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Keroro Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

tautological saying?

hi, please read the following sentence: "In fact, we have learned that we have a much greater effect on an individual or population if we work as a team in a system of care that is supported by evidence that what we are doing is effective."

According to my understanding, it seems to be some sort of tautological saying: "we have a much greater effect...if we work as a team...supported by evidence that what we are doing is effecitve." Am I wrong? Can anyone help me to figure out what's going on?

thks!
  

Top answer

I see what you mean. I think it has a reading in which it is tautological, but I doubt that was the intended meaning. The intended meaning, in my opinion, is something like this: We have a much greater success rate if we work in a system that can monitor whether our actions are effective.

— CalifJim

  • I see what you mean.
  • I think it has a reading in which it is tautological, but I doubt that was the intended meaning.
  • The intended meaning, in my opinion, is something like this: We have a much greater success rate if we work in a system that can monitor whether our actions are effective.
  • That is, we continue to do better if there is way by which we can know if we are doing better.
  • CJ
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7 Answers
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I see what you mean. I think it has a reading in which it is tautological, but I doubt that was the intended meaning. The intended meaning, in my opinion, is something like this:

We have a much greater success rate if we work in a system that can monitor whether our actions are effective.

That is, we continue to do better if there is way by which we can know if we are do
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Thank you for giving me another angle to read this sentence, CJ. Your reading seems to focus on the monitoring "system". But reading from the context (I am sorry that I haven't quoted a larger context), the focus seems to be on "team work". The whole paragraph goes like this: "We [physicans] must also learn to work well in a team of health workers. The job of improving health and healing disease i
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You don't want to have both effect and effective this close to each other ....
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(system of care) that is supported by evidence that what we are doing is effective

certainly is difficult to comprehend in this context. Upon rereading it, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Maybe the original draft had several alternatives for expressing the thought and these were hastily combined somehow in the final draft, giving the strange phrases we see here.
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KeroroThank you for giving me another angle to read this sentence, CJ. Your reading seems to focus on the monitoring "system". But reading from the context (I am sorry that I haven't quoted a larger context), the focus seems to be on "team work". The whole paragraph goes like this: "We [physicans] must also learn to work well in a team of health workers. The job of improv
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(system of care) that is supported by evidence that what we are doing is effective

I think this sentence (if we can call it that) can’t stand on the words that made it up. The first impression (that's after reading it a few times) to me was, it sounded like a riddle. Too many “thats” and not enough “evidence”.
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Keroro
Thank you for giving me another angle to read this sentence, CJ. Your reading seems to focus on the monitoring "system". But reading from the context (I am sorry that I haven't quoted a larger context), the focus seems to be on "team work". The whole paragraph goes like this: "We [physicans] must also learn to work well in a team of health workers. The job of i
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