ASSIGNMENT SHEET

PAPER THREE | BUILDING AN ARGUMENT

INTRODUCTION

Much of the writing you will have to do in your college career (and beyond) is likely to be argument based. One of the principle functions of College Writing I is therefore to provide an introduction to writing effective arguments. So, while this assignment will touch on all the learning objectives of College Writing I, in one way or another, we will be focusing on argument. That means that—in addition to drafting, editing, and revising your papers, in addition to exploring your role as a participant in an academic community by reading and responding to the drafts of your classmates, and integrating their responses to your work into your final papers—you will focus, in particular, on developing an awareness of the conventions of traditional argument, and practice expository writing by developing and writing an argument of your own, utilizing what you’ve learned.

In the “Advice on Learning Objectives” page of this week’s unit, you will find some useful information about how successful arguments are built, along with some specific analysis of an essay by Peter Singer, and how his argument exemplifies the Toulmin model of argument, which you’ll be using to craft your own essays.

ASSIGNMENT

For this unit, you will write an essay of three to four full pages (not two pages with a sentence or two on page three) making an argument about a topic that matters to you, as well as to other people, in the larger world. Read the sample essays (Peter Singer’s “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” and Tom Standage’s “Bad to the Last Drop”) to get an idea of what this might mean, or post some ideas to the Discussion Board after you’ve done read the raw materials for this week.

You will build your arguments based on the Toulmin model (discussed in “Advice on Learning Objectives,” in your Week One folder). Using Toulmin argument, you will craft a thesis (or claim), then write a traditional argument (an argument to persuade ) supporting that claim .

You will write a draft of your paper, which will be subject to peer review. You will also be expected to read and critique drafts of papers by several of your peers. In the end, you will complete a final draft, making revisions based on the feedback you get from your peers.

Since College Writing I is concerned principally with the writing process, failure to participate in this process will result in a failing grade on the paper. If you do not turn in a draft, offer feedback on the drafts of your peers, and consider the feedback they give you in your revision process, you are missing the point of the class. DUE DATESPaper Topic: Week 1, Day 4Rough Draft: Week 2, Day 4Revision Plan: Week 3, Day 2Final Draft: Week 3, Day 7

EVALUATION CRITERIAYour final drafts will be graded according to the following criteria:

Conformity to the Toulmin model: Does your paper have a claim, qualifier, reasons, warrant, and backing?

Rebuttal: Does your argument deal effectively with possible objections to its claim and or reasons for that claim?

Does the paper have a title? Is it reasonably free of grammatical or other mechanical errors? Is the argument clear and well-organized? Is it persuasive? Is the prose smooth and polished, with one sentence flowing logically into the next? Finally, was it on time?

LATE PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. IF YOU FAIL TO DEPOSIT YOUR ASSIGNMENT IN THE DROP-BOX BY THE DUE DATE, THE BLACKBOARD SYSTEM WILL NOT ACCEPT IT.

WEEK 1 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Read the Assignment Sheet for Paper #3, as well as “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” (http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm) and the PDF document in your Week 1 folder, “Advice on Learning Objectives.”

After you have reading all three of the above, post any questions you might have to the Discussion Board. For your benefit and the benefit of your peers, try to do this by Day 2. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself very busy in the middle week. Unless it is critically important to keep your question private, I ask that you refrain from emailing me directly. The reason is simple: if something about the assignment, reading, or learning objectives is unclear to you, it is probably unclear to one or more of your peers, as well. If you post your questions to the Discussion Board, they will be much easier to answer in a timely and efficient fashion.

Complete the reading check by Day 4. This will be a brief quiz to verify that you have done the reading.

Read “Bad to the Last Drop” and respond to the Discussion Board Prompt by Day 4.

Choose your paper topic and make sure that you get my approval by Day 4. Follow the directions for doing so under the Discussion Board Prompt “Paper Three Topics.”

OPTIONAL VIDEO CHAT, Day 4, 7:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time).

Respond to at least two of your peers’ posts by Day 7.

Read the PDF document, “Advice on Drafting,” which will be posted on Day 4 in the Week 1 Folder; this document compliments the “Advice on Learning Objectives,” and contains critical guidance for drafting and revising your paper. Do not start drafting before you read it. If you have any questions regarding the “Advice on Drafting,” please post them to the Discussion Board. Try to do read the “Advice on Drafting” and post your questions as soon as possible, so that you can begin drafting your paper.

Begin drafting your paper by Day 5.

WEEK 2 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Continue drafting your paper.

Submit a copy of your paper to me via the course dropbox and post a copy in your group’s Discussion Board Peer Review Thread by Day 4.

