Adventures in the Margins of Error (2010)

    In chapter 6 of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error (2010), Kathryn Schulz’s chapter on evidence that was reprinted in the tenth edition of Ways of Reading, Schulz looks at our complicated relationship with evidence—how it’s used, abused, or ignored through inductive logic, our default thinking strategy that is both error-prone and miraculously effective. She reminds us that everyone’s relationship to the evidence we cling to “[. . . ] is seldom purely a cognitive one” and asserts that how we use evidence is “[ . . . ] almost invariably a political, social, and moral issue as well” (Ways of Reading 376). Ultimately, she calls for all of us to identify our beliefs and biases, and then to deliberately and fairly look for and take seriously counterevidence that challenges our beliefs and biases. It might mean we must admit we’re wrong about something, but when this happens, we’re also closer to being right than we were before we realized we were wrong. Schulz challenges her readers to consider doubt, not certainty, which might seem more logical, as the basis of wisdom, and error as something we should value in the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. Some twenty-years later, with the increased ubiquity of social media and talking heads on both sides of the political aisle on cable news and algorithms managing the online content we consume (or don’t consume), Kathryn Schulz’s warning about confirmation bias and putting too much emphasis on certainty, and not enough emphasis on the value of doubt and error, seems to describe the world we live in today. Unless we completely unplug from the internet and media, which isn’t practical in today’s world, we can hardly go even a few hours without hearing about or participating in some sort of disagreement regarding COVID protocol, vaccines, voting rights, democratic elections, climate change, systemic racism, political division, terrorism, LGBTQI+ rights, school curriculum, immigration, and so much more. Thanks to proliferating technology and disputes over how or if to control the noise, it’s easy to get tunnel vision and to only hear what’s happening in the echo chambers of likeminded believers where any alternative point of view is vilified rather than civilly discussed or debated. It’s almost impossible to consider any other perspective because other perspectives are more and more difficult to find. As Schulz affirms, “Confirmation bias is also bolstered by the fact that looking for counterevidence often requires time, energy, learning, liberty, and sufficient social capital to weather the suspicion and derision of the status quo” (Ways of Reading 376). Difficulties aside, in this safe space of learning, where questioning the status quo is encouraged, where time and energy are requisite in a course on written reasoning, what extended example might you bring to the conversation and for what purpose? Here is your assignment: Before you explore your example through the lens of Schulz’s chapter, you should first set up for your readers the argument advanced by Kathryn Schulz in her chapter on evidence. Imagine you’re writing for readers who have not read Schulz’s chapter. What examples does she offer and for what purpose? Be sure to situate your readers with a concise and accurate summary or Schulz’s chapter, supported with quotes, so that your readers can fully engage with what you’ll add to the conversation. Then advance or extend or challenge Schulz’s argument with a new example of confirmation bias, failure to doubt, and/or entrenched thinking. Your example may come from personal experience, secondhand knowledge, history, politics, science, medicine, law enforcement, the judicial system, psychology, technological advances—any example will work as long as it wasn’t already addressed in Schulz’s chapter. What does your example illustrate or clarify or maybe even challenge in terms of Schulz’s essay? How will Schulz’s essay and your example help you navigate the divided world in which we live? Where do we go from here? How do we return to better thinking and less derision? The inclusion of research is optional and will depend on your example. Instructor: Kristy Hodson English 2105 — Written Reasoning ESSAY #1 ASSIGNMENT Page 2 of 5 Choose an example that really matters to you. Your example should be sophisticated, relevant, and compelling enough to merit an essay-length response to Schulz. Your example should also illustrate a good faith error in judgment or logic, one made out of fear of being wrong or from our deep-seated aversion to uncertainty or from failing to recognize the assumptions or biases at play. Errors in judgment made in good faith with faulty evidence are much different from ideologies advanced out of hate or willful ignorance. Be careful about selecting an example on which well-intentioned people on both sides of the matter disagree and probably always will—think gun control, abortion, capital punishment, and the like. Remember, issues such as these, while important and worth arguing for or against, have not and likely never will be entirely proven correct or incorrect. Worse, to take a stand that one side is “right” and the other side is “wrong” for all the reasons you might provide will not prove your argument, but it will prove Schulz’s argument about confirmation bias in ways you might not intend. This is not to say you cannot examine the biases