1. Thesis writing and persuasion
After the previous parts being discussed, we now know that the process of developing a research proposal is ultimately one of establishing a gap in current research which your thesis will aim to address. Consequently, the function of your research proposal and the literature review chapter of your thesis is to convince your audience that this research gap does exist, and that your research is valid and significant. At the macro level, the function of your thesis is to describe your research, identify its contribution to the field and to convince your reader of the validity of your argument or thesis.

2. Thesis writing and persuasion
The language of your thesis needs to be persuasive even though this seems to contradict our folk understandings of academic discourse as objective and impersonal. In this unit we investigate the ways in which persuasion occurs in academic writing. We can only generalize about the language features of persuasion across different disciplines, but we hope in the following discussion to give you enough ‘tools’ in your own language toolbox so that you can identify persuasive language in your own discipline and use it suitably in your own writing.

3. Thesis writing and persuasion
Building the case: Persuading your audience with evidence
The most obvious way you will be able to persuade your audience is through the presentation and organization of evidence that supports the position or case you are arguing. In a long document like a thesis, a logical progression from one piece of evidence to another and proper signposting of that progression is particularly important if your reader is not to get lost. Part of the signposting comes from such things as chapter and section titles that indicate movement to a new topic and the presentation of a new piece of evidence; other signposting is necessary to identify movement of ideas within sections or between paragraphs to ensure that evidence being presented is fore-grounded and not accidentally back-grounded.

4. Thesis writing and persuasion
Example text
(1)A number of studies during the 70s seemed to suggest that younger students obtained better degree results than older students. Studies in a number of countries (Warren, 1975; Barlow, 1978; Smith, 1979) all seemed to confirm original findings by Brown et al (1970). All of these studies, however, were based on only small samples of students who were aged between seventeen and twenty-one and the correlation techniques employed in the studies meant that the relationship between age and performance really only concerned this narrow age band. (2)A closer look at the findings from Brown’s original study actually suggests that the relationship between age and performance disappears when controlled for intelligence.
1. In this excerpt from a literature review, you’ll notice that the writer puts his or her own argument at the end of the section. A series of arguments or evidence is presented then refuted; this allows the writer to present an alternative. Notice how the use of ‘seemed’ in the first sentence indicates a lack of credibility in the results.
2. The writer presents argument that refutes earlier research. Notice the use of however to signpost the contrary view the writer is putting forward.

5. Thesis writing and persuasion
(1)A number of studies during the 80s reported evidence that supports an opposing view, i.e. that older students are just as successful, in terms of degree results, as younger students. Philips and Cullen (1985), for instance, found that those aged twenty-four and over tended to do better than the eighteen and nineteen-year-old age group. Other studies have found that older students, those who delayed entry to university for a year or two, are more successful than those who enter directly from school (Spicer & Owen 1986; Frome 1988; Reynolds 1988)
1. Here, the writer presents evidence from research that further refutes the earlier research.

6. Thesis writing and persuasion
(1)Even more studies since then have reported evidence that suggests that neither of the above views can be accepted too readily. (2)They suggest that the relationship between age and performance is not a linear one, in either direction. Sanders’ study (1987) found that the university success rate actually fell until the age of twenty or twenty-one, at which point it rose again. Brown (1989) found that... …
1. Notice the role that topic sentences play in signposting both the new evidence being presented and the direction being taken by the author.
2. Here, the writer signals a position that refutes both of the previous arguments, then goes on to support that with evidence from research.

7. Thesis writing and persuasion
(1)The conflicting data resulting from all of these studies suggest that it may be too simplistic to suggest that increasing age brings either more or less success: other factors can account for the apparent relationship between age and performance: To provide conclusive evidence, a study is needed that includes subjects across a broad age range, that gathers data about a range of related factors and that carries out a multivariate analysis of factors on the results.
1. The writer now puts forward his/her own point of view.

8. Thesis writing and persuasion
Making claims: degrees of certainty
In academic writing, the strength of the claims researchers make is dependent on the amount of evidence there is to support the claim or the degree of certainty felt by the researcher. The words used to indicate these degrees of certainty are words such as the modal verbs would, should, may, can, the adverbs and adjectives possibly, possible; the verbs believe, suggest, consider; and nouns such as belief, possibility, assumption, and claim. These words and constructions allow you to signal a degree of uncertainty in the claims you put forward, or to signal higher degrees of certainty.

9. Thesis writing and persuasion

10. Thesis writing and persuasion
Covert persuasion and evaluation
Successful persuasion in the scientific and generally the academic context also often occurs less obviously when writers are trying to put the best ‘spin’ on their results and when readers are not aware they have been persuaded. The language through which persuasion occurs has to be implicit, and not obvious to the reader. Consider the following example on the left; the annotations on the right highlight the persuasive features of the example text.

11. Thesis writing and persuasion.

12. Thesis writing and persuasion
You’ll notice, no doubt, that the writers of those sentences feel that Piaget was probably wrong in this particular area, and that they are most probably right, even though they have said neither of these things explicitly. It has only been implied. What’s more, you might feel that you’ve been persuaded to share the authors’ views because of the way they’ve ‘implied’ certain things.

13. Thesis writing and persuasion
Strategic vagueness
As well as persuading readers covertly, as the last section showed, there are ways of leaving out or underplaying certain information that effectively allows your argument to be more persuasive. This is called strategic vagueness: it results from the backgrounding of some points and the foregrounding of others. An example of such vagueness is the text below.

14. Thesis writing and persuasion
Example text
The results of the present study indicate that children between the ages of 3 and 4 years do adapt to differences in listener status and say ‘thank you’ more frequently to adults than to peers. (1)This finding supports the results of previous studies in which preschoolers recognized differences in listener status and adjusted their use of politeness routines accordingly [references].
1. Notice that the writers do not discuss to what degree preschoolers recognize differences in listener status, and to what degree they adjust their use of politeness markers. To what degree may not be relevant to the argument, and so the numbers are not given. This has the effect of chanelling the reader’s attention, back-grounding some points and foregrounding others. This lack of information about to what degree preschoolers recognize differences in listener status could also be an intentional vagueness on the part of the researchers. To be more specific, or less vague, would provide information that could be less supportive of their own results.

15. Thesis writing and persuasion
A number of studies during the 70s seemed to suggest that younger students obtained better degree results than older students. (1)Studies in a number of countries (Warren, 1975; Barlow, 1978; Smith, 1979, etc.) all seemed to confirm original findings by Brown et al (1970). All of these studies, however, were based on only small samples of students who were aged between seventeen and twenty-one and the correlation techniques employed in the studies meant that ....
1. A reader might ask why the author hasn’t spelt out more about these studies: the number of them, the countries in which they were carried out, the degree to which their results supported each other’s findings, and so on. The writer may have chosen to be vague about them because it may have provided information that would be less supportive of the argument being set up.

16. Material and Method End Conclusion
While ‘strategic vagueness’ is a feature of academic discourse, letting an examiner think that you don’t know the field by leaving out relevant information or that you have deliberately tried to distort the field will almost certainly detract from the success of your thesis.
Conclusion
This resource has provided some examples of the way language functions to persuade and evaluate, to modify the degree of certainty attached to a knowledge proposition, and to create strategic vagueness. As a research student, part of the process of successfully participating in your chosen discourse community involves learning and negotiating the way your discipline uses these persuasive tools so that you are able to use them in ways that are valid within the discipline.
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