OPTIONAL VIDEO CHAT, Day 4, 7:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time).

Read and respond to your group members’ drafts. Follow the directions for doing so as laid out in the Peer Review Exercise. You must complete this exercise by Day 7.

WEEK 3 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Write your revision plan . This plan must be submitted via the dropbox by Day 2.

Read the Style Lesson and apply the principles discussed to your revision. It is critical that you incorporate the principles of the Style Lesson into your paper, as the Style Lesson for this unit deals explicitly with the language of effective argument.

OPTIONAL VIDEO CHAT, Day 4, 7:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time).

Finish revising your paper and submit the final draft by Day 7. This should be done via Turnitin.com.

READINGS & RAW MATERIALS

Week 1

In addition to the course materials posted on Blackboard (the Advice on Learning Objectives, Advice on Drafting, and Discussion Board posts, et cetera) you will need to read two articles, both of which are easily located online.

“The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by Peter Singer. http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm

“Bad to the Last Drop” by Tom Standage. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/01/opinion/01standage.html?pagewanted=all

Weeks 2 and 3

Your reading for weeks 2 and 3 will be confined to the papers drafted by your peers and their responses to yours. This should be more than enough to keep you busy.

ADVICE ON LEARNING OBJECTIVESINTRODUCTION TO ARGUMENT

INTRODUCTION

As stated on your assignment sheet for this unit, your paper for Unit 3 will touch on all of the learning objectives for this course, in one way or another. In particular, this unit deals with argument. To recap from the assignment sheet: you will develop an awareness of the proper structure of a traditional argument, and you will practice expository writing by writing an argument of your own, utilizing the rhetorical strategies you’ve learned. This will naturally involve critical thinking and critical reading.

DEFINING ARGUMENT

Much of the reading and writing you will do in college and beyond is likely to be argument based. This unit deals with the traditional argumentative essay, typically an argument to persuade: that is, an argument stating an opinion and intended to move its reader to action. That means, for the purposes of this unit, we are dealing with essays wherein the writer attempts to persuade the reader, not only to share his or her opinion, but to do something about it.

As you continue to study expository writing, and argumentative writing in particular, you’ll find that there are many different kinds of argumentative essays. In a sense, almost any piece of writing can be considered an argument. When you apply for a job, for example, your résumé argues that you are the best person for the job. More abstractly, a poem describing a sunrise might be said to argue that the sunrise is a worthy subject for poetry, that this ordinary event is worth paying attention to in some more profound way.

A similar logic can be applied beyond the written word. In a certain light, almost anything can be viewed as an argument. The flowerbeds outside of a bank argue that this particular bank is a friendly place, homey and safe, a place where your money will be secure. A politician wearing a suit says he’s a sophisticated professional fellow. A politician wearing a Red Sox cap says he’s one of the people; he can relate to the common man.

That said, the argumentative essay—and, in particular, the argument to persuade—is one of the most common, easily identifiable, and powerfully influential varieties of argument in the modern world, and a mainstay of academic discourse. It therefore makes sense, in College Writing I, for us to begin there.

BUILDING BLOCKS OF ARGUMENT: THE TOULMIN MODEL

In his 1958 book, The Uses of Argument, Stephen Toulmin, a British philosopher, analyzed and outlined the structures of ordinary arguments, isolating their essential components. We therefore call an argument structured according to the system Toulmin identified a Toulmin argument. It is important to understand that Toulmin did not invent a new way to build an argument. Rather, he identified the basic building blocks of a reasonable argument, providing a useful tool not only for understanding arguments.

In other words, try not to let yourself be intimidated by the apparent formality of the Toulmin model. The truth is that you were probably making Toulmin arguments long before you came across the man’s name. The point of Toulmin logic is that it comes quite naturally. You may have used a Toulmin argument for something as simple as an attempt to persuade a friend to let you borrow his car.

That said, you probably haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing the structure of your own arguments, precisely because they come so naturally. And making an argument to a friend is very different from writing a formal argument to persuade. In order to write an effective argument for this unit, you will need a more keen understanding, and a critical eye. Since the Toulmin model is one of the most effective methods for analyzing (and building) persuasive argument, we’ll be discussing Toulmin argument in some detail.

