CHECKLIST:WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

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CHECKLISTWRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS
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Writing Argumentative Essays

• Is your topic debatable?
• Does your essay develop an argumentative thesis?
• Have you considered the opinions, attitudes, and
  values of your audience?
• Have you identified and refuted opposing
  arguments?
• Are your arguments logically constructed?
• Have you supported your assertions with evidence?

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Writing Argumentative Essays (Contd.)

• Have you established your credibility?
• Have you been fair?
• Have you avoided logical fallacies?
• Have you provided your reader with enough
  background information?
• Have you presented your points clearly and
  organized them logically?
• Have you written an interesting introduction and
  a strong conclusion?

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Using Evidence and Establishing Credibility

• 1. Using evidence
• Most arguments are built on assertions- claims
  you make about a debatable topic- backed by
  evidence- supporting information, in the form of
  examples, statistics, or expert opinion.

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Using Evidence and Establishing
Credibility(Contd.)

• Only statements that are self-evident (All
  human beings are mortal), true by definition
  (224), or factual (The Atlantic Ocean
  separates England and the United States) need no
  proof.
• Readers need supporting evidence for all other
  kinds of assertions you make.

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Using evidence and establishing credibility
(Contd. )

• 2. Establishing credibility and being fair.
• In order to convince readers, you have to
  satisfy them you are someone they should listen
  to- in other words, that you have credibility.
• Readers will also judge the fairness of your use
  of the evidence.

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CHECKLIST ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY

• FIND COMMON GROUND
• Identify the various sides of the issue.
• Identify the points on which you and your
  reader are in agreement.
• Work these areas of agreement into your
  argument.

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CHECKLIST ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY (Contd.)

• DEMONSTRATE KNOWLEDGE
• Include relevant personal experiences.
• Include relevant special knowledge of your
  subject.
• Include the results of any relevant research
  you have done.

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CHECKLIST ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY (Contd.)

• MAINTAIN A REASONABLE TONE
• Avoid sounding as if you are talking down to
  or insulting your readers.
• Use moderate language and qualify your
  statements.

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CHECKLIST BEING FAIR

• Do not distort evidence.
• Do not intentionally misrepresent opponents
  views by exaggerating them and then attacking
  this extreme position.
• Do not change the meaning of what someone has
  said or implied by selecting certain words from a
  statement and ignoring others.

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CHECKLIST BEING FAIR (Contd.)

• Do not select only information that supports your
  case and ignore information that does not.
• Do not use inflammatory language calculated to
  appeal to the emotions or prejudices of readers.

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CHECKLIST AVOID LOGICAL FALLACIES

• Finally, readers will not accept your argument
  unless it is logical. For this reason, you should
  revise carefully to be sure you have avoided
  logical fallacies.

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ORGANISING AN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

• In its simplest form, an argument consists of a
  thesis statement and supporting evidence.
  However, argumentative essays frequently contain
  additional elements calculated to win audience
  approval and to overcome potential opposition.

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ELEMENTS OF AN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

• INTRODUCTION
• The introduction of your argumentative essay
  orients your readers to your subject. Here, you
  can show how your subject concerns your audience,
  note why it is important, or explain how it has
  been misunderstood.

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ELEMENTS OF AN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY(Contd.)

• BACKGROUND
• In this section you may briefly present a
  narrative of past events, a summary of others
  opinions on your subject, or a review of basic
  facts.

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ELEMENTS OF AN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY(Contd.)

• THESIS STATEMENT
• Your thesis statement can appear anywhere in
  your argumentative essay. Frequently, you state
  your thesis after you have given your readers an
  overview of your subject. However, in highly
  controversial arguments- those to which your
  audience might react negatively- you may postpone
  stating your thesis until later in your essay.

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AUTHORITY

• Much of the evidence for your research
  conclusions will come from authorities with
  special insight or knowledge about your topic.
  An authority is someone qualified to offer an
  opinion or make a statement on a topic.

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AUTHORITY (Contd.)

• The extent to which someone qualifies as an
  authority depends upon the topic and the
  individuals background and experience.

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AUTHORITY (Contd.)

