Organization
The step from accumulating evidence to expressing information
organization is a reflection of some order imposed on impressions
- All learning is to a great extent an inquiry
- the record of that inquiry are your notes
- the organizing of those notes can occur by answering significant questions about what you are learning as you read.
- Writing is an expression of ordered thought.
Ways to organize thoughts.
Questions | Approaches | Means to order thinking | Source of evidence?
Question?
Can you make a case that the Columbian exchange is unimportant? Why not?
1) take the two lists and see if there is evidence to answer this simpler question.
What is wealth?
Does anyone say how wealth – or accumulating value – is determined?
Work and labor (So is there evidence in Crosby)
Commerce (So is there evidence in Crosby of trade & if so what kind?)
Logical order arises from several steps of sifting information, facts, and evidence for the arguments you find in the readings.
Syllogism
The Caribbean was like an antique vase holding flowers and fruits that broke; fragmenting into unimaginably scattered pieces.
Descriptive, but may not be informative because it lacks an argument.
Analogy:
1. Comparing a list of contrasts and comparisons of the argument
2. If -- then statements
If the Native Amerindians had survived, then _____________________?
If the cattle had all died from pathogens, then ____________________?
Metaphor:
Does Crosby use any comparisons between two unlike things to make an analogy and provide for some framework to express an idea or concept?
Etymology, based on words and phrases
Chronology, based on events; causes of events & outcomes of events
Ecology, based on the Crosby understanding of biology in historic events.
Order in an essay
Crosby's organization
Benefits and drawbacks
"The positive result has been an enormous increase in food production &, thereby, in human population. The negative results have been the destruction of ecological stability. . . "
Migration & slavery
Population expansion
Economy
Conclusion
Where do I get the information I need?
The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, New York: Greenwood Press, 1972.
Germs, Seeds, and Animals.
Crosby's underlying assumptions from Germs Seeds and Animals.
Crosby's summary of his ultimate conclusions.