The basic components of a Toulmin argument are as follows:

1. The Claim: The claim is the point the argument wants to prove. You might say that the claim is the thesis of a Toulmin argument, although it is not always expressed as a thesis statement. In academic writing, we tend to think of a thesis statement as a single sentence, appearing early in an essay, usually by the end of the first paragraph. In professional writing, this is not always the case. Sometimes, a writer won’t state his or her claim directly until several paragraphs (or even several pages) into the essay, if at all. That said, arguments to persuade generally state their claims fairly clearly, since they aspire to move their readers to action. For the purposes of an academic argument to persuade, like the one you’ll be writing here, you’ll want to stay true to the traditional conventions, and state your claim as directly as possible, preferably in the form of a thesis statement in the first paragraph of your essay.

2. Qualifiers:Qualifiers are limits you place on your claim. For example, if your thesis is that marijuana should be illegal except when prescribed by a physician, everything from “except” forward is a qualifier. Most (though by no means all) claims have qualifiers. Even the sentence you just read has a qualifier: the phrase “though by no means all,” in parentheses, notes exceptions to the rule. Qualifiers are often necessary simply to keep their claims reasonable. For example, some of the most committed activists in the pro-life movement still qualify their opposition to legal abortion by granting that it should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. Qualifiers can appear as part of the thesis statement, or they can be woven throughout the text of an essay, dealing with exceptions to the claim as they arise in the context of the argument.

3. Reasons/Evidence: Reasons support the claim. If, for example, a writer claims that factory farming should be banned, he or she might offer animal cruelty as a reason. Sometimes, writers will provide statistics or other forms of research as evidence for their claims, as well. For the purposes of College Writing I, you do not need to conduct research. In fact, we’d rather you

didn’t. The learning objectives for College Writing I are explicit in this regard. You’re much better off keeping your focus on developing an awareness of the structure and the conventions of argumentative writing and practicing expository writing in the argumentative form without attempting to shoulder the additional burden of conducting effective research, an arduous and complicated process you will study in great detail in College Writing II.

4. Warrants:Warrants are perhaps the trickiest components of Toulmin arguments. A warrant is an underlying assumption that supports a claim. They are not always stated explicitly, and they are sometimes difficult to see. For example, consider the hypothetical essay on factory farms mentioned above. If the claim is that factory farming should be banned, and the reason for that claim is that factory farming perpetuates animal cruelty, the underlying assumption is that animal cruelty is a concern. The writer takes it as a given that the reader will share his or her assumption that preventing cruelty to animals is important. This assumption is a warrant. Warrants can be problematic, though. If, for example, we were to take our analysis of the hypothetical animal rights warrant above a step further, we might say that the writer assumes that his or her reader will agree that the quality of a farm animal’s life is more important than the perceived need for affordable meat: this is not necessarily a safe assumption. Simply put, warrants are often problematic because they are very often based on value systems, and value systems are not always shared. Otherwise, there would be little need for argument to begin with.

5. Backing:The backing of a Toulmin argument is the evidence or, perhaps more to the point, the justification for the warrant. Toulmin himself felt that the kind of backing a reasonable argument required varied from field to field. For example, a legal argument would require a warrant with a backing based in law. An ethical warrant, on the other hand, would require an ethical justification. Since so many arguments to persuade are ethical in nature, the relationship between the warrant and the backing in a Toulmin argument will probably be easier to understand in the context of an argument based on ethics. Since Peter Singer is often described as a moral philosopher, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” offers a functional, if not ideal, example of an argument to persuade based on ethical principles. We will therefore postpone further discussion of backing to our discussion of Peter Singer.

REBUTTAL

One essential feature of successful argumentative writing not covered by our discussion of Toulmin argument, above, is the rebuttal. In a sense, rebuttals can be likened to qualifiers, because they deal with possible objections to the claim. In so doing, they, like qualifiers, often make exceptions to the claim. They keep an argument reasonable and, much like qualifiers, can appear in one section of an argument, or be woven throughout.

An argument without a rebuttal is usually weak for one of two reasons.

First off, an argument which ignores contrary claims is an argument which fails to consider, much less refute, said claims. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve written a wonderful argument offering all the reasons to lower tax rates. Let’s say you’ve explained, in painstaking detail, how lower taxes will promote economic growth. If you have not explained why higher taxes will not promote economic growth, the educated, critical reader is likely to assume that you have not considered the possibility that they might. Furthermore, another writer, a writer who believes the opposite—that raising taxes will more effectively promote economic growth than lowering them—can poke any number of holes in your argument, simply by presenting the reasons for his or her own claim.

