112 – Middles
The middle of your essay is the introduction writ large. Its underlying constituents will therefore be quite similar to those studied
in the previous chapter. But there is in the middle a major shift of
emphasis away from bald propositions and conclusions towards the
careful working-out of arguments and the balancing of interpretations
with the evidence you call upon to support them. To justify the case
presented in your introduction is to develop arguments, to deploy
evidence, to evaluate the strength of counterarguments and apparent
counterevidence, and to demonstrate their relevance to the question
with which you began. In all this your aim is to show not so much
that the answer you have decided on is the right answer, but that it
is a reasonable point of view to hold.
If the process of writing always went ideally according to
plan, then the crafting of a good introduction should forestall most
(though not all) of the difficulties one might otherwise encounter in
writing middles. But just as you need to get an introduction of some
sort written to help guide the argument of your middle, so you might
often find that problems encountered in the writing of the middle lead
you back to a reconsideration of your introduction. The introduction
should never be regarded as finished and out of the way until you
are satisfied that you cannot fundamentally improve the argument of
your middle and that your middle justifies the case put forward in
the introduction as well as you can make it do so. If you get stuck at
some point in the writing of the middle, it is often, therefore, a good
idea to hunt for the source of the difficulty in the introduction itself
or in the analysis you carried out in preparation for drafting it (see
chapter 2).
1
Some common problems
1.1
Changing your mind about the answer
There are times when even the most careful preparation might seem
to be mocked when you discover half-way through the writing of
the middle that you have quite changed your mind about the case
set out in your introduction. This can happen because it is only in
The middle of your essay is the introduction writ large. Its underlying constituents will therefore be quite similar to those studied
in the previous chapter. But there is in the middle a major shift of
emphasis away from bald propositions and conclusions towards the
careful working-out of arguments and the balancing of interpretations
with the evidence you call upon to support them. To justify the case
presented in your introduction is to develop arguments, to deploy
evidence, to evaluate the strength of counterarguments and apparent
counterevidence, and to demonstrate their relevance to the question
with which you began. In all this your aim is to show not so much
that the answer you have decided on is the right answer, but that it
is a reasonable point of view to hold.
If the process of writing always went ideally according to
plan, then the crafting of a good introduction should forestall most
(though not all) of the difficulties one might otherwise encounter in
writing middles. But just as you need to get an introduction of some
sort written to help guide the argument of your middle, so you might
often find that problems encountered in the writing of the middle lead
you back to a reconsideration of your introduction. The introduction
should never be regarded as finished and out of the way until you
are satisfied that you cannot fundamentally improve the argument of
your middle and that your middle justifies the case put forward in
the introduction as well as you can make it do so. If you get stuck at
some point in the writing of the middle, it is often, therefore, a good
idea to hunt for the source of the difficulty in the introduction itself
or in the analysis you carried out in preparation for drafting it (see
chapter 2).
1
Some common problems
1.1
Changing your mind about the answer
There are times when even the most careful preparation might seem
to be mocked when you discover half-way through the writing of
the middle that you have quite changed your mind about the case
set out in your introduction. This can happen because it is only in