presenting an argument

What this handout is about

This handout will define what an argument is and explain why you need one in most of your academic essays.

Arguments are everywhere

You may be surprised to hear that the word “argument” does not have to be written anywhere in your assignment for it to be an important part of your task. In fact, making an argument—expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence—is often the aim of academic writing. Your instructors may assume that you know this and thus may not explain the importance of arguments in class.

Most material you learn in college is or has been debated by someone, somewhere, at some time. Even when the material you read or hear is presented as a simple fact, it may actually be one person’s interpretation of a set of information. Instructors may call on you to examine that interpretation and defend it, refute it, or offer some new view of your own. In writing assignments, you will almost always need to do more than just summarize information that you have gathered or regurgitate facts that have been discussed in class. You will need to develop a point of view on or interpretation of that material and provide evidence for your position.

Consider an example. For nearly 2000 years, educated people in many Western cultures believed that bloodletting—deliberately causing a sick person to lose blood—was the most effective treatment for a variety of illnesses. The claim that bloodletting is beneficial to human health was not widely questioned until the 1800s, and some physicians continued to recommend bloodletting as late as the 1920s. Medical practices have now changed because some people began to doubt the effectiveness of bloodletting; these people argued against it and provided convincing evidence. Human knowledge grows out of such differences of opinion, and scholars like your instructors spend their lives engaged in debate over what claims may be counted as accurate in their fields. In their courses, they want you to engage in similar kinds of critical thinking and debate.

Argumentation is not just what your instructors do. We all use argumentation on a daily basis, and you probably already have some skill at crafting an argument. The more you improve your skills in this area, the better you will be at thinking critically, reasoning, making choices, and weighing evidence.

Making a claim

What is an argument? In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a “claim” or “thesis statement,” backed up with evidence that supports the idea. In the majority of college papers, you will need to make some sort of claim and use evidence to support it, and your ability to do this well will separate your papers from those of students who see assignments as mere accumulations of fact and detail. In other words, gone are the happy days of being given a “topic” about which you can write anything. It is time to stake out a position and prove why it is a good position for a thinking person to hold. See our handout on thesis statements .

Claims can be as simple as “Protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged,” with evidence such as, “In this experiment, protons and electrons acted in such and such a way.” Claims can also be as complex as “Genre is the most important element to the contract of expectations between filmmaker and audience,” using reasoning and evidence such as, “defying genre expectations can create a complete apocalypse of story form and content, leaving us stranded in a sort of genre-less abyss.” In either case, the rest of your paper will detail the reasoning and evidence that have led you to believe that your position is best.

When beginning to write a paper, ask yourself, “What is my point?” For example, the point of this handout is to help you become a better writer, and we are arguing that an important step in the process of writing effective arguments is understanding the concept of argumentation. If your papers do not have a main point, they cannot be arguing for anything. Asking yourself what your point is can help you avoid a mere “information dump.” Consider this: your instructors probably know a lot more than you do about your subject matter. Why, then, would you want to provide them with material they already know? Instructors are usually looking for two things:

• Proof that you understand the material
• A demonstration of your ability to use or apply the material in ways that go beyond what you have read or heard.

This second part can be done in many ways: you can critique the material, apply it to something else, or even just explain it in a different way. In order to succeed at this second step, though, you must have a particular point to argue.

Arguments in academic writing are usually complex and take time to develop. Your argument will need to be more than a simple or obvious statement such as “Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect.” Such a statement might capture your initial impressions of Wright as you have studied him in class; however, you need to look deeper and express specifically what caused that “greatness.” Your instructor will probably expect something more complicated, such as “Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture combines elements of European modernism, Asian aesthetic form, and locally found materials to create a unique new style,” or “There are many strong similarities between Wright’s building designs and those of his mother, which suggests that he may have borrowed some of her ideas.” To develop your argument, you would then define your terms and prove your claim with evidence from Wright’s drawings and buildings and those of the other architects you mentioned.

Do not stop with having a point. You have to back up your point with evidence. The strength of your evidence, and your use of it, can make or break your argument. See our handout on evidence . You already have the natural inclination for this type of thinking, if not in an academic setting. Think about how you talked your parents into letting you borrow the family car. Did you present them with lots of instances of your past trustworthiness? Did you make them feel guilty because your friends’ parents all let them drive? Did you whine until they just wanted you to shut up? Did you look up statistics on teen driving and use them to show how you didn’t fit the dangerous-driver profile? These are all types of argumentation, and they exist in academia in similar forms.

Every field has slightly different requirements for acceptable evidence, so familiarize yourself with some arguments from within that field instead of just applying whatever evidence you like best. Pay attention to your textbooks and your instructor’s lectures. What types of argument and evidence are they using? The type of evidence that sways an English instructor may not work to convince a sociology instructor. Find out what counts as proof that something is true in that field. Is it statistics, a logical development of points, something from the object being discussed (art work, text, culture, or atom), the way something works, or some combination of more than one of these things?

Be consistent with your evidence. Unlike negotiating for the use of your parents’ car, a college paper is not the place for an all-out blitz of every type of argument. You can often use more than one type of evidence within a paper, but make sure that within each section you are providing the reader with evidence appropriate to each claim. So, if you start a paragraph or section with a statement like “Putting the student seating area closer to the basketball court will raise player performance,” do not follow with your evidence on how much more money the university could raise by letting more students go to games for free. Information about how fan support raises player morale, which then results in better play, would be a better follow-up. Your next section could offer clear reasons why undergraduates have as much or more right to attend an undergraduate event as wealthy alumni—but this information would not go in the same section as the fan support stuff. You cannot convince a confused person, so keep things tidy and ordered.

Counterargument

One way to strengthen your argument and show that you have a deep understanding of the issue you are discussing is to anticipate and address counterarguments or objections. By considering what someone who disagrees with your position might have to say about your argument, you show that you have thought things through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument. Recall our discussion of student seating in the Dean Dome. To make the most effective argument possible, you should consider not only what students would say about seating but also what alumni who have paid a lot to get good seats might say.

You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself how someone who disagrees with you might respond to each of the points you’ve made or your position as a whole. If you can’t immediately imagine another position, here are some strategies to try:

• Do some research. It may seem to you that no one could possibly disagree with the position you are arguing, but someone probably has. For example, some people argue that a hotdog is a sandwich. If you are making an argument concerning, for example, the characteristics of an exceptional sandwich, you might want to see what some of these people have to say.
• Talk with a friend or with your teacher. Another person may be able to imagine counterarguments that haven’t occurred to you.
• Consider your conclusion or claim and the premises of your argument and imagine someone who denies each of them. For example, if you argued, “Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent,” you might imagine someone saying, “Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and needy.”

Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them—will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.

When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have considered the many sides of the issue. If you simply attack or caricature your opponent (also referred to as presenting a “straw man”), you suggest that your argument is only capable of defeating an extremely weak adversary, which may undermine your argument rather than enhance it.

It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies.

Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to go back and revise your original argument accordingly.

Audience is a very important consideration in argument. Take a look at our handout on audience . A lifetime of dealing with your family members has helped you figure out which arguments work best to persuade each of them. Maybe whining works with one parent, but the other will only accept cold, hard statistics. Your kid brother may listen only to the sound of money in his palm. It’s usually wise to think of your audience in an academic setting as someone who is perfectly smart but who doesn’t necessarily agree with you. You are not just expressing your opinion in an argument (“It’s true because I said so”), and in most cases your audience will know something about the subject at hand—so you will need sturdy proof. At the same time, do not think of your audience as capable of reading your mind. You have to come out and state both your claim and your evidence clearly. Do not assume that because the instructor knows the material, he or she understands what part of it you are using, what you think about it, and why you have taken the position you’ve chosen.

Critical reading

Critical reading is a big part of understanding argument. Although some of the material you read will be very persuasive, do not fall under the spell of the printed word as authority. Very few of your instructors think of the texts they assign as the last word on the subject. Remember that the author of every text has an agenda, something that he or she wants you to believe. This is OK—everything is written from someone’s perspective—but it’s a good thing to be aware of. For more information on objectivity and bias and on reading sources carefully, read our handouts on evaluating print sources and reading to write .

Take notes either in the margins of your source (if you are using a photocopy or your own book) or on a separate sheet as you read. Put away that highlighter! Simply highlighting a text is good for memorizing the main ideas in that text—it does not encourage critical reading. Part of your goal as a reader should be to put the author’s ideas in your own words. Then you can stop thinking of these ideas as facts and start thinking of them as arguments.

When you read, ask yourself questions like “What is the author trying to prove?” and “What is the author assuming I will agree with?” Do you agree with the author? Does the author adequately defend her argument? What kind of proof does she use? Is there something she leaves out that you would put in? Does putting it in hurt her argument? As you get used to reading critically, you will start to see the sometimes hidden agendas of other writers, and you can use this skill to improve your own ability to craft effective arguments.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ede, Lisa. 2004. Work in Progress: A Guide to Academic Writing and Revising , 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Gage, John T. 2005. The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College , 4th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A., and John J. Ruszkiewicz. 2016. Everything’s an Argument , 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to Effectively Present and Defend Your Arguments

Written by Argumentful

In our contemporary world, characterized by rapid change and diverse viewpoints, the ability to proficiently articulate and justify our opinions has become increasingly crucial.

Whether it’s in a business meeting, a classroom discussion, or a political debate, the ability to articulate your thoughts and persuade others is a valuable skill.

However, many people struggle with this task and may find themselves feeling frustrated or defeated in these situations.

Consider the following scenario: You’re at a family dinner and the conversation turns to politics. Your uncle begins passionately arguing his point of view, and you find yourself disagreeing. You want to express your own beliefs, but you’re unsure how to do so without coming across as confrontational or aggressive. Sound familiar?

This article aims to provide guidance on how to effectively present and defend your arguments, whether it’s in a casual conversation or a formal debate. Through practical tips and strategies, we’ll explore how to confidently articulate your thoughts, stay focused on the issue at hand, and effectively counter opposing views.

By the end of this article, you will have a toolbox of techniques for presenting and defending your arguments in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner.

So whether you’re debating politics with family or presenting a proposal to your boss, you’ll be better equipped to confidently and effectively make your case.

• Understanding the audience and context

• Preparing and structuring your argument

• Presenting your argument

• Defending your argument

• Dealing with emotional reactions

• Conclusion

Understanding the audience and context

One of the most crucial aspects of presenting and defending arguments effectively is understanding the audience and context in which you will be making your case. By taking the time to research and analyse the values, beliefs, and backgrounds of your audience, you can tailor your argument to better resonate with their perspective and increase your chances of success.

To start, consider who your audience is and what their interests and priorities might be.

• Are they experts in your field, or are they laypeople who may not have a deep understanding of the topic?

• Are they part of a specific cultural or social group with their own unique values and beliefs?

By answering these questions, you can begin to build a more accurate picture of who you will be speaking to and how best to communicate with them.

Another important consideration is the context in which you will be presenting your argument.

• Is this a formal debate with strict rules of engagement, or a more casual conversation among friends?

• What is the cultural and social background of the context, and how might that impact the way you frame your argument?

By analysing these factors, you can adjust your language , tone , and approach to better suit the situation and increase your chances of success.

Tips and techniques for researching the audience

When researching your audience and context, consider the following tips and techniques:

• Analyse the values and beliefs of your audience : Take time to understand what your audience cares about and what they believe to be important. By framing your argument in a way that aligns with these values, you can increase your chances of persuading them to see your point of view.

Here are some examples:

• If you are presenting to a group of environmental activists , you might emphasize the environmental impact of your argument and the importance of protecting the planet for future generations.
• If your audience is composed of business executives , you might focus on the financial benefits of your argument, such as cost savings or increased profits.
• If you are presenting to a religious community , you might appeal to their shared values of compassion, kindness, and social justice, and demonstrate how your argument aligns with these beliefs.
• If your audience is composed of scientists or academics , you might use evidence-based arguments and appeal to the importance of empirical data and logical reasoning.

By understanding the values and beliefs of your audience, you can tailor your argument in a way that resonates with them and speaks to their concerns. This not only increases the likelihood that they will be persuaded by your argument, but also helps to build trust and rapport with your audience, which can be invaluable in future interactions.

• Consider the social and cultural background of the context : Different contexts may have unique social and cultural factors that impact the way people think and communicate. Take the time to understand these factors, and adjust your approach accordingly.
• If you are presenting in a multicultural setting , be mindful of cultural differences in communication styles and nonverbal cues. For example, some cultures may place a higher value on direct communication, while others may prefer indirect or more nuanced communication.
• If you are presenting in a political context , be aware of the current political climate and the potential impact that may have on your argument. Consider how your argument may be perceived through different political lenses, and be prepared to address any concerns or objections related to political ideologies.
• If you are presenting to a group with diverse backgrounds and experiences , be sensitive to the ways in which different individuals may interpret your argument based on their personal histories and identities. Avoid assumptions and stereotypes, and strive to create a safe and inclusive space where everyone feels heard and valued.

By considering the social and cultural background of the context, you can avoid potential misunderstandings and conflicts, and increase the effectiveness of your argument. This shows that you are respectful of the unique perspectives and experiences of your audience, and are committed to engaging in productive and meaningful dialogue.

• Use data and evidence that speaks to your audience : When presenting your argument, make sure to use data and evidence that is relevant and compelling to your audience. If you’re speaking to a group of scientists, for example, you may want to focus on studies and experiments that support your case.
• If you are presenting to a group of policymakers , use data and statistics that highlight the potential impact of your argument on society as a whole. Show how your proposed policy or solution can address a pressing social or economic issue, and provide concrete examples of successful implementation in similar contexts.
• If you are presenting to a group of business leaders , use financial data and market research to demonstrate the potential ROI of your argument. Show how your proposal can increase profits, improve efficiency, or enhance the reputation of the company, and provide case studies of successful implementation in other organizations.
• If you are presenting to a group of activists or advocates , use personal stories and testimonials to illustrate the human impact of your argument. Show how your proposal can make a tangible difference in the lives of individuals or communities, and provide examples of successful implementation in similar contexts.

By using data and evidence that speaks to your audience, you can demonstrate your credibility and expertise on the topic, and show that you have a deep understanding of their needs and concerns. This can help to build trust and increase the likelihood that your argument will be accepted and acted upon.

Preparing and structuring the argument

Once you have a clear understanding of your audience and context, the next step in presenting and defending your arguments is to prepare and structure your argument effectively.

A strong argument is one that is clear , concise , and well-supported with evidence .

To achieve this, there are several steps you can take to prepare and structure your argument effectively.

• Identify your main claim : The first step in preparing a strong argument is to identify your main claim or thesis. This should be a clear statement that summarizes the central point of your argument.
• Organize supporting evidence : Once you have identified your main claim, the next step is to organize supporting evidence that will help you make your case. This could include data, research studies, expert opinions, or personal experiences.
• Anticipate counter-arguments : When preparing your argument, it is important to anticipate potential counter-arguments that may be raised by your audience. This will help you address these objections in a clear and effective way.

There are several different formats that can be used to structure an argument effectively.

Argument map

An argument map is a tool that helps to identify the main claim and supporting reasons, and how they are connected to each other. By using an argument map, you can better understand the strength of your argument and identify potential weaknesses.

Outline your thesis and your main points and then use the map to create a narrative, either in a problem-solution format or persuasive speech format.

Here is what an argument map to support the building of a park could look like:

Note that the map contains supporting reasons (with backing evidence) and it also includes counter-arguments and their rebuttals.

You can then use this argument map for creating your talking points in one of the formats below.

Problem-solution format

• PROBLEM-SOLUTION format :

In this format, you should first outline a problem, and then present a solution to that problem. This can be a highly effective way of framing an argument, as it helps the audience to see the value of your proposed solution.

The problem-solution format is a common way of structuring an argument, particularly when the goal is to persuade the audience to take action on a particular issue . Here is a typical structure for a problem-solution format:

• Introduction : In the introduction, you should introduce the problem you will be addressing, and provide some background information to help the audience understand the issue. This might include statistics, personal anecdotes, or news stories that highlight the severity of the problem.
• Problem : In this section, you should describe the problem in more detail, highlighting its causes and effects. You might also discuss why the problem is particularly important, and what the consequences might be if it is not addressed.
• Solution : In this section, you should present your proposed solution to the problem. This might include a specific policy proposal, a call to action for individuals, or a description of a program or initiative that you believe could help to address the problem. Use the argument map points already drafted at the previous step.
• Benefits : In this section, you should describe the benefits of your proposed solution. This might include the positive impact it could have on individuals or communities, the economic benefits of addressing the problem, or the social benefits of promoting a particular solution.
• Objections : In this section, you should anticipate potential objections to your proposed solution, and provide counter-arguments to address these objections. This can help to strengthen your argument and make it more persuasive.
• Conclusion : In the conclusion, you should summarize your argument and urge the audience to take action. This might include a call to contact their elected officials, donate to a particular organization, or take some other concrete step to address the problem.

By following this structure, you can present a clear and compelling argument that highlights the urgency of the issue at hand.

Persuasive speech format

• PERSUASIVE SPEECH format :

In a persuasive speech, the speaker presents an argument in a structured way, using clear transitions between different parts of the argument. This format typically includes an introduction, a body where the main points are presented and supported, and a conclusion that summarizes the argument and urges the audience to take action.

The persuasive speech format is a common way of structuring an argument, particularly when the goal is to persuade the audience to take action or change their beliefs about a particular issue. Here is a typical structure for a persuasive speech format:

• Introduction : In the introduction, you should grab the audience’s attention with a strong opening statement, and provide some background information on the topic you will be addressing. You should also introduce your main argument or thesis statement .
• Body : In the body of your speech, you should present your main points in a structured way, using clear transitions to move between different parts of the argument. Each point should be supported with evidence, such as data, research studies, or expert opinions. If you’ve already built your argument map, you should use the points you already drafted there.

Here is the breakdown of the body section:

a. Point 1: In this section, you should present your first main point, and support it with evidence.

b. Point 2: In this section, you should present your second main point, and support it with evidence.

c. Point 3: In this section, you should present your third main point, and support it with evidence.

d. Transition: After presenting your main points, you should transition to the conclusion of your speech.

• Counter-arguments : In this section, you should address potential counter-arguments that your audience may raise. This can help to strengthen your argument and make it more persuasive.
• Conclusion : In the conclusion, you should summarize your main points and restate your thesis statement. You should also provide a call to action, urging the audience to take a specific action or change their beliefs about the issue.

By following this structure, you can present a clear and compelling argument that is well-supported with evidence, and that effectively persuades your audience to take action or change their beliefs.

No matter which format you choose, the key to presenting and defending your argument effectively is to be clear , concise , and well-prepared . By taking the time to structure your argument effectively, and anticipating potential counter-arguments, you can increase your chances of success and ensure that your message is heard and understood by your audience.

Presenting the argument

Once you have prepared and structured your argument, the next step is to present it in a way that engages the audience and effectively communicates your message.

Here are some techniques for presenting an argument effectively:

• Use persuasive language : Using strong, clear language can help to make your argument more persuasive. Use active voice, avoid jargon or technical language, and be concise.

For example:

• Instead of saying “The project will be completed in six months,” say “We will finish the project in six months.”

• Instead of using technical jargon, use simple language that can be easily understood by your audience. For example, instead of saying “We need to optimize the performance of our data processing pipeline,” say “We need to make our data processing faster and more efficient.”

02. Use strong, descriptive language that paints a clear picture in the minds of your audience.

For example, instead of saying “Our product is good,” say “Our product is the best on the market and will revolutionize the way you work.”

• Utilize visual aids : Visual aids such as charts, graphs, and images can help to reinforce your argument and make it more memorable. Use them sparingly, and make sure they are easy to read and understand.

For example, if you are making a presentation on the benefits of a new product, you can use a chart to illustrate the increase in sales revenue since the product was introduced.

You could also use the argument map already prepared previously to organize and visually display the logical structure of your argument.

• Tell a story : Using storytelling techniques can be an effective way to engage the audience and make your argument more relatable. Use personal anecdotes, metaphors, or case studies to illustrate your points and make them more memorable.

For example, when presenting a proposal to implement a new initiative at work, you could begin by sharing a personal story of a time when a similar initiative was successfully implemented in a different organization, and the positive impact it had on the employees and the company’s overall success. This story could help to create an emotional connection with the audience and build support for your proposal.

You could also use case studies of other organizations that have implemented similar initiatives, and show the tangible benefits they have seen as a result. This approach can help to make your argument more concrete and relatable, and make it easier for the audience to understand the potential benefits of your proposal.

• Use humour : Humour can be a powerful tool for engaging the audience and making your argument more memorable. Use it sparingly, and make sure it is appropriate for the context.

Suppose you’re presenting an argument in favour of a healthier diet. You could start by saying something like, “I used to think that kale was just a decoration on my plate at restaurants. But then I tried it and realized it’s actually a vegetable.” This can get a chuckle from the audience and help to make your point in a more relatable way. From there, you could go on to discuss the benefits of incorporating more fruits and vegetables into one’s diet.

• Engage the audience : Engaging the audience can help to build rapport and create a sense of connection. Ask questions, use rhetorical devices such as repetition or parallelism, and make eye contact to create a sense of intimacy.

Here are some examples you can use to engage your audience:

• Ask a question that requires a show of hands, such as “How many of you have ever experienced this situation?” This creates a sense of participation and involvement.
• Use rhetorical questions to make the audience think and engage with the topic. For example, “What would happen if we continue to ignore this issue?”
• Use repetition to emphasize key points and make them more memorable. For example, “We need to act now, we need to act fast, and we need to act together.”
• Make eye contact with the audience to create a sense of intimacy and connection. This can help to build trust and credibility.

By using these techniques, you can present your argument in a way that is engaging, memorable, and persuasive. Remember to practice your presentation beforehand, and to anticipate potential questions or objections that the audience may raise. By being well-prepared and confident in your argument, you can effectively defend your position and persuade others to see things your way.

