LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS: CREDIBLE ARGUMENTS AND YOUR COMPOSITION PAPER
You may have heard that you need to “back up” your argument with outside sources—quotes from academic experts, maybe a statistic or a bar graph. Certainly an academic paper must cite outside sources in order to be credible. You gain your reader’s trust by showing that you have done the work of locating and citing existing scholarship on the subject of your research. But none of what you’re going to find is going to “back up” your argument. Here’s why.
“I need back-up” is what cops say on cop shows when they feel outgunned and want another body to double their show of force “through the door.” You, too, may feel outgunned as you launch into your paper’s argument. You face the daunting task of speaking “up” to an instructor who has more degrees than you do, as well as the institutional authority to decide whether or not your argument is convincing. It seems logical that a quote from an academically validated expert supporting your position would multiply its force.
Before amassing your small army of like-minded backers, however, consider this: If you use a quote from an expert to “back up” what you’re saying, you are essentially saying the same thing twice. Readers prefer not to read the same material more than once. Readers prefer not to read the same material more than once.
In academic writing, only novel contributions to the knowledge pool are valued. Your quote from an expert reveals that someone has already asked, and answered, the same question as you. What, the reader then wonders, is to be your contribution?
The second reason not to use quotes from an expert simply to “back up” your argument is that doing so will slowly corrode your own faith in what you have to say. You will start to think that without that expert there to ventriloquize your argument, it’s not worthy of attention. You give the impression to others, and more significantly to yourself, that your own words are of lesser importance. In short, the more you go for “back up,” the more you shrink.
Believe it or not, the expert who counts most in all your papers is you. You are the author, therefore the authority. Time to start thinking of those published experts not as supports on which you can lean, but as authors whom you can engage on a level playing field. How do you engage with them? Tell your reader how what you are saying is different from (though related to) what the published expert said. Then tell the reader why that difference makes a difference.
How about “backing up” your argument with a statistic or similar numerical factoid instead of a quote from an expert? Conventional wisdom would dictate that you need facts to support your argument, and numbers make the best kind of facts because no one can argue with a number. Recall, however, the words of Mark Twain (or whoever Mark Twain stole these words from), “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Numbers plopped in the middle of your paper do not make your argument more convincing. Those numbers would not have impressed Mark Twain, and they’re not going to impress your instructor, either. Academic readers, generally a skeptical bunch, get even more skeptical when faced with a statistic. They want to know: Who created that statistic? Where was it published? Who paid for the research that resulted in that statistic? What was the motivation for the research? And, most importantly, does the statistic have any relevance to the subject of the paper? If you collected the statistic yourself, your readers will have questions about your methods as well. Your paper needs to anticipate and answer such questions. What makes you credible is not the statistic, but what you have to say about the statistic—your weighing of its worth.
Remain the expert in your paper. It’s easy to let your research take over and to let yourself fall into the role of ventriloquist’s dummy, particularly if you’ve been told that you can’t use “I” in academic writing (you can), or if you think you have nothing new or interesting to say (you do), or if you think composition instructors don’t care about what their students have to say (they do). One tip for staying out of the dummy role is to start every paragraph with your voice; begin not with a fact, not with a quote, but with your point, your take, your words. The first sentence of every paragraph is precious real estate. Consider it the beachfront property of your paper. Your readers will look there for your voice to guide them through the thicket of facts and expert opinions you have assembled. No one, and nothing, can take your place. There is no “back up.” There is only you, your reader, and the world of damned lies you walk through together.
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