RC strategy guide pg 41 Reading for the Scale

[JorieB701]

This chapter teaches how to properly read for the scale. On page 41, Chapter 2, 5th edition:

The scale shifts to accommodate the author's opinion that the "court's authority is both institutional and intellectual." They simultaneously switch the other side to be the opposite, which is that the authority of the court is either "purely institutional or purely intellectual." I'm just curious:

If I'm understanding this properly, when we read for the scale we are interested in the opposing sides being about which topics are discussed, weighing each side down based on the weight given to each side of the argument. Here, on page 41 the scale shifts as a result of the 4th paragraph in the passage where the author asserts their opinion. I understand the author's opinion and why the scale adjusted to reflect it but I'm curious as to the switch on the other side of the scale. As I said above, it now says the opposite of the argument the author is trying to make but it doesn't seem to me that the passage supports anyone's opinion being, "court authority is either purely institutional or purely intellectual." Why isn't the other side of the scale something like, "intellectual authority is rooted in institutional authority, therefore there's no distinction between the two." (or something along those lines?) I think I missed the part where the other side (of the argument as evidenced in the passage), suggests that the court's authority could ever be anything other than institutional authority? Did the other side of the scale simply switch to the opposite of what her argument may be, regardless of whether it's entirely supported by the passage? Am I overthinking this?

I'm obviously new to learning the scale and I struggled to understand this passage so I'm sure I'm missing something but the book glosses over this a bit and I'm hoping for more clarification on this point.

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

I don't have the book/passage handy, but from what you're describing, yes, it sounds like they just shifted the Scale to better define an oppositional position to what we eventually find out is the author's position.

I'm not actually a big fan / user of The Scale. It's a helpful reading tool for many, but it may seem like more trouble than it's worth for others.

The idea is that MOST passages will have something resembling a central argument, so most of the time reading for a Scale is a helpful way of honing in on the author's main point (after all, if the author is on the Scale, and you find it, then you're most of the way there --- you just need to decide which side the author is on).

However, many passages do NOT have a Scale, and others have several scales. One common structure is for an author to adopt a 3rd side, that is neither side A nor side B of the original scale.

At that point, do we make up a new scale? (3rd side vs. not-3rd side)
Or do we just keep the original scale and say that the author isn't really on EITHER side?!

My answer: It doesn't matter, as long as we're clear about what the author's position is.

My priority in reading each passage is simply to determine the Purpose of the passage and to localize the Author's main point into 3 or fewer sentences. ALL passages have a purpose, and all passages have an author's main point.

Read about the Scale and practice using it with a very flexible mindset. It's just a tool for spotting and extracting the big framing ideas in a passage, and it's a tool for 'chunking' off parts of the passage, based on whether their function is to support this or that framing idea.

But never feel like you NEED to find a scale in every passage, and never feel like just because your scale didn't match ours that you necessarily did something wrong.

Hope this helps.