Defending the argument

Defending your argument is just as important as presenting it. Here are some strategies for effectively defending your argument:

• Use evidence and logical reasoning : Evidence and logical reasoning are key to making a strong argument. Use relevant facts, statistics, and examples to support your position, and use logical reasoning to connect your evidence to your main claim.

For example, in a business setting, you may be presenting a proposal for a new product or strategy. To effectively persuade your audience, you can use data to support the potential success of your idea. You can present market research, customer feedback, or industry trends to demonstrate that your proposal is not only feasible but also profitable.

Additionally, you can use logical reasoning to explain how your proposal aligns with the company’s goals and values, and how it can address any potential challenges or concerns.

By using evidence and logical reasoning, you can build a convincing argument that is grounded in facts and reason.

• Anticipate objections : Anticipating objections can help you to prepare effective counter-arguments. Put yourself in the shoes of your opponent and try to think of potential objections or counter-arguments they may raise. Be prepared to address these objections with evidence and logical reasoning.

Here is how you can anticipate objections in the context of building a new park in a community.

For example someone may object to the new park on the basis that it will increase traffic and noise in the area. In response to this objection, you could anticipate this concern and address it by presenting evidence that the park’s design includes traffic-calming measures such as speed bumps and traffic lights, and that noise from the park will be managed through measures like the installation of sound barriers. By anticipating and addressing this objection in advance, it can help to alleviate concerns and increase the likelihood of gaining support for the park’s construction.

• Avoid fallacies : Fallacies are errors in reasoning that can weaken your argument. Common fallacies include ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and false dichotomies. Be aware of these fallacies and avoid them in your argument.
• Ad hominem : Attacking the character or personal traits of your opponent instead of addressing their argument. For example, saying “You can’t trust John’s opinion on the park proposal because he’s not even a resident of this city.”
• Straw man : Misrepresenting your opponent’s argument in order to make it easier to attack. For example, saying “Opponents of the park just want to pave over all the green space in the city and turn it into a concrete jungle.”
• False dichotomy : Presenting only two options when there are actually more. For example, saying “We can either build the park or let the land sit unused forever.” When in reality, there may be other alternatives.

In any context (including that of building a new park), it’s important to avoid these fallacies in order to make a strong, persuasive argument. By staying focused on the facts and avoiding personal attacks or misrepresentations, you can demonstrate the value of your proposal in a clear and compelling way.

• Acknowledge the opponent’s views : Acknowledging your opponent’s views can help to build credibility and create a sense of respect. Even if you disagree with their position, try to understand their perspective and acknowledge the points that they make.

Let’s use the example of proposing a new product to a potential market: if your opponents argue that the product may not appeal to the new market, you can acknowledge their concern and provide evidence that shows the product’s success in similar markets. This approach demonstrates that you have considered their viewpoint and have a well-researched argument.

Additionally, you can acknowledge that there may be challenges in introducing a new product to a new market, and propose a plan to address these challenges, such as market research, targeted advertising, or partnerships with local businesses.

By acknowledging your opponent’s views and addressing their concerns, you can build credibility and increase the likelihood of a successful proposal.

• Provide alternative evidence or counter-examples : Providing alternative evidence or counter-examples can help to strengthen your argument and refute counter-arguments. Use relevant facts, statistics, or examples to support your position and show why your argument is more persuasive.

Here are some examples that might inspire you:

• If someone argues that all processed foods are unhealthy, you can provide examples of processed foods that are actually healthy, such as fortified breakfast cereals or packaged fruits and vegetables.
• If someone argues that organic foods are too expensive, you can provide evidence that shows that the long-term health benefits of consuming organic foods outweigh the initial cost, such as reduced medical expenses and improved quality of life.
• If someone argues that renewable energy sources like solar and wind are unreliable, you can provide examples of successful implementation of renewable energy in other countries, as well as statistics showing that the cost of renewable energy is decreasing while the reliability is increasing.

By using these strategies, you can effectively defend your argument and persuade others to see things your way. Remember to stay calm and composed, and to avoid getting defensive or emotional. By remaining confident and logical, you can effectively defend your argument and convince others to accept your position.

Dealing with emotional reactions

Presenting and defending an argument can be an emotional process, for both the speaker and the audience.

Here are some tips for managing emotional reactions:

• Stay calm and respectful : If you encounter emotional reactions during your presentation or defense, it’s important to stay calm and respectful. Avoid getting defensive or angry, and try to remain objective and rational in your responses.

An interesting example is if you are presenting an argument in a public setting, and a member of the audience interrupts you with a personal attack or insult. In this situation, it can be tempting to respond with a similar attack or to become defensive, but this will only escalate the situation and detract from the argument being presented. Instead, you should calmly address the interruption and steer the conversation back to the topic at hand. For example, you could say something like, “I understand that this is a sensitive topic, but let’s focus on the facts and evidence at hand to have a productive discussion.” By staying calm and respectful, you can maintain credibility and effectively defend your position.

• Use empathetic language : Using empathetic language can help to defuse emotional reactions and create a sense of understanding. Show that you understand the emotions of the audience or your opponent, and use language that demonstrates your empathy and compassion.

A good example is when you are discussing a controversial topic such as abortion. Instead of using language that might be perceived as attacking or dismissive, use empathetic language that acknowledges the emotional weight of the issue for both sides. For instance, saying “I understand that this is a deeply personal and emotional issue for many people” can help to create a more respectful and productive conversation, rather than immediately diving into arguments and counter-arguments.

• Recognize and address underlying issues : Sometimes, emotional reactions can be a sign of underlying issues that are not directly related to your argument. If you sense that there are deeper emotions or issues at play, try to address these concerns in a respectful and empathetic way.

An interesting example is when during a debate on a controversial policy, a member of the audience becomes visibly upset and begins to shout. Instead of ignoring or dismissing their reaction, the speaker takes a moment to acknowledge their emotion and asks if they would like to share their concerns. The audience member then explains that they have personal experience with the issue at hand and feel that their perspective has been ignored. The speaker listens attentively and responds with empathy, acknowledging the validity of their experience and promising to consider it in their argument. By addressing the underlying issue and showing empathy, the speaker is able to defuse the emotional reaction and create a more constructive discussion.

• Take a break if necessary : If emotions become too heated, it may be necessary to take a break and regroup. Allow time for both yourself and the audience to calm down, and resume the discussion when emotions have subsided.

For example, during a meeting with a potential business partner, you may encounter a disagreement about a certain aspect of the partnership. If the conversation becomes heated and emotions start to rise, it may be helpful to take a break. You can suggest taking a short break to allow both parties to gather their thoughts and emotions, and come back to the discussion with a clear head. This can help to prevent the conversation from derailing and allow for a more productive discussion.

Overall, by managing emotional reactions in a calm and respectful manner, you can create a more productive and effective discussion. Remember that emotions are a natural part of the human experience, and that acknowledging and addressing them can lead to better communication and understanding.

The ability to present and defend arguments effectively is crucial, be it in professional settings, political arenas, or personal interactions. These skills of articulating and supporting points persuasively are vital for fostering constructive dialogues and making sound decisions.

Throughout this article, we’ve discussed the key elements of effective argumentation, from understanding the audience and context to presenting and defending the argument itself. We’ve explored different techniques for structuring an argument, engaging the audience, and responding to objections, as well as strategies for managing emotional reactions and maintaining a respectful and productive dialogue.

At its core, effective argumentation is about more than just winning a debate or proving a point. It’s about building trust , fostering understanding , and working towards common goals .

By approaching argumentation with an open mind and a willingness to listen and learn, we can create more meaningful and productive discussions, and ultimately make better decisions.

So the next time you find yourself in a situation where you need to present or defend an argument, remember the tips and techniques discussed in this article.

And always remember that the key to effective argumentation is not just about winning, but about finding common ground and moving forward together.

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• 9 Ways to Construct a Compelling Argument

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But especially in the circumstances that we’re deeply convinced of the rightness of our points, putting them across in a compelling way that will change other people’s mind is a challenge. If you feel that your opinion is obviously right, it’s hard work even to understand why other people might disagree. Some people reach this point and don’t bother to try, instead concluding that those who disagree with them must be stupid, misled or just plain immoral. And it’s almost impossible to construct an argument that will persuade someone if you’re starting from the perspective that they’re either dim or evil. In the opposite set of circumstances – when you only weakly believe your perspective to be right – it can also be tricky to construct a good argument. In the absence of conviction, arguments tend to lack coherence or force. In this article, we take a look at how you can put together an argument, whether for an essay, debate speech or social media post, that is forceful, cogent and – if you’re lucky – might just change someone’s mind.

1. Keep it simple

Almost all good essays focus on a single powerful idea, drawing in every point made back to that same idea so that even someone skim-reading will soon pick up the author’s thesis. But when you care passionately about something, it’s easy to let this go. If you can see twenty different reasons why you’re right, it’s tempting to put all of them into your argument, because it feels as if the sheer weight of twenty reasons will be much more persuasive than just focusing on one or two; after all, someone may be able rebut a couple of reasons, but can they rebut all twenty? Yet from the outside, an argument with endless different reasons is much less persuasive than one with focus and precision on a small number of reasons. The debate in the UK about whether or not to stay in the EU was a great example of this. The Remain campaign had dozens of different reasons. Car manufacturing! Overfishing! Cleaner beaches! Key workers for the NHS! Medical research links! Economic opportunities! The difficulty of overcoming trade barriers! The Northern Irish border! Meanwhile, the Leave campaign boiled their argument down to just one: membership of the EU means relinquishing control. Leaving it means taking back control. And despite most expectations and the advice of most experts, the simple, straightforward message won. Voters struggled to remember the many different messages put out by the Remain campaign, as compelling as each of those reasons might have been; but they remembered the message about taking back control.

2. Be fair on your opponent

One of the most commonly used rhetorical fallacies is the Strawman Fallacy. This involves constructing a version of your opponent’s argument that is much weaker than the arguments they might use themselves, in order than you can defeat it more easily. For instance, in the area of crime and punishment, you might be arguing in favour of harsher prison sentences, while your opponent argues in favour of early release where possible. A Strawman would be to say that your opponent is weak on crime, wanting violent criminals to be let out on to the streets without adequate punishment or deterrence, to commit the same crimes again. In reality, your opponent’s idea might exclude violent criminals, and focus on community-based restorative justice that could lead to lower rates of recidivism. To anyone who knows the topic well, if your argument includes a Strawman, then you will immediately have lost credibility by demonstrating that either you don’t really understand the opposing point of view, or that you simply don’t care about rebutting it properly. Neither is persuasive. Instead, you should be fair to your opponent and represent their argument honestly, and your readers will take you seriously as a result

3. Avoid other common fallacies

It’s worth taking the time to read about logical fallacies and making sure that you’re not making them, as argument that rest of fallacious foundations can be more easily demolished. (This may not apply on social media, but it does in formal debating and in writing essays). Some fallacies are straightforward to understand, such as the appeal to popularity (roughly “everyone agrees with me, so I must be right!”), but others are a little trickier. Take “begging the question”, which is often misunderstood. It gets used to mean “raises the question” (e.g. “this politician has defended terrorists, which raises the question – can we trust her?”), but the fallacy it refers to is a bit more complicated. It’s when an argument rests on the assumption that its conclusions are true. For example, someone might argue that fizzy drinks shouldn’t be banned in schools, on the grounds that they’re not bad for students’ health. How can we know that they’re not bad for students’ health? Why, if they were, they would be banned in schools! When put in a condensed form like this example, the flaw in this approach is obvious, but you can imagine how you might fall for it over the course of a whole essay – for instance, paragraphs arguing that teachers would have objected to hyperactive students, parents would have complained, and we can see that none of this has happened because they haven’t yet been banned. With more verbosity, a bad argument can be hidden, so check that you’re not falling prey to it in your own writing.

4. Make your assumptions clear

Every argument rests on assumptions. Some of these assumptions are so obvious that you’re not going to be aware that you’re making them – for instance, you might make an argument about different economic systems that rests on the assumption that reducing global poverty is a good thing. While very few people would disagree with you on that, in general, if your assumption can be proven false, then the entire basis of your argument is undermined. A more controversial example might be an argument that rests on the assumption that everyone can trust the police force – for instance, if you’re arguing for tougher enforcement of minor offences in order to prevent them from mounting into major ones. But in countries where the police are frequently bribed, or where policing has obvious biases, such enforcement could be counterproductive. If you’re aware of such assumptions underpinning your argument, tackle them head on by making them clear and explaining why they are valid; so you could argue that your law enforcement proposal is valid in the particular circumstances that you’re suggesting because the police force there can be relied on, even if it wouldn’t work everywhere.

5. Rest your argument on solid foundations

If you think that you’re right in your argument, you should also be able to assemble a good amount of evidence that you’re right. That means putting the effort in and finding something that genuinely backs up what you’re saying; don’t fall back on dubious statistics or fake news . Doing the research to ensure that your evidence is solid can be time-consuming, but it’s worthwhile, as then you’ve removed another basis on which your argument could be challenged. What happens if you can’t find any evidence for your argument? The first thing to consider is whether you might be wrong! If you find lots of evidence against your position, and minimal evidence for it, it would be logical to change your mind. But if you’re struggling to find evidence either way, it may simply be that the area is under-researched. Prove what you can, including your assumptions, and work from there.

6. Use evidence your readers will believe

So far we’ve focused on how to construct an argument that is solid and hard to challenge; from this point onward, we focus on what it takes to make an argument persuasive. One thing you can do is to choose your evidence with your audience in mind. For instance, if you’re writing about current affairs, a left-wing audience will find an article from the Guardian to be more persuasive (as they’re more likely to trust its reporting), while a right-wing audience might be more swayed by the Telegraph. This principle doesn’t just hold in terms of politics. It can also be useful in terms of sides in an academic debate, for instance. You can similarly bear in mind the demographics of your likely audience – it may be that an older audience is more skeptical of footnotes that consist solely of web addresses. And it isn’t just about statistics and references. The focus of your evidence as a whole can take your probable audience into account; for example, if you were arguing that a particular drug should be banned on health grounds and your main audience was teenagers, you might want to focus more on the immediate health risks, rather than ones that might only appear years or decades later.

7. Avoid platitudes and generalisations, and be specific

A platitude is a phrase used to the point of meaninglessness – and it may not have had that much meaning to begin with. If you find yourself writing something like “because family life is all-important” to support one of your claims, you’ve slipped into using platitudes. Platitudes are likely to annoy your readers without helping to persuade them. Because they’re meaningless and uncontroversial statements, using them doesn’t tell your reader anything new. If you say that working hours need to be restricted because family ought to come first, you haven’t really given your reader any new information. Instead, bring the importance of family to life for your reader, and then explain just how long hours are interrupting it. Similarly, being specific can demonstrate the grasp you have on your subject, and can bring it to life for your reader. Imagine that you were arguing in favour of nationalising the railways, and one of your points was that the service now was of low quality. Saying “many commuter trains are frequently delayed” is much less impactful than if you have the full facts to hand, e.g. “in Letchworth Garden City, one key commuter hub, half of all peak-time trains to London were delayed by ten minutes or more.”

8. Understand the opposing point of view

As we noted in the introduction, you can’t construct a compelling argument unless you understand why someone might think you were wrong, and you can come up with reasons other than them being mistaken or stupid. After all, we almost all target them same end goals, whether that’s wanting to increase our understanding of the world in academia, or increase people’s opportunities to flourish and seek happiness in politics. Yet we come to divergent conclusions. In his book The Righteous Mind , Jonathan Haidt explores the different perspectives of people who are politically right or left-wing. He summarises the different ideals people might value, namely justice, equality, authority, sanctity and loyalty, and concludes that while most people see that these things have some value, different political persuasions value them to different degrees. For instance, someone who opposes equal marriage might argue that they don’t oppose equality – but they do feel that on balance, sanctity is more important. An argument that focuses solely on equality won’t sway them, but an argument that addresses sanctity might.

9. Make it easy for your opponent to change their mind

It’s tricky to think of the last time you changed your mind about something really important. Perhaps to preserve our pride, we frequently forget that we ever believed something different. This survey of British voters’ attitudes to the Iraq war demonstrates the point beautifully. 54% of people supporting invading Iraq in 2003; but twelve years on, with the war a demonstrable failure, only 37% were still willing to admit that they had supported it at the time. The effect in the USA was even more dramatic. It would be tempting for anyone who genuinely did oppose the war at the time to be quite smug towards anyone who changed their mind, especially those who won’t admit it. But if changing your mind comes with additional consequences (e.g. the implication that you were daft ever to have believed something, even if you’ve since come to a different conclusion), then the incentive to do so is reduced. Your argument needs to avoid vilifying people who have only recently come around to your point of view; instead, to be truly persuasive, you should welcome them.

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IOE - Faculty of Education and Society

Argument, voice, structure

Learn how to structure and present an argument in academic writing.

• Organise, structure and edit  
• Present an argument  
• Develop your academic voice  
• Add more explanation  
• State the relevance  
• Add your own comment  
• Add your own example  
• Clarify your writing  
• Definitions  
• Cautious language and hedging  
• Introductions  
• Conclusions  
• Linking and transitions  
• Paragraphs  

Tutor feedback on organisation

Organise, structure and edit.

Follow the basic steps below.

• First, make an outline plan for each paragraph, and then select the information, examples and comments for each point.
• Try to make sure you only have one main point per paragraph.
• Sometimes you will find that you need to delete some of the information. Just save it onto a different Word document, and perhaps you can use it in a different essay.
• Make sure this essay is focused on the title, with the main points discussed well and in detail, rather than many different minor points. Everything should be clearly relevant, and less is more!
• To see the structure, the reader also needs to know how each paragraph connects to the previous one. It can help to add transition phrases, to show how each idea flows from the previous one.

Back to top  

Present an argument

An argument, in simple terms, is a claim plus support for that claim. Make sure you use language that indicates that you are forming an argument. Compare the following simplified examples.

These three examples are claims, or series of claims, but they are not arguments.

• There is no single accepted definition of ethics.
• A new definition of ethics is needed. Here are some existing definitions of the concept of ethics. In addition, here is a suggested new definition.
• The existing definitions of the concept of ethics are too divergent to be useful. In addition, an updated definition of ethics is needed.

These three examples are arguments. Notice the linguistic indicator.

• The existing definitions of the concept of ethics are too divergent to be useful. Therefore, an updated definition of ethics is needed.
• The existing definitions of the concept of ethics are too divergent to be useful. This indicates that an updated definition of ethics is needed.
• A new definition of the concept of ethics is needed, because the existing definitions are inadequate for the current situation. Here are the existing definitions, and here is why they are inadequate. In conclusion, a new definition is required.

Sometimes, as in the simple examples above, the same information can be used either to construct an argument, or simply to write a description. Make sure you are using language that indicates that you are presenting an argument. Try using very direct language, at least in your first draft. This will help you to make sure that you really are constructing an argument.

• In this paper, the main claim I make is that a new definition of ethics is required. I support this claim with the following points. Firstly...
• In this paper, I argue that a new definition of ethics is required. I support this claim with the following points. Firstly...

NB: Argumentation can become complex. This section merely presents the difference between presenting an argument and a complete absence of argument.

Develop your academic voice

In an academic context, the concept of “voice” can mean different things to different people. Despite the variations in meaning, if you become more proficient at using language, you will find it easier to express more precise concepts and write with confidence. It is also worth asking your tutor for examples of writing where they feel the voice is clearly visible.

Add more explanation

Adding more explanation means writing down the reasons why something might be the way it is. These examples come from a discussion on ethics within a student proposal.

In Example A below, some claims are made without enough explanation. The writing appears vague, and the reader is left asking further questions about the claims. In Example B below, the student has added more explanation. This includes reasons why something might be the case.

The respondents may be worried about their responses, and there are various ethical considerations. Interviewing staff members also brings various ethical issues. Confidentiality will be central, and I will need to use pseudonyms for the participants.

As the respondents will be discussing changes within a small organization, any individuals they mention may be identifiable to other organization members. As a result, respondents may worry that they will be seen to be passing judgment on friends and peers. In terms of ethical issues, uncomfortable feelings may be provoked, both for respondents and possibly for non-participant staff or students. In addition, staff members may worry that if they speak freely about the small organization, some of their thoughts may be considered irresponsible, unprofessional, "discreditable or incriminating" (Lee & Renzetti, 1993:ix), for example if they were to talk about difficulties at work, or problems within the organization. This means that confidentiality will be central, to protect the respondents and to mitigate their concerns about speaking freely. I will ensure that the organisation is disguised in the way it is written up, and use pseudonyms chosen by the participants. I will also reassure the respondents about these measures before they participate.

State the relevance

State directly how each point, or each paragraph, is connected to the title or the overall argument. If you feel that a point is relevant, but you have received feedback that your tutor does not, you could consider adding more explanation as to how or why it is connected. Useful phrases include:

• This is important because...
• This is relevant to X because...
• In terms of [the main topic], this means...
• The significance of this is...

Add your own comment

In the example below, the student has added a comment as well as an example. A comment could be:

• To support the ideas.
• To suggest the ideas are not valid.
• To show how the ideas connect to something else.
• To comment on the context.
• To add another critical comment.

Make sure it is clear, through the language you use, which is your comment, and which are the ideas from your reference.

