Interpret an ambiguity

Supplied materials

• Paper and pencil, or a browser text area. All named people/events/records are fictional learning inputs.
• Worked case: Excerpt A: A hinge is a movable joint whose distinguishing feature is permitting connected pieces to turn relative to each other. Excerpt B: The writer compares a one-week adult survey with a one-year all-ages survey as if their percentages represented the same population and period. Excerpt C: Jo attached a paper strip between two panels. On the first bend the crease flexed; on the fifth the paper tore. She replaced the strip and wrote the observed limit beside the model. Following this one model shows what the test record contains. Excerpt D: The proposal says the activity is accessible, but accessible may mean merely online or usable by the specified learner.
• Primary check: Excerpt A: A useful boundary: a page can be online but too small to read; this case does not meet our usable-text definition of access. Excerpt B: Recommendation: print the large-text sheet at home; it never checks whether learners have a printer. Excerpt C: An available page is like an open doorway: both offer entry. But a digital page also needs readable content and a usable response method; the physical doorway analogy cannot prove those are present. Excerpt D: Claim: Jo saw Lea with her card. It is unclear whether her names Jo or Lea as the card’s owner.

Learn the idea

Ambiguity can arise from a pronoun, a word with multiple meanings, a qualifier’s reach or an uncertain causal relation. Specify the type before proposing a clarification.

Use the stated competing readings. Revise only the ambiguous element while preserving the established information.

Original worked input: Original excerpt D: The proposal says the activity is accessible, but accessible may mean merely online or usable by the specified learner. The task is to interpret an ambiguity. The answer is “multiple meanings of a key term”. Evidence: The proposal says the activity is accessible, but accessible may mean merely online or usable by the specified learner. Reasoning: multiple meanings of a key term is supported because a key term can denote two different things and the writer has not selected one. Clarification should not invent evidence about cause.

1. Read the supplied worked case and identify the part named in this lesson. An adult can model unfamiliar words.
2. Use the stated competing readings. Revise only the ambiguous element while preserving the established information.
3. Check the worked solution: multiple meanings of a key term. Evidence: The proposal says the activity is accessible, but accessible may mean merely online or usable by the specified learner. Reasoning: multiple meanings of a key term is supported because a key term can denote two different things and the writer has not selected one. Clarification should not invent evidence about cause.
4. Use the new primary and practice cases. Give a reason from the actual words before checking the feedback.

Check your reasoning

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Take it further

Changed-input task: Original excerpt D: Bending and tearing increased together; the draft does not establish direction or exclude load as another factor. Give an evidence-based answer before looking at the model. Expected reasoning: Evidence: Bending and tearing increased together; the draft does not establish direction or exclude load as another factor. Reasoning: unresolved causal direction is supported because co-occurring changes do not establish which caused which. Clarification should not invent evidence about cause. Then write a brief alternative sentence, paragraph, source note or scene that demonstrates the same operation; label new fictional details and preserve source limits.

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