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The Structure of a Scientific Paper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Frederick Suppe
Frederick Suppe*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Maryland
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Abstract

Scientific articles exemplify standard functional units constraining argumentative structures. Severe space limitations demand every paragraph and illustration contribute to establishing the paper's claims. Philosophical testing and confirmation models should take into account each paragraph, table, and illustration. Hypothetico-Deductive, Bayesian Inductive, and Inference-to-the-Best-Explanation models do not, garbling the logic of papers. Micro-analysis of the fundamental paper in plate tectonics reveals an argumentative structure commonplace in science but ignored by standard philosophical accounts that cannot be dismissed as mere rhetorical embellishment. Papers with illustrations often display a second argumentative structure differing from the text's. Constraints on adequate testing and confirmation analyses are adduced.

“Experiments are about the assembly of persuasive arguments, ones that will stand up in court. … The task at hand is to capture the building-up of a persuasive argument about the world even in the absence of the logician's certainty.”

—Galison, How Experiments End, 277.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 381 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1998

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Philosophy/CHPS, 1102 Skinner, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

‡

Drafts were presented at the Princeton Geological & Geophysical Sciences Junior Colloquium, University of South Carolina, The College of Charleston/Medical College of South Carolina Humanities Colloquium, Indiana University, University of Illinois/Urbana, and Northwestern University. I am grateful to John Suppe, Bas van Fraassen, Arthur Fine, Alfred Noordmann, Don E. Dulany, Christopher P. Stone, colleagues in the Princeton Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, and students in my University of Maryland Fall 1994 “Seminar on Models in Science” for comments or other help; Ken Deffeyes for goading me into doing the Morgan 1968 microanalysis; and Jason Morgan for access to archival materials and several oral history opportunities concerning his 1968 paper and its 1967 AGU predecessor. Support was provided by: University of Maryland General Research Board, National Science Foundation, University of Maryland Prestigious Fellowships Program, Princeton Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, and the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study.

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