The responsibility for learning how to reference correctly and avoid plagiarism tends to be passed from the university to the students, as Sutherland-Smith (2010:9) found, through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities. She points out that many universities provide self-access resources for students to try to learn more about this area. An example of this can be found on the website “Writing Centre Online” (UCL Institute of Education, 2019), which includes a “Beginners Guide” page with step-by-step instructions on avoiding plagiarism, as well as various links to referencing and plagiarism resources. Despite this type of provision, Sutherland-Smith observes, the support provided is, on the whole, inadequate. It is interesting to note that this inadequacy can be seen at both an institutional level and from a student perspective, which will have implications as discussed in the following section . Sutherland-Smith expands further to explain that this inadequacy is partly because the advice provided is not specific enough for each student, and partly because distance students will often receive even less support, possibly, we could note, as they are wholly reliant on online materials . She concludes that these issues carry implications for the decisions around plagiarism management, as some students may receive more assistance than others, leading to questions of inequity. It could be considered that inequities are a particularly important issue in discussions of plagiarism management, given that controls on plagiarism could be seen, in principle, as intended to make the system fairer .

• Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010). “Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities”, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management , 32:1 5-16. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 (Last accessed on 31 January 2020).
• UCL Institute of Education (2020). Writing Centre Online. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe-writing-centre (Last accessed on 31 January 2020).

Useful links

• Academic reading: Reading critically
• Academic writing: Writing critically

Add your own example

In the example below, the student has added an example from their own knowledge or experience. This can be a good way to start to add your own voice. You could add an example from:

• your own practice or professional experience
• from observations you have made
• from other literature or published materials.

Include an example with a phrase such as “To illustrate...” or “An example of this can be seen in...”. Include the reference if your example is from published materials.

The responsibility for learning how to reference correctly and avoid plagiarism tends to be passed from the university to the students, as Sutherland-Smith (2010:9) found, through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities. She points out that many universities provide self-access resources for students to try to learn more about this area. An example of this can be found on the website “Writing Centre Online” (UCL Institute of Education, 2019), which includes a “Beginners Guide” page with step-by-step instructions on avoiding plagiarism, as well as various links to referencing and plagiarism resources. Despite this type of provision, Sutherland-Smith observes, the support provided is, on the whole, inadequate. Sutherland-Smith expands further to explain that this inadequacy is partly because the advice provided is not specific enough for each student, and partly because distance students will often receive even less support. She concludes that these issues carry implications for the decisions around plagiarism management, as some students may receive more assistance than others, leading to questions of inequity.

• Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010). “Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities”, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32:1 5-16. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 (Last accessed on 31 January 2020).
• UCL Institute of Education (2020). IOE Writing Centre Online. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe-writing-centre (Last accessed on 31 January 2020).

Clarify your writing

Clarify means “make more clear”. In essence, look at your language choices, and also look at what you have not stated. If you are told to clarify a point, you could try to rewrite it in shorter sentences, as a starting point. Next, add more detail, even if it seems obvious to you. Compare these two sentences:

• The common myths are revisited in this paper.
• This paper includes a discussion of several contested areas, including X and Y.

The second sentence is (arguably) clearer, as it has replaced the word “myth” with “contested areas”, and instead of “revisited”, it uses “includes a discussion of”. Examples also help to clarify, as they provide the reader with a more concrete illustration of the meaning. 

Definitions

Providing a definition helps to make sure the reader understands the way that you are using the terminology in your writing. This is important as different terms might have more than one interpretation or usage. Remember that dictionaries are not considered suitable sources for definitions, as they will provide the general meaning, not the academic meaning or the way the term is used in your field.

If you can't find a precise “definition” as such in the literature, you can say that “the term is used to refer to XYZ”, and summarise or describe it in your own words. You can also use the phrase “For the purposes of this discussion, the term XYZ will be taken to refer to ...”.

The paragraphs below have an example of a definition with various interpretations. This level of discussion is not always necessary; it depends on how much agreement or disagreement there is on the meaning of the term.

This extract is from the “definitions” section of a Master’s assignment.

Purpose and definitions of coaching   It is worth outlining the boundaries and purpose of the term “coaching” before proceeding with the discussion. In general, “coaching” tends to be used within human resource management and organisational theory to refer to a particular type of helping relationship or conversation (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006). The object of help in this context is subject to some divergences in interpretation. Indeed, one feature shared by articles about coaching seems to be that authors frequently point out how little agreement there is on the use of the term, and how inconsistently it is used (see, for example, Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006:12, or Gray and Goregaokar, 2010:526). Some go further, linking the widespread adoption of coaching to the range of interpretations, lamenting that "the very popularity of the approach has resulted in greater confusion" (Clutterbuck, 2008:9), or pointing out with apparent surprise that "despite its popularity, there is little consensus on the nature of executive coaching" (Gray et al, 2011:863). It has even been described as "a kind of “catch-all” concept, covering whatever you want to put under it" (Arnaud, 2003:1133). Variations appear in areas including the stated aims, the specific approach, the location of the meetings, or the techniques and methods used (ibid). Somewhat paradoxically, there appears to be a general consensus only on the lack of consensus.

In response to the lack of an accepted definition, some authors have attempted to clarify what the term “coaching” should refer to, and do so in particular by differentiating it from “mentoring”, a concept with which it is often associated. David Clutterbuck, who has been working in the field for at least 30 years, and who has published extensively on the topics of both coaching and mentoring, ( http://www.davidclutterbuckpartnership.com ), has frequently attempted to delineate the two activities. In a relatively recent article (Clutterbuck, 2008:8), he suggested that the term “coaching” should primarily be used when performance is addressed, rather than, say, holistic development, a recommendation which highlights that coaching takes place within the context of enhancing productivity at work. The focus on performance is echoed in more practical guidelines such as those written by Atkins and Lawrence (2012:44) in the industry publication IT Now, when they state "coaching is about performance, mentoring is personal".

Although it is often cited, this division between “performance” and “personal” could be considered slightly artificial, and even unnecessary. Indeed, as performance is “performed” by the person, it is interesting to notice what appears to be a denial of the potentially transformational aspect of conversations within a helping relationship. A full discussion of this denial is outside the scope of this short report, but it could be caused by various influencing factors. Those factors might include the wish to justify the allocation of resources towards an activity which should therefore be seen as closely related to profit and accountability, coupled with a suspicion of anything which might be construed as not immediately rational and goal-focused. In other words, to be justifiable within a business context, a belief may exist that coaching should be positioned as closely oriented to business goals. This belief could underlie the prevalence of assertions that coaching is connected more to performance management than to holistic development. However, this report takes the view that there may be a useful overlap, as described below.

Looking to research, the overlapping of personal development with performance management was recently addressed by Gray et al (2011), in a study which aimed to establish whether coaching was seen as primarily beneficial to the individual's development or to the organisation's productivity. In brief, Gray et al's (2011) paper indicates that although involvement in coaching might be experienced as therapeutic by many coachees, it is generally positioned in the literature and by companies which engage in it as something beneficial to the organisation, as mentioned above. The authors also concluded that coaching may enhance various management competencies. Overall, the study indicates that coaching may be of interest to organisations as something which may enhance staff performance and productivity. In addition, although it does not always appear as the primary focus, and is even denied as an intention by some authors as discussed above, it may be that participation in coaching could also bring developmental benefits to the individual.

In essence, this report takes the view that the term coaching refers to an arranged conversation or series of conversations within a work context, conversations which aim at allowing the coachee to discuss and gain clarity on various work-related challenges or goals. Although we will adhere to the general conception provided above of coaching as carrying the intention of enhancing performance or competencies, the potential for personal or holistic development will be acknowledged. Additionally, coaching is often linked in literature to leadership (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006; Stern, 2004), yet this report does not adopt that pattern in a restrictive sense. In other words, we would either consider that participating as a coachee can be useful for any employee, not only leaders, or, alternatively, we would broaden the definition of “leadership” to include any colleague who may have an influence within the organisation: a description which could arguably include any staff member. Overall, therefore, the report and its recommendations will prioritise the potentially beneficial outcomes of conversations which fall within the realm of coaching, rather than restricting the discussion to whether or not any particular activity can legitimately be given this term. This may be a broader usage of the concept than that followed by some writers, but is grounded in the intention to provide a practicable analysis of the needs for coaching within an organisation. Within this context, this report is predominantly informed by psychoanalytic theory and practice, justified below.

Source: Anonymous UCL Institute of Education Student (2013)

Cautious language and hedging

Hedging is a type of language use which “protects” your claims. Using language with a suitable amount of caution can protect your claims from being easily dismissed. It also helps to indicate the level of certainty we have in relation to the evidence or support.

Text comparison

Compare the following two short texts, (A) and (B). You will notice that although the two texts are, in essence, saying the same thing, (B) has a significant amount of extra language around the claim. A large amount of this language is performing the function of “hedging”. How many differences do you see in the second text? What is the function/effect/purpose of each difference? You will probably notice that (B) is more “academic”, but it is important to understand why.

• A: Extensive reading helps students to improve their vocabulary. 
• B: Research conducted by Yen (2005) appears to indicate that, for a significant proportion of students, extensive reading may contribute to an improvement in their active vocabulary. Yen's (2005) study involved learners aged 15-16 in the UK, although it may be applicable to other groups. However, the study involved an opt-in sample, which means that the sample students may have been more “keen”, or more involved in reading already. It would be useful to see whether the findings differ in a wider sample.

(Please note that Yen (2005) is a fictional reference used only as an example).

Phrases for hedging

The section below provides some examples of language to use when making knowledge claims. Try to find examples of hedging language in your own reading, to add to these examples.

• a minority/majority of
• a proportion of
• to some extent.
• has the appearance of
• is similar to
• shares characteristics with
• appears to be in line with.
• has the possibility of
• has the potential to
• is able to.
• has a tendency to.
• in a simpler way than...
• more simply than…
• when compared to…
• in the context of…
• … in certain situations…
• within some households…
• as indicated by…
• according to…
• can be described as
• could be considered to be
• is sometimes labelled
• can be equated to
• the term is often used to mean
• the term is often used to refer to
• this may indicate that…
• this may suggest that…

Introductions

Basic components.

The introduction to your assignment is likely to require some of the following basic components. Note that the guidance below is particularly relevant to essays. Other types of assignments may include some but not all of these elements, or additional ones.

• Importance of the topic: Open the assignment by introducing the theme(s) or issue(s) you address. This element is sometimes referred to as “background” or “issue statement”. 
• Aim: Inform your reader of the purpose of your writing (e.g. This essay explores the concept of X in relation to Y, and critically evaluates.....).
• Thesis statement: This may not apply in all assignments, but, where appropriate, would indicate the line of argument or reasoning that the assignment takes. (e.g. It is argued/suggested that practitioners and policy-makers need to consider ...).
• Overview: Guide the reader as to how the work is organised; this is sometimes also referred to as a “synopsis”. (e.g. First, X is discussed, followed by Y...).

You may also need a brief definition of your terms. However, if the definitions are more complex or contested, you probably need a separate section after the introduction. See the section on Definitions above. It is advisable to write or edit your introduction last (not first), to make sure it matches the assignment you have written. If you prefer to draft your introduction first (e.g. as bullet points initially), be aware that you may choose to change it later. 

Example Introduction

Here is an example of the introduction from a report produced for a Master's module.

[Section 1:] Underlying this report is the assumption that organisations, and the individuals within them, hold the intention to do their job well, and, if possible, to do their job better, within the context of their particular situation, abilities and priorities. Creating and developing coaching relationships within the organisation can be described as one form of an attempt to move in this direction. [Section 2:] Accordingly, this report analyses the potential for an increase in coaching practice within one particular organisation. [Section 3:] It will be suggested that coaching might usefully be incorporated into certain areas of the organisation. [Section 4:] Coaching within organisations, for the purpose of this report, is taken to refer to a particular type of intentional conversation. This conversation may contribute to the development of the coachee while potentially enhancing the individual's work within the organisation (as discussed by Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006). [Section 5:] The report will first consider a more nuanced definition of coaching, along with an outline of current themes in the way coaching is discussed in the literature. This is followed by an explanation and justification of taking a psychoanalytically informed approach to an analysis of coaching within organisations (Arnaud, 2003). After that, the specific organisational context of the [XYZ workplace] will be analysed, together with an assessment of the need for coaching within this organisation, and an evaluation of the existing potential to facilitate such conversations. At the same time, a brief strategy and implementation plan that details how these needs could be met will be presented.

Source: Blackwell, J. (2013) Advancing coaching and mentoring in and across organisational contexts. Organisational Report. UCL Institute of Education: Unpublished MA Assignment.

Below, the elements of the example introduction are analysed in more detail.

Underlying this report is the assumption that organisations, and the individuals within them, hold the intention to do their job well, and, if possible, to do their job better, within the context of their particular situation, abilities and priorities. Creating and developing coaching relationships within the organisation can be described as one form of an attempt to move in this direction.

Comment : These two statements set out the importance of the topic. The way this is done, and the information that is needed, will vary depending on the topic. Please remember that this is only one example.

Accordingly, this report analyses the potential for an increase in coaching practice within one particular organisation. 

Comment : This sentence states the aim of the assignment, in the context of the abovementioned importance (Accordingly...). It also restates the assignment title/task.

It will be suggested that coaching might usefully be incorporated into certain areas of the organisation.

Comment : This is the thesis statement.

Coaching within organisations, for the purpose of this report, is taken to refer to a particular type of intentional conversation. This conversation may contribute to the development of the coachee while potentially enhancing the individual's work within the organisation (as discussed by Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006).

Comment : Here we have a brief definition of the key term, for the purpose of this assignment.

The report will first consider a more nuanced definition of coaching, along with an outline of current themes in the way coaching is discussed in the literature. This is followed by an explanation and justification of taking a psychoanalytically informed approach to an analysis of coaching within organisations (Arnaud, 2003). After that, the specific organisational context of the [XYZ workplace] will be analysed, together with an assessment of the need for coaching within this organisation, and an evaluation of the existing potential to facilitate such conversations. At the same time, a brief strategy and implementation plan that details how these needs could be met will be presented.

Comment : This final section provides the outline/structure/organisation, so that the reader knows what to expect.

Conclusions

As with introductions, conclusions vary according to assignment types. In general, your conclusion probably needs to include some or all of the following basic components. 

• An indication that this is the conclusion: If you are not using a subheading (e.g. “Conclusion”), you could start with a clear phrase that indicates this is the conclusion. (e.g. “In conclusion...”, “To conclude...” or “Overall...”). Such signposting can help the reader to understand that they have reached the concluding section of your assignment.
• Summary of the discussion: This could reflect the aim/purpose and/or organisation/outline indicated in the introduction. (e.g. “This essay has critically explored X in relation to Y...” or “This paper set out to examine the relationship between X and Y...”).
• Re-statement of the central argument(s): This might reflect the thesis statement in the introduction. (e.g. “The discussion has highlighted the main....”, or “It has been argued that the priorities for...”).
• Implications: You could make recommendations for research or practice, or answer the question “So what?”. (e.g. “It may be useful to investigate further...”, “One recommendation for classroom practice could be...”, or “The above discussion highlights the importance of ....”).

Further guidelines

You can include references in the conclusion, but it is advisable not to include any new references. This is because you do not have space in the conclusion to discuss any new references in enough detail. The conclusion is not generally the place for new ideas. Rather, it summarises what has already been stated. 

To sum up, this report has defined coaching as a conversation which can enhance performance at the same time as contributing to the development of the coachee (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006). The report took a psychoanalytically informed approach to an analysis of coaching within organisations, and considered the associated benefits and the required resources. Applying the theory to the specific organisational context of the [XYZ Workplace], the need for coaching in this context was discussed, together with a strategy and implementation plan in order to facilitate the recommended coaching conversations. It was suggested that coaching could usefully be incorporated into certain areas of the organization.

Source: Anonymous UCL Institute of Education student (2013).

Linking and transitions

A clear structure is arguably half actual “organisation” and half “persuading the reader that your structure is logical”. You can do this through linking and transition language to show how the paragraphs and sections are linked. Read your draft and decide which of these to add:

• An introductory linking statement to the start of a paragraph/section (e.g. “Having outlined key theories in relation to X, I now consider these in relation to the context of...”). 
• A transition paragraph between paragraphs or sections. This is a short extra paragraph which explains the transition (example below).
• A linking statement to the end of a paragraph/section (e.g. “This can be viewed as linked to X, which will be further discussed in the next section”).

(Here is an example of a summary paragraph and transition paragraph, from a report produced for a Master's module. This appeared at the end of a section on the current state of knowledge in coaching.)

In sum, this section has outlined some key issues within the current state of knowledge in coaching. As was demonstrated, one precise definition does not exist, but a general convergence appears in that the term refers to a particular type of conversation which may contribute to the coachee's development while simultaneously enhancing their performance (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006). The contributions of psychoanalytic theory and practice to coaching and to organisational consultancy were also briefly reviewed and justified, as this growing area may allow coaching to fully utilise the transformational potential of the one-to-one format. Conceptions of learning as non-linear and unpredictable were also delineated, as coaching has the potential to promote the learning of both the individual coachee and their organisation.

Having outlined briefly our understanding of “coaching” for the purposes of this report, and the recommended approach, it will be useful to map out in slightly more detail the resources required, before discussing the practical application of a coaching programme in one organisation.

Source: Blackwell, J. (2013). Advancing coaching and mentoring in and across organisational contexts. Organisational Report. UCL Institute of Education: Unpublished MA Assignment.

If your paragraphs are too long, it could make them more difficult for the reader to follow, and can also mean ideas merge together too much. However, if the main body paragraphs are too short, they may appear to lack depth. If you need to divide a longer paragraph, it could be acceptable to include two paragraphs on the same topic, focussing on two slightly different aspects of that topic. You could potentially link them with a transition phrase. If a main body paragraph is too short (fewer than 150 words), you may need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Could it fit somewhere else? Perhaps it links to another sub-theme elsewhere in the assignment.
• What does it add to the discussion? Perhaps state the significance, hence giving the paragraph more depth and making it longer.
• Does it need more detail and analysis? As stated above, perhaps make the significance explicit and answer the question “So what?”.
• Could it be removed? 

Note that shorter paragraphs may be acceptable in some instances; examples may include introductory paragraphs to chapters (e.g. in a report or dissertation) or transition paragraphs.

Here is an example of several paragraphs all on the same “topic” (definitions of the terms). Notice how the paragraphs are linked together.

(This extract is from the “definitions” section of a Master's assignment.)

Purpose and definitions of coaching

It is arguably worth outlining the boundaries and purpose of the term “coaching” before proceeding with the discussion. In general, “coaching” tends to be used within human resource management and organisational theory to refer to a particular type of helping relationship or conversation (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006). The object of help in this context is subject to some divergences in interpretation. Indeed , one feature shared by articles about coaching seems to be that authors frequently point out how little agreement there is on the use of the term, and how inconsistently it is used (see, for example, Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006 or Gray and Goregaokar, 2010). Some go further, linking the widespread adoption of coaching to the range of interpretations, lamenting that "the very popularity of the approach has resulted in greater confusion" (Clutterbuck, 2008:9), or pointing out with apparent surprise that "despite its popularity, there is little consensus on the nature of executive coaching" (Gray et al, 2011:863). It has even been described as "a kind of 'catch-all' concept, covering whatever you want to put under it" (Arnaud, 2003:1133). Variations appear in areas including the stated aims, the specific approach, the location of the meetings, or the techniques and methods used (ibid). Somewhat paradoxically, there appears to be a general consensus only on the lack of consensus.

In response to the lack of an accepted definition, some authors have attempted to clarify what the term “coaching” should refer to, and do so in particular by differentiating it from “mentoring”, a concept with which it is often associated. David Clutterbuck, who has been working in the field for at least 30 years, and who has published extensively on the topics of both coaching and mentoring, (David Clutterbuck Partnership, no date), has frequently attempted to delineate the two activities. In a relatively recent article (Clutterbuck, 2008:8), he suggested that the term “coaching” should primarily be used when performance is addressed, rather than, say, holistic development, a recommendation which highlights that coaching takes place within the context of enhancing productivity at work. The focus on performance is echoed in more practical guidelines such as those written by Atkins and Lawrence (2012:44) in the industry publication IT Now, when they state "coaching is about performance, mentoring is personal".

Although it is often cited, this division between “performance” and “personal” could be considered slightly artificial, and even unnecessary. Indeed, as performance is “performed” by the person, it is interesting to notice what appears to be a denial of the potentially transformational aspect of conversations within a helping relationship. A full discussion of this denial is outside the scope of this short report, but it could be caused by various influencing factors. Those factors might include the wish to justify the allocation of resources towards an activity which should therefore be seen as closely related to profit and accountability, coupled with a suspicion of anything which might be construed as not immediately rational and goal-focused. In other words, to be justifiable within a business context, a belief may exist that coaching should be positioned as closely oriented to business goals. This belief could underlie the prevalence of assertions that coaching is connected more to performance management than to holistic development. However , this report takes the view that there may be a useful overlap, as described below.

In essence , this report takes the view that the term coaching refers to an arranged conversation or series of conversations within a work context, conversations which aim at allowing the coachee to discuss and gain clarity on various work-related challenges or goals. Although we will adhere to the general conception provided above of coaching as carrying the intention of enhancing performance or competencies, the potential for personal or holistic development will be acknowledged. Additionally, coaching is often linked in literature to leadership (Boyatzis, Smith and Blaize, 2006; Stern, 2004), yet this report does not adopt that pattern in a restrictive sense. In other words, we would either consider that participating as a coachee can be useful for any employee, not only leaders, or, alternatively, we would broaden the definition of “leadership” to include any colleague who may have an influence within the organisation: a description which could arguably include any staff member. Overall, therefore, the report and its recommendations will prioritise the potentially beneficial outcomes of conversations which fall within the realm of coaching, rather than restricting the discussion to whether or not any particular activity can legitimately be given this term. This may be a broader usage of the concept than that followed by some writers, but is grounded in the intention to provide a practicable analysis of the needs for coaching within an organisation. Within this context, this report is predominantly informed by psychoanalytic theory and practice, justified below.

Source: Anonymous UCL Institute of Education Student (2013).

