Learning outcomes

The seminar Techniques of argumentation and written expression aims to develop the following skills • Be aware of the particularities and requirements of academic writing; • Consolidate some points related to the language standard ; • Adopt an appropriate enunciative posture; • To appropriate the main techniques of argumentation and textual construction; • Identify and manage the means of polyphony and modalisation in a scientific text and apply the required citation conventions. Associated with the course Method of research in social sciences and the Seminar of epistemology and scientific doctrines, the seminar Techniques of argumentation and written expression is part of the module "Introduction to the scientific approach". It is therefore also part of a global approach in which writing skills will contribute to developing or refining critical thinking (precision of formulation, rigour of demonstration, appropriate language register, scientific posture, mastery of the techniques of taking up the comments of others, etc.). The type of supervision will allow the student to work largely at home, to self-assess, to choose appropriate strategies and to rewrite. The seminar and the module in which it is integrated are intended, among other things, to prepare the student for the completion of the personal work, one of the four components of the Master's thesis.

Content

The seminar is conceived as an alternation between the writing of papers (for which the instructions are given at the beginning of the academic year) and sessions of exploitation of these papers and of more theoretical formalisations. An online follow-up is offered where students can have intermediate excerpts evaluated or ask questions. Three books are used as a basis for written work. They are common to both the Social Science Research Methods course and the Seminar in Epistemology and Scientific Doctrines: • Bourguignon, F., La mondialisation de l'inégalité, Paris, Le Seuil , 2012, "La République des Idées". • Milanovic, B., Les inégalités mondiales, Paris, Les Éditions La Découverte, 2019. • Rivoli, P., Les aventures d'un tee-shirt dans l'économie globalisée, Paris, Fayard, 2005. 4 sessions are planned in the programme • A session presenting the objectives and teaching methods of the "Introduction to the scientific approach" module in the presence of all the teachers. The instructions for the first writing assignment are given to the students on this occasion. • A session devoted to the particularities of an academic type of writing: the different registers of enunciation (descriptive, explanatory, argumentative), the linguistic norm, the principles of textual construction, the enunciative posture, etc. This session is based on a criterion-referenced reading of different types of text in the economic field, with a particular focus on what is a scientific text. The second part is based on a corpus of points of vigilance or awkwardness most frequently observed in previous student work. • A session devoted to the means of textual construction, argumentative typology and critical expression. • A session devoted to the principles of writing a synthesis and, with a view to repeating the words of others, to the reactivation of quotation and referential conventions.

Assessment method

The assessment is continuous. It consists of 3 individual written assignments, all common to the Social Science Research Methods course, assessed separately by the two teachers and according to criteria specific to each course: • writing a research question based on the reading of the chosen work and a short argumentative text justifying its clarity, relevance and feasibility; • the establishment of a list of 5 bibliographical references in relation to the research question, the argumentation of the choice of each reference and the writing of an argumentative text explaining the complementarity of the references in view of the answer to the research question; • writing an argumentative synthesis of 3 scientific articles (among the 5 selected) in reference to the research question. In this evolutionary process of writing, students receive methodological sheets that equip them: strategies for reading a scientific text, means of textual construction (introduction, paragraph, conclusion, articulators), means of taking up the words of others (citation and referential conventions). The first two works are used in the session following their submission.

Sources, references and any support material

Bourguignon, F., La mondialisation de l'inégalité, Paris, Le Seuil, 2012, "La République des Idées". Milanovic, B., Les inégalités mondiales, Paris, Les Éditions La Découverte, 2019. Rivoli, P., Les aventures d'un tee-shirt dans l'économie globalisée, Paris, Fayard, 2005. Collard, A. and Monballin, M., Référentiel pour l'élaboration et la rédaction d'un travail scientifique en sciences humaines, Namur, Presses de l'Université de Namur, 2015.

Language of instruction

Français