Improve Your Essay Writing: Stasis Theory

Writers have to create content that is easy to read yet professional. You should make sure that any information that you include in your paper is reliable and relevant, and you won’t be able to do it if you don’t understand your topic. Thus, you should do your research. Research allows you to learn something new and to improve your writing and problem-solving skills. However, many students don’t know how to start researching or where to begin.  This problem becomes especially difficult when working in teams. Fortunately, college-writers.com blog is here to help you. In this article, you’ll learn about stasis theory that can take your research process to the next level.

Stasis Theory: What It Is?

This is a rhetorical procedure that helps to define the point of a debate or issue. Created by Aristotle and Hermagoras, this ancient theory has been often used by rhetoricians and philosophers of Ancient Rome and Greece. Ancient rhetoricians also came up with questions aimed to examine legal cases.

Given that every question depends on the results of the previous one, you should use them in a certain order. Stasis theory turns out to be especially useful for teamwork, essay writing, and research.

When using stasis theory, writers and researchers focus on the following things:

• Facts, or conjecture;
• Definitions — the nature and meaning of the issue;
• The importance of the issue (quality);
• Policy — plan of actions.

We recommend that you always use stasis theory in this exact order. You can also divide these categories into subcategories to simplify the overall process. Below, we will describe how to divide these stages into particular questions to improve your research, teamwork, and writing processes.

Facts

• What happened?
• What caused the event?
• What can be done about it?

Definitions

• What is the nature of the problem or issue?
• What kind of problem/issue it is?
• What are different aspects of the problem/issue and how do they relate?

Quality

• Is the subject good or bad?
• How significant is the problem?
• What people are most affected by this problem, and what are its consequences?
• What will happen if the problem remains unsolved?
• What will happen if it’s solved successfully?

Policy

• What actions are necessary?
• Who should participate in the problem-solving process?
• What exactly should be done?
• What conditions are necessary to solve this problem?

We’ve already mentioned that stasis theory is very beneficial for teams and essay writers. Below, we’re going to explain why.

Research

Stasis theory allows you to learn more about a certain subject so that you can complete your research successfully. For instance, you can stasis theory can be used as a series of analytical questions that help you collect information precisely.

When answering stasis questions, get information from various sources, including databases, polls, journals, interviews, literature reviews, etc. Stasis theory not only helps researchers explore a certain issue, but it also helps them include the right information in their work. For example, if you need to write an essay on a difficult topic based on your argument, you can use stasis theory to investigate the topic before writing the essay itself. Questions from stasis theory can also help you detect the gaps in knowledge when you’re unable to answer some of them.

Teamwork

Stasis theory can also help different people find a common ground because it encourages teams to generate ideas and search for consensus. Let’s say a team considers the climate change issue and discusses whether it’s only caused by humans or other factors, as well. Some members of the team might agree that climate change was caused by human mistakes, while others might disagree. In this case, it’s important to find something everyone can agree on.

No matter whether members of the group state that the problem was caused by humans or other factors, everyone would agree that climate change affects the whole planet, puts many species in danger (facts), and that it’s a very serious issue (quality). As you can see, the members of the team can achieve stasis in 2 out of 4 categories. They only may disagree on the causes of the problem (definition), and what should be done about it (policy).

Even though there might be different opinions, stasis theory helps to start a dialogue and create a comprehensive piece of writing. Without this approach, the members of the team may only argue so that nobody will be satisfied with the work.

When working in teams, it’s especially important to develop a concept that will be accepted by everyone, using reasonable arguments. For example, you can provide many reasons why people contribute to climate change while also mentioning that people were not the initial cause. This way, you will enable readers to pick a side.

You can also use stasis theory when planning the research process. Sorting questions by category will help you get the necessary information about the topic so that you can write a paper based on reliable data. This theory also allows researchers to find a common ground when a team gets divided because of different opinions on the same issue. Just use the questions from stasis theory in the right order and write down your ideas. Make sure to think logically and to explore your problem carefully.