Organisation

If the tutor says you need to improve your organisation or structure, you may need to rearrange the ideas in the essay quite considerably. This will take time. It may help to start on a new document rather than working from this original one, and only moving across the information that you really want to keep.

Try to start each paragraph with a transition phrase or topic sentence. Imagine if the paragraphs were all cut up and spread out on a table. Someone should be able to put them back together in the correct order, and they should be able to clearly see which paragraph comes next. Try to think of that as you are writing!

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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Learning Objectives

• Define what an argument is.
• Discuss uses of ethos, pathos, and logos.
• Identify the argument structure of claim, evidence, and warrant.
• Explore effective language.

You may be wondering, “What exactly is an argument? Haven’t I already decided on my main argument and topic?”

An argument is a series of statements in support of a claim, assertion, or proposition. So far, we’ve discussed thesis statements as the main argumentative through-line for a speech—it’s what you want to inform, persuade, or entertain the audience about.

Your thesis statement, however, is just one component of an argument, i.e. “here’s what I want to inform you about / persuade you to consider.” It is the main claim of your speech. Your task is to prove the reliability of that claim (with evidence) and demonstrate, through the body of the speech, how or why that information should matter to the audience. In this chapter, we will fill in the other structural components of an argument to make sure that your thesis statement has adequate support and proof. We’ll also outline the importance of language and tips to guarantee that your language increases the effective presentation of your argument.

An Overview of Arguments

It may be tempting to view arguments as only relevant to persuasion or persuasive speeches. After all, we commonly think of arguments as occurring between different perspectives or viewpoints with the goal of changing someone’s mind. Arguments are important when persuading, but you should have clear evidence and explanations for any type of information sharing.

All speech types require proof to demonstrate the reliability of their claims. Remember, when you speak, you are being an advocate and selecting information that you find relevant to your audience, so arguments are necessary to, at a bare minimum, build in details about the topic’s importance.

With speeches that primarily inform, a sound argument demonstrates the relevance and significance of the topic for your audience. In other words, “this is important information because…” or “here’s why you should care about this.” If you are giving a ceremonial speech, you should provide examples of your insights. In a speech of introduction, for example, you may claim that the speaker has expertise, but you should also provide evidence of their previous accomplishments and demonstrate why those accomplishments are significant.

For each speech type, a well-crafted speech will have multiple arguments throughout. Yes, your thesis statement is central to speech, and your content should be crafted around that idea – you will use your entire speech to prove the reliability of that statement. You will also have internal arguments, i.e. your speech’s main points or the “meat” of your speech.

All speech types require arguments, and all arguments use the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos to elicit a particular feeling or response from your audience.

Ethos , or establishing your credibility as a speaker, is necessary for any speech. If you’re informing the audience about a key topic, they need to know that you’re a trustworthy and reliable speaker. A key way to prove that credibility is through crafting arguments that are equally credible. Using reliable and well-tested evidence is one way to establish ethos.

Using reason or logic, otherwise known as logos , is also a key rhetorical appeal. By using logos, you can select logical evidence that is well-reasoned, particularly when you’re informing or persuading.

Pathos , or emotional appeals, allows you to embed evidence or explanations that pull on your audience’s heartstrings or other feelings and values. Pathos is common in ceremonial speeches, particularly speeches that eulogize or celebrate a special occasion.

All three rhetorical appeals are important mechanisms to motivate your audience to listen or act. All three should be done ethically and with the speech context and audience in mind.

Regardless of which rhetorical proof you use, your arguments should be well-researched and well-structured. Below, we explore the structure of an argument in more detail.

The Structur e : Claim, Evidence, Warrant

Arguments have the following basic structure (see Figure 19.1):

• Claim: the main proposition crafted as a declarative statement.
• Evidence: the support or proof for the claim.
• Warrant: the connection between the evidence and the claim.

Each component of the structure is necessary to formulate a compelling argument.

The Toulmin Model

British Philosopher, Stephen Toulmin, created the “Toulmin Model” – a model that describes the structure of an argument or method of reasoning. Claim, evidence, and warrant are, if done well, necessary to create a good argument (O’Connor, 1958).

Evidence and warrants are the specifics that make your ideas, arguments, assertions, points, or concepts real and concrete by relating the information to your audience. Not all audiences are compelled by the same evidence, for example, so creating a well-structured argument also means being responsive to audiences.

Consider going to lunch with a friend. Your friend suggests a restaurant that you have not heard of, so you request some additional information, proof, or evidence of their choice. We could map the argument like this:

• Claim: “Let’s go to Jack’s Shack for lunch.”
• Evidence: “I have been there a few times and they have good servers.”

So far, your friend is highlighting service as the evidence to support their claim that Jack’s Shack is a good choice for lunch. However, the warrant is still missing. For a warrant, they need to demonstrate why good service is sufficient proof to support their claim. Remember that the warrant is the connection. For example:

• Warrant: “You were a server, so I know that you really appreciate good service. I have never had a bad experience at Jack’s Shack, so I am confident that it’s a good lunch choice for both of us.”

In this case, they do a good job of both connecting the evidence to the claim and connecting the argument to their audience – you! They have selected evidence based on your previous experience as a server (likely in hopes to win you over to their claim!).

Using “claim, evidence, and warrant” can assist you in verifying that all parts of the argumentative structure are present. Below, we dive deeper into each category.

A claim is a declarative statement or assertion—it is something that you want your audience to accept or know. Like we’ve mentioned, your thesis statement is a key claim in your speech because it’s the main argument that you’re asking the audience to consider.

Different claims serve different purposes. Depending on the purpose of the argument, claims can be factual, opinionated, or informative. Some claims, for example, may be overtly persuading the audience to change their mind about a controversial issue, i.e. “you should support this local policy initiative.”

Alternatively, a claim may develop the significance of a topic (i.e. “this is why you should care about this information”) or highlight a key informative component about a person, place, or thing (“Hillary Clinton had an intriguing upbringing”). You might, for example, write a speech that informs the audience about college textbook affordability. Your working thesis might read, “Universities are developing textbook affordability initiatives.” Your next step would be to develop main points and locate evidence that supports your claim.

It’s important to develop confidence around writing and identifying your claims. Identifying your main ideas will allow you to then identify evidence in support of those declarative statements. If you aren’t confident about what claims you’re making, it will be difficult to identify the evidence in support of that idea, and your argument won’t be structurally complete. Remember that your thesis statement, your main claim, but you likely have claims throughout your speech (like your main points).

Evidence is the proof or support for your claim. It answers the question, “how do I know this is true?” With any type of evidence, there are three overarching considerations.

First, is this the most timely and relevant type of support for my claim? If your evidence isn’t timely (or has been disproven), it may drastically influence the credibility of your claim.

Second, is this evidence relatable and clear for my audience? Your audience should be able to understand the evidence, including any references or ideas within your information. Have you ever heard a joke or insight about a television show that you’ve never seen? If so, understanding the joke can be difficult. The same is true for your audience, so stay focused on their knowledge base and level of understanding.

Third, did I cherry-pick? Avoid cherry-picking evidence to support your claims. While we’ve discussed claims first, it’s important to arrive at a claim after seeing all the evidence (i.e. doing the research). Rather than finding evidence to fit your idea (cherry-picking), the evidence should help you arrive at the appropriate claim. Cherry-picking evidence can reduce your ethos and weakened your argument.

With these insights in mind, we will introduce you to five evidence types : examples, narratives, facts, statistics, and testimony. Each provides a different type of support, and it’s suggested that you integrate a variety of different evidence types. Understanding the different types of evidence will assist as you work to structure arguments and select support that best fits the goal of your speech.

Examples are specific instances that illuminate a concept. They are designed to give audiences a reference point. An example must be quickly understandable—something the audience can pull out of their memory or experience quickly.

Evidence by example would look like this:

Claim: Textbook affordability initiatives are assisting universities in implementing reputable, affordable textbooks.

Evidence : Ohio has implemented a textbook affordability initiative, the Open Ed Collaborative, to alleviate the financial strain for students (Jaggers, Rivera, Akani, 2019).

Ohio’s affordability initiative functions as evidence by example. This example assists in demonstrating that such initiatives have been successfully implemented. Without providing an example, your audience may be skeptical about the feasibility of your claim.

Examples can be drawn directly from experience, i.e. this is a real example, or an example can be hypothetical where audiences are asked to consider potential scenarios.

Narratives are stories that clarify, dramatize, and emphasize ideas. They have, if done well, strong emotional power (or pathos). While there is no universal type of narrative, a good story often draws the audience in by identifying characters and resolving a plot issue. Narratives can be personal or historical.

Person narratives are powerful tools to relate to your audience and embed a story about your experience with the topic. As evidence, they allow you to say, “I experienced or saw this thing first hand.” As the speaker, using your own experience as evidence can draw the audience in and help them understand why you’re invested in the topic. Of course, personal narratives must be true. Telling an untrue personal narrative may negatively influence your ethos for an audience.

Historical narratives (sometimes called documented narratives) are stories about a past person, place, or thing. They have power because they can prove and clarify an idea by using a common form— the story. By “historical” we do not mean that the story refers to something that happened many years ago, only that it has happened in the past and there were witnesses to validate the happening. Historical narratives are common in informative speeches.

Facts are observations, verified by multiple credible sources, that are true or false. The National Center for Science Education (2008) defines fact as:

an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed an . . . is accepted as ‘true.’ Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.

“The sun is a star” is an example of a fact. It’s been observed and verified based on current scientific understanding and categorization; however, future technology may update or disprove that fact.

In our modern information age, we recommend “fact-checking a fact” because misinformation can be presented as truth. This means verifying all facts through credible research (revisit the earlier chapter on research). Avoid taking factual information for granted and make sure that the evidence comes from reputable sources that are up-to-date.

S tatistics are the collection, analysis, comparison, and interpretation of numerical data. As evidence, they are useful in summarizing complex information, quantifying, or making comparisons. Statistics are powerful pieces of evidence because numbers appear straightforward. Numbers provide evidence that quantifies, and statistics can be helpful to clarify a concept or highlighting the depth of a problem.

You may be wondering, “What does this actually mean ?” (excuse our statistical humor). We often know a statistic when we find one, but it can be tricky to understand how a statistic was derived.

Averages and percentages are two common deployments of statistical evidence.

An “ a verage ” can be statistically misleading, but it often refers to the mean of a data set. You can determine the mean (or average) by adding up the figures and dividing by the number of figures present. If you’re giving a speech on climate change, you might note that, in 2015, the average summer temperature was 97 degrees while, in 1985, it was just 92 degrees.

When using statistics, comparisons can help translate the statistic for an audience. In the example above, 97 degrees may seem hot, but the audience has nothing to compare that statistic to. The 30-year comparison assists in demonstrating a change in temperature.

A percentag e expresses a proportion of out 100. For example, you might argue that “textbook costs have risen more than 1000% since 1977” (Popken, 2015). By using a statistical percentage, 1000% sounds pretty substantial. It may be important, however, to accompany your percentage with a comparison to assist the audience in understanding that “This is 3 times higher than the normal rate of inflation” (UTA Libraries). You might also clarify that “college textbooks have risen more than any other college-related cost” (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).

You are responsible for the statistical information that you deploy. It’s all too common for us as information consumers to grab a quick statistic that sounds appealing, but that information may not be reliable.

Be aware of three major statistical issues: small samples, unrepresentative samples, and correlation as causation. In a small sample, an argument is being made from too few examples. In an unrepresentative sample, a conclusion is based on surveys of people who do not represent, or resemble, the ones to whom the conclusion is being applied. Finally, it’s common to conflate correlation as causation. In statistics, a correlation refers to the relationship between two variables while causation means that one variable resulted from the other. Be careful not to assume that a correlation means that something has caused the second.

A few other statistical tips:

• Use statistics as support, not as a main point. The audience may cringe or tune you out for saying, “Now I’d like to give you some statistics about the problem of gangs in our part of the state.” That sounds as exciting as reading the telephone book! Use the statistics to support an argument.
• Regarding sources, depend on the reliable ones. Use the earlier chapter on research as a guide to criticizing and evaluating credible sources.
• Do not overuse statistics. While there is no hard and fast rule on how many to use, there are other good supporting materials and you would not want to depend on statistics alone. You want to choose the statistics and numerical data that will strengthen your argument the most and drive your point home. Statistics can have emotional power as well as probative value if used sparingly.
• Explain your statistics as needed, but do not make your speech a statistics lesson. If you say, “My blog has 500 subscribers” to a group of people who know little about blogs, that might sound impressive, but is it? You can also provide a story of an individual, and then tie the individual into the statistic. After telling a story of the daily struggles of a young mother with multiple sclerosis, you could follow up with “This is just one story in the 400,000 people who suffer from MS in the United States today, according to National MS Society.”

Testimony is the words of others. As evidence, testimony can be valuable to gain insight into an expert or a peer’s opinion, experience, or expertise about a topic. Testimony can provide an audience with a relevant perspective that the speaker isn’t able to provide. We’ll discuss two types of testimony: expert and non-expert.

Expert Testimony

What is an expert? An expert is someone with recognized credentials, knowledge, education, and/or experience in a subject. To quote an expert on expertise, “To be an expert, someone needs to have considerable knowledge on a topic or considerable skill in accomplishing something” (Weinstein, 1993).

A campus bookstore manager could provide necessary testimony on the changing affordability of textbooks over time, for example. As someone working with instructors, students, and publishers, the manager would likely have an insight and a perspective that would be difficult to capture otherwise. They would provide unique and credible evidence.

In using expert testimony, you should follow these guidelines:

• Use the expert’s testimony in their relevant field. A person may have a Nobel Prize in economics, but that does not make them an expert in biology.
• Provide at least some of the expert’s relevant credentials.
• If you interviewed the expert yourself, make that clear in the speech also. “When I spoke with Dr. Mary Thompson, principal of Park Lake High School, on October 12, she informed me that . . .”

Expert testimony is one of your strongest supporting materials to prove your arguments. When integrating their testimony as evidence, make sure their testimony clearly supports your claim (rather than an interesting idea on the topic that is tangential to your assertions).

Non-Expert/Peer Testimony

Any quotation from a friend, family member, or classmate about an incident or topic would be peer testimony. It is useful in helping the audience understand a topic from a personal point of view. For example, you may draw on testimony from a campus student who was unable to afford their campus textbooks. While they may lack formalized expertise in textbook affordability, their testimony might demonstrate how the high cost limited their engagement with the class. Their perspective and insight would be valuable for an audience to hear.

The third component of any argument is the warrant. Warrants connect the evidence and the claim. They often answer the question, “what does this mean?” Warrants are an important component of a complete argument because they:

• Highlight the significance of the evidence;
• Detail how the evidence supports the claims;
• Outline the relevance of the claim and evidence to the audience.

For example, consider the claim that “communication studies provide necessary skills to land you a job.” To support that claim, you might locate a statistic and argue that, “The New York Times had a recent article stating that 80% of jobs want good critical thinking and interpersonal skills.” It’s unclear, however, how a communication studies major would prepare someone to fulfill those needs. To complete the argument, you could include a warrant that explains, “communication studies classes facilitate interpersonal skills and work to embed critical thinking activities throughout the curriculum.” You are connecting the job skills (critical thinking) from the evidence to the discipline (communication studies) from your claim.

Despite their importance, warrants are often excluded from arguments. As speechwriters and researchers, we spend lots of time with our information and evidence, and we take for granted what we know. If you are familiar with communication studies, the connection between the New York Times statistic referenced above and the assertion that communication studies provides necessary job skills may seem obvious. For an unfamiliar audience, the warrant provides more explanation and legitimacy to the evidence.

We know what you’re thinking: “Really? Do I always need an explicit warrant?”

Some warrants are indeed inferred , meaning that we often recognize the underlying warrant without it being explicitly stated. For example, I might say, “The baking time for my cookies was too hot. The cookies burned.” In this statement, I’m claiming that the temperature is too hot and using burnt cookies as the evidence. We could reasonably infer the warrant, i.e. “burnt cookies are a sign that they were in the oven for too long.”

Inferred warrants are common in everyday arguments and conversations; however, in a formal speech, having a clear warrant will increase the clarity of your argument. If you decide that no explicit warrant is needed, it’s still necessary to ask, “what does this argument mean for my thesis? What does it mean for my audience?” Your goal is to keep as many audience members listening as possible, and warrants allow you to think critically about the information that you’re presenting to that audience.

When writing warrants, keep the following insights in mind:

• Avoid exaggerating your evidence, and make sure your warrant honors what the evidence is capable of supporting;
• Center your thesis statement. Remember that your thesis statement, as your main argument, should be the primary focus when you’re explaining and warranting your evidence.
• A good warrant should be crafted with your content and context in mind. As you work on warrants, ask, “why is this claim/evidence important here? For this argument? Now? For this audience?”
• Say it with us: ethos, pathos, and logos! Warrants can help clarify the goal of your argument. What appeal are you using? Can the warrant amplify that appeal?

Now that you have a better understanding of each component of an argument, let’s conclude this section with a few complete examples.

Claim : The Iowa Wildcats will win the championship. Evidence: In 2019, the National Sporting Association found that the Wildcats had the most consistent and well-rounded coaching staff. Referees of the game agreed, and also praised the players’ ability for high scoring. Warrant: Good coaching and high scoring are probable indicators of past champions and, given this year’s findings, the Wildcats are on mark to win it all.

Here’s an example with a more general approach to track the potential avenues for evidence:

Claim: Sally Smith will win the presidential election. Evidence: [select evidence that highlights their probable win, including: they’ve won the most primaries; they won the Iowa caucus; they’re doing well in swing states; they have raised all the money; they have the most organized campaign.” Warrant: [based on your evidence selection, you can warrant why that evidence supports a presidential win].

Using Language Effectively

Claim, evidence, and warrant are useful categories when constructing or identifying a well-reasoned argument. However, a speech is much more than this simple structure over and over (how boring, huh?).

When we craft arguments, it’s tempting to view our audience as logic-seekers who rely solely on rationality, but that’s not true. Instead, Walter Fisher (1984) argues that humans are storytellers, and we make sense of the world through good stories. A good speech integrates argumentative components while telling a compelling story about your argument to the audience. A key piece of that story is how you craft the language—language aids in telling an effective story.

Language: What Do We Mean?

Language is any formal system of gestures, signs, sounds, and symbols used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, either through written, enacted, or spoken means. Linguists believe there are far more than 6,900 languages and distinct dialects spoken in the world today (Anderson, 2012). Despite being a formal system, language results in different interpretations and meanings for different audiences.

It is helpful for public speakers to keep this in mind, especially regarding denotative and connotative meaning. Wrench, Goding, Johnson, and Attias (2011) use this example to explain the difference:

When we hear or use the word “blue,” we may be referring to a portion of the visual spectrum dominated by energy with a wave-length of roughly 440–490 nanometers. You could also say that the color in question is an equal mixture of both red and green light. While both of these are technically correct ways to interpret the word “blue,” we’re pretty sure that neither of these definitions is how you thought about the word. When hearing the word “blue,” you may have thought of your favorite color, the color of the sky on a spring day, or the color of a really ugly car you saw in the parking lot. When people think about language, there are two different types of meanings that people must be aware of: denotative and connotative. (p. 407)

Denotative meaning is the specific meaning associated with a word. We sometimes refer to denotative meanings as dictionary definitions. The scientific definitions provided above for the word “blue” are examples of definitions that might be found in a dictionary. Connotative meaning is the idea suggested by or associated with a word at a cultural or personal level. In addition to the examples above, the word “blue” can evoke many other ideas:

• State of depression (feeling blue)
• Indication of winning (a blue ribbon)
• Side during the Civil War (blues vs. grays)
• Sudden event (out of the blue)
• States that lean toward the Democratic Party in their voting
• A slang expression for obscenity (blue comedy)

Given these differences, the language you select may have different interpretations and lead to different perspectives. As a speechwriter (and communicator), being aware of different interpretations can allow you to select language that is the most effective for your speaking context and audience.

Using Language to Craft Your Argument

Have you ever called someone a “wordsmith?” If so, you’re likely complimenting their masterful application of language. Language is not just something we use; it is part of who we are and how we think. As such, language can assist in clarifying your content and creating an effective message.

Achieve Clarity

Clear language is powerful language. If you are not clear, specific, precise, detailed, and sensory with your language, you won’t have to worry about being emotional or persuasive, because you won’t be understood. The goal of clarity is to reduce abstraction; clarity will allow your audience to more effectively track your argument and insight, especially because they only have one chance to listen.

Concreteness aids clarity. We usually think of concreteness as the opposite of abstraction. Language that evokes many different visual images in the minds of your audience is abstract language. Unfortunately, when abstract language is used, the images evoked might not be the ones you really want to evoke. Instead, work to be concrete, detailed, and specific. “Pity,” for example, is a bit abstract. How might you describe pity by using more concrete words?

Clear descriptions or definitions can aid in concreteness and clarity.

To define means to set limits on something; defining a word is setting limits on what it means, how the audience should think about the word, and/or how you will use it. We know there are denotative and connotative definitions or meanings for words, which we usually think of as objective and subjective responses to words. You only need to define words that would be unfamiliar to the audience or words that you want to use in a specialized way.

Describing is also helpful in clarifying abstraction. The key to description is to think in terms of the five senses: sight (visual:  how does the thing look in terms of color, size, shape); hearing (auditory: volume, musical qualities); taste (gustatory: sweet, bitter, salty, sour, gritty, smooth, chewy); smell (olfactory: sweet, rancid, fragrant, aromatic, musky); and feel (tactile: rough, silky, nubby, scratchy).

If you were, for example, talking about your dog, concrete and detailed language could assist in “bring your dog to life,” so to speak, in the moment.