or assumptions held by “your” side in one of these hot-button issues in an attempt to come to a deeper understanding of the “their” side; just don’t argue all of the reasons “their” side is wrong and “yours” is right because that will demonstrate the exact problem in thinking Schulz is asking us to recognize and avoid. You must use correct MLA formatting within the body of your essay. Also, your finished product will need a correctly formatted Work(s) Cited page that includes Kathryn Schulz’s chapter and any other sources you might use. Information for finding help managing these requirements is listed below. You will be held accountable to the information below when your final draft is scored. For help formatting your essay in MLA style, refer to the eBook in our Achieve site: eBook  “Documenting Sources: MLA Style”  “Formatting MLA Manuscripts.” For help formatting your MLA-style Works Cited page, refer to the eBook in our Achieve site: eBook  “Documenting Sources: MLA Style”  ”Directory to MLA Style Works Cited Models” and “Preparing a List of MLA Works Cited” and the last two pages (pages 11-12) of “Student Writing: MLA Style Research Project (David Craig).” For help formatting your MLA-style in-text citations, refer to the eBook in our Achieve site: eBook  “Documenting Sources: MLA Style”  ”Directory to MLA Style In-Text Citations” and “Creating MLA In-Text Citations.” A strong essay will be engaging to read, interesting to consider, well-organized, claim-based, the result of good thinking, well supported with compelling details and examples, easy to follow, reader-sensitive, and carefully proofread. A strong essay will also reveal the writer’s keen rhetorical awareness and will employ well-considered choices on all levels as a result of that awareness—word choice, length, development, organization, rhetorical appeals, evidence, tone, and so forth. Instructor: Kristy Hodson English 2105 — Written Reasoning ESSAY #1 ASSIGNMENT Page 3 of 5 REQUIRED STEPS AND DUE DATES IN THE COMPLETION OF THIS ASSIGNMENT: 1. Review what you have read about essay planning (chapter 1), essay structure (chapter 2), essay drafting (chapter 3), essay revision (chapter 4), and argument and persuasion (chapter 10) in B. B. Addins’ open source ENG 101 Online Writing Textbook. Review also the advice essays you’ve read so far from our Writing Spaces authors—essays on the features of college-level academic writing, critical reading, and finding your way into college writing assignments, and using sources. Finally, it should go without saying, close re-reading of Schulz’s chapter on “Evidence” along with any of the other research you may want to include in your essay is essential. 2. Write Essay #1 Draft. This draft should be polished enough for a reader to make sense of (unlike the pre-writing you did to get to this point), but it does not need to be perfect. This draft will not be graded for quality. It will earn up to 20 points as long as it is a good faith draft for this assignment, in MLA format (no title page and no works cited page are necessary at this point, though), and at least 1200 words (Times or Times New Roman font, size 10, double-spaced, one-and-a-half inch margins on all sides). This draft must be uploaded in Word format to Achieve in the designated area (Draft 1) using the submission link you’ll see in the week 5 module of our Canvas site before 11:59 PM on Sunday, 02-27-22. Because this part of the process involves other people’s time and effort on your behalf, and we have a tight turn-around schedule, late draft submissions are not permitted for any reason and will not earn any points. 3. Login to Achieve using the submission link you’ll see in the week 6 module of our Canvas site to read the drafts in your online peer review group and give feedback using the guide provided in the site any time beginning at the start of class on Tuesday, 03-01-22, until the activity closes at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, 03-01-22. You will earn up to 10 points for providing two separate thorough and thoughtful Peer Reviews. (If you happen to be in a group that requires feedback on three peer drafts, you will get extra credit points for the third review you’ll do.) Students who did not submit a rough draft on time or at all will also not be placed in peer review groups and will not be able to make up the peer review points that are lost. You must have submitted a draft on time to be in a draft peer review group. Late reviews are not permitted for any reason; late or missing reviews will not earn any points. All reviews must be completed before 11:59 PM on Tuesday, 03-01-22. Professor Hodson will clarify the meeting mode for this peer review class meeting at the start of week 6. If face-to-face classes are permitted by CPP administration on Tuesday, 03-01-22, we will meet face-to-face in our regular classroom during our regularly scheduled class period to complete the peer reviews of Essay #1 inside of our Achieve site. Should this be the case, please bring a laptop or tablet with internet access to class on Tuesday, 03-01-22. Instructor: Kristy Hodson English 2105 — Written Reasoning ESSAY #1 ASSIGNMENT Page 4 of 5 4. Take note of effective features you see in the drafts you review and the feedback you receive from your classmates and revise your essay. 