Writer's Blindness

I believe all writers are plagued with a unique blindness when they read their own writing.  They read the words that they carefully choose and sentences that they delicately contrived with satisfaction but fail to identify blatant issues that are still present in their masterpiece.  This phenomenon is nearly inevitable because writers know what they want to say so their brains' fill in the holes in logic or structure in their own writing.  These undetected flaws are often lapses in argument and not grammar or sentence structure.

I can easily identify these lapses in argument in other writers' work but yet I fall victim to the same problems.  When I read reviews on my paper, I am often frustrated because I don't see how the readers didn't understand what I thought were the obvious elements of my argument.  However, when I go back to my writing, I can see exactly where their confusion stems from.   Writing clear and strong arguments is a crucial element of writing that I should improve on.

Strong skills in argumentation can be useful in any field, including the scientific or medical fields.  Writing grants for research funding utilizes strong argumentation.  Writing scientific articles and reviewing articles depends on skills that are enhanced by strong skills in argumentation.  Overall, argumentation is more than a style of writing, it is a way of thinking.  It is thinking that identifies trends and evidence and avoids making claims that cannot be supported. From this perspective, argumentation is the factor that hones critical thinking and is utilized in countless contexts.