{"id":336,"date":"2009-09-07T18:17:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T02:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/?page_id=336"},"modified":"2015-09-08T12:08:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T20:08:25","slug":"how-to-write-an-argument","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/how-to-write-an-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write an Argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Write an Argument<\/p>\n

What Students and Teachers Really Need to Know<\/p>\n

[From: Graff, G. (2003). Clueless in academe: How schooling obscures the life of the mind<\/em> (pp. 275-277). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.]<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Enter a conversation just as you do in real life. Begin your text by directly identifying the prior conversation or debate that you are entering. What you<\/em> have to say won\u2019t make sense unless your readers know the conversation in which you are saying it.<\/li>\n
  2. Make a claim, the sooner the better, preferably flagged for the reader by a phrase like \u201cMy claim here is that\u2026\u201d You don\u2019t actually have to use this exact phrase, but if you couldn\u2019t do so you\u2019re in trouble.<\/li>\n
  3. Remind readers of your claim periodically, especially the more you complicate it. If you\u2019re writing about a disputed topic\u2014and if your aren\u2019t, why write?\u2014you\u2019ll also have to stop and tell the reader what your are not<\/em> saying, what you don\u2019t want readers to take you saying. Some of them will take you to be saying it anyway, but you don\u2019t have to make it easy for them.<\/li>\n
  4. Summarize the objections that you anticipate will be made (or that have in fact been made) against your claim. This is done by using such formulas as \u201chere you will probably object that\u2026,\u201d \u201cTo put the point another way\u2026,\u201d or \u201cBut why, you may ask, am I emphatic on this point?\u201d Remember that your critics, even when the get mean and nasty, are your friends: you need them to help you to clarify your claim and to indicate what you\u2019re saying is of interest to others beside yourself. Remember, too, that if naysayers didn\u2019t exist, you\u2019d have no excuse for saying what you are saying.<\/li>\n
  5. Say explicitly why you think what you\u2019re saying is important and what difference it would make to the world if you are right or wrong. Imagine a reader over your shoulder who asks, \u201cSo what?\u201d or \u201cWho cares about any of this?\u201d Again, you don\u2019t actually have to write such questions in, but if you were to do so and couldn\u2019t answer them you\u2019re in trouble.<\/li>\n
  6. Write a meta-text into your essay that stands apart from your main text and puts it in perspective. An effective argumentative essay really consists of two texts, one in which you make your argument and a second one in which you tell readers how and how not to read it. This second text is usually signaled by reflexive phrases like \u201cOf course I don\u2019t mean to suggest that\u2026\u201d \u201cWhat I\u2019ve been trying to say here, then, is that \u2026\u201d etc. When student writing is unclear or lame, the reason often has less to do with jargon, verbal obscurity, or bad grammar than with the absence of this layer of meta-commentary, which explains why the writer thought it was necessary to write the essay in the first place.<\/li>\n
  7. Remember that readers can process only one<\/em> claim at a time, so resist the temptation to try to squeeze in secondary claims that are better left for another essay or paragraph, or for another section of your essay that\u2019s clearly marked off from your main claim. If you\u2019re a professional academic, you are probably so anxious to prove that you\u2019ve left no thought unconsidered that your find it hard to resist temptation to say it all at once. Remember that giving in to this temptation to say it all at once will result in saying nothing that will be understood while producing horribly overloaded paragraphs and sentences like this one, monster-sized discursive footnotes, and readers who fling your text down and reach for the TV Guide<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  8. Be bilingual. It is not necessary to avoid Academicspeak\u2014you sometimes need the stuff to say what you want to say. But whenever you do have to say something in Academicspeak, try also to say it in conversational English as well. You\u2019ll be surprised to discover that when you restate an academic point in your nonacademic voice, the point will either sound fresher or you\u2019ll see how shallow it is and remove it.<\/li>\n
  9. Don\u2019t kid yourself. If you couldn\u2019t explain it to your parents the chances are you don\u2019t understand it yourself<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Also see:<\/p>\n

    “Stating a Thesis” (Stephen Petrina)<\/a><\/p>\n

    “Argument” (University of North Carolina, Writing Center)<\/a><\/p>\n

    “Making Academic Arguments” (Reed College)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How to Write an Argument What Students and Teachers Really Need to Know [From: Graff, G. (2003). Clueless in academe: How schooling obscures the life of the mind (pp. 275-277). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.] Enter a conversation just as you do in real life. Begin your text by directly identifying the prior conversation … Continue reading How to Write an Argument<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-336","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/336\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ewayne\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}