• Boring and abstract: My dog is pretty great. He is well-behaved, cute, and is friendly to all of our neighbors. I get a lot of compliments about him, and I really enjoy hanging out with him outside in the summer.
• Concrete and descriptive: Buckley, my golden-brown Sharpei mix, is a one-of-a-kind hound. Through positive treat reinforcement, he learned to sit, shake, and lay down within one month. He will also give kisses with his large and wrinkly snout. He greets passing neighbors with a smile and enjoys Midwest sunbathing on our back deck in the 70-degree heat.

 Doesn’t the second description do the image more justice ? Being concrete and descriptive paints a picture for the audience and can increase your warrant’s efficacy. Being descriptive, however, doesn’t mean adding more words. In fact, you should aim to “reduce language clutter.” Your descriptions should still be purposeful and important.

Be Effective

Language achieves effectiveness by communicating the right message to the audience. Clarity contributes to effectiveness, but effectiveness also includes using familiar and interesting language.

Familiar language is language that your audience is accustomed to hearing and experiencing. Different communities and audiences use language differently. If you are part of an organization, team, or volunteer group, there may be language that is specific and commonly used in those circles. We call that language jargon , or specific, technical language that is used in a given community. If you were speaking to that community, drawing on those references would be appropriate because they would be familiar to that audience. For other audiences, drawing on jargon would be ineffective and either fail to communicate an idea to the audience or implicitly community that you haven’t translated your message well (reducing your ethos).

In addition to using familiar language, draw on language that’s accurate and interesting. This is difficult, we’ll admit it! But in a speech, your words are a key component of keeping the audience motivated to listen, so interesting language can peak and maintain audience interest.

Active language is interesting language. Active voice , when the subject in a sentence performs the action, can assist in having active and engaging word choices. An active sentence would read, “humans caused climate change” as opposed to a passive approach of, “climate change was caused by humans.” Place subjects at the forefront. A helpful resource on active voice can be found here.

You must, however, be reflexive in the language process.

Practicing Reflexivity

Language reflects our beliefs, attitudes, and values – words are the mechanism we use to communicate our ideas or insights. As we learned earlier in this book, communication both creates and is created by culture. When we select language, we are also representing and creating ideas and cultures – language has a lot of power.

To that end, language should be a means of inclusion and identification, rather than exclusion.

You might be thinking, “Well I am always inclusive in my language,” or “I’d never intentionally use language that’s not inclusive.” We understand, but intention is less important than effect.

Consider the term “millennial”— a categorization that refers to a particular age group. It can be useful to categorize different generations, particularly from a historical and contemporary perspective. However, people often argue that “millennials are the laziest generation” or “millennials don’t know hard work!” In these examples, the intention may be descriptive, but they are selecting language that perpetuates unfair and biased assumptions about millions of people. The language is disempowering (and the evidence, when present, is weak).

Language assists us in categorizing or understanding different cultures, ideas, or people; we rely on language to sort information and differentiate ourselves. In turn, language influences our perceptions, even in unconscious and biased ways.

The key is to practice reflexivity about language choices. Language isn’t perfect, so thinking reflexively about language will take time and practice.

For example, if you were crafting a hypothetical example about an experience in health care, you might open with a hypothetical example: “Imagine sitting for hours in the waiting room with no relief. Fidgeting and in pain, you feel hopeless and forgotten within the system. Finally, you’re greeted by the doctor and he escorts you to a procedure room.” It’s a great story and there is vivid and clear language. But are there any changes that you’d make to the language used?

Remember that this is a hypothetical example. Using reflexive thinking, we might question the use of “he” to describe the doctor. Are there doctors that are a “he”? Certainly. Are all doctors a “he”? Certainly not. It’s important to question how “he” gets generalized to stand-in for doctors or how we may assume that all credible doctors are men.

Practicing reflexivity means questioning the assumptions present in our language choices (like police men rather than police officers). Continue to be conscious of what language you draw on to describe certain people, places, or ideas. If you aren’t sure what language choices are best to describe a group, ask; listen, and don’t assume.

In this chapter, we discussed crafting complete, well-reasoned arguments. Claim, evidence, and warrant are helpful structural components when crafting arguments. Remember, too, that language plays a central role in telling a compelling story.

A series of statements in support of a claim, assertion, or proposition

speaker credibility

Appeals to reason or logic

Appeals to emotion

a declarative statement or assertion

proof or support for your claim

specific instances that illuminate a concept

stories that clarify, dramatize, and emphasize ideas

the collection, analysis, comparison, and interpretation of numerical data

the words of others

Warrants connect the evidence and the claim

we often recognize the underlying warrant without it being explicitly stated

the specific meaning associated with a word

the idea suggested by or associated with a word at a cultural or personal level

Setting limits on what it means, how the audience should think about the word, and/or how you will use it

specific, technical language that is used in a given community.

when the subject in a sentence performs the action

Speaking Confidently Copyright © 2021 by Meggie Mapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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3: Effective Argument

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• Tanya Long Bennett
• University of North Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

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• 3.1: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos In order to persuade a particular audience of a particular point, a writer makes decisions about how best to convince the reader. Aristotle recognized three basic appeals that a writer (or orator) should consider when presenting an argument: logos, ethos, and pathos.
• 3.2: Audience Awareness For success in any project, a writer must be aware of and carefully consider his audience.
• 3.3: Evidence Primary Evidence is the thing we study. In academic writing, this kind of evidence differs according to discipline. In biology and chemistry, primary evidence can be an experiment’s results. In the field of history, it might be a letter written by a World War I soldier, a memo issued by a U.S. president, a Civil War bullet, or cave drawings. In sociology, it can be the data gathered from participant surveys (quantitative) or information arising from a case study (qualitative).
• 3.4: Articulating an Effective Thesis The understanding of pathos, logos and ethos is crucial to formulating a significant and arguable thesis, which should capture the essence of your perspective on a text. The argument itself will require much more than a sentence or two, but the thesis, or the statement of the central argument, is an important tool in presenting a persuasive case. It should relay to your reader the specific point around which the rest of the argument revolves and why that point is so important.

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Online Guide to Writing and Research

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• Online Guide to Writing

Writing Arguments

Steps to Writing an Argument

Introduce your argument.

When we prepare an argument, there are several things we consider. 

We can critically analyze our own ideas and the ideas of others to weigh evidence and claims and make judgments about them.

We examine our methods of thinking and investigating. 

We present our ideas effectively and persuasively. 

Writing an effective argument follows certain steps:

Introduce your argument by setting the context. Your introduction should draw your reader into your subject and build common ground for your argument. 

Establish your context for writing the argument and the context for your topic. In your introduction, establish your tone , style , and credentials—tell the reader why you are competent to write this argument. 

Clarify the issues; explain why the topic is important.

Following these steps can make getting started less overwhelming and give you a sense of direction for the first draft. 

Mailing Address: 3501 University Blvd. East, Adelphi, MD 20783 This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . © 2022 UMGC. All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.

Table of Contents: Online Guide to Writing

Chapter 1: College Writing

How Does College Writing Differ from Workplace Writing?

What Is College Writing?

Why So Much Emphasis on Writing?

Chapter 2: The Writing Process

Doing Exploratory Research

Getting from Notes to Your Draft

Introduction

Prewriting - Techniques to Get Started - Mining Your Intuition

Prewriting: Targeting Your Audience

Prewriting: Techniques to Get Started

Prewriting: Understanding Your Assignment

Rewriting: Being Your Own Critic

Rewriting: Creating a Revision Strategy

Rewriting: Getting Feedback

Rewriting: The Final Draft

Techniques to Get Started - Outlining

Techniques to Get Started - Using Systematic Techniques

Thesis Statement and Controlling Idea

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Freewriting

Writing: Getting from Notes to Your Draft - Summarizing Your Ideas

Writing: Outlining What You Will Write

Chapter 3: Thinking Strategies

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone

A Word About Style, Voice, and Tone: Style Through Vocabulary and Diction

Critical Strategies and Writing

Critical Strategies and Writing: Analysis

Critical Strategies and Writing: Evaluation

Critical Strategies and Writing: Persuasion

Critical Strategies and Writing: Synthesis

Developing a Paper Using Strategies

Kinds of Assignments You Will Write

Patterns for Presenting Information

Patterns for Presenting Information: Critiques

Patterns for Presenting Information: Discussing Raw Data

Patterns for Presenting Information: General-to-Specific Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Problem-Cause-Solution Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Specific-to-General Pattern

Patterns for Presenting Information: Summaries and Abstracts

Supporting with Research and Examples

Writing Essay Examinations

Writing Essay Examinations: Make Your Answer Relevant and Complete

Writing Essay Examinations: Organize Thinking Before Writing

Writing Essay Examinations: Read and Understand the Question

Chapter 4: The Research Process

Planning and Writing a Research Paper

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Ask a Research Question

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Cite Sources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Collect Evidence

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Decide Your Point of View, or Role, for Your Research

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Draw Conclusions

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Find a Topic and Get an Overview

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Manage Your Resources

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Outline

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Survey the Literature

Planning and Writing a Research Paper: Work Your Sources into Your Research Writing

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Human Resources

Research Resources: What Are Research Resources?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found?

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Electronic Resources

Research Resources: Where Are Research Resources Found? - Print Resources

Structuring the Research Paper: Formal Research Structure

Structuring the Research Paper: Informal Research Structure

The Nature of Research

The Research Assignment: How Should Research Sources Be Evaluated?

The Research Assignment: When Is Research Needed?

The Research Assignment: Why Perform Research?

Chapter 5: Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity

Giving Credit to Sources

Giving Credit to Sources: Copyright Laws

Giving Credit to Sources: Documentation

Giving Credit to Sources: Style Guides

Integrating Sources

Practicing Academic Integrity

Practicing Academic Integrity: Keeping Accurate Records

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Paraphrasing Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Quoting Your Source

Practicing Academic Integrity: Managing Source Material - Summarizing Your Sources

Types of Documentation

Types of Documentation: Bibliographies and Source Lists

Types of Documentation: Citing World Wide Web Sources

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - APA Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - CSE/CBE Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - Chicago Style

Types of Documentation: In-Text or Parenthetical Citations - MLA Style

Types of Documentation: Note Citations

Chapter 6: Using Library Resources

Finding Library Resources

Chapter 7: Assessing Your Writing

How Is Writing Graded?

How Is Writing Graded?: A General Assessment Tool

The Draft Stage

The Draft Stage: The First Draft

The Draft Stage: The Revision Process and the Final Draft

The Draft Stage: Using Feedback

The Research Stage

Using Assessment to Improve Your Writing

Chapter 8: Other Frequently Assigned Papers

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Article and Book Reviews

Reviews and Reaction Papers: Reaction Papers

Writing Arguments: Adapting the Argument Structure

Writing Arguments: Purposes of Argument

Writing Arguments: References to Consult for Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Anticipate Active Opposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Determine Your Organization

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Develop Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Introduce Your Argument

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - State Your Thesis or Proposition

Writing Arguments: Steps to Writing an Argument - Write Your Conclusion

Writing Arguments: Types of Argument

Appendix A: Books to Help Improve Your Writing

Dictionaries

General Style Manuals

Researching on the Internet

Special Style Manuals

Writing Handbooks

Appendix B: Collaborative Writing and Peer Reviewing

Collaborative Writing: Assignments to Accompany the Group Project

Collaborative Writing: Informal Progress Report

Collaborative Writing: Issues to Resolve

Collaborative Writing: Methodology

Collaborative Writing: Peer Evaluation

Collaborative Writing: Tasks of Collaborative Writing Group Members

Collaborative Writing: Writing Plan

General Introduction

Peer Reviewing

Appendix C: Developing an Improvement Plan

Working with Your Instructor’s Comments and Grades

Appendix D: Writing Plan and Project Schedule

Devising a Writing Project Plan and Schedule

Reviewing Your Plan with Others

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Understanding the Parts of an Argument

Arguments are among the most compelling documents we encounter as we read. Developing a strong argument requires you to take a position on an issue, introduce the issue to your readers in a way that leads then to view your position as reasonable, and develop reasons and provide evidence for your position. In this guide and those associated with it, you'll learn about the parts of an argument as well as the processes that help writers develop effective, well-grounded arguments.

A Clearly Stated Position

By definition, an argument requires the existence of a debatable issue. In other words, for an argument to even take place there must be at least two sides. When two or more arguable positions exist, each constitutes part of the context.

The audience-those to whom your position will be argued-constitute another part of the context. And since it will contain both supporters and detractors, it is essential that your position be clearly stated. It is the foundation upon which each brick of your evidence will be stacked and must be strong enough to bear its own weight as well as the onslaught of opposing arguments.

Types of Positions

Position statements fall into categories and those categories suggest how a claim should be argued. Your position, knowledge and authority on the subject will help you decide which category best suits the argument's purpose.

Before selecting one, however, consider your audience. Which side are they likely to be on or will they be split down the middle? How informed are they? Where lays the largest difference of opinion? Is the issue emotionally charged? If so, how will the audience react?

The answers you come up with will help determine what type of position will be most effective and what to include in the introduction, the type of evidence to be presented and how the presentation should be organized.

Claims of Fact

Claims of fact present verifiable forms of evidence as the supporting foundation for an inferred position statement. In other words, a claim that that which can not be proven by actual facts is, in fact, true or real based on facts that are somewhat pertinent to the issue. For example, the position statement that "grades measure neither intelligence nor achievement," backed with factual evidence like test scores, duplicable research findings and personal testimony.

Claims of fact notwithstanding, the statement can't actually be proven. Intelligence and achievement measurements are, at best, subjective terms that challenge hard definitions. No amount of factual evidence is going to change that.

Nailing down the terms of the position with objective, concrete definitions will strengthen the statement but be advised that an inferred position is poor foundation on which to build an argument.

Claims of Cause and Effect

Claims of cause and effect are propositions based on the concept that one thing influences or causes another. For example, "rap music makes its audience members prone to violence." To prove such a claim your argument must define the terms of both the cause and the effect.

It must define rap, the kinds of rap that lead to violence and the ways in which it does so. It must also define the forms of violence that pertain to rap and conclusively attribute the effect to the cause. Specific incidents of violence must be cited and tied directly back to specific occurrences in which it can be proven that rap played a significant role.

Claims of Value

Claims of value inherently involve a judgment based on comparing and contrasting one position with another and assigning each a value of good or bad, better or worse. For example, "Danielle Steele is the best romance novelist of the last quarter century."

To build an argument on such a claim the criteria by which the judgment will be made as well as the manner in which the person, thing, situation or circumstance being assessed must be established. Elements similar to claims of fact, such as sales figures, publication statistics and awards will come into play.

For Danielle Steele to be judged the best romance novelist of the last quarter century, it has to be proven that she meets the established criteria for a good romance novelist and that she does it better than all other romance novelists from the same time period.

Claims of Policy or Solutions

Claims of policy or solutions propose and promote policies and solutions based on changing an existing policy that is either inadequate for dealing with a bad situation or conducive to its perpetuation. For example, "Football causes too many injuries and ought to be banned."

Arguing such a claim may require arguing a combination of claims and several steps might be involved: A factual claim establishing that a situation exists, a value claim proving the situation is bad, and a cause and effect claim pinning the blame on a policy that, if changed, will improve the situation may all play a role in the overall argument.

Be advised that proposing a solution carries the inherent suggestion that more than one solution may apply. An argument successfully advocating your position must establish the criteria by which all solutions will be measured and prove that yours meets that criteria better than any other.

Identify Your Position

A clearly stated position demands parameters, or boundaries, narrow enough to avoid any tangential digression that might detract from the argument's power. In other words, to be effective, the author must identify a narrow enough position that proving or drawing a conclusion from the argument that follows won't become bogged down in the side-bar arguments a broader statement might stimulate.

The key to identifying a clear position is in the old adage of not biting off more than you can chew. In a courtroom it's called opening the door to testimony previously excluded. A broad position statement invites disaster by opening doors to counter-arguments that you are unprepared for and have no intention of addressing. It muddies the argument.

Following are some examples of position statements that are too broad to be effectively argued.

"True historical analysis lies in everyday experience, not in dates and politics."

This statement is so broad it would take a book, and possibly several, to argue the point. You'd need a wide variety of everyday examples from the lives of those who lived during a significant number of major and minor historical events just to come close to a plausible proof, let alone a conclusive one. The statement bites off more than one can chew.

"Quantitative, college letter-grading systems effectively create a false sense of achievement by equating 'making the grade' with true learning. Having reached adulthood, college students are no longer in need of such incentives and ought to be evaluated more qualitatively, through written evaluations at the end of each semester."

There are two arguments to be made here: (1) as an incentive, letter grades obscure whether true learning occurs, and (2) written evaluations are more valuable and useful than letter grades. Again, the statement constitutes more than a mouthful. Each position could be a paper in itself.

"All grading is problematic because all grades are subjective. Grading objectively, therefore, is impossible."

This is a vague statement based upon an implied assumption that, to be fair, all assessment forms must be objective. To prove this, all forms of assessment would have to be compared and contrasted and their use across all campus curriculums examined. In-class essays, mid-term papers, lab projects, field work, class discussions, multiple-choice and true-false tests would have to be included. Another mouthful too big to chew: A better option would be to select one form of assessment and build an argument constrained within a single curriculum.

Draft Your Position Statement

For all practical purposes, it's useful to view a position statement as a "work-in-progress," a statement that evolves or emerges as your research progresses. It's not necessary that you begin with an ironclad position. A vague idea will do.

As you learn more about your selected-or assigned-issue, you may find your stance changing. Keep an open mind in this regard: It will help you clarify and focus your final position on a narrow and arguable point. Following are some useful tips that will help you in the process.

Don't bore yourself. Choose a topic around which there are issues that interest you and don't worry about defining your position. A good topic is one that arouses passion in others as well as yourself. Consult your course notes and make a list of ideas that appear to have the most potential by answering a few simple questions:

• What questions did your instructor ask the class to think about?
• What topics sparked the most spirited class discussion?
• What question created the greatest disagreement; the most heated debate?
• What topics or questions divide the local, national or global community?

Do some broad preliminary research on your selected topic. Ask your instructor, as well as others in your field of study, for information and guidance. To grasp the complexities and nuances of the issues at hand, select a group of books and articles that approach your topic from different angles and study up on them.

Note your reactions and opinions as they occur and develop or mature. In particular, you will want to note when previously held opinions change as a result of knowledge and insight gained from recent readings or discussion. Hone in on those opinions about which your feel the strongest or interest you the most.

Begin drafting a preliminary statement. Keep in mind that your position must be arguable. When shaping it consider the following questions:

• Is there an ongoing debate regarding the issue? If not, it may be that a consensus of opinion has already been reached. The absence of debate indicates that either 1) there is nothing about which to argue, or 2) the issue is brand new and ripe for argument.
• Has the issue been exhaustively debated? If so, the sides may be so polarized that further argument is pointless. The absence of a consensus of opinion indicates that all positions, both for and against, have been thoroughly argued and there remains nothing substantially new to add.
• Is there something new to add to the debate? If so, for whom; for what audience? Often, a new take on an old issue, arrived at by focusing tightly on one aspect, will rekindle interest in the debate and advance your position.
• Is there a brand new issue ripe for argument? Be on the lookout. New stuff happens all the time. Like ships at sea, new issues pop over the horizon every day. First a grey smudge in the academic fog, and then, one day, a sharp outline closing in on the harbor. The first spyglass to pick the smudge out of the fog gets the gold-first pick among the arguable positions.

Finally, the best advice is to be constantly aware of the arguments you wish not to address and continually refine your preliminary statement so as to exclude having to argue them. In other words, as you move toward completing your research, close and bolt all the doors you don't want the opposition stumbling through.

The Introduction

Getting off to a good start can make or break you, which is why your introduction is so important. It must be both respectful of the audience-not all of whom are going to be on your side-and compelling enough for them to withhold judgment while hearing you out.

Think about throwing a dinner party: Your guests are the audience. You plan a menu and set the table. Before you serve the entrée you serve an appetizer and introduce those who are meeting for the first time. Your introduction should put your guests on common ground-at ease with each other-before the main course, your argument, is served. When dinner is over, your argument made, your guests stay on for coffee and dessert, your conclusion.

Provide Context for the Argument

The introduction establishes an argument's context: it informs the audience of the issue at hand, the prevailing arguments from opposing sides and the position held by the author. It sets the tone for the argument and establishes the disciplinary constraints and boundaries that your particular academic audience will expect.

There are many ways to provide context for an audience but the main thing is to get everyone on an equal footing, a starting point where everyone has equal knowledge of the issue.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is by proposing a common definition of the issue. Another is to begin with a literature review of past work, showing where and how your position has emerged from previous work and how it enters into or contributes to that conversation.

Propose a Common Definition

One way to create a context for your readers and establish common ground is to begin with a definition of the topic that everyone can share and then introduce an issue based on the common definition. For example:

Approximately 10% of U.S. Citizens over the age of 65 are affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD). Furthermore, potentially 50% of individuals over the age of 85 may be at risk (Greene, et al. 461). [A statement of the pervasiveness of the problem] AD is a disease which results in progressive deterioration of mental and eventually physical functions. This progressive decline has been scaled according to the Global Deterioration Scale. The scale ranges from 1 to 7 with "1" designating normal, "4" representing moderate AD, such as inability to perform complex tasks, and a "7" corresponding to severe AD, characterized by loss in the following areas: verbal ability, psychomotor skills such as walking or sitting up, continence of bowel and bladder, and ability to smile and feed oneself (Bennett 95; Greene, et al. 464). [A definition of the disease]

With a continuing growth of the elderly population, this disease presents an extremely difficult problem for the future. How do we treat these individuals with medical costs increasing every year? How will we allocate funds for those whose families cannot afford to pay? The questions are relentless, but I have decided to explore the realm of treatment [an examination of the issues the definition logically brings up] . . .