• A medical doctor qualifies as an authority when
  talking about the health risk involved with
  piercing ones navel to accommodate body
  jewellery however, the same doctor is not an
  authority on the reasons that young people are so
  fond of this trend.
• That opinion should come from someone with more
  background on the topic such as an authority on
  culture or a researcher who has interviewed a
  number of teenagers about navel piercing.

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Checklist for Evaluating Authority

• You should judge the authority of a source by a
  variety of criteria. In addition to an
  individuals background and experience, weigh
  factors such at the following in determining a
  sources level of credibility or expertise

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Checklist for Evaluating Authority (Contd.)

• If the sources qualifications are not
  immediately clear, is there an adequate
  explanation of them?
• Does the source demonstrate knowledge of the
  topic and an awareness of recent issues, research
  and opinions?
• Is the source recognised and cited by others who
  address the topic?

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Checklist for Evaluating Authority (Contd.)

• Is the source current?
• Does the source acknowledge information and
  opinions from others?
• Do the information and opinions offered appear in
  a reliable publication or other type of trusted
  source?
• Is the source unbiased in presenting his or her
  own ideas and the ideas of others?

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Checklist for Evaluating Authority (Contd.)

• You will find most authorities agree about
  factual evidence but you may find they disagree
  about larger and more intangible issues. Make
  sure you consult authorities on each side of an
  issue during your research and discuss any
  conflicting points of view as you set forth your
  own conclusions in the research paper.

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BEING AWARE OF LOGICAL FALLACIES

• Logical fallacies represent errors in thinking.
  Most of them reflect overvaluing or ignoring
  certain evidence others use language that
  distorts the basis of an argument. Since the
  conclusions derived from such fallacies are
  usually stated in ways that make them sound
  logical, they are frequently popularized and
  accepted as common sense.

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BEING AWARE OF LOGICAL FALLACIES

• Because logical fallacies are common in popular
  attitudes and arguments you need to be aware of
  them in your own thinking and in the arguments of
  your research sources.
• Following are brief descriptions of some of the
  most common logical fallacies (traditional terms
  for some of the better-known fallacies are given
  in parentheses)

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Avoid these common logical fallacies

• Against the person (ad hominem) Confusing the
  validity of an argument with the character of the
  person who makes it.

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Avoid these common logical fallacies

• Rather than address the argument itself, an
  attack against the person focuses on an
  opponents appearance, personal habits, or
  character.
• E.g. We cant trust the testimony of a DNA
  scientist who once declared bankruptcy and has
  been divorced twice, can we?
• This is an example of an argument against the
  person.

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Avoid these common logical fallacies (Contd.)

• Appeal to authority Assuming that the authority
  or reputation of an individual is evidence for
  the truth of his or her views.
• While the views an authority expresses may be
  validated by other evidence, the fact that
  someone is an Oscar-winning movie star, for
  example, is not a sufficient reason to buy the
  brand of car he or she may be advertising.

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Avoid these common logical fallacies (Contd.)

• Appeal to ignorance (ad ignoratiam) Arguing that
  a claim must be true simply because no one has
  shown that it is false.

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Avoid these common logical fallacies (Contd.)

• The abominable snowman must exist. After all, no
  one has shown it doesn't is an appeal to
  ignorance resulting from an illogical inference.
  While an audience might agree with the premise
  that the abominable snowman could exist, it does
  not logically follow that it therefore does.

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Avoid these common logical fallacies (Contd.)

• Appeal to pity (ad misericodiam) Attempting to
  persuade by arousing pity instead of addressing
  the real issue.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• But I still think my paper should get a passing
  grade, Professor Harper. I missed work yesterday
  and stayed up all night to get it finished on
  time is an appeal-to-pity argument all too
  familiar to English teachers!

