00:01
That's a spotlight on how language can
be used differently in CARS passages.
00:07
But I want to talk about how opinions
can be strategically introduced
and picked apart from an
author's own viewpoint.
00:16
We can't talk about opinions, of course,
without talking about the author's own.
00:22
There is a term in academic writing,
known as "Authorial intent".
00:27
I call this putting the
author in authority.
00:30
The root of author and authority are
in theory, the same thing, right?
If someone is qualified enough
to author a journal article,
then they should also be
an authority on the topic.
00:42
However, for most equally
qualified readers,
there is usually a higher standard of
proving a point within an academic context.
00:52
And to do that,
we have to introduce credible and yes,
other authoritative sources that are
not the author's own point of view.
01:04
But when authors do discuss
these other viewpoints,
they do so in kind of a
one dimensional fashion.
01:11
There was a schoolmaster named Edwin
Abbott who actually in an 1884 novel,
well, ahead of the theory of
relativity, I would point out,
discussed about how three-dimensional
beings could view two-dimensional beings.
01:26
And this book was
known as Flatland.
01:30
And right this is kind of how an
author views alternate viewpoints.
01:34
He kind of shrinks them down to a
single aspect of their overall view.
01:39
That's in fact, one way you can determine
what is the author's point of view
when it's treated with this kind
of three-dimensional quality,
well-rounded perspective versus when
an opinion is from an outside source,
when it's just given
a short shrift.
01:56
Now, in a letter to the editor of the
journal Nature, dedicated to Edwin Abbott,
a writer stated, if there is
motion of our three-dimensional space
relative to the
fourth dimension,
all the changes we experience
and assigned to the flow of time
will be due simply
to this movement.
02:15
The whole of the future
as well as the past
always existing in
the fourth dimension.
02:22
So perhaps what
authors are doing
when they
abruptly shift focus,
when they contradict well
established viewpoints,
when they complicate
otherwise simple statements,
or frame alternate viewpoints as
those one or two-dimensional aspects.
02:39
They are simply trying to create
some motion for their own writing,
to bring their own
writing into what we might
call an enduring,
or classic state of affairs.
02:53
Now, tone is one clue
that authors can use
for how they feel about some of these
viewpoints that they are introducing.
03:02
This goes back to Word choice.
03:05
Did the author make
this perspective fall
or did they make this
perspective tumble?
Did something they introduce,
make a noise or did it make a whimper?
Be wary of tone just as you
might evaluate the logic
or soundness of an
argument with caution.
03:27
An author might for instance,
try to place readers
at ease with a neutral
or even sympathetic tone
before trouncing on
their expectations
with an alternate,
harsher conclusion.
03:42
Think of CARS like
mental gymnastics.
03:46
If you show up to
the gym unprepared,
you're going to
get a handspring.
03:51
Every time you take
a CARS passage,
you should be applying
your 100% mental best.
03:58
Even at a physical level,
it's worth considering your posture,
your amount of sleep
and your nutrition.