{"id":577,"date":"2010-12-20T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-20T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/scholarship-and-the-language-of-belief\/"},"modified":"2010-12-20T13:16:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-20T13:16:00","slug":"scholarship-and-the-language-of-belief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/scholarship-and-the-language-of-belief.html","title":{"rendered":"Scholarship and the Language of Belief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Student assignments I\u2019ve read this year seem to describe the conclusions <\/i>of scholars as their \u201cbeliefs\u201d about a subject\u00a0much more frequently than I\u2019ve noticed in the past.<\/p>\n

I wonder whether other professors have noticed something similar, and if so, how you respond to the use of such language.<\/p>\n

Personally, I think the appropriate language to use for what scholars offer is to speak of their conclusions<\/i>. In some instances, of course, it may be that what we are presented even in a scholarly work are beliefs that were either predetermined before the investigation began or based on insufficient evidence. But the ideal in scholarly writing, as it is also in student assignments (at least in my classes), is to not merely offer \u201copinions\u201d but to draw conclusions<\/i>\u00a0which, if not always the only possible conclusion given the available evidence, are at least compatible<\/i>\u00a0with the available evidence.<\/p>\n

What do others think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student assignments I\u2019ve read this year seem to describe the conclusions of scholars as their \u201cbeliefs\u201d about a subject\u00a0much more frequently than I\u2019ve noticed in the past. I wonder whether other professors have noticed something similar, and if so, how you respond to the use of such language. Personally, I think the appropriate language to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nScholarship and the Language of Belief<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Student assignments I've read this year seem to describe the conclusions of scholars as their "beliefs" about a subject much more frequently than\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/scholarship-and-the-language-of-belief.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scholarship and the Language of Belief\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Student assignments I've read this year seem to describe the conclusions of scholars as their "beliefs" about a subject much more frequently than\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/12\/scholarship-and-the-language-of-belief.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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