According to Harris, the purpose of countering is “to
develop a new line of thinking in response to the limits of other texts”. It is
required to analyzing others’ texts, finds flaws in them, and then responds in
opposition to it to support one’s idea. Harris explains the three ways to use
countering in writing: “Arguing the other side, uncovering values, [and]
dissenting”. Arguing the other side is when one thinks what a writer is arguing
about is actually correct, and defend the other side of the writer. Uncovering
values is when one finds an important missing value in a text, and he/she can
uncover the important value, and the last, Dissenting is to figure out flaws in
text due to its “limit” to a certain point. People had been questioning about
if the egg came before chicken or the chicken came before egg, and I found this
interesting article talking about “the chicken came first”. At first it seemed
like the writer (Tucker Reals) was agreeing with the idea that the chicken came first, but it
turned out to be that the writer uses other texts to point out the
irony in the texts, because at the end he mentions “in spite of Hector’s hard
work and the ‘scientific proof’ it yielded, the study offered no explanation as
to how the chicken got there in the first place. If not from an egg, perhaps it
just came from across the road”. He even adds with a little sense of sarcasm.
Countering might take more time than forwarding, yet it is great method to
prove your points more effectively.
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