5. Optional: If you would benefit from some additional feedback on this assignment, Cal Poly Pomona’s Writing Center, located on the second floor of the University Library (Building 15) in Rooms 2919 and 2921, offers free tutoring to CPP students. Go to CPP Connect or email [email protected] to make an online appointment. 6. Optional: I will be available for optional, virtual consultation on a first-come, first-served basis on this assignment during our regular class meeting time on Tuesday, 03-08-22. From the left vertical course navigation menu in our Canvas site, open Zoom and then join the Zoom room conference link for your class. (This is a different Zoom link than the one we use for our full-class Zoom meetings and the one I use for my Zoom office hours.) I can consult with approximately five students during this optional class period. If you login to the above-noted Zoom room on this day, you will be placed in a waiting room; I will then pull each waiting student into the Zoom room one-at-a-time in order of your entrance into the waiting room until the class period has ended. 7. As you near the end of the writing process for this assignment, don’t forget to edit and proofread your work. Careless errors that you should have caught undermine your ethos—your credibility as a scholar. 8. The final draft of this assignment is due before 11:59 PM on Sunday, 03-13-22. The final draft, worth up to 100 points, must be 1600-1800 words, formatted in Times or Times New Roman font, size 10, double-spaced, one-and-a-half inch margins on all sides. Don’t forget to number your pages and to include the required Work(s) Cited page in the same document. Upload the final draft of Essay #1 twice, once to turnitin.com and again to Achieve using the two submission links you’ll see in the week 7 module of our Canvas site. Make sure your essay is formatted as a PDF or as a Word document—no other formats are compatible. Regarding Late Submissions: Late submissions of this assignment to turnitin.com and/or Achieve will incur a late penalty beginning at 12:00 AM on Monday, 03-14-22; the penalty amount will depend on the number of times an essay assignment has been submitted late prior to this instance (see page 10 of the PDF-version of our Course Syllabus). No late submissions of this essay will be accepted for any points after 11:59 PM on Sunday, 03-20-22, one week after its due date. Instructor: Kristy Hodson English 2105 — Written Reasoning ESSAY #1 ASSIGNMENT Page 5 of 5 REQUIREMENTS FOR THE FINISHED PRODUCT: Formatting: Each page must be numbered in the upper right corner. Please include the following information single-spaced in the upper left corner of page one: your full name, the date, the course name and number, the assignment, and the instructor’s name. Give your finished product a title on page one. You do not need a separate title page. Your entire essay should be double spaced, including block quotes. Do not put extra spacing between paragraphs, after the identifying information given in the upper left corner of page one, or before and after your title. All paragraphs should be indented five spaces. Font size: 10 Font style: Avoid anything too casual or hard to read Text color: Black or blue only Margins: 1 to 1 ½ on all sides Your finished product must be must be 1600-1800 words, formatted in Times or Times New Roman font, size 10, double-spaced, one-and-a-half inch margins on all sides. A finished product that is less than 1600 words will not be considered acceptable work and will earn a grade of D+ or lower. Use MLA formatting within the body of your paper for all in-text citations. Refer to the eBook inside of our Achieve site. When grading your finished product, I will hold you accountable to this information. You must include a Work(s) Cited page at the end of your essay. Your Works Cited page must be a separate page, and it is in addition to the 1600-1800 word requirement of your essay. Any text referenced in some way in the body of your essay must be listed on your Works Cited page. To format your Works Cited page, refer to the relevant section on MLA formatting inside Achieve. When grading your finished product, I will hold you accountable to the information you’ve been provided about how to format a Works Cited page; if your essay is missing its Works Cited page, or if it has an incorrectly formatted Works Cited page, this will negatively affect your final grade on the assignment. Take care to avoid plagiarism of any kind. Passing off somebody else’s work as your own (because you copied it from somewhere, paraphrased it out of something you’ve read but not given the original source credit, downloaded it from the internet, and other such instances of academic dishonesty) is plagiarism. It is unethical, and, in a college course, it is sufficient grounds for failure. For your own protection, please read Cal Poly’s policies regarding plagiarism and academic integrity as they appear in the most current edition of the Cal Poly Pomona Catalog. In this course, expectations regarding academic integrity and consequences for violations of said expectations are consistent with what is outlined in the catalog. Evidence of plagiarism and/or academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade on the plagiarized assignment(s) and, depending on the frequency or kind of violation, failure in the course and formal disciplinary action through the Office of Student Conduct and Integrity. For more information, visit Academic Integrity Policies (https://www.cpp.edu/studentconduct/academicintegrity/academic-integrity.shtml)