Countering

Harris uses the term, to counter is not to nullify but to suggest a different way of thinking. Its defining phrases are On the other hand… and Yes but. It shows another reason why we quote others writing to our own article. He shows three ways to counter, which are arguing the other sides to the original idea, finding uncovering values of the article and making the limits of the old theory.  The three methods just like what we use when we try to solve a math proofs problem. We can use different ways to prove the null hypothesis is wrong. Like proving it is wrong directly, giving a counter-example, or proving the inverse proposition is right. If you can have these proof methods at your finger ends, you can solve the problems easily and quickly. Same as solving a mathematic problem, if we know some different ways to counter, we can make our writing diversity and various. We can have more thinking and inspiration when we creating.

In think the “countering” parts in the blogs is be used most on the comment parts. Actually, totally disagreement is less than half agree and half disagree. But when the situation comes to blog, it has some changes.  People usually choose to writes comments to the ideas that they are entire agree or disagree, it seems like they are views are rather extreme sometimes. For many times, readers counter the author just because they are thinking in an angle that the author is missed, but they don’t find out by themselves, so it shows like there are just one method to counter that is saying the original idea is totally “wrong”. But if we read the comments carefully, I think we can find that the readers are using different method to counter.

            I have to say, the methods Harris says about how to counter is excellent for the academic writes, which can make their article more logical. But it is hard for common writers apply in the daily life, because it needs good senses and think comprehensively.