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Appeal to the people, or bandwagon (ad populum)
  Arguing that something is right or best because
  many others think it is.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• E.g. Complaining to ones parents that All our
  friends have QuickConnect online service. We
  should, too ignores any evidence for or against
  QuickConnects services. The argument assumes
  QuickConnect must provide good service solely on
  the evidence that others are using it. Everybody
  else is doing it is not a logical reason or
  excuse for doing anything.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Circular definition, or begging the question
  Restating an assumption as part of its proof.
  Arguments using circular definition simply repeat
  their initial proposition in different words.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• A mans gotta do what hes gotta do and
  Pornorgraphy is dangerous because it harms lives
  are circular arguments that beg, or put off, the
  question they raise by actually ignoring the
  issue at hand.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Equivocation Shifting the meanings of the terms
  used in an argument.
• For instance You claim whales are intelligent.
  But if whales are intelligent, why do we have to
  protect them? Cant intelligent creatures take
  care of themselves? Such reasoning may seem
  plausible, but it is not The speaker has
  changed the meaning of intelligent from capable
  of understanding to something different than was
  meant in the opponents original claim.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• False analogy Using a comparison in which the
  differences between two things are greater than
  their similarities or in which the similarities
  are irrelevant to the argument being made.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Referring to television as the plug-in-drug, for
  example, overlooks major differences between the
  varied causes of habitual television watching and
  those of life-destroying, addictive drugs.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• False cause (post hoc, ergo propter hoc)
  Assuming a cause-effect relationship because two
  events are related in time. The fallacy of false
  cause is also known as post hoc reasoning, from
  the Latin phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc,
  meaning after this, therefore because of this.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• False-cause reasoning assumes that because one
  thing happened at the same time as another, the
  first caused the second. Such reasoning is often
  the basis for superstition, as when a person has
  bad luck after breaking a mirror and concludes,
  wrongly, that the accident with the mirror caused
  the bad luck.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• False dilemma, or either-or Arguing for a
  conclusion as if there are only two alternatives.
  The alternative in the false dilemma is
  generally more attractive than the initial
  proposal.
• For example, Either learn to play golf or forget
  about getting that job as vice-president presents
  a false dilemma that ignores the fact that
  someone may advance in a career for many other
  reasons than being the bosss golf partner.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Hasty Generalization Drawing a conclusion based
  on inadequate evidence.
• Arguing that Professor Tolmass examinations are
  easy at a point when you have taken only one is
  hasty generalization. You do not have enough
  examples of his tests to reasonably draw such a
  conclusion indeed, the one test you have taken
  may have been an exception.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• The error of making judgments based on inadequate
  evidence can lead to stereotyping and prejudice,
  both the results of erroneously generalizing
  about a group on the basis of one or two pieces
  of evidence.
• Just because someone in Rome stole your wallet is
  not justification to call all Romans thieves.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Poisoning the well Using loaded language to
  discourage discussion of an argument before
  examining it.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Saying that No one who cares about children will
  hesitate to support this law intimidates would-be
  opponents and discourages them from responding.
  To argue against the law might mean being viewed
  as not caring about children or having to defend
  oneself against such a charge.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Red herring Diverting discussion of an issue by
  introducing another, unrelated topic.
• The term red herring derives from the fact that
  smoked herring is strong smelling and used to
  divert hunting dogs from a trail.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Similarly, most red-herring issues are
  controversial or interesting enough to get an
  audiences attention and make them forget about
  the issue at hand.
• Yes, we may need to look at this citys use of
  landfills, but isnt the problem of illiteracy
  among our high school graduates more important?
  is an example of a red-herring technique.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Slippery slope Claiming that an action should
  not be taken because doing so will lead to a
  chain of undesirable events.
• Slippery-slope reasoning assumes one action will
  inevitably lead to the next, then the next, and
  so on until a calamitous point is reached.

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Avoid These Common Logical Fallacies (Contd.)

• Those who oppose banning the sale or import of
  assault weapons, for example, often fall back on
  slippery-slope arguments
• Once assault weapons are banned, they reason,
  other automatic weapons will be banned next, then
  handguns, and so on until all guns are banned.
• The fallacy behind such arguments is in presuming
  that the same reasons for the first action would
  necessarily lead to the second, the third, and so
  on.

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WORKING WITH OTHERS

• Your understanding of argument will be vital to
  the success of your research effort and the
  resulting research paper.
• To understand what makes an effective argument,
  you must be able to reason logically to
  consider one or more facts and come to a
  reasonable conclusion.

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WORKING WITH OTHERS (Contd.)

• As you complete your research and fine-tune
  the plan for your paper, discuss these points
  with someone else.

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WORKING WITH OTHERS (Contd.)

• Review several of your scores to look for
  examples of deductive and inductive reasoning.
• Consider what makes each approach effective or
  ineffective in these sources.
• Do a rough outline of the argument presented in
  one source, showing either the deductive or
  inductive pattern of reasoning.