Let’s say that you are arguing the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. If you neglect to address the down sides of eating meat, all the critical carnivore has to do to deflate your arguments is say that meat is full of protein. If, however, you have made room in your argument to point out that, while meat is full of protein, you can get the same amount of protein without eating animals, and without contributing to a business model that profits from a factory farming system notorious for raising livestock in unbelievably cruel conditions, you will be much more persuasive. Alternately, a meat-eater who argues the nutritional benefits of a diet including meat would do well to address the subject of factory farming, perhaps balancing the value of human life and the need to feed an ever growing population against the cruelty of the factory farming system, or suggesting that meat consumers can avoid contributing to factory farms by buying ethically raised, organic meats.

In short, to ignore contrary claims is to leave your argument vulnerable to them.

The second reason an argument without a rebuttal is likely to fail is that it may appear uncompromising or unreasonable. Neglecting to deal with contrary claims has the potential to present a “my way or the highway” mentality that most readers are resistant to. Even worse are arguments with abrasive or insulting rebuttals. Generally speaking, an effective rebuttal approaches alternate views with courtesy and respect. You can point out the flaws in an alternate point of view without insulting people. If you call the people who disagree with you idiots, the only people you will persuade are the ones who already agree, and that, by definition, isn’t persuasion at all.

That said, there is a qualifier: sometimes a rebuttal with attitude can be quite persuasive. Sometimes, an alternate view, even a popular one, is stupid, and you can make a compelling argument to undecided readers by treating it as such. However, you should be very careful in choosing this strategy. More often than not, it backfires. For the beginning writer, it is safer to proceed with caution, and tact.

PETER SINGER AND “THE SINGER SOLUTION TO WORLD POVERTY”A (BRIEF) ANALYSIS

Note: You should probably read “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” before you read this section. It’s probably not absolutely necessary to read them sequentially, but the analysis below will probably make more sense to you if you are familiar with the essay.

Introduction:

In this section of the “Advice on Learning Objectives,” we will examine “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” with an emphasis on how it exemplifies the Toulmin model of argument. To that end, we’ll analyze each component of the argument—the claim, qualifiers, reasons, warrant, and backing—in turn, recognizing that there will be some overlap. We’ll also take a look at the way Peter Singer handles rebuttal in the context of these building blocks.

The Claim: A Writer’s Approach to Peter Singer

Peter Singer makes an unorthodox and unpleasant claim in “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” While he does not present that claim as a concise, thesis statement in the first paragraph of the essay, as you probably will when it comes time to draft your own paper, his claim is still quite clear. Essentially, he argues that Americans should donate all of their excess income to charity, and that their failure to do so is immoral, tantamount to placing our desire for luxury items ahead of the life of a child.

Whether you agree with him or not, there is little doubt that Singer is an extremely capable writer, and you can probably learn a lot from the way he builds an argument. That is to say that even if you think the claim of “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” is too extreme—and most people do—you can benefit from taking a look at how his argument exemplifies the Toulmin model, and making an effort to construct your own argumentative essay with the same degree of professionalism. Singer is nothing if not thorough, and when you are dealing with an educated audience (and you should generally assume that you are) a thorough argument has a much greater chance of success. Granted, Singer is an extremist. He is well known for taking extreme positions, and his claims are often challenging precisely because they ask so much of us. But again, whether you agree with his claim in “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” or not, you can learn from it as a writer, and part of the purpose of this class is to teach you to think like a writer.

The first and principle lesson we can take from Peter Singer’s claim, from a writer’s perspective, has nothing to do with world poverty. The real lesson, for a writer, is that a controversial claim, a claim almost no one you know is likely to agree with, is practically guaranteed to make for more interesting reading than a claim that doesn’t ruffle feathers.

Qualifiers:

In one sense, Peter Singer makes his claim without qualification. He is uncompromising in his moral view. Describing himself as a utilitarian philosopher, he says he judges actions based on their consequences. The consequences of our financial choices are more or less indisputable, contextualized in this way. Therefore, there is no room for qualification. If you buy a TV instead of giving money to a charity that feeds starving children, you are basically saying that your desire for a TV is more important than the lives of starving children. If you have enough money to give to charity and buy a TV, then you should give that much more to charity. In both cases, your choice decides whether a child lives or dies, so there is no room for qualification, not in the practical, moral sense.

In another sense, Singer qualifies his claim over and over again, principally in the context of rebuttal. Let’s take a look at one example. When he points out that there are differences between Dora’s situation and the situation of the average American, he not only anticipates objections to the comparison, he makes it clear that such objections are understandable. It would require a particular kind of heartlessness, he says, for Dora to allow a child she has actually met die so she can keep her $1000. This kind of qualifier has the effect of softening the blow before Singer asserts that, in spite of the emotional differences our situations and Dora’s, the consequences of our decisions are ultimately the same.