I feel active euthanasia should be an available choice, via a highly scrutinized selection system, to allow AD patients, as well as family members, to end their suffering, to eliminate the "playing God" factor by hastening the inevitable, and finally, to end an existence which faces a severely reduced quality of life. [A statement of the author's position on one of the issues: her focus in the paper]

Provide a Literature Review

Offering a brief summary of previously published work demonstrates how well versed you are in both your academic discipline and the issue at hand. It also demonstrates how your work adds to, challenges, or offers a different perspective on questions important to others in the same field.

Here are some conventional formulas with which to introduce other authors previously published work.

Although X [insert other scholar's names] argues Y [insert their position] , about Z [insert topic or issue] , they have failed to consider [insert your position] .

X [insert other scholar's names] has already demonstrated Y [insert their position] , however, if we take their work one step further, the next logical issue is Z. [insert your position and the grounds upon which it is justified] .

Although X [insert other scholar's names] argues Y [insert their position] , about Z [insert topic or issue] , the position does not hold up when examined from the perspective of [insert your position] .

Although they appear quite brief, they can vary considerably in length, depending on your argument and the amount of research involved.

Long Example of Reviewing Previously Published Work

As scholars continue to explore how we can best characterize the discursive space of computer discussion technologies currently in use in many classrooms, one thing has become clear: the ways in which power relationships constructed within other contexts (e.g., the classroom, society) play themselves out in this new textual realm is murky at best. [Statement of the issue at hand] The initial excitement about the potential for computer discussion spaces to constitute discourse communities unfettered by the authority of the teacher (e.g., Butler and Kinneavy; Cooper and Selfe) has increasingly become tempered by attempts to characterize the nature of this discursive space. For some, computerized discussion groups create more egalitarian contexts in which marginalized voices can be given equal space (e.g., Selfe; Flores), while for others computerized discussion spaces serve only as reproductions of the ideological, discursive spaces present within society (e.g., Selfe and Selfe; Johnson-Eilola; Hawisher and Selfe). [Establishing common ground that the issue of power is a viable one by direct reference to previously published work] The disparity between these positions is central for feminists concerned with both resisting the patriarchal nature of academic discourse and providing a space for women students to speak and have their experiences validated. The question for feminist teachers becomes, as Pamela Takayoshi puts it, whether computerized communication is "a tool for empowering [women students] and dismantling the 'master's house,' in this case traditional classroom discourse patterns" or whether such modes of communication are "merely new tools that get the same results in a different way" (21). [Restatement of the issue in more specific terms, a focus that again emerges from previously published accounts]

Feminist analyses of computerized discussion spaces, however, are similarly caught up in the conflicting positions of equalization of all voices versus the replication of oppressive ideological positions discussed above. For example, as Janet Carey Eldred and Gail Hawisher point out, much speculation in composition about the nature of computerized discussions, including feminist speculations, relies on the presumption of the "equalization phenomenon," which they summarize as follows: "Because CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) reduces social context cues, it eliminates social differences and thus results in a forum for more egalitarian participation" (347). From this equalization phenomenon come claims that computerized discussion technologies occlude issues of status and hierarchy usually associated with the visible cue of gender (e.g., Dubrovsky et al.). Yet, as Eldred and Carey note throughout their article, "Researching Electronic Networks," the assumption of reduced social context cues is by no means a proven "fact"; in fact, Eldred and Carey point to studies such as Matheson's which found that "something as subtle as a name dropped, an issue raised, or an image chosen could convey a gender impression" (Eldred and Hawisher 350). Takayoshi's analysis of harassment through e-mail and networked discussions further illustrates how traditional gender hierarchies can resurface in supposedly "egalitarian" spaces. [A summary of the literature on the more focused issue which demonstrates that no one has yet resolved this issue satisfactorily]

What emerges from this admittedly incomplete literature review are directly conflicting views about how power is negotiated in networked discussion groups, particularly regarding the effect of that power on female students and the creation of a space wherein they might resist the more patriarchal discourses found in classroom discourse and academic forms of writing. [Restatement of the unresolved issue] What I'd like to suggest here is that these conflicting views emerge in part from the ways in which the argument has been conducted. In this essay, I hope to open up other possibilities for analysis by suggesting that one of the reasons questions about power, ideological reproduction, and equalization are so difficult to resolve is that our current analyses tend to look at the surface features of the issue without examining the discursive grounds on which these issues of power are constituted. [The writer positions herself as someone who is both "adding to the conversation" and challenging previous work.] Although focusing on the material effects of networked discussions on women's ability to find a speaking space is important work that needs to be done, I want to shift our analytical lens here to an equally important question: the way the textual space of networked discussion groups positions students and the types of voices it allows them to construct. [Poses a different issue that can then be answered in the writer's argument]

Short Example of Reviewing Previously Published Work

As scholars such as Susan McLeod, Anne Herrington and Charles Moran begin to re-think the way writing-across-the-curriculum programs have situated themselves within composition theory, an intriguing disparity has presented itself between writing-to-learn and learning-to-write. As McLeod points out, these two approaches to WAC, which she designates the "cognitive" and the "rhetorical," respectively, exist in most programs simultaneously despite their radically different epistemological assumptions. [Establishes common ground by defining the issue according to previously published work with which the audience is familiar] What I suggest in this paper, however, is that despite the two approaches' seeming epistemological differences, they work toward a similar goal: the accommodation or inscription of (student) subjects into the various disciplinary strands of academic discourse. [Statement of position which addresses the issue formulated in the research]

Establish Credible Authority

Establishing credibility and authority is just as important to you as a student as it is to credentialed experts with years of experience. The only thing different between you and an expert is the length of your résumé. What's not is the importance of convincing your audience that you know what you're talking about.

Demonstrate your Knowledge

Cite relevant sources when generalizing about an issue. This will demonstrate that you are familiar with what others, particularly recognized experts, have already contributed to the conversation. It also demonstrates that you've done your homework, you've read some current literature and that your position is reasonably thoughtful and not based on pure speculation. For example:

Over the past ten years, anthropologists have consistently debated the role the researcher should play when interacting with other cultures (Geertz; Heath; Moss) .

You may also connect your argument to a highly regarded authority by demonstrating that you are taking that person's position or contribution to current thinking one step further.

When James Berlin [the chief authority on social rhetorics] created his taxonomy of composition in Rhetoric and Reality, he defined a key historical moment in the way composition studies imagined the function of writing in culture. By focusing on the effect writing has on reality, Berlin's work helped the field recognize how assumptions about discourse marginalized certain groups of students and reinforced ideological beliefs that helped maintain an inequitable status quo.

Such a "social" perspective on writing and language inarguably had a significant effect on the face of composition studies, making it difficult to discuss writing as anything other than social and the teaching of writing as anything other than political. Yet the similarity in how social rhetorics depict epistemology suggests that the term social can be used to describe a diverse group of theories that share this view of reality.

Although such synonymous usage may be an apt label epistemologically, its use as a blanket term frequently obscures the difference within social rhetorics on issues other than epistemic ones. That difference, I argue here, is focused around questions of identity.

Share your Personal Experience

Consider that the closer you are to an issue the more credible is your authority to speak. Personal experience, from work or travel, for instance, provides your audience with an insider's point of view. A well-told personal story in the introduction demonstrates how the author's interest in an issue emerged and quite often provides an extraordinarily compelling reason to hear an argument out. Here are a couple of examples:

Example One:

As an aide in a nursing home for four years, I was constantly amazed at how little attention the children of elderly patients paid to their aging parents. Over and over again, it became obvious that the home was simply a place to "drop off the folks" so that their concern could be limited to paying the bills. As one woman told me when I called to inform her that her mother really needed a visit soon, "I pay you to take care of her. If I had time on my hands, she wouldn't be there." When did caring become simply a matter of writing a check? What are our obligations to the elderly in this society and how might we better care for them?

Example Two:

With a continuing growth of the elderly population, patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) present an extremely difficult problem for the future. How do we treat these individuals with medical costs increasing every year? How will we allocate funds for those whose families cannot afford to pay? The questions are relentless, but I have decided to explore the realm of treatment. . . . After observing the lifestyles of these individuals, I feel I have greater insight to the trauma they face versus an individual who has not witnessed their everyday activities. Based on my direct experience with late-stage AD patients and their families , I feel active euthanasia should be an available choice, via a highly scrutinized selection system, to allow AD patients, as well as family members, to end their suffering, to eliminate the "playing God" factor by hastening the inevitable, and to end an existence which faces a severely reduced quality of life.

Speak Convincingly

Write like an authority: Ignore the fact that your audience might know more than you. You may not be an expert, but you are, by no means, ignorant. After plenty of research you've come to know a lot about the issue yourself. Use that knowledge to inform and convince your audience that you know what you're talking about.

Avoid deferential language such as "in my opinion" or "at least I think we should." Try not to be wishy-washy. Don't hedge your bets by arguing "perhaps we should" or "such-and-such might be the way to go." Don't be arrogant, but don't give the audience any reason to think you might not know what you're talking about.

This past year Michael Maren wrote an article for Newsweek, "The Faces of Famine." This article was not what a viewer would have expected to read: the continuation of starving people in Africa because of an apparent lack in economic means. Although most Americans are moved by the pictures of "skeletal" children and hold the belief that the problem stems from a lack in food resources due to drought and severe conditions, according to Maren the general public in the U.S. is misinformed and unaware of the politics involved with this severe famine.

The evidence Maren has compiled informs his audience that providing money donations for relief funds is destructive, not helpful, for those affected. In his essay Maren talks specifically about the situation in Sudan. The root of the famine is from a 15-year-old civil war between the Khartoum Government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

Maren has contributed both his personal experiences, living in Africa as an aid worker and journalist for 20 years, and his political knowledge about starvation being used as a weapon for a civil war, as evidence for his argument. His goals are to inform his audience what really is happening in Africa and to begin to assist in saving lives rather than adding fuel to the fire.

One way to establish credibility and authority is to follow both spoken and unspoken rules of research conduct in both your introduction and throughout the argument. Here is a list of guidelines to keep in mind:

• Respect previous research and authority.
• Take all publications seriously, even when you disagree.
• Respect your opposition: No name-calling.
• Cite all sources: No plagiarizing.
• If it's relevant, include it, even when it hurts your case: No sins of omission.
• If it can't be backed up, don't include it: No generalizing.

Compel the Audience to Listen

Your argument must be compelling. What can you say that will convince you audience to hear you out? An important question: It's easy to assume that the answer is obvious and that your audience will "get it" yet, quite often, that's not the case. Don't leave this to chance. Put yourself in the audience's place and think about what they will be asking:

• Why should I care?

Good answers to such questions will help you draw the audience into the body of your argument. Be creative, but don't lose sight of the facts.

Invoke a Truism

Find something everyone in the discipline agrees with and propose it as the reason for your argument. In the example, the writer connects an argument about identity politics to a concern regarding students and how they learn. In this way, a theoretical issue-something many educators find uninteresting-is connected to something about which all educators are interested: their students.

In posing identity constitution as a central question for social rhetoric, I do not…seek to simply point out a theoretical difference in composition studies. Instead, I locate such questions about the discursive construction of identity primarily within a concern for students as writers and citizens. By examining the different assumptions social rhetoric makes about how discourse affects the student writer's construction of identity, I hope to highlight more explicitly the role pedagogy plays in "teaching" students not only how to construct public voices from which to speak of identity politics but also how to construct their identities.

Provide an Eye-Catching Statistic or Quote

Drawn from research, these may be used to highlight the importance of an issue or-if a quote is personal in nature-to appeal to the audience's emotions. In either case, be sure the statistic or quote directly relates to the issue at hand. For example:

In his U.S. News & World Report article, Hey, We're No. 19! , John Leo addresses the results of a recent survey which found that American students, compared to students from 20 other countries, placed well below average on standardized math and science tests. Leo surmises that these results can be blamed on two things: unqualified teachers and "social attitudes that work against achievement" fostered by teachers' colleges.

Leo may or may not have a legitimate point in his essay; it is difficult to tell through all the sarcasm and unsubstantiated opinion. The article is ineffective for two main reasons: the complete lack of evidence and the condescending attitude Leo exhibits toward the very people he aims to convince.

Identify a Common Concern

In this way, you remind an audience that they already care about an issue. In the example, the writer addresses an American audience on the prayer in public schools issue by identifying it with free speech rights: the protection of which everyone is concerned. This provides a compelling reason for the audience to revisit ideas about prayer in schools while keeping the topic within the legal realm. For example:

What would happen if you were fired for criticizing your boss in a bar after work hours? If you were told you could not put a bumper sticker on your car endorsing the Republican candidate because it would offend your Democratic neighbor? Most Americans, in either of these instances, would be justifiably upset at how their right to free speech was being impinged. Yet, mention that students should be allowed to pray in school and, all of a sudden, the issue becomes murky. We are confronted with another legal issue: separation of church and state. Which of these "rights" should win in this battle? In this essay, I argue that neither is more important than the other, yet if we look closely at the issue of prayer in schools, we will see that there is a way to allow prayer, and thus free speech , without violating the separation of church and state.

Tell an Anecdote

Invoke a reader's sympathy with a short narrative of an experience-either your own or one drawn from research-which highlights the personal effect of the issue about which you will be arguing. For example:

Celebrating his acceptance into his fraternity of choice, Benjamin Wynne did something many college students have done at one time or another: he went out and got completely, unabashedly drunk. Wynne, accompanied by other members of Louisiana State University's chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, started off his night of revelry at a party off campus. The group then moved to a local bar before ending up back at the frat house. Though this type of partying may sound typical to many college students, its result was anything but typical: Benjamin Wynne died that night of alcohol poisoning, having consumed the equivalent of 24 drinks (Cohen 54).

His death in early September of last year should serve as a wake-up call to every individual on a college campus in this country, as well as parents of students. Excessive drinking is a widespread, serious problem on many college campuses nationwide, not only for the students who actually do the drinking, but for non-drinking students as well. Students, faculty, administrators, and other individuals on college campuses must admit to themselves that this behavior is not acceptable. We must admit that it is a problem before another student's life is tragically cut short.

Ask Questions

Although this strategy is often overused, asking a few key questions is a good way to introduce your argument. Be cautious, however, of posing any that will not be answered: doing so sets up false expectations. For example:

How many times have you looked at a city street and seen it draped with power lines going in every direction? How many times have you seen housing developments intersected by huge power lines which radiate dangerous levels of high voltage? How many times have you driven the open country only to find miles and miles of steel towers connected by strands of power lines?

If you're like me, you notice these things. To me, they happen to be aesthetically unpleasant. What we don't see is where or how the power within those lines is generated. Chances are it is not good. Over 85% of our current energy source is derived from fossil fuels (RE fact sheet 1). What if our power source wasn't harmful to the earth? What if it was coming from the sun and wind, and didn't harm the people in the neighborhoods who used it?

Promise Something New

Demonstrate how your argument adds to, reframes, redefines, or offers a new solution to an issue with which your audience is already involved. In this example, the writer summarizes current positions in published literature in order to reframe the issue. For example:

In the past twenty years, literacy has become a hot topic among educators and the public alike. For teachers, the issues seem to revolve around the literacy skills students need in order to graduate from high school. The debate ranges from a strong emphasis on critical reading skills (Smith, Jones) to technical literacy skills (Palmquist, Barnes) to writing skills (LeCourt, Thomas). As most teachers know, however, these skills are not separate: writing, for example, can't be taught apart from reading; technical literacy includes both writing and reading.

How, then, should a teacher decide which skills to emphasize in a given high-school curriculum? In this paper, I will argue that the first step to deciding on necessary literacy skills lies in closely examining what students will need to succeed after high school, in college and in the job market. In short, any decision about literacy skills must begin with research into the public sphere. Educators cannot make such decisions in a vacuum, as most theorists (like those cited above) are now doing.

Use an Epigram

A simple block-quote at the beginning of a paper can highlight the importance of an issue or the differences of opinion that surround the debate. Not generally referred to in the argument itself, an epigram serves to set up the context for the argument being introduced. For example:

I agree that students should be able to write well when they leave the University. But I think we don't give them enough credit for how well they can write when they come here. All we need to do is push them a bit more. . . . The University is talking about keeping a writing portfolio for every student: who has the time for that. . . . All this nonsense about WAC is just baloney, just baloney. --Professor of Electrical Engineering

Perhaps I ought not to start my paper with so clear a statement of the disagreement our panel hopes to address. But in some ways, the practical challenge offered by Professor X helps to define a workable theoretical perspective. As other practitioners have discussed, a top-down model of WAC can do nothing in the face of such hostility. At best, proponents of WAC must ignore the faculty who hold such positions. But a model of WAC that focuses largely on students might just side-step this faculty member long enough to convince other faculty and students that WAC has real merits.

Establish Common Ground

What does everyone already know about the issue? One of the best ways to attract the interest of an audience is to locate them on common ground, showing how the issue at hand has been or remains something about which they are already familiar and concerned. There are several ways to do this.

Present a New Angle

Use published material to identify that your issue has already been addressed at length either by experts in the field, or in the broader society. Then demonstrate that your position, one about which your audience already knows quite a bit, is a brand-new take. For example:

Picture in your mind the four women who are closest to you. It may be your sister, your mother, your niece, your aunt, your best friend, your wife, or even yourself. According to at least six of my sources, including the research handbook, Rape and Sexual Assault III edited by Ann Burgess, one of the people pictured in your mind is or will become a sexual assault victim. The research handbook specifically states that one in four female college students will be sexually assaulted during her college career (Burgess, 1991).

Make an Emotional Appeal

Connect your audience emotionally to the issue at hand. Appeal to their sense of compassion: Deliberately pull at the heartstrings. Start at a general enough point where the audience easily recognizes the common ground upon which you and they both stand. Emotionally invested, they will hear you out. For example:

As the video showed a man with violent tremors trying his hardest to speak with some fluency, I thought, "Can't we do any more for people like him?" The man I was watching had Parkinson's, a disease afflicting 1 in 5,000 people (Bennett, lecture). Due to the degeneration of that part of the brain that produces dopamine, a chemical that helps control motor coordination, patients afflicted with Parkinson's disease often suffer muscle rigidity, involuntary tremors and a shuffling gait.

I cannot imagine the frustration a person with Parkinson's disease must feel when tremors prevent them from holding a cup of tea. I cannot imagine the frustration they must feel when walking no longer comes with ease. I cannot imagine the frustration they must feel as they consciously know they are physically deteriorating. And I cannot imagine the frustration family members of Parkinson's patients must feel as they watch their loved one deteriorate and know that there is nothing they can do to help.

In answer to my own question, though, there is more we could be doing to help people with Parkinson's disease. Current research on fetal tissue transplantation shows great promise and could be a great benefit to many people. [The paper goes on to argue in favor of fetal tissue transplantation despite the controversy surrounding such a procedure.]

Present a Solution

Demonstrate that your argument addresses a problem in which everyone in the audience shares or has a legitimate interest. Pull the audience in by explaining its significance to the field of study or connecting it to a larger social issue.

Common ground begins by building the larger picture, one that all audience members recognize, and then whittling it down to a smaller, more focused issue and the one to which your argument provides a solution. Your logic should generally be presented following the pattern of an inverted pyramid. This demonstrates how one problem emerges from another, as in the illustration below.

Clarify or Define a Problem

This is a strategy often found in the social sciences (psychology, sociology, etc.), business and the professional world, though it is not constrained to those disciplines. As part of the context of an issue, a specific problem provides a patch of common ground on which everyone in the audience can stand while you argue the case for a specific solution.

Argue from a Societal Perspective

One way of presenting a problem is to appeal to your audience as citizens rather than professionals in a given field. Begin with a social problem that might benefit from a disciplinary solution and work towards the disciplinary end. Establishing common knowledge about a societal concern, or problem, usually ties back to a disciplinary issue fairly quickly, however, be advised, that academic audiences expect arguments aimed more directly at their professional concerns rather than their social ones.

As the recent battles over affirmative action, school busing, reactions to separatist movements such as the Million Man March, and the backlash against government control by groups such as the Montana Freemen illustrate, our society is becoming more and more divided on how cultural difference can be maintained while still functioning with a national consciousness. [Statement of a social problem]

In the field of composition, these social tensions translate into issues of identity politics: [An immediate transition to what this social issue means in the disciplinary terms of the field of composition, a sub-field of English studies] how can instruction in academic discourse serve to educate a critical citizenry and yet not infringe upon ethnic, gendered, and sexual identities? How might we prevent the power of academic discourse to rewrite subjectivity without also abandoning the common ground such a discourse provides? [Poses discipline-specific questions related to social issue that define the problem to be answered in the text]

Argue for a New Perspective

Although many arguments focus on a specific problem and its corresponding solution, that's not always the case. Some arguments redefine an issue, arguing for new ways of looking at an old problem.

These types of arguments require a different introduction strategy, typically beginning with a statement of the problem and a brief review of the inadequacies in the solutions offered to date. It's a great approach to presenting a position statement that an existing problem needs to be looked at from a different perspective.

As our readings in class have demonstrated, what constitutes literacy and how it should be defined is a question which encourages lively and active debate. [A brief statement of problem which needs no justification since it was already discussed in the context of the class the paper is being written for] Some scholars (e.g., Hirsch, D'Souza) argue that what it means to be truly "literate" is a mastery of a certain body of knowledge that can provide a common knowledge base for all citizens. Others (e.g., the Bell report) focus on "skills" instead of knowledge, arguing that what students need are basic critical reading and writing skills that then can be applied to whatever context they find themselves in as a adults. More radical educators (e.g., Freire, Giroux) argue that true literacy lies in the ability to be critical about culture: to "read," for example, the media for its insidious cultural messages and act differently upon them. [A brief summary of solutions already offered in the discipline] From this brief summary, it is obvious that what is at stake in this debate is no less than what we think students need to learn to be successful economically and responsible members of a democratic citizenry. [A restatement of the problem in different terms] Yet, ironically enough, although the debate is focused on "what students need to know," rarely is a student's opinion solicited. In this paper, I will examine the literacy debate from my perspective as a college student. When we look at this debate from my perspective, we see that the questions posed about what it means to be literate have little to do with students' concerns and what we think we need to know. [A statement of a new perspective and the challenge it offers to current solutions]

Argue for a New Solution

Rather than arguing for a new perspective, a critique of old solutions can be enough to introduce the argument for a new one. These types of introductions typically recognize the existing problem, briefly review the inadequacy of past solutions and end with a position statement identifying a new solution and a call for its implementation.

