Stealing Thunder

One of the reasons that I'm thankful for having had debate experience in college is that it helped me with reasoning and eventually helped me in writing my thesis and any class papers that I had in my years during my Master's and my Ph.D. There is a debate strategy called stealing one's thunder wherein you use your opponent's arguments against them or use their arguments or even evidence to help you win. It seems underhanded but quite valid. It's an advanced version of exploiting your enemy's weaknesses.

This, however, only translates directly into research writing. Remember, we discussed ethics last week. There's no enemy in research per se. But in research, you converse with the accomplishments of those who have come before you. This is a  mark of professionalism and of expertise. Being professional and an expert means that you know the body of literature surrounding the topic that you want to study (reviewing literature). They also mean that you know how to situate yourself and your idea among what ideas already exist (research gap). Lastly, professionalism and expertise imply that you know how to operate ideas in such a way that you can use them to argue a valid point (thesis statement).

Let's cover them today.

Practically a thesis means two things that both relate to each other. It means a valid argument that you can back up with evidence.  It is also a written manuscript containing the same argument with all the evidence and processes (methods) used to support your claim.

Take for example, scientific theses such as:

• Darwin's theory that species do change over time became the theory of evolution.
• Newton's that a force causes objects to be pulled to one another depending on their mass, which became the Law of Gravity.

In Political Science, there are:

• Michel stated that in every group, power will always form a pyramid, with the elite at the top. This became the Law of Oligarchy.
• Kant's was that Democracies do not start wars; non-democracies do. Hence if there's no non-democracy in the world, then there will be no one to start wars. This became the Principle of Perpetual Peace.

Some of those examples have already been tried and tested; they are laws and not theories any more. Those theories can still be tested, expanded, or improved.

This is where the conversation between the researcher and those who have made accomplishments comes in. That's why we review the literature. What has already been argued about our topic? Which is nearest to the topic? What are we doing regarding this?

When you have found the nearest or closest theory to your thesis, you can use this to frame your argument. It becomes the focal point of discussion. It will help frame your research questions, and it will help frame your thesis statement. This also provides a pathway to what needs to be conceptualized.

Extensions/Variations

When you test a theory, you either affirm if it is true or not in the particular location or population that you proposed. Take, for example, Darwin's theory of evolution. He made his observations in the Galapagos islands. Then, can you use the same methods of observation and check if the principle is the same in some islands in northern Europe? 

One of my preliminary lectures when I used to handle Political Science as a Profession was the story of Chris Wlezein, who proposed the theory of thermostatic response. That the voters are like thermostats. If you saturate them with one policy, they will choose the candidate from an opposing party in the next elections. Wlezein used this in the U.S. in a particular state but found that his formula needed to be revised in other states. The theory is faulty, so he went back to his drawing board and proposed the element of salience in the formula. Eventually, the formula did not work in any other location, making the theory stronger.  As a note. Just because there are lots of Democrat policies during this term doesn't mean that voters will thermostatically respond and vote Republican in the next election. But what makes this work is that if there are a lot of salient (noticeable) policies, then the thermostatic response can be activated. 

Going back, the story also tells us what happens when we test a theory, and it turns out to not work or be false in the location or population that we proposed; then, part of our professionalism and expertise is to extend the theory or provide a variation. Both terms are the same. I encountered extensions in British Parliamentary format debates. The closing teams extend the proposals of the opening teams.  In research, we provide an alternative theory, or we propose a variation to the theory by adding a new element to it that helps make it work or make it better in explaining the world around us.

As we close today, please check out the quote on our Magic: the Gathering card for the day. It reminds us of ethical practice in research and the practicalities of knowing the field of literature. I apologize for the late post. Tune in to the next post where we discuss the use of Mendeley citation tool.

Image Source: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=false&multiverseid=51088