As you can see, there is an overlap between rebuttal and qualifier, here. We’ll encounter a similar overlap as we examine the reasons for Singer’s claim, in the section below.

Reasons:

In a sense, we’ve already covered the reason for Singer’s claim. He is concerned with the consequences of our actions, and if you revisit the first paragraph of the section on qualifiers, above, the consequences are fairly plain. The argument can be simply formulated as “You buy a TV, a child dies.” Having put that formulation forward, Singer is able to return to it again and again. Indeed, from that point forward, he presents his argument principally in the context of rebuttal, which is a common and very effective rhetorical strategy for advancing an argument. Since Singer’s claim is so radical, he can anticipate (and indeed expects) a number of very strong objections. By dealing with those objections one at a time, he is able to use them to present his argument in an organized, progressive fashion, until the reiteration of his basic formula—you buy a TV, a child dies—becomes very difficult to deny. He systematically deprives the reader of excuses.

Again, there are a multitude of examples of this strategy at work, so let’s limit our discussion to one. Near the end of the essay, Singer begins a paragraph by asking whether or not it is counterproductive to ask people to do so much. By momentarily assuming the opposition’s point of view, he’s able to get at the heart of this objection very quickly. Look at the sentences that follow. Again, you will see him say that he understands, that—to one extent or another—he even agrees. He knows his position is hopeless, or at least hopelessly unpopular. But that doesn’t mean it’s incorrect. By acknowledging that his claim is not likely to be popular, he is able to quickly return to the basic reason for his claim: the consequences of our financial choices matter, and they are the same, no matter how we might feel about them, much less whether or not we see them. In this light, our objections are basically excuses.

The lesson for the writer of an argument to persuade is clear: no matter what your claim might be, you can formulate a powerful argument, even with a limited number of reasons, provided you deal with objections thoroughly in an effective rebuttal.

Warrants:

The warrant of Singer’s argument is reasonably clear, and as such this will be the shortest section of our analysis. The underlying assumption of Singer’s argument seems to be that human life is important.

More specifically, and perhaps more to the point, he assumes that the reader will agree that it is more important to save the lives of other human beings than it is to satisfy our desire for luxury items.

Backing:

The justification for Singer’s warrant is that, with few exceptions, almost everyone agrees. No honest, rational, ethical personal believes that his or her desire for, say, a widescreen TV is more important than the life of a child. We might, and probably do, disagree in most cases with Singer’s definition of a luxury—most people wouldn’t agree, for example, that every single dollar you earn that you don’t have to spend on food and shelter is a luxury—but almost all of us agree that saving lives is more important than having an iPhone. For that matter, one might argue that iPhones can save lives (think GPS). Still, nit-picking aside, Singer’s warrant is sound because his backing is that we already agree. The question you should consider as a writer is how Singer proves that we agree. How, in the context of his argument, does he demonstrate that agreement?

The answer is in the hypothetical situations that he presents. We can’t help but agree, because we agree that Dora can’t let the child die. We agree that Bob is heartless to value his car ahead over the life of a kid who’s about to be flattened by an oncoming train. Once we’ve agreed, quite naturally, that Dora is right to try to save the boy in the first hypothetical example and that Bob is wrong to let the boy die in the second, we’re stuck. We have to accept Singer’s warrant, which means, logically speaking, in the context of his argument, we have to accept his claim.

Hypothetical situations, analogies, and metaphors are probably among the most time-honored and tested rhetorical strategies, for the simple reason that they can be very effective. They can also be utterly absurd, and even Peter Singer is careful to say so. About halfway through the essay, he explicitly states that hypothetical examples can become farcical, and indeed farcical is an appropriate word. A hypothetical example can easily be turned into a joke. That is why you should be very careful relying on hypothetical examples and analogies to carry your argument. If they’re not executed with an expert hand, they’re often very easy to dismantle.

For some comic relief, and a pitch perfect demonstration of how a hypothetical example can be an argument’s undoing, watch Stephen Colbert interview Peter Singer in the clip linked to below.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221466/march-12-2009/peter-singer

READING CHECK

Quiz #1:

These questions are drawn from “The Solution to World Poverty,” and the Advice on Learning Objectives for Unit 3.

1. What is Peter Singer’s claim in “The Singer Solution to World Poverty?” You should be able to summarize it in a sentence.

2. In a sentence or two, describe the choice Bob faces in “The Singer Solution to World Poverty?” Describe his options and his decision in a sentence or two.

3. According to Singer’s logic, how is Bob’s decision similar to, say, treating yourself and your partner to dinner at your favorite restaurant? Try to keep your answer short. A sentence or two should suffice.

