Broadly, the two kinds of claims are conceptual and practical.
Conceptual claims ask readers not to ask, but to understand. The flavors of conceptual claim are as follows:
Claims of fact or existence
Claims of definition and classification
Claims of cause and consequence
Claims of evaluation or appraisal
There’s essentially one flavor of practical claim
Claims of action or policy.
If you read between the lines, you might notice that a kind of claim of fact or cause/consequence is that a policy works or doesn’t work to bring about some end. In this case, we see that practical claims deal in ought or should. There is a difference, perhaps subtle perhaps not, between “X brings about Y” and “to get Y we ought to X”.
Readers expect a claim to be specific and significant. You can evaluate your claim along these two axes.
To make a claim specific, you can use precise language and explicit logic. Usually, precision comes at the cost of a higher word count. To gain explicitness, use words like “although” and “because”. Note some fields might differ in norms.
You can think of significance of a claim as the quantity it asks readers to change their mind, or I suppose even behavior.
While we can’t quantify significance, we can roughly estimate it: if readers accept a claim, how many other beliefs must they change?
Avoid arrogance.
As paradoxical as it seems, you make your argument stronger and more credible by modestly acknowledging its limits.
Two ways of avoiding arrogance are acknowledging limiting conditions and using hedges to limit certainty.
Don’t run aground: there are innumerable caveats that you could think of, so it’s important to limit yourself only to the most relevant ones or the ones that readers would most plausibly think of. Limiting certainty with hedging is given by example of Watson and Crick, publishing what would become a high-impact result, “We wish to suggest … in our opinion … we believe … Some … appear”
without the hedges, Crick and Watson would be more concise but more aggressive.
In most fields, readers distrust flatfooted certainty
It is not obvious how to walk the line between hedging too little and hedging too much.
It is not obvious how to walk the line between hedging too little and hedging too much.
This may be context-dependent. Different countries probably have different cultural norms. Norms may differ for higher-status and lower-status speakers. Humble speech may impress some people, but others may perceive it as a sign of weakness. Also, is your audience fellow scientists or are you writing a popular science book? (More hedging for the former, less hedging for the latter.)
Claims—thoughts on chapter eight of Craft of Research
Broadly, the two kinds of claims are conceptual and practical.
Conceptual claims ask readers not to ask, but to understand. The flavors of conceptual claim are as follows:
Claims of fact or existence
Claims of definition and classification
Claims of cause and consequence
Claims of evaluation or appraisal
There’s essentially one flavor of practical claim
Claims of action or policy.
If you read between the lines, you might notice that a kind of claim of fact or cause/consequence is that a policy works or doesn’t work to bring about some end. In this case, we see that practical claims deal in ought or should. There is a difference, perhaps subtle perhaps not, between “X brings about Y” and “to get Y we ought to X”.
Readers expect a claim to be specific and significant. You can evaluate your claim along these two axes.
To make a claim specific, you can use precise language and explicit logic. Usually, precision comes at the cost of a higher word count. To gain explicitness, use words like “although” and “because”. Note some fields might differ in norms.
You can think of significance of a claim as the quantity it asks readers to change their mind, or I suppose even behavior.
Avoid arrogance.
Two ways of avoiding arrogance are acknowledging limiting conditions and using hedges to limit certainty.
Don’t run aground: there are innumerable caveats that you could think of, so it’s important to limit yourself only to the most relevant ones or the ones that readers would most plausibly think of. Limiting certainty with hedging is given by example of Watson and Crick, publishing what would become a high-impact result, “We wish to suggest … in our opinion … we believe … Some … appear”
It is not obvious how to walk the line between hedging too little and hedging too much.
This may be context-dependent. Different countries probably have different cultural norms. Norms may differ for higher-status and lower-status speakers. Humble speech may impress some people, but others may perceive it as a sign of weakness. Also, is your audience fellow scientists or are you writing a popular science book? (More hedging for the former, less hedging for the latter.)