#16 - Political scientist: The dissemination of political

[LSAT2018]

Using the process of elimination, I was caught between answers (B) and (E) for this question. I understand that for the correct answer (E), it needs to be shown that the people outside the university must take the special role, not the people within academia.
But I would just like to clarify why (B) is incorrect. Would (B) strengthen the answer in any way? Is there an easy way to eliminate this answer?

[Brook Miscoski]

LSAT2018,

The problem with (B) is that the stimulus is about the effect of the academic work, not the motives of those creating the work. In fact, the stimulus already establishes as a premise that the academic work can cause social change, so a discussion of motive is not needed. Thus, it is irrelevant whether academics want to create social change; the only question the stimulus considers is whether translators outside of the academic community are needed to effectuate social change using academic work. If you are leaping from motivation to translation, you need to avoid that conceptual leap and choose (E), which hits on the idea without a leap.

[haileymarkt]

I'm having trouble breaking this argument down into premises and a conclusion. Going it to the question, I had identified this as a fact set and was expecting a MBT question stem.

In working through this, I've restated the stimulus for myself to say, "Political theories can create social change but are inaccessible due to academia's difficult language so there are special roles for outsiders to make it more clear." I guess that means the "so there are special roles" is the conclusion? Is "it follows that" a conclusion indicator?

Thanks for the help!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi hailey,

Yes, nice job breaking down the stimulus! The phrase "it follows that" is a fairly common conclusion indicator, so file that one away for future usage (a conclusion is something that an author asserts follows from the given premises).

Keep up the good work!

Jeremy

[ericj_williams]

LSAT2018,

The problem with (B) is that the stimulus is about the effect of the academic work, not the motives of those creating the work. In fact, the stimulus already establishes as a premise that the academic work can cause social change, so a discussion of motive is not needed. Thus, it is irrelevant whether academics want to create social change; the only question the stimulus considers is whether translators outside of the academic community are needed to effectuate social change using academic work. If you are leaping from motivation to translation, you need to avoid that conceptual leap and choose (E), which hits on the idea without a leap.

I don't understand how E is the right answer.

If you negate it, it becomes something like: Persons within academic settings are as willing and able (or more) than persons outside to write in a straightforward way.

Okay, and?

Even if they were more capable, would they actually do it?

[ericj_williams]

LSAT2018,

The problem with (B) is that the stimulus is about the effect of the academic work, not the motives of those creating the work. In fact, the stimulus already establishes as a premise that the academic work can cause social change, so a discussion of motive is not needed. Thus, it is irrelevant whether academics want to create social change; the only question the stimulus considers is whether translators outside of the academic community are needed to effectuate social change using academic work. If you are leaping from motivation to translation, you need to avoid that conceptual leap and choose (E), which hits on the idea without a leap.

I don't understand how E is the right answer.

If you negate it, it becomes something like: Persons within academic settings are as willing and able (or more) than persons outside to write in a straightforward way.

Okay, and?

Even if they were more capable, would they actually do it?

I guess in other words, are we assuming that the fact that someone is capable of something that they would actually do something? Which would then render those outside not so special.

But until we know that there are political theories accessible and clear, those outside will have a special role.

How does E tell us all of a sudden that just because someone is capable of clear language, they are actually going to write in a clear language?

[Adam Tyson]

The issue isn't whether people inside the university would take that action, ericj_williams. After all, the author never indicates that anyone outside will, either. The issue is whether people outside the university are necessary to translate that convoluted, alienating language into something more accessible and clear, and the negation of answer E would mean that we don't need an outsider to do that.

The author thinks the language needs to be translated, and concludes that there is therefore a special role for people outside the university. The assumption must be that no insiders could do the translation. That's E!

[Esquire123]

I had a hard time understanding the stimulus. I understood that they're saying that political theories are being written by people in academia, who use very intricate language that makes it inaccessible to people outside of academia. It seems that there are key players outside of academia who are able to create change in society. The next part is where I get confused. So then the author goes on to conclude that we need these people outside of academia to write these political theories in more simple terms so that it's more accessible to people outside of academia. However, if the political theories are written in a very convoluted way that makes it hard for people outside of academia to understand, then how are these same people then expected to rewrite the political theories in simple terms if they don't know what they're saying in the first place? I couldn't figure this part out and it made it difficult for me to see the missing assumption

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Esquire123!

You comment,

I understood that they're saying that political theories are being written by people in academia, who use very intricate language that makes it inaccessible to people outside of academia. It seems that there are key players outside of academia who are able to create change in society.

Your paraphrasing sounds correct! It's worth adding that this is a good practice to be in--if it doesn't take too much time, it can be helpful to paraphrase/reword a stimulus in your own words to enable it to make more sense.

So then the author goes on to conclude that we need these people outside of academia to write these political theories in more simple terms so that it's more accessible to people outside of academia.

This paraphrasing also seems to be accurate.

However, if the political theories are written in a very convoluted way that makes it hard for people outside of academia to understand, then how are these same people then expected to rewrite the political theories in simple terms if they don't know what they're saying in the first place?

The stimulus doesn't say that the academics aren't able to write in widely accessible style. Rather, it's indicating that political theories are formulated and perhaps are conversed about within universities in language that may appear convoluted to people outside of that setting. It's possible that these academics are able to switch to more accessible language outside of that setting. It's also possible that many of them do in fact switch--perhaps in addition to their academic scholarship, some of them occasionally publish on blogs or in newspapers to broad audiences. Finally, the stimulus doesn't indicate that these people "don't know what they're saying in the first place" (though that might be possible). Rather, the stimulus indicates other people don't know what they're saying, i.e., people outside of academia might find the language of people within academia to be convoluted.

This is why answer choice (E) supplies a missing assumption. That answer states, "Persons within academic settings are less willing or less able than persons outside to write in a straightforward way." Using the Assumption Negation technique, we can negate this to: "Persons within academic settings are [not] less willing or less able than persons outside to write in a straightforward way." This negation is effectively saying that the people in academia are indeed able to write in a straightforward way. If this were true, the argument falls apart that people outside of academia are necessary to present the political theories in a straightforward way.