4. What is the warrant of Singer’s argument?

DISCUSSION PROMPT

Week 1

Having read “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” the Advice on Learning Objectives for Unit 3, you should be able to read “Good to the Last Drop” with an awareness of the Toulmin model of argument. While you are not by any means being asked to produce a formal analysis of Standage’s argument for the discussion board, you should be able to successfully identify some of its basic components, and contribute in an informal way to a discussion of how the argument works. What is Standage’s claim? How does he qualify his claim? (If you have difficulty identifying a qualifier, reread the last few paragraphs of the article and consider the question again.) How would you describe the tone of his essay? Is it effective? Why or why not? What underlying assumptions inform Standage’s point of view? In other words, what is his warrant? What values does he expect his readers to share? Do you see any similarities between his values and Peter Singer’s? Finally, which article did you find more persuasive? Are you any more or less likely to rethink your ideas about giving money to charity or drinking bottled water after reading these essays?

Obviously, this is a lot to chew on. Don’t feel as though you have to answer all of the questions above. Try, instead, to focus on two or three of them, addressing them in a thoughtful post of two or three substantial paragraphs.

ADVICE ON DRAFTING

First and foremost, remember to keep the learning objectives and the “Advice on Learning Objectives” in mind as you draft. You are writing a traditional argument, an argument to persuade, using the Toulmin model of argument. You need a claim, qualifiers, reasons, a warrant, and some kind of backing. You also need to incorporate rebuttal. All of these terms are explained in the “Advice on Learning Objectives.” If you lose sight of the learning objectives, you will lose control of your paper. Don’t lose control of your paper.

If you’re having trouble getting started, try taking a look at UMass Lowell’s First Year Writing Program Web Module on getting started, which you can find here: http://www.uml.edu/Academics/Freshman-Writing/writing.aspx .

One of the suggestions in the brief video embedded in the website above is to “vomit your ideas” onto the page. This is called free-writing, and it’s not a bad idea. If you just sit down and write what comes into your mind without being concerned about punctuation or organization, or even knowing what your thesis is going to be, you might discover some really good ideas, and you will, at the very least, get past the big obstacle, which is usually the mental block caused by the natural anxiety you feel about starting a paper. After all, you’re submitting a piece of writing that will be evaluated and, eventually, graded. A certain amount of anxiety is normal. Free-writing can help you get started without worrying about your grade, because you free-writing with the knowledge that you can go back and fix it later.

In other words, while the first paragraph of this document explicitly states you should not lose control of your paper, you should also recognize that sometimes it’s difficult to get control of your paper to begin with unless you start writing without control. Get control later, when your ideas are already on the page. Remember, one of the primary learning objectives of College Writing I is to develop an awareness of writing as a process. That means that you will revise this paper, just like you revised your other papers. You might as well start working as soon as possible. Once you’ve got a few ideas on the page, you might take a look at the First Year Writing Program’s Online Revision Module, which is an interactive guide you can use to help you organize your work. You can link to that module here: http://www.uml.edu/Academics/Freshman-Writing/revision.aspx

Of course, many people feel more comfortable outlining their papers before they start writing. If you are one of these people, that’s fine, too. No matter what type of writer you are, you will need to organize your argument if you want your paper to be successful. There’s much discussion of organization and structure in the “Advice on Learning Objectives.” We’ll go over some of that advice again, here.

1. In general, it’s a good idea to get to your thesis statement (the claim) as quickly as possible. You should have a clear, specific claim, and it should appear early in the essay, preferably in the first paragraph.

2. You can qualify your claim immediately, or you can qualify it throughout the essay. If you only have one qualifier, it’s usually easier to get it out of the way quickly. If you have several,

it is sometimes easier to deal with them as they come up in the course of your argument, linking them to your reasons and your rebuttal.

3. You should have a reason, ideally more than one reason, for your claim. You can deal with reasons in one of four ways:

a. Present all of your reasons first, in body paragraphs, then anticipate the counter-argument and offer your rebuttal in another body paragraph or two;

b. Explain the counter-arguments in a body paragraph or two first, then present your reasons as evidence that the already stated counter-argument is wrong (thus proving your claim);

c. Provide your first reason, anticipate objections, and offer rebuttal, then move on to your second reason, and on down the line; or, finally

d. The opposite of C. Present the anticipated counter-argument to your first reason, then provide rebuttal explaining why the counter-argument is wrong (in other words, offer your reasons as evidence that the counter-argument is wrong). This is how Peter Singer handles several objections to “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.”