As the media coverage of the issue and a variety of polls have demonstrated in the past 10 years, very few members of the national public would dispute the claim that politics has been controlled by too few people for far too long. For example, in a 1994 Guppy Poll, 97% of citizens polled responded that the government was clearly in "grid-lock," although 92% of those polled attributed the grid lock to "career" politicians such as Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy (Goldfish Collective, 1994). [A brief statement of a problem immediately recognizable by most citizens] Yet, although the public clearly sees "government by the few" as a serious problem, there is little to no consensus on a solution. [A transition to the argument for inadequacy of solutions]

Various solutions have been posed for this problem, ranging from mandatory term limits to the expansion of the two-party system to "free" television spots for all candidates. [Summary of inadequate solutions] In this paper, however, I will demonstrate that none of these proposed solutions will adequately solve the problem as long as funding for campaigns remains so inequitable. [Overview of argumentative strategy: critiquing other solutions] Instead, I will argue that the "best" solution lies in an option which has received little, if any, attention by the mainstream press: socialized campaigning wherein all campaigns are funded solely by the government and each candidate receives an equal amount of campaign funding. [Statement of thesis: goal of showing inadequacy of other solutions]

The Argument/Presentation of Evidence

The bulk of an argument is given over to supplying and presenting the evidence that supports a particular claim or position, refuting opposing arguments and making appeals to the logical, ethical and emotional sensibilities of the audience.

Acceptable Academic Evidence

Acceptable academic evidence depends a great deal on to whom it is going to be presented, the field in which they work, and the focus and goals of the position being argued. To be convincing it must be founded on fact, well reasoned, logical, and stand up against opposing arguments. Included will be a mix of facts, research findings, quotes, experience and the work of other people.

Logical and textual evidence is generally considered to be more authoritative-stronger and more convincing-than anecdotal evidence or emotional appeals. For it to be academically acceptable, the evidence must meet certain criteria:

• Evidence Must Come from a Reputable Source: Just because someone has written on a topic or issue doesn't mean your audience considers them an authority. Authority is judged by how much experience a source has, the viability of their research methods, and their prior reputation.
• Evidence Must Emerge from Acceptable Research Methods: If you are using any form of quantitative or qualitative research, look closely at the methods. A survey of 5 people is hardly persuasive. A survey of 100 may be acceptable in a sociology class, but not authoritative to an audience of scientists.
• Evidence must be Replicable: If you use an original study, replicating the same conditions and methods should produce the same results. Using the same sources, the same information should be found. Personal experience and observation are hard to replicate, however. The onus to be ethical and honest is on the author.
• Evidence Must be Authoritative and Factual: What counts as factual varies widely from discipline to discipline. Personal experience may be valued in a Women's Studies class, but it won't meet the criteria for a science paper. Your audience must consider all your evidence and sources authoritative.

Acceptable Field-Specific Academic Evidence

Acceptable "field-specific" academic evidence is a bit more complicated. Many disciplines are subdivided into niche fields, each of which may have differing criteria for defining acceptable evidence. For instance, textual evidence will be expected in the Speech Department's Rhetorical History and Theory classes, while the Mass Communications class will expect observational and qualitative research methods.

The best way to judge what constitutes acceptable evidence is by checking the reading assignments in your own class syllabus. Consider what types of evidence your professors use most often when discussing a certain issue or problem. Look at the bibliographies in your textbooks or in articles from other well-known books and journals. You will find many different kinds of evidentiary sources. Here is a list of the most common.

• Surveys are acceptable in many fields, particularly in journalism, communications, business management and sociology where knowing the reaction or feelings of many individuals regarding a specific issue is relevant. They are less acceptable in the biological and physical sciences.
• Observational Research is acceptable in many fields. Descriptive studies of human behavior are especially authoritative in education, anthropology communication, psychology, sociology and many other social sciences. They are less relevant when the object of study is more textual, as in history or literature.
• Case Studies are acceptable in the majority of fields as long as accepted methodologies are followed. Case studies are especially prevalent in the health and human behavior fields, human behavior, education, and business.
• Academic Journals and other reputable publications-including bona fide research studies-are acceptable sources in all academic fields. The key is the status of the publication. Popular magazines, for instance, generally have a lower status than journals, excepting in fields like political science, journalism and sociology where societal issues are often addressed.
• Popular Magazines are acceptable as evidence in fields where public opinion or current events are especially relevant such as political science or journalism. Even here, however, information is expected to be analyzed from an academic perspective unless only facts and events are being cited. Tabloids are seldom acceptable. Note: Depending on your topic, The New York Times might be acceptable.
• Biographical Information is generally not the best form of evidence unless you are actually writing a biographical or an historical paper. In other words, it's only acceptable if it's relevant. In most cases, what a person actually said, did, or discovered will be more useful and relevant.
• Quotes or Summaries of work from established authorities, those with reputations in their fields of study, are more authoritative than that of work from those with little to no experience or publication record on which to judge their expertise.
• Beliefs --defined as opinions or truths based on intuition, faith, or other intangibles-- that can't be backed Back or empirically verified are generally not acceptable in an academic argument. Exceptions may be made, depending on relevancy, for quoting a religious or theological authority.
• Opinions are acceptable only when they have been substantiated through prior examination. Quoting an expert or recognized authority, in other words, after they have already made a convincing argument, can be considered evidentiary. An unsubstantiated opinion from anyone, expert or otherwise, is not acceptable.
• Statistics are accepted in every academic discipline, especially those that rely heavily on quantitative research, like science and engineering. That said: many of the social sciences, like anthropology, psychology and business management, combine both quantitative and qualitative research making statistics just as applicable and acceptable in those fields as well.
• Personal Experience was not considered acceptable in an academic argument until recently. Gaining ground since the 1980's, it is particularly considered credible and acceptable in the humanities and liberal arts. More so, in other words, than in business, social sciences or any of the harder sciences, but that, too, is changing. Check with your professor and read your syllabus closely to find out if and how personal experience can be used as evidence in an argument.
• Interviewing an Authority is acceptable, both in-person and over the telephone, in almost every academic discipline. Their credibility is considered in a similar vein as academic journals and other reputable publications in which field-specific articles are printed.
• Interviewing an Ordinary Citizen can--in the manner of testing which way the wind is blowing--be useful as evidence of public opinion, but it is not acceptable in sBackport of a particular position itself in the same manner as that of an expert or an authority. For example, your roommate's opinion on the environment is not as authoritative as the head of the EPA's.
• Laboratory Research is most acceptable in the hard sciences; however, many of the social sciences (e.g., psychology) view it just as authoritatively. The only fields where laboratory research is less acceptable are in the humanities which rely almost heavily on textual evidence or observational and qualitative research.
• Textual Analysis --analyzing other people's research and drawing logical conclusions or interpreting texts and theory for inferences and evidence--is acceptable in almost every academic field. Highly regarded in the humanities fields, it is of lesser-though still authoritative-importance than any original lab or observational research done in the sciences.

Refuting Opposing Positions

Refuting opposing positions is an important part of building an argument. Not only is it important, it is expected. Addressing the arguments of those who disagree is a way of identifying the opposition and exposing the primary weakness(s) in their argument. Doing so helps establish the contextual parameters, or boundaries, in which your argument will be contained. It's best to start with a summary.

Summarizing the opposing positions demonstrates that you are being fair to the other side. It also allows you to set the table for the claims you are going to be laying out. Here are a few general guidelines for composing a summary:

• Provide only a sentence or two describing the focus of the opposing argument.
• Focus only on the details that will be important to what you are going to present.
• Avoid slanting the summary. It provides grounds for discounting your position.

For example:

George Will's editorial in Newsweek states that the reason "Johnny Can't Write" is the misguided nature of English teachers who focus more on issues of multiculturalism, political correctness, new theories of reading such as deconstruction, and so on, than on the hard and fast rules for paragraph development, grammar, and sentence structure. [Summary: A concise yet fair summary of Will's main argument.] Although Will interviews students and uses sample course descriptions to back up his opinion, he misses the main point: all the "fashionable" theories and approaches he decries have actually been proven to teach writing more effectively than the traditional methods he favors. [Refutation: The beginning of a refutation that will go on to show why Will's judgment is wrong.]

Using a Counter-Example

Using a counter-example, or an instance that flies in the face of the opposition's claim, is one way of refuting an opposing argument. If it can be shown that their research is inadequate, it can be shown that their position is faulty, or at least inconclusive. Casting a shadow of doubt over the opposing argument provides strong evidence that your argument has merit. Be sure to use real instances of how your opponent's position doesn't account for the counter-example.

As Henry Johnson, a vice-president of student services at the University of Michigan explained, "To discuss sexual assault is to send a message to your potential student cohort that it is an unsafe campus, and therefore institutions tend to play that down" (Warshaw, 1994). When deciding which university to attend, prospective students do compare statistics regarding the ratio of males to females, student to faculty and-yes-the incidence of crime. Therefore it is no surprise that more than 60 colleges rejected requests to conduct surveys concerning sexual assault at their schools even though anonymity was guaranteed (Warshaw, 1994). [The writer sets up the opponents' view that information about sexual assault on campus damages universities' reputations.]

Universities fear negative publicity, but at Bates College, a rally of 300 angry college students outside the president's house demanding to know why the college hadn't informed them of a recent series of sexual assaults on campus, did get publicized. This resulted in further negative publicity because it came out that the university, in order to cover-up the occurrence of sexual assaults, punished the assailants without providing fair trials (Gose, 1998). [The counter-example shows that even more negative publicity results from trying to hide sexual assault information.]

Outlining an Opposing Position

Outlining an opposing position, as with a summary, not only refutes or rebuts an argument; it's also a way in which to introduce your position. Explicitly addressing those who disagree provides an opportunity for demonstrating why the opposition is wrong, why a new position is better, where an argument falls short and, quite often, the need for further discussion.

Although there is obviously a strong case for introducing multicultural topics in the English classroom, not all would agree with the argument I've put forth here. One of the most vocal critics of my position is George Will. For example, Will's editorial in Newsweek states that the reason "Johnny Can't Write" is the misguided nature of English teachers who focus more on issues of multiculturalism, political correctness, and new theories of reading such as deconstruction than on the hard and fast rules of paragraph development, grammar, and sentence structure. [Summary: A concise yet fair summary of Will's main argument.]

Yet, as I have shown here, multicultural methods clearly do not interfere with teaching writing. [Refutation #1: Disproves Will's position by referring to research already cited.] Further, Will demonstrates a certain bit of nostalgia in this piece for "older ways" that, although persuasive, has no research, with the exception of Will's childhood memories, to back it up. [Refutation #2: Exposes a flaw in Will's argument.] Although most of us think the way we were taught must be the right way, such is not necessarily the case. We should neither confuse nostalgia with research nor memory with the best curriculum. [Opposing argument: Memory and research are not the same; thus, Will's point is wrong.]

Appealing to the Audience

Appealing to the audience is another important part of building an argument. In an academic argument, logical appeals are the most common, however, depending on your topic, ethical and emotional appeals may be used as well.

Logical Appeals

Logical appeals are a rational presentation of relationships constructed such that an audience will find them hard to refute. In most cases it ties together individual pieces of evidence, uniting the argument in a manner strong enough to persuade the audience to a consensus of opinion. In other cases, logical appeals bolster an argument where the weight of evidence is less dependable, as in the following:

• When tangentially related evidence is tied to the argument at hand because direct evidence is unavailable.
• When the evidence can be interpreted in a variety of ways and the writer needs to focus the audience on his or her version so that they may agree with the conclusion.
• When a connection between widely-accepted evidence and newly argued material needs to be established.

When we appeal to the logical sensibilities of an audience, we often rely on long-established relationships between events and facts. If we can show that one event leads to another, for instance, we are establishing a logical relationship (e.g., cause/effect, deductive reasoning, etc.). Because these relationships are deeply grounded in our thinking and language, they are relatively easy to use. Nonetheless, it will help to review the range of logical appeals available for writing arguments.

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect demonstrates how a given problem leads to effects which are detrimental or how the causes of a problem need to be addressed. In either case, the writer sets up a logical relationship based in causality as a key part of the argument, using other forms of proof to support their analysis of causes or effects.

In a paper arguing for a 35 hour work week for manual laborers, the writer supports her thesis by illustrating the logical effects of the current, 40 hour week on society: (1) more physical ailments, leading to higher health costs; (2) less time spent with family, leading to the further breakdown in the American family; (3) fewer job positions being open, leading to higher unemployment than necessary; (4) diminished quality of life, leading to psychological problems such as anger and depression. For each of the four effects, she must then prove through other forms of evidence that a plausible cause of these problems is the 40-hour work week to make her argument.

Compare and Contrast

Compare and contrast demonstrates how a given argument may be similar to or different from something that they already hold to be true. By logical extension, the similarity between the two gives your argument more persuasive power. Pointing to the differences between something held as fact and something you are arguing can convince the audience of its worthiness and allow you to focus only on the differences.

In a paper arguing that homosexuality should be protected as a civil right and arguing that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be outlawed, the writer demonstrates the similarities between sexual orientation and other "classes of people" protected by civil rights legislation (e.g., women, minorities, religious groups). The writer, then, logically appeals to the audience's belief that discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, or religion is wrong and asks that they accept the argument extending the same benefit to homosexuals.

Syllogistic Reasoning

Syllogistic reasoning demonstrates deductive logic and begins from the premise that a fact or opinion is inarguably true. Through a series of steps the writer demonstrates that the position being argued follows logically from that premise; an extension of what is already inarguably true. In another use of this appeal, the writer presents a series of facts from other sources and then draws a logical conclusion based on these facts, showing how each group of facts leads to a premise which the audience can accept as fact, and finally, how these premises, when put together, lead to a certain conclusion.

In a paper arguing for the agreement reached at the World Environmental conference banning the destruction of rain forests and other large forests, the writer attempts to show why the ban is a logical response to global warming. In his paper, the writer presents scientific authorities' descriptions of global warming and its main cause: a lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. He then presents other scientific evidence about how oxygen is produced on earth, through plant life. By syllogistic reasoning, the writer can then draw the conclusion that if global warming is caused by a lack of oxygen [premise #1] , and trees produce the most oxygen on earth as the largest form of plant life [premise #2] , then one way to slow global warming is to protect forests [conclusion] .

Classification

Classification demonstrates how previous research, the people contributing to a discussion, or the concepts and ideas important to an issue can help shape how an audience thinks about or perceives an issue. It groups people, research and opinions in ways that makes logical sense to your audience and sets up the means by which you can argue either for or against that which a group stands.

In a paper arguing for a certain interpretation of family values, the writer begins by looking at all the groups who profess to be in favor of such values (e.g., the religious right, President Clinton, feminists) and how they define such values differently. Grouping the other people who talk about the issue in this way then allows the writer to ally himself with certain groups and argue against others.

Definition demonstrates how to set the terms or parameters of an argument. Defining issues in terms that support your position frames the argument so that, through syllogistic reasoning, an audience can be lead logically to the conclusion you intend. To argue by definition, then, is to convince the audience that the definitions are reasonable, supportable and logical and, since your argument is based on them, your conclusions are as well.

In an editorial arguing for dismissing a given professor, the writer begins by defining what makes a "good" teacher: knowledge of topic, interest in student learning, a teaching style that holds students' attention, an ability to explain clearly difficult concepts, availability for conferences with students, and fair evaluation methods. Once a good teacher is defined in this way, the author can then demonstrate how Professor X has none of these qualities, proving his judgment with evidence at each point from student evaluations, interviews, etc. Logically, then, if Professor X does not fit the definition of a good teacher, the readers will reach the conclusion that he is a bad one and should be dismissed.

Ethical Appeals

Ethical appeals make use of what an audience values and believes to be good or true. Presented formulaically, it might look something like this:

Values held by audience + connection to your argument = an argument your audience values.

Ethical appeals are acceptable in most forms of academic argument; however, they are not a substitute for evidence or proof. Use them sparingly. Whatever you do, don't assume your ethical positions are shared by your audience as this may differ radically from one to another.

Typically, such appeals appear in the introduction or conclusion to demonstrate how the argument connects to a belief the audience already holds regardless of whether they have ever thought about your position in the same way before.

Arguing from an Ethical Basis

When arguing from an ethical basis, begin by subtly reminding readers of what it is that they are supposed to believe in and then show how your argument is a logical extension of that belief. For example:

Although most people wouldn't call themselves "feminists," it is difficult to find anyone in the 1990s society who doesn't believe women should receive equal pay for equal work. Equal pay, after all, is only fair and makes sense given our belief in justice and equal treatment for all citizens. [First two sentences remind audience what they believe.] However, the fact remains that no matter how commonsensical equal pay seems it is not yet a reality. Addressing the causes of unequal pay, then, is something that goes to the heart of American society, an individual's right to receive fair treatment in the workplace. [Second two sentences illustrate how this ethical belief is being violated, and thus, by logical extension, should be addressed.]

Discipline-Specific Arguments

In discipline-specific arguments, it is best to use an ethic or value shared within that community. For example:

As teachers, we constantly profess the belief that students should be in charge of their own learning. Arguably, a student-centered curriculum is one of the unquestioned values of educational studies. [First two sentences invoke a value within the field of education.] Although seemingly a radical idea, foregoing the teaching of grammar out of workbooks is simply an extension of this value. By working with grammatical mistakes in the context of a student's writing, we are merely gearing the curriculum to a student's needs and helping him/her "take charge" of their own writing. [The last two sentences show how what the author is arguing-teaching grammar in the context of student writing-is a logical extension of this value.]

Arguments for a General Audience

In arguments geared to a more general audience, cultural values may be more appropriate. For Example:

One of America's greatest commodities has been the field of science and medicine. During the four-year governmental ban on fetal tissue research, doctors went to other countries to perform transplants, thus exporting our ideas and innovations in this area to other countries (Donovan, 225). Why shouldn't we continue to be at the forefront of this research? Our technology, especially in medicine, is some of the best in the world, and this research could provide benefits for thousands of people. We need research to continue and to consistently show what exactly needs to be done in this procedure. [Highlights: First sentence invokes an American value-the strength of our medical technology-while the next sentence examines the ethics of exporting such technology without using it on the home front, something most Americans would protest. This sets the stage for the writer to argue for more research into this area.]

Emotional Appeals

Emotional appeals are generally frowned upon in academic circles for the simple reason that they tend to get in the way of logic and reason, the prerequisites of an academic argument. However, under the right circumstances, they can be quite effective. Drawing on our most basic instincts and feelings an emotional appeal can illustrate a truth or depict the reality of a fact in an emotive way far more compelling than a logical or ethical appeal. For example:

Studies show that women earn 80 cents to every dollar earned by a man. What these statistics don't illustrate well is the effect this lesser earning potential has on women's lives. Take Irma as an example. Irma works as a nurse in a major hospital, yet takes home only $250 a week. On this money, she must support her four children whose father abandoned them when the youngest was six months old. With rent at $700 a week, she has only $300 left over for food, clothing, and her own needs. As she describes it, "it's heartbreaking to have to tell my daughter that she has to wear hand-me-downs one more year to begin school or to tell my son that he can't join the baseball league because we can't afford the fee for the uniform. It's even worse when I watch them eat pasta day after day without complaint because our budget doesn't allow for much meat." It's even more frustrating, she explains, when she realizes not all nurses doing the same job are earning the same pay. "Last month, I heard one of the male nurses got a raise because he was supporting a family of four. What makes them think women aren't in the same situation?"

Be cautious using emotional appeals. They have no place in an academic argument if their purpose-as often seen in advertising and politics-is to deceive or distort. When appropriate, use them to introduce an argument that proceeds logically and is supported with acceptable forms of evidence (e.g., statistics, research studies) or, to follow, as a graphic or human illustration of what the evidence suggests.

The Conclusion

There are no hard and fast rules for constructing an argument's conclusion or that mandate what it should contain. Nevertheless, your conclusion should close out the presentation of your evidence in a clear, logical and thoughtful manner and leave the audience with some credible semblance that you have followed through on or fulfilled the promise of your introduction.

If the argument is open-ended, the conclusion should remind the audience of the specifics of the issue being argued, the position you have taken and give them something new to consider. If it is close-ended, it should justify your position. The conclusion is the place to pound home the central points of your argument and persuade the audience that, "given the evidence," your case is indisputable.

Depending on what message you most want to leave your audience with, you may want to conclude using one or more of the following strategies:

• Reflecting Introduction

Summarizing Key Points

Logical synthesis, evaluating the solution, call to action, emotional and ethical appeals, reflecting your introduction.

Reflecting back on your introduction will provide a sense of closure, particularly if you began by asking questions, or proposing a solution to a problem. Having provided the answers or explained the solution in the body of your argument, your concluding remarks provide an opportunity to restate the original questions or problem and show how your argument answered or resolved them. It is also an opportunity to show how your position adds to or changes the context of the issue at hand. For example:

Picture yourself stepping out into a backyard with just enough sturdy turf to be comfortable in a sea of drought-loving flowers such as cosmos, dianthus, columbine, and zinnias. The honeysuckle bushes and juniper hedges are alive with the buzzing of bees and the twittering of birds. At night as you lie down to sleep, you can once again hear crickets through the open window. All this and your mower and hoses have not been out of the shed for weeks!

