Two recent encounters with arguments made – one on a podcast, one in a book meant for a broad reading audience – reminded me of the unique ways academics assess arguments. In both cases, the makers of the argument made connections across different sources and sets of evidence to present a particular point of view. As I considered these arguments, here are two features of my own thought processes that stood out:

1. A tendency to defer to those with expertise in a particular area rather than assemble broad arguments with multiple data sources. It is difficult to make big arguments with multiple moving pieces as this might cover ground addressed by numerous scholars across different disciplines. In academia, scholars often have fairly narrow sets of expertise. Can one argument adequately represent all the important parts of knowledge? Why not assemble a larger argument from the clear expertise multiple scholars hold rather than try to do it as one person or a small team?
2. An interest in assessing the methods and form of the argument from a disciplinary perspective. Different academic fields go about the study of the world differently. They have different methods and think differently about what might count as evidence. They put their arguments together in different ways. The content of an argument or the rhetorical force of an argument matter but we often expect them to be presented in particular ways. Go outside these methodologies or formats and academics might struggle to past this.

Based on this, I wonder how well academics can work with arguments made to the public when we have been trained in specific that work within the parameters of academia.