Argumen,ts C5 In argumentative writing, you take a stand on a debatable issue. The issue being debated might be a matter of public policy: Should religious groups be allowed to meet on school property? What is the least dangerous way to dispose of nuclear waste? Should a state enact laws rationing medical care? On such questions, reasonable persons can disagree. Reasonable men and women also disagree about many scholarly issues. Psychologists debate the validity.of behaviorism; historians interpret the causes of the Civil War quite differently; biologists conduct genetic experiments to challenge the conclusions of other researchers. Your goal in argumentative writing is to change the way your readers think about a subject or to convince them to take an action that they might not otherwise be inclined to take. Do not assume that your audience already agrees with you; instead, envision skeptical readers who will make up their minds after listening to all sides ofthe debate. C5-a Plan a strategy. Planning a strategy for an argumentative essay is much like'planning a debate for a speech class. A good way to begin is to list your arguments and the opposing arguments and then consider the likely impact of these arguments on your audience. If the opposing arguments look very powerful, you may want to rethink your position. By modifying your initial position-perhaps by claiming less or by proposing a less radical solution to a problem-you may have a greater chance of persuading readers to change their views. Listing your arguments Let's say that your tentative purpose (which may change as you, think about your audience or modify your own ideas) is to argue in favor of lowering the legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen. Here is a list of possible arguments in favor of this point of view.
- 38 Argument, -Society treats eighteen-year-olds as mature for most purposes. - They can vote. - They can go away to college. -At eighteen. men must register with Selective Service and be available for a possible draft. -Age is not necessarily an indication of maturity. - The current drinking age is unfair. since many older Americans were allowed to drink at eighteen. -An unrealistic drinking age is almost impossible to enforce, and it breeds disrespect for the law. -In European countries that allow eighteen-year-oids to drink, there is less irresponsible teenage drinking than in our country. Listing the opposing viewpoints The next step is to list the key argwnents of those who hold oppos ing views. Here are some possible arguments against lowering the drinking age to eighteen. - Teenage drinking frequently leads to drunk driving, which in turn leads to many deaths. -Teenage drinking sometimes leads to date rape and gang violence. - Alcoholism is a serious problem in our society, and a delayed drinking age can help prevent it.. -Ifthe legal age were eighteen, many fifteen- and sixteen-year olds would find a way to purchase alcohol illegally. If possible, you should talk to someone who disagtees with your view or read some articles that are critical of your position. By fa miliarizing yourself with opposing viewpoints, you can be reason ably sure you have not overlooked an important argument that might be used against you. Considering your audience Once you have listed the major arguments on both (or all) sides, think realistically about the impact they are likely to have on your intended audience. If your audience is the voting-age population in Framing a thesis 39 the United States, for example, consider how you might assess some ofthe argwnents of each side of the drinking age question. Looking at your list, you would see that your audience, which includes many older Americans, might not be impressed by the suggestion that age is no sign of maturity or by the argwnent that because eighteen-year-olds are old enough to attend college they should be allowed to drink. You would decide to emphasize your other arguments instead. Americans who remember a time when young men were drafted, for example, might be persuaded that it is unfair to ask a man to die for his country but not allow him to drink. And anyone who has heard ofprohibition might be moved by the argument that an unrealistic drinking regulation can breed disrespect for the law. As for the opposing arguments, clearly the first one on the list is the most powerful. Statistics show that drunk driving by teenagers causes much carnage on our highways and that teenagers themselves are frequently the victims. To have any hope of convincing your audience, you would need to take this argument very seriously; it would be almost impossible to argue successfully that reducing highway deaths is not important. Rethinking your position After exploring all sides of an argument, you may decide to modify your initial position. Maybe your first thoughts about the issue were oversimplified,. too extreme, or mistakein in some other respect. Or maybe, after thinking morei about your readers, you see little hope of persuading them of the truth or wisdom of your position. If you were writing about the drinking age, for example, you might decide to modify your position in light of your audience. To have a better chance of copvincing the audience, you could argue that eighteen-year-olds in the military should be allowed to drink. Or you could argue that eighteen-year-olds should be allowed to drink beer and wine, not hard alcohol. Or you could link your proposal to new tough laws against drunk driving. C5.b Frame a thesis and sketch an ioutline. A thesis is a sentence that expresses the main point of an essay. (See C2-a.) In argumentative writing, your thesis should clearly state your position on the issue you have chosen to write about.
