The phrase "assertion rather than a" is grammatically correct and can be used in written English.
It can be used when contrasting an assertion with another concept or idea, typically in discussions or arguments.
Example: "In this debate, I prefer to make an assertion rather than a mere assumption about the topic at hand."
Alternatives: "statement instead of a" or "claim rather than a".
Yet it is ultimately an unsatisfying series of assertions rather than a reasoned argument.
It is shocking that President Deby will make such an assertion rather than condemn human rights violations in Africa.
Not terribly well; his devotion to his family was largely a matter of assertion rather than of practice.
When respect is this formalized all through the political system, when speech becomes sacerdotal and impervious to interrogation, it becomes a warrant for assertion rather than argument.
From the left, for example, there is Senator Byron L. Dorgan (Democrat of North Dakota) with "Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America," an exercise in assertion rather than persuasion that takes for granted the obvious truth of what it purports to argue, which is boilerplate protectionism.
This was the price of a foreign policy based on assertion rather than on persuasion.
Illumination, such as it is, comes in the form of emphasis and assertion rather than insight or analysis.
The committee is generally favourable to PFPs, but concludes that "the dearth of hard data … encourages assertion rather than analysis," and that "this needs to be remedied".
Pro-choice campaigners have long been frustrated by the extent to which fundamentalist anti-abortionists rely on assertion, rather than evidence, to argue against any abortions being available.
We have found the government's arms export licensing regime, which it repeatedly asserts is robust, is in fact to a large extent opaque and the government too often relies on assertion rather than positive evidence.
