Argument |
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By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following without consulting notes or other resources:
Before coming to class on Thursday, you should complete the following assignments: Our class activities this week include the following: Think Fast:
Analyze the argument in one of the readings you did for this lesson. Specifically, identify the claim, the
evidence, and any logical fallacies you found. Is the argument sound? Defend your position. Presentation:
Argument (Professor Canada) Cooperative Learning:
Discuss the arguments with your classmates. Discussion: During
this time, we will discuss the insights and questions that have emerged
during our reading, “Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative
learning. Workshop: Write
your own claim for your evaluation.
Outline the support you will use to support this claim. Think Again: Using
what you have learned or reviewed in this lesson, revise your essay about
your writing ability. Make sure
that this essay has a claim, evidence, effective topic sentences,
well-organized paragraphs, ample support, and an engaging style. Conferences: While
the rest of you are working on the “Think Again” exercise, I will meet with
two of you in one-on-one conferences.
During this time, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz you
on lesson objectives, and field your questions. Announcements: We
will wrap up this lesson with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as
well as other relevant subjects. Names and Terms
Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following names and terms:
Resources
You can find more information about the subject covered in this lesson by consulting the resource listed below: Everything’s
an Argument contains extensive discussion of the elements and kinds of
argument. Updated August 22, 2002
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IntroductionIn our first lesson, we reviewed the principles of effective rhetoric and discussed using the various stages of the writing process to achieve those principles. On that foundation, we now will begin to build arguments. We will meet in our regular classroom, Dial 147, on each day. Please bring Everything’s an Argumentand Early American Writing. DiscussionArgumentLike language itself, argument is something you have known nearly your entire life. The first time you tried to talk your parents out of making you go to bed, you are were arguing. Since that time, you have formed a few hundred other arguments—that it was your sister's fault and not yours, that you should be able to stay out until midnight instead of 11 p.m., that the teacher's test was unfair, that UNCP should admit you, that you are eligible for financial aid. Indeed, every time that you try convince someone that something is true or persuade someone to do something, you are engaging in argument. Most of the time, you probably use words, either written or spoken, but you also may have used pictures, gestures, facial expressions, and other tools. Argument, then, is nothing new. Still, just as college composition classes help you to improve language skills you already have, these same classes—and others in history, psychology, chemistry, and every other discipline—can help you to polish your argumentative skills. In fact, argument is at the core of the kind of study that goes on in college. Both you and your professors use argument when you study a subject, interpret the facts and opinions about it, reach a conclusion, and then try to convince others that your conclusion is the right one. Unlike high school, which tends to emphasize the learning of facts, college focuses on the skill of interpretation. You still have to try to absorb a lot of information, but now you have to think a great deal about it, synthesize various details, and draw conclusions. Indeed, one of the most important--and most difficult--lessons that college has to teach is that truth is in most cases a matter of interpretation. In college, you study and practice the various steps for making an effective argument. That is, you will learn how to collect and evaluate evidence, how to state a clear claim, and how to organize and present compelling support for this claim. Before beginning to develop these skills, however, you can prepare yourself for success by studying a few basic principles of argument, not only so that you can engage in it yourself, but also so that you can be an effective critical reader of others’ arguments. In his discussions of rhetoric, the art of communicating effectively, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle identified three particular means of making an argument: logos, the appeal to the audience's sense of logic; ethos, the invocation of the speaker's character; and pathos, the appeal to the audience's emotions. Of these three means, the first two are the most useful in academic argument. When making the first, you often will have to present evidence--that is, factual material or other people's interpretations. Whereas your early arguments over bedtime may have amounted to shallow pleading--"Pleeeeease, just five more minutes!"--the type of sophisticated arguments you will do in college, on the job, and in your communities must be logical and grounded if they are to be effective. As you examine this evidence in your various sources, you will want to beware of logical fallacies. These errors in reasoning actually serve to mislead or distract readers and thus do not belong in honest argument; nevertheless, they are quite common. Politicians, for example, are notorious for a type of fallacy called an ad hominem attack, which is aimed at a person rather than an issue. Many people are guilty of using the post hoc fallacy, which implies that one event caused another simply because it came first. Other logical fallacies include begging the question, which involves using unproven evidence to support a claim; the false dilemma, which implies that someone must choose from a limited number of options even though others actually exist; and a red herring, which merely distracts the audience from the issue by introducing something not directly related to the argument at hand. Finally, once you have examined and thoughtfully considered the evidence, you are ready to draft your own argument. First, you will want to write a working claim. Similar to a thesis, a claim is a statement that offers an interpretation of the evidence. In their book The Craft of Research, Joseph Williams, George Colomb, and Wayne Booth explain that a strong claim has four qualities. First, they say, it should have substance. In other words, it should relate to something meaningful to someone. A second quality of a good claim is contestability. That is, it should be open to discussion and disagreement and not be simply a statement of fact. The third quality is precision, or the degree of specificity in a claim. Finally, a claim must exhibit exceptional clarity. Because the claim sets up your entire argument, your readers should know exactly what it is saying. Claims and arguments come in different varieties.
A definition, for example, deals with the
nature of something. An article about Arthur Miller's play Death of
a Salesman might argue that it is or is not an example of a
tragedy. An evaluation offers an
assessment of someone or something's value. Movie reviews are examples
of evaluations. Causal arguments
try to show how one person, thing, or event resulted in something.
Historians, for instance, can argue about causes or consequences of wars,
recessions, immigration, and the like. A proposal
suggests a course of action. Politicians often make proposals about tax
policies and other government matters. ConclusionIn this lesson, we began studying and constructing arguments. You will want to keep the principles we studied in this lesson in mind as we read, evaluate, and create arguments over the remainder of the semester. In our next lesson, we turn to a particular kind of argument called an evaluation. |