4. Be mindful of your warrant. While the warrant is often an unstated, underlying assumption, if you don’t know what it is, you won’t be in a very good position to anticipate counter-arguments and you won’t be able to;

5. Offer backing.

Remember, your audience for this assignment is a general, educated, adult audience. Don’t treat them as though they are stupid. Don’t insult our intelligence by offering the Merriam Webster Dictionary’s definition of a word. Assume that we know the English language.

Because you are writing an argument to persuade, you should employ a style suited to your purpose and audience. That style should sound polished and professional, but it should also carry the force of your convictions. Remember your “Advice on Learning Objectives.” You want to be tactful and courteous when you deal with alternate viewpoints; don’t call the people who disagree with you evil or idiotic. But be clear in expressing your own view. Write as though, while you can understand a certain amount of disagreement, you are ultimately convinced of the legitimacy of your claim.

Finally, try not be artificial. Often, First Year Writing students feel a certain amount of pressure to adopt complicated vocabulary because they are writing for school. It’s the wrong impulse. You don’t want to use profanity or slang, but you don’t want to try so hard to sound professional that your language becomes awkward. Don’t use words you don’t fully understand in an attempt to make yourself sound smart. You are smart. In general, at least, humans are pretty smart: smarter than fish, for example, or cows. You don’t have to fake it! If your argument is smart, your paper will sound smart without the added burden of fancy language.

If, for example, you want to say that recycling is difficult when your town doesn’t send a recycling truck around to pick up your bottles and cans, say “Recycling is difficult when your town doesn’t send a recycling truck around to pick up your bottles and cans.” It’s not a great sentence, but it’s okay, and in spite of the relatively simple vocabulary, it sounds much more intelligent than the kind

of sentence so many students seem tempted to write, which looks more like this: “In the aspect of protecting the environment, the concept of recycling can be more difficult when the location in which you reside doesn’t send a recycling vehicle to your home.”

Writing like this is a self-conscious habit we develop as a consequence of worrying about our grades, rather than our writing. It’s a completely understandable habit, and one that is difficult to break. But try. Your writing will improve, and when your writing imporves, your grades probably will, too.

Now, reread paragraph one. Seriously. And remember, if you lose sight of the learning objectives, you will lose control of your paper.

PEER REVIEW INSTRUCTIONS

1. Post your paper to Discussion Board as a word document attachment. Feel free to explain any specific anxieties you might have about your argument in your post: concerns you want your peers to pay special attention to.

2. Submit a copy to me via dropbox, as well.1. Read each person’s draft (a total of three to four drafts, depending on the size of your

group). 2. Respond to the peer review questions for each person’s draft. Your responses should be

specific and thorough. Your comments should also be directed at helping your classmate improve his or her work. Your comments don’t have to be universally positive: after all, if you had nothing but positive things to say, there wouldn’t be any room for improvement, and there is always room for improvement. That said, you should remember to put praise before blame. Try to say what you liked before you explain what didn’t work for you. And when you explain your problems with the essay, make sure you’re comments are constructive. You’re trying to help. You should work hard to think of solutions, rather than spending your time restating and elaborating on problems. Remember that you are dealing with a human being, not just words on a screen. These drafts are works in progress. Treat them as such, and provide good reasons for your suggestions. In a sense, your responses to the peer review questions are arguments. They need to be specific, and substantiated by evidence in order to be useful.

3. Most of all, you need to bear in mind that these are argument papers. They are meant to be controversial. The fact that you disagree with one of your classmates’ papers might make it difficult to evaluate the writing itself, to figure out whether or not you are looking at a soundly constructed Toulmin argument.

4. Do your best, and be nice.5. Post your feedback to each paper in the form of a response to its author’s initial post.6. Complete these steps no later than Week 2, Day 7.7. Read through the feedback you received on your draft and continue to follow up with your

peers if you have additional or clarifying questions. If after they respond you still don’t understand why your peers feel the way that they do, you can also follow up with me.