40 Using evidence 41 Let's say your issue is the high insurance rates that most companies set for young male drivers. After think.ing carefully about your own views, the opposing arguments, and your audience (the general public), you might state your position like this: Although young males as a group have poor driving records, insurance companies should not be allowed to set high rates for any drivers who have maintained a good safety record during their first two years after obtaining a license. Notice that this is a debatable point,.one about which reasonable persons can disagree. It is not merely a fact (for example, that companies do set higher rates for young males). Nor is it "a statement of belief (for example, that differing rates are always unfair). Neither facts nor beliefs can be substantiated by reasons, so they cannot serve as a thesis for an argument. Once you have framed a thesis, try to state your major arguments, preferably in sentence form. Together, your thesis and your arguments will give you a rough outline of your essay, as in the following example: Thesis: Although young males as a group have poor driving records, insurance companies should not be allowed to set high rates for any drivers who have maintained a good safety record during their first two years after obtaining a license. Some of the sentences in your rough outline might become topic sentences of paragraphs in your final essay. (See C4-a.) C5-c Draft an introduction that states your position without alienating readers. In argumentative writing, your introduction should state your position on an issue in a clear thesis sentence (see C2-a and C5-b), and it should do this without needlessly alienating the audience whom you hope to convince. Where possible, try to establish common ground with readers who may not be in initial agreement with your views. One way to establish common ground with readers who disagree with your position is to show that you share common values. If your subject is school prayer, for instance, you might show that even though you oppose allowing prayer in schools, you believe in the value of prayer. The writer of the following introduction successfully used this strategy. Although the Supreme Court has ruled against prayer in public schools on First Amendment grounds, many people still feel that prayers should be allowed. These people, most of whom hold strong religious beliefs, are well intentioned. What they fail to realize is that the Supreme Court decision, although it was made on legal grounds, makes good sense 'In religious grounds as well. Prayer is too important to be trusted to our public schools. - Kevin Smith, student -The current policy of insurance' companies is unfair. _ It is unfair to evaluate an individual driver on the basis of group statistics. -Group statistics are used to justify higher rates for young males but usually not for other groups. Because Smith takes into consideration the values of those who disagree with him, readers are likely to approach his essay with an open mind. -Insurance companies could institute a more equitable policy at little expense. -Companies could charge higher rates for all newly licensed drivers (no matter their age or sex), in effect putting them on probation for a period such as two years. -Companies could keep individual records on all drivers and set rates yearly according to those records; the rates would apply to all drivers following the two-year probationary period. -With computer databases, records could be maintained at a reasonable cost. C5 d Support each argument with specific evidence. When presenting the arguments for your position, you will of course need to back them up with evidence: facts, statistics, examples and illustrations, expert opinion, and so on. lf any of your evidence is based on reading, you will need to document your sources. Documentation gives credit to your sources and shows readers how to track down a source in case they want to assess its credibility or explore the issue further. (See R5-a.) ~
42 North America holds only 4 percent of the world's proven oil re serves; together, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia own 44 percent. Most arguments are supported at least to some extent by facts and statistics. For example, Andrew Knutson, the student who Establishing common ground Using facts and statistics A fact is something that is known with certainty because it has been objectively verified: The capital of Wyoming is Cheyenne. Car bon has an atomic weight of 12. