Unit 3: 情報と社会 - Presenting Information, Explaining and Persuading
What this unit asks of you
Unit 3 shifts to extended, structured Japanese: explaining a topic, summarising a text, presenting an opinion and supporting it. The concepts you must understand are paragraph organisation (topic sentence, support, conclusion), connectives that signal logical relations (したがって、その一方で、なぜなら、たとえば、つまり), nominalisation and quotation (〜ということ、〜と考えられる、〜と述べている), passive and causative forms used in reporting, hedging (〜かもしれない、〜と思われる、〜傾向がある), and kanji-go versus wago style - formal writing favours Sino-Japanese vocabulary and である体.
Traps that cost marks
Examiners reward precision and punish vagueness. First, connective misuse: しかし contrasts, また adds, したがって concludes - swapping them breaks the logic even if each sentence is grammatical. Second, dropping the topic so the reader cannot tell whose opinion is being reported; distinguish 筆者は…と述べている from 私は…と考える. Third, over-hedging until the claim disappears. Fourth, direct translation of English argument phrases such as 「私は賛成する理由は三つあります」, which is understandable but not idiomatic; 「賛成の立場から、理由を三つ挙げる」 reads better. Fifth, mixing です・ます and だ・である in a report.
Rule of thumb
One paragraph, one claim. State the claim, give one piece of evidence, then state what the evidence shows. If you cannot name the connective's function in one word, do not use it.
Worked example
Weak: 「リサイクルは大切です。でも、めんどくさいです。だから、もっと簡単にすべきです。」 Strong: 「リサイクルは資源の有効利用に欠かせない。しかし、分別の手間が負担だと指摘されることも多い。したがって、表示の簡素化によって負担を減らすべきだ。」 The strong version replaces conversational でも・だから with しかし・したがって, nominalises めんどくさい into 負担, and ends with a clear recommendation.
Practice direction
Take a 200-character newspaper column, underline every connective, and label its function. Then rewrite the column's argument in three sentences.