A Well-Supported Position: Using Sources

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

To learn more about using patterns of opposition to read critically, see Chapter 12.

Writers of position arguments often quote, paraphrase, and summarize sources. Usually, they use sources to support their positions, as Jessica Statsky does in her argument about children’s sports. Sometimes, however, they use sources to highlight opposing positions to which they will respond, as Solove does on occasion in this essay.

In the following example, Solove signals his opinion through the words he chooses to characterize the source:

As the computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-hide argument stems from a faulty “premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong.” (par. 9)

Elsewhere, readers have to work a little harder to determine how Solove is using the source.

Solove also uses what we might call hypothetical quotations—sentences that quote not what someone actually said but what they might have said:

Many people say they’re not worried. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” they declare. “Only if you’re doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don’t deserve to keep it private.” (par. 1)

“My life’s an open book,” people might say. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” (par. 16)

Signal phrase

Hypothetical quotation

You can tell from a signal phrase like “people might say” or “many people say” that no actual person made the statement, but Solove does not always supply such cues.

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write a couple of paragraphs analyzing and evaluating Solove’s use of quotations:

  1. Find and mark the quotations, noting which actually quote someone and which are hypothetical.
  2. Identify the quotations—real or hypothetical—that Solove agrees with and those that represent an opposing view.
  3. Consider how effective Solove’s quoting strategy was likely to have been, given his purpose and audience. (Remember that this article appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly newspaper for college faculty and administrators.) How effective did you find his quoting strategy?

    Question