say later on, as we'll see, that there's

lots of it outside the monument that's not
getting protected. So he wants to guard it

and say it's not all that's going to be
important to his argument. Now, Utah's

pretty neutral, unless you're from that
state, then you love it, and you might say

that's an evaluative word, but let's skip
that group of people right now.

Extraordinary. What about extraordinary?
Is that an evaluative word? Might seem to

be an evaluative word, because clearly,
what Redford means is extraordinarily

beautiful or extraordinarily good, red
rock country. But the word extraordinary,

doesn't say extraordinarily good. You can
have things that are extraordinarily bad.

To say it's extraordinary is to say it's
out of the ordinary. And the red rock

country might be extraordinarily ugly. So
the word extraordinary, itself, is not by

itself, an evaluative word, so it should
be marked as nothing. And red rock

country, also, is going to be neutral.
It's beautiful stuff, but simply to

describe it, as made out of red rock
doesn't say that it's beautiful, even

though, we all know that it is. Just look
at the picture. So, now we've finished a

whole sentence. Isn't that great? A whole
sentence! All right! And all we did was

find six things to mark in that sentence.
Well, four were marked and two were

nothing, but it shows you that you can go
through a single sentence and do a lot of

analysis to figure out what's going on,
and we're just getting started. Now let's

move on to the second sentence. So it's in
response to plans, of the Dutch company to

mine coal, President Clinton used his
authority, to establish the new monument.

And so on. Let's go to, in response to.
What does that tell you? It tells you,

that what's coming after it, explains why
President Clinton used his authority. It

was a response to the plans of the Dutch
Company. Which means that, it's an

explanation. Notice that the previous
explanation says, why Clinton wa nted to

do it, in general. This explanation tells
you why President Clinton did it at that

particular time rather than earlier or
later. It's because he was responding to

particular plans by a particular company.
So the end response to, is an argument

marker. Now, is it a reason marker or a
conclusion marker? Well, the conclusion,

the thing that's getting explained, is
that Clinton used his authority. So this

must be a reason or a premise marker. You
can also put P for premise marker, or R

for reason marker. Now, in response to
plans of the Dutch Company, Andalex to

mine coal on the Kaiparowits Plateau,
President Clinton used his authority under

the Antiquities Act to establish the new
monument. Now this is actually a pretty

tricky one. We know that, the plans of the
company are the premise that explains the

conclusion that Clinton used his
authority. But what's the word,

underdoing. Well under means is the
Antiquities Act that gave him that

authority. That explains why he had that
authority and justified him in doing what

he was doing namely establishing the
monument. So, the word under suggests that

there is another argument in the
background here that the Antiquities Act

gives the president the authority to
establish monuments and President Clinton

used that authority. So, the Antiquities
Act is again a premise or as I said you

can call it a reason marker for the
premise that the Antiquities Act gives the

President that authority and that
justifies Clinton in using his authority,

or explains why he was able to establish
the monument. And the word to also

indicates that what comes after it is,
establishing the new monument, that's what

he was trying to do. That also is an
argument that explains why he did it. He

had the authority. But you don't always
exercise your authority. Right? And so,

the point of exercising the authority, the
reason why he exercise his authority was

to establish the new monument. Again, it
might seem tricky to keep siting the word

to as an argument marker but think about
it, you can sub stitute in order to. He

uses authority in order to establish the
new monument. Or, because he wanted to

establish the new monument. And we learned
a few lectures ago, that if you can

substitute another argument marker for
this particular word, then that shows that

in this case, the word to is getting used
as an argument marker. In this case the

premise, because it's his wanting to
establish the monument that explains why

he used his authority. Okay? Here's a
tricky one. What about the word authority?

Well that's a really trick word and
sometimes it's not completely clear how

you want to mark it. Right, you might
think that this word is getting used as a

discounting word, namely answering a
potential objection. Some people might say

he didn't have the authority to do that
but you might think it's a positive

evaluation, having authority is a good
thing. And you might think that it's an

argument marker because is a reason why he
would have the ability to set up the

monument namely that he had the authority.
But he doesn't actually say openly any of

those things so, I would probably mark
that as a nothing but I think it's better

just to put a question mark. Because
sometimes, words are not going to have one

clear function or another. You know, we're
doing our best to put them into these

little bins of the different types of
words, but sometimes, they're not going to

fall neatly into one or the other, and you
just have to recognize that. Of course,

when it comes to the quizzes, we're not
going to ask you about those kinds of

words, but it's worth knowing that they're
there. Okay? Now. Let's move on. Setting

aside for protection, what he described as
some of the most remarkable land in the

world. Again, what is that telling you?
Setting aside for protection that it tells

you why he used his authority to establish
the monument. So again, we've got an

implicit reason here but, notice there's
just a space there's no actual word. There

could be marked as an argument marker but
still there's a separate argument here he

set it aside for the protection. That was
why he established the monument. That's

why he used his authority to establish the
monument. If you want to include that part

of the argument as well. Okay? For
protection. Protection again, that's going

to be evaluative, right? Because to
protect something is to keep it safe from

harm. Harm is bad. So protecting it must
be good. When you explain what protection

is, you're going to need to use the words
good and bad, as we saw in the first

sentence. What about these little
quotation marks. I love quotation marks

you gotta watch out for them. What he
described as some of the most remarkable

land in the world. Why is Robert Redford
quoting President Clinton and saying how