8. Begin drafting your Revision Plan.

PEER REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What is the author’s claim? Is it clear enough? Could it be improved or qualified in any way? 2. Does the argument otherwise conform to the Toulmin model? Are there reasons to justify

the claim? What is the warrant? Does the paper offer enough backing for its warrant?3. Was the paper interesting? Did you care? This may seem like a harsh question, and you’ll

want to be polite in your answer, but it is important to make sure that these arguments are interesting. To the extent that it is possible, these papers need to be exciting to read, and it is possible. Sometimes, it’s as easy as livening up the language, using active verbs instead of passive ones. Other times, it’s about the argument itself: the reasoning. The content. Did the argument make you think? Did it challenge you? Does it make you laugh? In a good way, or a bad way? Did the author’s claim or the way he or she backed it up make you angry? An argumentative essay that makes you angry might, after all, be very good. After all, the aim of an argument to persuade is to move the reader to act. If you disagreed so violently that with the essay that it made you angry, the author may not have achieved his or her purpose, but he or she has definitely achieved something. Try to respond to this question as dispassionately as possible. Don’t go on a rant about why your classmate is wrong to suggest that, for example, you should give all your money to charity. Examine, instead, how the paper made you feel, why it made you feel that way, and how it could be made into an even more effective piece of writing.

4. Were you ever confused by the author’s reasoning? What about by the sentences themselves? Were there passages you didn’t understand? And how do you think those passages could be improved so that they are reasoned (or written) more clearly?

5. Was the argument thorough? Or were there aspects of the argument that, in your view, needed more attention? What were they, and why? Where, in short, did you remain unconvinced? And how could the writer have been more persuasive?

6. If you have comments or suggestions that are not addressed by your answers to the questions above, feel free to post them, as well.

REVISION PLAN INSTRUCTIONS

Your revision plan should be based on the feedback you received from your peers, as well as your own sense of what you need to improve. Explain exactly what changes you intend to make. Your revision plan should deal principally with the content and organization of your paper. In other words, don’t spend a lot of time explaining the grammatical errors you intend to correct. It should go without saying that your final draft will be free of grammatical error.

List the changes you plan to make in complete sentences and number them. If you don’t come up with at least four or five changes, you probably aren’t working hard enough. If you end up with more than ten or fifteen, you might be rewriting the whole essay.

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Either way, try to be specific. Explaining the revisions you intend to make in specific terms is a great way to prepare yourself for the revision process. You’ll revise more effectively if you go into it with concrete objectives.

It’s worth noting that sometimes, in the course of a revision, we are struck by new ideas. Feel free to incorporate these ideas into your revision, even if they weren’t in your original revision plan.

STYLE LESSON

LINGUISTIC SIGNPOSTS IN ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING: REBUTTAL

Word choice is one of the most important elements of an argumentative essay. There is a particular kind of language we use when we’re making an argument: that is to say, a kind of language particular to argument. Certain words and phrases send signals to your readers, letting them know what’s to come, or what just happened. These words—called signposts—make it easier for your reader to follow your reasoning, which, in turn, makes your essay more persuasive. After all, if your readers can’t follow your argument, you can hardly expect it to persuade them.

Signposts are especially important in the context of rebuttal. In the style review below, we’ll look at some of the phrases commonly used as signposts when introducing and refuting opposing claims. There are common templates, phrases you should feel free to use in your essays. In fact, you will probably recognize some of them from arguments you have read in magazines or seen on television.  

1. When introducing counter-arguments (arguments contrary to your own), you might use phrases like:

Opponents of this idea argue that…            Those who disagree typically maintain that…Counter-arguments suggest…Those who disagree claim that…Those who continue to reject this assertion insist…

Then, in place of the ellipsis, you can introduce your opponent’s claim.

2. When you want to explain specifically why people who disagree with you think the way they do, say:

Those who reject (your claim) do so because …They claim that… because…Those who continue to disagree in spite of the evidence do so on the basis of their conviction that…

 Then, you can explain the opposition’s reasoning.

3. As we have discussed, you will probably want to be tactful when refuting your would-be opposition. You want to take the high ground by at the very least appearing to be reasonable, making certain concessions, or at least expressing a touch of empathy. After all, you understand. Use phrases like the ones below to hint at a compromise, to suggest that, while they may have a point, they’re not quite right:

To a certain extent, they have a right to think that way.They have a point.In a way, they are right.Perhaps there is some justification for this view.

At this point, without being too condescending or too conciliatory, you’ll want to explain

why the counter-argument might make a little sense to some people.

4. When you want to signal to your reader that you are about to explain why, ultimately, the counter-argument is flawed, use words or phrases like:

However…But, ultimately…

  On the other hand…But the flipside of this view is that…Still, in light of the evidence…Nevertheless, it is difficult to deny that…Yet this reasoning is faulty, because…

Then you simply explain why your opposition is wrong.

Try incorporating these phrases in your revision process and see what you think. Chances are the argument will be easier to follow. Just as traffic signs can help us find our way through an unfamiliar town, linguistic signposts are easily recognizable markers that help readers navigate unfamiliar arguments or alternative views.

Signposts are essential components of argumentative writing.