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Statistics are collections of numerical facts: More than three-quarters of U.S. households currently own a VCR. When you rely on expert opinion, you should be certain that your source is, in fact, an expert in the field you are covering. In some cases you may need to provide an explanation of what makes your source an expert. Use particular caution when gathering research from online sources (see R2-b). Ifyou include expert testimony in your paper, you must docu ment your sources. You can summarize or paraphrase the expert's opinion or you can quote the expert's exact words. For important advice on appropriate use of written sources, see R5. wrote the argument paper on pages 46-48, gathered a few facts C5-e Anticipate objections; refute opposing and statistics from two printed sources and one Internet source. arguments. When he used a statistic from one of these sources, he documented it with an MLA (Modem Language Association) citation in parena well-argued case for their own point of view is always welcome. Readers who already agree with you need no convincing, although theses, like this: But indifferent and skeptical readers may resist your arguments because they have minds of their own\ To give up a position that Currently the responsibility of educating about 75% of undocuseems reasonable, a reader has to see that there is an even more mented children is borne by just a few states-california, New reasonable one. In addition to presenting your own case, therefore, York, Texas, and Florida (Edmondson 1). you should review the opposing arguments and explain what you think is wrong with them.. Knutson got this statistic from an article by Brad Edmondson. The There is no best place in an essay to deal with the opposition. parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence names the author Often it is useful to summarize the opposing position early in your of the source and gives the page number. Complete information essay. After stating your thesis but before developing your own arabout the source appears in a works cited list at the end of the guments, you might have a paragraph beginning Critics ofthis view paper (see p. 48). (See Ml and M2 for more detailed information argue that.... But sometimes a better plan is to anticipate objecabout citing sources.) tions as you develop your case paragraph by paragraph. Wherever Some objective sources for statistics are Statistical Abstract of you decide to deal with opposing arguments, do your best to refute the United States, American Statistics Index, and Statistical Year- them. Show that those who oppose you are not as persuasive as book. they claim because their arguments are flawed or because your arguments to the contrary have greater weight. Using examples and anecdotes Examples and an-ecdotes (illustrative stories) alone rarely prove a C5-f Establish common ground. point, but when used in combination with other forms of evidence, they flesh out an argument and bring it to life. For example, in a As you refute opposing arguments, try to establish common ground research essay written for a psychology class, Karen Shaw used with readers who axe not in initial agreement with yom views. If several examples from a variety of sources to show that apes are you can show that you share your readers' vaiues, they may be able capable of using language creatively (see AI-d). to switch to your position without giving up what they feel is,. important. Citing expert opinion For example; to persuade people opposed to shooting deer that hunting is necessary, a state wildlife commission would have to Although they are no substitute for careful reasoning of your own, show that it too cares about preserving deer and does not want the views of an expert can contribute to the force of your argument. r! I' t 1 43
44 them to die needlessly. Having established these values in common, the commission might be able to persuade critics that a carefully controlled hunting season is good for the deer population because it prevents starvation caused by overpopulation. People believe that intelligence and decency support their side of an argument. To change sides, they must continue to feel intelligent and decent. Otherwise they will persist in their opposition. Logical fallacies 45 C5-g Avoid common mistakes in reasoning. Certain errors in reasoning occur frequently enough to deserve special attention. In both your reading and your writing, you will want to be alert to certain mistakes in reasoning known as logical fallacies. Some common fallacies are included in the following chart. Common logical fallacies lluu"ner of.,'",,' {, ; '-.", NON SEQurfIlll(DOE&~?T:Jj'~~'W)/, Aconc1usioo. that does l1ot"hpw!bgi"eauydi\o~e~ s1l8;~lejll;s,'," or that is based onirrelevjilili data.' " Mary loves children,so she will make an excellent elementaty school teacher. C ' ARO~:re.~~~~)".An 11~(jnll~person'p~'!:ng'!irital:gwnent ra~er than on the ilr~tt~ht',,).:;.>,,,' FALSE ANALOGY attention