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“in the Balance”: Weighing the Evidence
- Edward J. Huth, MD, Editor
In their classic text on how to analyze and revise expository prose, The Reader Over Your Shoulder [1], Graves and Hodge describe the “natural arrangement of ideas in critical argument”: A question or problem is stated; evidence supporting, or conflicting with, a tentative answer or solution is presented; the relative strengths of all evidence are weighed; and the answer most strongly supported is delivered. They were writing about argument of any kind—a debate on foreign policy, criticism of a government's fiscal management, literary criticism—and not specifically about “argument” in science. Their notion of critical argument applies, however, just as well to resolving questions through the procedures of science and reporting the results of research [2]. The terms used for the elements of critical …
