Unsubstantiated assertions in ToK Essay
One of the most frequent mistakes that I saw in the ToK Essay as a ToK Examiner was students writing unsubstantiated assertions. An unsubstantiated assertion is a claim, or statement, which is made without any substance (obviously). Rectifying this mistake is the one of the easiest things that students could do to move from the 3-4 mark band to the 5-6 band.
Let's look at an example:
Scientific knowledge is always objective, and therefore is more important than any of the other types of knowledge.
typical sentence from essays awarded <5 marks.
The above sentence is very typical of the essays that I would see in the 1-4 mark bands. The sentence not only contains 2 unsubstantiated assertions, but also an absolute statement (which is also not a good characteristic).
"Scientific knowledge is always objective": this is an unsubstantiated assertion. We might ask questions such as how do we know this ? where's the evidence ? This statement is also an absolute statement ("always"). Again, we might ask how we know this ? and where's the evidence ?
" Scientific knowledge...., is more important than the other forms of knowledge": Again, this is an unsubstantiated assertion as no evidence is given, it is stated as a fact rather than a claim/argument.
How to avoid unsubstantiated statements.
Unsubstantiated statements are fairly easy to avoide by using any of the following:
Cite research, or evidence, which demonstrates the statement.
So, in the case of the statement that "Scientific knowledge is always objective" if you can find research that has shown that scientific knowledge is always objective cite it. (Obviously, it's highly unlikely that you would find such research...,).
Quote someone who has put forward your claim as an argument.
Find a theorist/researcher/writer who has put forward the same claim as the one that you are making and quote them. This gives your argument 'substance'. Eg Jones (1984) argues that all scientific knowledge is objective. (I made up Jones 1984 because no person with credibility would claim that all scientific knowledge is objective, don't make up sources in your essay because the examiners will find you out !).
Use a hedging statement.
A hedging statement is a word, or statement, which makes the assertion propositional. Examples of hedging statements are: "it could be argued...,", or "one perspective is that...,"
Conclusion.
Changing unsubstantiated statements to substantiated statements is a very easy way to quickly improve the quality of ToK essay writing. Of course it won't necessarily bring coherence, analysis and pertinence to the essay, but it will help the essay move to 4+ marks.
If you want more help writing the ToK Essay you can pick up the e-book at this link, or look at other services offered at this link.
Enjoy your ToK writing!
Daniel,
Lisbon, Nov 2022