Clinton described this land? Because if
you're trying to convince Clinton and

trying to convince the general public to
try to convince Clinton, there's nothing

better than quoting Clinton himself. I
mean, after all, Clinton can't say, I'm

not an authority. Right? So, those
quotation marks and saying that he

described it, that all amounts to
assuring. He's assuring Clinton that, that

has to be true because after all, you said
it yourself. And then he says, I couldn't

agree more. Well that's a different type
of assuring. Remember when we saw that

some assuring terms were authoritative.
And other assuring terms were reflexive.

Well quoting President Clinton is an
authoritative assurance, it's citing an

authority. I couldn't agree more says how
much he agrees. Or how much certainty he

has. It certainly suggests. And so he
seems to be assuring you but on a

different basis, Clinton and I both agree.
We might disagree about other things, but

we agree about this which gives you some
reason to be sure that it must be true.

Okay. We're through with two sentences.
All right. Next. For over two decades. The

word for is sometimes an argument here. Is
it an argument marker here? No. How can

you tell that? It's actually nothing here.
But how can you tell that? Try

substituting an argument marker. You can't
say, because ove r two decades, many have

fought battle over battle. It's not
because. It's just saying, during that

period. The term for, and the words after
it, over two decades, are simply being

used to indicate time. Not to indicate any
kind of reason, in this case. So it should

be marked as nothing. Many have fought
battle after battle. Is that a guarding

term? Sometimes many is a guarding term.
Instead of saying all, you say many. But

here you say many have fought battle after
battle. Nobody thinks all have fought

battle after battle to keep the mining
conglomerates from despoiling the country.

After all, the mining conglomerates
themselves didn't, so, it can't be all.

So, nobody would expect the word all. So
in this case, the word many is not

functioning to guard the term by weakening
it, cuz it never started out as the strong

claim all. There was nothing to weaken.
They fought battle after battle. Well, you

might think that battles are a bad thing.
So you might mark that as e minus.

Because, after all, conflict is a bad
thing and in battles people get hurt and

try to hurt each other. So to explain what
a battle is you need to introduce an

evaluative word. And what did they fight
those battles for? To keep mining

conglomerates from despoiling the
treasures. Right? Again, to can be seen

as, in order to. That's why they fought
the battle. It explains the battle. Or

because they wanted to keep the mining
conglomerates from despoiling the

countries. So, it looks like to there is
indicating the premise in an argument that

explains why they fought battle after
battle. 'Kay? Mining conglomerates, is

mining bad? No. Are conglomerates bad? Not
necessarily. You can explain what a

conglomerate is without talking about good
or bad. From despoiling, now wait a

minute, now we've got an evaluative term.
It's an evaluative negative term.

Despoiling means, spoiling things or
making them bad. And what about treasures?

Treasures is going to be an evaluative
plus term because treasures are good

things. And stunning. Well, stunning is
not qui te so clear. Stunning means it

stuns you. You react to it in a certain
way. You're stunned. You look at it, and

you feel, huh, and you stop still again.
Just look at the pictures of this country.

It is stunning. But to call it stunning.
Is that evaluative? Well, you can get

stunned by how bad something is. And so,
it's not clear that stunning in itself is

evaluation. Clearly, Redford, in using the
word stunning, is talking about it being

stunningly good. But the word stunning by
itself doesn't seem to be evaluative. Now,

the next word of the last sentence in this
paragraph. Just a temporal indicator, so

that's nothing. We thought, okay? Thought
means it's not really true. He's just

guarding it. It's not really true that
some of it was safe. We thought it was.

Some of it was safe, or even at least some
of it was safe. Now that's going to be a

guarding term, cuz it's not saying all of
it was safe. It's just a little part of it

and that'll become important later in the
argument. Whoa! Look at this diagram! It's

got letters all over the place and they're
running into each other. That shows you

what close analysis does. When you start
looking in detail, a lot of the different

words are doing things that you can find
out by trying to put them into these

different categories. So, we've finished
the first paragraph. An entire paragraph.

Oh my God. Oh Joy!