Summarizing the Key Points of an argument is always a good idea and, in some disciplines, it's considered a standard conclusion. But more often, it is used in conjunction with other concluding remarks and strategies. Be careful not to overdo it: Unless you are presenting a complex argument, or relying on a variety of potentially confusing sub-arguments, a lengthy summary is unnecessary and, in fact, overkill. Be brief. For example:

The current sexual assault reporting rates among students is low because the victim often does not know what resources and options are available. In addition, ignorance, misconceptions and students' false sense of security undermine the sexual assault prevention efforts. The alarming result is that assailants are often unaware that they are assailants and victims unaware that they are victims.

The best way to fight this ignorance is education and, since that is the goal of a university, what better place to begin. Education about sexual assault may be difficult at first but eventually everyone, including the institution, will benefit. It will not only teach students how to succeed in the classroom and office, but how to succeed in life as well.

A logical synthesis of points made summarizes the individual steps taken to arrive at an argument's conclusion and is practically a requirement of an inductively organized presentation. In the body of an argument, each piece of evidence is laid out and examined individually. Synthesizing the logic behind each step pulls all those pieces together and demonstrates how each relates to another. Briefly reminding your audience of all these connections may be the best way to conclude, particularly if your argument is somewhat complicated or difficult to follow. For example:

Some find it easy to adopt a "they're getting what they deserve" attitude toward student binge-drinkers when they suffer the negative effects of their behavior. As long as they are adults making their own choices, and they are the only ones affected, why not let them do as they please? This attitude should not be tolerated for two reasons. First, many of these students are breaking the law by drinking before the age of 21. We cannot ignore this and allow these crimes to go unpunished. Second, they are not the only ones affected. The repercussions of binge-drinkers on non-drinkers living in dorms and Greek houses-the secondhand binge affects-should not be so lightly dismissed.

Wechsler writes, "It is no longer possible to view bingeing as solely the bingers' problem: non-bingeing students are paying too steep a price." On high-binge campuses, for example, that price includes student's sleep or study interrupted (68%), caring for a drunken student (54%), unwanted sexual advances (26%) and personal property damage (15%) (Wechsler 23-60). It is the non-drinking student we must keep especially in mind when we consider whether college binge-drinking is a problem worthy of our attention, or one we can afford to keep on ignoring. Writes Hingson, "Emphasis should be placed on protecting the rights of those [non-drinkers] negatively affected by binge drinkers" (54). All students have the right to be safe and happy at their university, and we cannot continue to allow binge drinkers to infringe upon that right.

Evaluating the Solution to a problem presented in the introduction is also an excellent way to conclude your argument. Since most of an argument focused on solving a problem presents the reasons why a particular solution is best, an evaluation of potential problems and how they might be addressed will leave your audience more convinced of the solution's validity and your objectivity. It provides an opportunity to examine, for the audience's benefit, the strengths and weaknesses of your position one last time before the end of the argument. For example:

A one-credit course would prove that the CSU did take effective steps to help and protect their students and therefore the university would not be found liable for the crime. "Colleges are the last chance that we have to educate young men and women about human relations, living together, competition, and fair play," stated Susan Ervin-Tripp, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley (Warshaw, 1994). This may also be the last chance that society has to give students the tools to prevent unnecessary sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and lifetimes full of severe emotional stress resulting from sexual assault crimes. [After arguing about the financial and legal liabilities the University might face if they don't institute a required course on preventing sexual assault, the writer moves back to a humane appeal about the long-term personal effects of sexual assault. This emotional appeal builds nicely on the rational appeal to this audience.] Colorado State University can use this chance to offer students a course that will teach them how to protect themselves, aid prevention, and report sexual assault crimes. CSU has a chance to make a huge difference in these students' lives, not only in the classroom but in life. As the U.S. Department of Justice stated so eloquently, "Experiences on campuses will be carried forth to everyday life and will influence future actions. Therefore, every effort to inform students may mean one less victim or one less crime committed" (US Dept. of Justice). Isn't this one student, who was given the tools to avoid a lifetime of shame, doubt, disgust, and depression, enough reward for only a half semester of education?

A call to action work best in deductive arguments that propose solutions to problems (e.g. social problems) or that point out what further research is needed. It takes an argument one step further by addressing what the point of convincing an audience was in the first place. If your goal was advocating some sort of change, and your argument is convincing, your conclusion provides an opportunity to suggest what actions an audience sold on your position can take to actualize that change. For example:

As with any new endeavor, we like to know what we are getting into. We like to know what the advantages and disadvantages are. Exploring every option is something people have been doing for centuries and will continue to do for many more. Fossil fuel studies have shown the world that we have dug much farther into the earth's resources than was probably necessary and that industry has gone too far in tapping the earth of oil and coal. Many scientists believe global climate change has been brought about by pollution resulting from the burning of these fossil fuels.

Maybe we will do something about this problem in the future or, maybe the time to act is right now. Maybe tomorrow is too late for saving the rain-forests. The people who are destroying these trees need an alternative energy source and need to learn more about emerging technologies that will save them from using up all their remaining resources. The sooner we educate ourselves and apply that knowledge toward a sustainable future, the sooner we will be able to offer help to regions of the world which are in dire need.

The sun has tremendous potential for clean, safe and renewable energy and should be exploited in all areas of the world. The future starts right here, right now, with you. It is essential that the simple, yet effective, steps outlined earlier are taken. Write your congressman today. The Solar Forum '97 is taking place this month in Washington. Decisions made there will ultimately affect us all for years to come. Subscribe to a "green" energy program in your area. In Fort Collins it would be the wind program, sponsored by Fort Collins Light and Power. The number to call is 970-221-6704. There are still open slots to fill. Take a look at Home Power Magazine and see how easy it is for renewable energy to fit into your lifestyle. You'll be glad you did. I know I am.

Emotional and ethical appeals prompt your audience to care about an issue on more than an intellectual level. As with introductions, conclusions are an excellent place to do this because it reminds your audience that your position is not merely an academic one, but one that has consequences for real people. Concluding on emotional and ethical grounds provides an opportunity to strengthen the appeal of you position. For example:

The safety of our society is directly influenced by the correct handling of our household hazardous waste. Everyone uses dangerous chemicals every day and the dangers are astounding when they aren't disposed of in a proper and professional manner. In an age of many chemicals, we must be careful not to put each other, our pets, and our environment in harm's way: We do not need sanitation workers losing their lives or are pets poisoned. In a country with a population the size of the United States, it is necessary that every homeowner ensure a healthy environment for everyone-plants and animals included-by taking precautions when disposing of hazardous waste. It is the job of every responsible citizen to ensure that others are not put at risk when disposing of chemicals.

Using evidence, much of which comes from published sources, is an essential part of constructing an argument and proper documentation of those sources is an essential part of convincing your audience that you are credible. All facts and figures, paraphrases, opinions, and quotes from other sources must be cited using specific citation formats such as footnotes, in-text notes, end-notes and bibliographies.

LeCourt, Donna, Kate Kiefer, & Peter Connor. (1996). Understanding the Parts of an Argument. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. at https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=54

Find what you need to study

5.2 Presenting an argument for context, purpose, and/or audience

11 min read • january 8, 2023

In AP Research, 25% of your final AP score will come from a presentation and oral defense. In this guide, we’ll be covering tips to ace them both. 

Information comes from the College Board’s AP Research CED.

Adapting The Argument

According to the College Board, your presentation should be “a presentation of your research question , research methodology , and findings ,” about 15 minutes long. Your final research paper should be 4000-5000 words long — if you were to read the whole paper, it would take much longer than 15 minutes! (It would also not be very fun.) This means you’ll need to adapt your argument from paper format to presentation format.

How do you do this? 

Let’s use the College Board’s Presentation Rubric as a guide. Looking at the highest-scoring category, the best presentations include: 

The research question /project goal 

The research method 

The research “argument, conclusion or understanding.” (What were your findings ? What conclusions did you draw from them?)

An argument that “identifies and explains the consequences and/or implications made in the conclusion. 

An explanation of how steps in the research process led to the above conclusion. 

Turning an argument from paper format to presentation format is fundamentally about picking and choosing the important points.

Furthermore, adaptation requires an understanding of the medium you’re adapting into. In this case, you’re turning a paper into a presentation. Presentations are visual and auditory where papers are only black and white words on a page. When making a presentation, you’ll have to consider the visuals you’ll include and your method of speaking, things you wouldn’t have to consider when writing your paper. 

It may be helpful to start by making slides with nothing but what you want to say on them. After you have a plan for your presentation, you can remove the text and add in visuals. 

Slide Design Tips

Always ask yourself as you go: does this visual contribute to my audience’s understanding?

It can help to use a slide template so that your slides are pre-formatted.

Make sure you have permission to use any images you use! You can get around this by only using stock images.

Remember that in addition to pictures and words, you can add tables and charts to your slides. Data can be presented visually instead of verbally through these mediums, boosting audience engagement.

It’s a good idea to minimize the number of words written on your slides. People will read your slide or listen to you talk, but they won’t do both. 

Note that while a lot of AP Research presentations use powerpoint slides, not all of them have to. As long as you’re meeting the rubric guidelines, you can present however you want. Outside of AP Research, you’ll find that not every argument is presented in the same way: some arguments are more effective when presented in a video or a speech, or even a work of fiction, then they would be as a powerpoint presentation. 

Presentation Skills

We’ve discussed presentation skills in Big Idea 5 of AP Seminar, and the skills you used there will also be helpful here. 

The biggest difference between AP Seminar’s presentations and AP Research’s presentations is the length of the presentation. In some ways, it’s easier to create a 15 minute presentation because you get more time to talk, but it can also be challenging to speak for that long. 

Audience Appropriate Language and the Elements of Delivery

No matter the length of the presentation, there are two things you should keep in mind when presenting: audience appropriate language and elements of delivery.

You’ll be presenting to people outside of your discipline for your final presentation. As a result, you’ll need to present in a language appropriate to that audience. This may mean defining terms known by people in your discipline or removing technical terms from your work. 

Elements of delivery are… elements of your presentation delivery! These include your volume, tempo, movement, eye contact, vocal variety, and energy. Every presentation and every presenter has a different way of using the elements of delivery.

The important thing is that you use these elements, and indeed every part of your presentation, to effectively communicate with your audience. For example, a common piece of advice given about presentations is that you shouldn’t just read off of notecards or a paper. This is because the paper puts a literal barrier between you and your audience, and prevents you from making eye contact and gauging how they react to your words. In this example, the key goal is fostering communication. 

Finally, you should always practice your presentation before you give it! It can be challenging to practice a 15 minute presentation. That said, even one run through will help you identify weak points in your presentation and verify that your presentation has an appropriate length. If you’d like even more practice, you can practice in front of a camera (nobody needs to see the footage but you!) or enlist a volunteer to listen and critique. The only way to become better at presenting, is (unfortunately) presenting more.

Oral Defense

Now that the presentation’s over, can you breathe a sigh of relief? Nope! You’ve gotta go through the Oral Defense.

In the Oral Defense, you will be asked about 3-4 questions about your research and the research process . Fortunately, you’ll have access to the questions beforehand: I’ve made a copy of them below: (Found on page 59 of the CED.)

Oral Defense Questions

Research/Inquiry Process [choices made throughout the research process ]

1. How did your initial exploration of the scholarly conversation lead to your final research

question/project goal?

2. How did your review of the methods used by scholars in the field inform your selection of a

research method/process that is aligned with your research question /project goal?

3. How did the choices you made when designing or implementing your research method

impact your research process ?

4. How did you determine which results generated by your research method were most

important in informing your new understanding?

Depth of Understanding [relating student data/results to the new understanding]

1. How does your new understanding address a gap in the scholarly conversation?

2. How did the limitations of your method or data influence your new understanding?

3. What are the real-world implications or consequences related to your findings ?

4. How do your findings provide directions for future research in the field?

Reflection Throughout the Inquiry Process [how the inquiry process informs growth and self-awareness as a researcher]

1. Think back to the initial curiosity that sparked your inquiry. What other curiosities do you have

and how has this process prepared you to explore them?

2. How did you handle the uncertainty of the research process ?

3. If you could revisit your research process , what would you do differently and why?

4. What was the most important research skill you developed as a result of this process, and

how might you apply it to your future endeavors?

5. How did your expert adviser facilitate your deeper understanding of the research process ?

Note: This question should only be asked if the student engaged with an expert adviser .

Take a moment to read through these questions and start brainstorming answers to them! 

Tips for Success!

Here are some tips for Oral Defense success on the day of: 

It’s okay to ask for a minute to think or for your questioner to repeat the question if you don’t understand.

Focusing your answer on one or two solid examples can help make your answers clear and focused.

Most of all, be confident! You made your choices, stand by them! 

In the next guide, we’ll talk about two processes that might make all of this easier: self-reflection and peer review.

Let’s use the College Board’s description and rubric as a guide. Take a look at a picture of the rubric here: 

{ADD PICTURE}

Looking at the highest-scoring category, the best presentations include: 

Note that while a lot of AP Research presentations use powerpoint slides, not all of them have to. As long as you’re meeting the rubric guidelines, you can present however you want. Outside of AP Research, you’ll find that not every argument is presented in the same way: some arguments are more effective when presented in a video or a speech, or even a work of fiction, than they would be as a powerpoint presentation. 

Research Tip: If you’re stuck, take a look at other people’s AP Research Presentations! (You can find recordings online.) 

Elements of delivery are… elements of your presentation delivery! These include your volume, tempo, movement, eye contact, vocal variety, and energy. Every presentation and every presenter has a different way of using the elements of delivery. The important thing is that you use these elements to effectively communicate with your audience. For example, a common piece of advice given about presentations is that you shouldn’t just read off of notecards or a paper. This is because the paper puts a literal barrier between you and your audience, and prevents you from making eye contact and gauging how they react to your words. In this example, the key goal is fostering communication. 

Key Terms to Review ( 9 )

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Different Ways of Presenting an Argument

Angela has taught middle and high school English, Business English and Speech for nine years. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology and has earned her teaching license.

Table of Contents

Presenting an argument, topical strategy, chronological order, strongest-weakest, weakest-strongest, lesson summary.

All writing has a goal. It might be to entertain, to express feelings, to inform, or a number of other purposes. Another of those objectives might be to outline an argument , which uses information on a specified topic with the goal of persuading others to believe or support the idea. When writing any type of persuasive piece, you need to choose an appropriate method for presenting your information. Let's look at several options you have for structuring an argument.

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A topical strategy is one way to present your material. In this method, you order your information by matter of relevance or importance in regards to current events.

Imagine you are writing an argument either in support of or against the importance of religion in the government of the United States. If you structure your piece topically, you will begin with the issues that are currently impacting society. For instance, two controversial issues right now are same-sex marriage and the abortions occurring at Planned Parenthood. Start your writing discussing these issues in relation to religion and our government. Then, move onto other issues that might not be as relevant today, but still support your argument. An example could be the scandal involving child-molestation in the Catholic Church from the early 2000s. Write your whole argument going from most relevant to least.

A topical structure for your argument can be a very effective method. This is due to the fact that you begin with the ideas and issues that are currently in the news. People are always more interested in what is going on right now.

A second method is to structure your argument in chronological order , or order of sequence of time.

To use this method, begin your argument at the earliest time frame that makes sense to do so. For example, if you were aiming to persuade your reader that women have been stuck in stereotypical roles in literature, look for examples from the earliest recorded written works. One of the oldest works of English literature is the epic poem Beowulf , which details the life of a warrior king. If you can find an example from this poem that supports your argument, begin with this support. Then, move into any examples from writings from the Middle Ages, like Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales . Next, you can look for examples from the works of William Shakespeare. Advance your argument as you advance in time, with your final examples coming from works of fiction written recently.

Chronological order can also be a very effective strategy. By ordering your examples and main ideas following the sequence of time, you will be stressing how your main point has persisted through history, which in turn emphasizes the importance of your argument.

The next strategy you can use to structure an argument is strongest-weakest . For this method, begin with the strongest point of your argument and end with your weakest.

Imagine you are writing a persuasive essay with the goal of arguing that stem cell research is the future of modern medicine. When using the strongest-weakest format, begin with your strongest support. This might be the medical research you have found where stem cells have cured patients from disease. From here, you would move onto your lesser reasons.

This method also has its advantages. Oftentimes, people tend to remember the first detail mentioned in an argument. Thus, you could make a better impression by beginning with your strongest reasons. In addition, if you end with your weaker points, you can always relate those ideas back to your stronger point. This way, you are constantly reminding your reader of your best support for your argument.

The final method to use for structuring an argument is weakest-strongest , which is the opposite of the previous method. Here, you actually begin with the weakest point of your argument and end with the strongest point.

Imagine you are running for President of the United States. You are on the steps of the Capital Building in Washington D.C. and giving a speech on why you are the best candidate. Would you want to end that speech on your weakest point? Probably not. Instead, you would want to end on a high note with the most important reason you are the best person for the job. In this case, begin with your weaker reasons and save your best support for the end. This way, you will have a much stronger effect on your audience, and they will leave your speech with your strongest point ringing in their ears.

This example demonstrates when the weakest-strongest strategy can be effective. In a situation where you are giving a speech, all your weaker points will lead up to your final reason, which allows you to really emphasize your best support in your argument.

To review, there are several different ways of presenting an argument, which has the purpose of persuading others to agree or support your claim. Here are four possible strategies for structuring an argument.

• Topical - begin with your support that is most relevant to today's society.
• Chronological Order - organize your support in sequence of time.
• Strongest-Weakest - begin your argument with your strongest support and end with your weakest.
• Weakest-Strongest - begin your argument with your weakest support, leading into your strongest.

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Listening to And Representing an Argument

Step 1 : Are you listening?

Truly listening? Even now, as you read these words.

Are you listening actively, thoughtfully?

It can be trickier than it seems.

As Sherlock Holmes once admonished Dr. Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.” Explaining the distinction, Holmes notes that Watson has climbed the staircase of their lodgings at 221B Baker Street hundreds of times and yet cannot say how many steps it takes to reach the top. Observation, Holmes tells Watson, goes beyond merely seeing. To observe one must endeavor to take the measure of what has been seen.

Listening, like observation, requires that we not only hear, but take the measure of what has been heard, or read.

In English 1213 , the Unit 1 assignment: “Listening to and Representing an Argument” asks students to critically consume an argument made for a particular audience . In other words, the first essay asks you to listen .

More specifically, it asks you to listen to an argument . Then, to demonstrate how well you have taken the measure of that argument—i.e., how well you have listened—it asks you to accurately, and fairly, explain that argument to a reader.

Throughout Writing Spaces at OSU, each section of this text identifies concepts and tools that will help you successfully complete the major essays in the 1213 assignment sequence. Subsequent assignments ask you to analyze and evaluate an argument (Unit 2) , research a scholarly conversation (Unit 3) , and participate in a scholarly conversation by formulating a unique argument (Unit 4) .

But first comes the listening .

Step 2 : Are you still listening?

The Unit 1 section of Writing Spaces at OSU is comprised of four short chapters:

• What Is “Academic” Writing? (L. Lennie Irvin)
• So You’ve Got a Writing Assignment. Now What? (Corrine E. Hinton)
• Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment (Catherine Savini)
• Why Visit Your Campus Writing Center? (Ben Rafoth)

Each of these essays addresses a question or concern that students often encounter with this first assignment. For many students, the most pressing of these issues can be simply how to begin.

Student writers often feel some degree of anxiety, dread, or even just nervous energy when introduced to a new assignment, in large part due misconceptions about what academic writing entails. Likewise, concerns over page length , due date , and assessment frequently overshadow considerations of genre , topic , and learning outcomes . Each reading in this section offers guidance on how to negotiate these issues, as well as how to generate topic ideas , develop an argument , and make good use of the campus writing center .

But again… first comes the listening .

Step 3: So, what am I supposed to be listening for exactly?

As you read through the essays in this section, note how each emphasizes the importance of first deciphering the assignment . In other words, before committing a single word to the page, your first step in the writing process should be forming a clear understanding of the type of writing you are being asked to perform, and the expectations generated by the rhetorical context in which that writing act is situated. In other words, you need to begin by listening carefully to what the instructions ask you to do—what specific writing tasks are you required to perform? What learning outcomes is your writing expected to demonstrate?

You might think that simply reading over the assignment sheet should be enough to answer these questions. But deciphering assignments, like listening, can be trickier than it seems.

Ask any group of college freshmen to identify the purpose of an assignment and many are likely to answer, “to get an A.” Ask them to identify the audience and some will answer, “the instructor.” Ask what qualities a successful essay should demonstrate, and likely responses might include practicing good grammar , punctuation , organization , style and flow . While these responses may all be true, after a fashion, they also tend to be equally applicable to just about any piece of writing, and therefore a bit useless at improving your understanding of the current assignment. See my point? Still listening…?

One worthwhile approach to improving this understanding, it would seem, might be identifying the specific writing tasks and expectations that make each assignment unique rather than those things that tend to be universally applicable. For example, the first major writing assignment in English 1213 specifically asks that you listen to and represent an argument .

Perhaps a good place to begin then, might be simply asking yourself “What exactly does that mean— listen to and represent an argument ?” Herein, you might think that simply reading over an argument and then summarizing what you have read would be enough to perform the above tasks. But learning to listen to an argument , like learning to listen to music , requires you to do more than merely hear and then repeat back what you have heard. Rather, the assignment asks that you take the measure of the composition , count its steps, identify the composition’s component parts , and describe for the reader how those parts—purpose, claims, evidence—work together to comprise the whole.

This is what it means to listen to and represent an argument .

First, by deciphering the assignment itself.

Then, by deciphering the argument .

And lastly, by composing an essay that demonstrates how well you have taken the measure of each. Your completion of the writing tasks, along with your description of the argument , reflect your understanding of what you have been asked to do, and your understanding of how to do it.

Keep in mind, it takes it a bit of time and practice to learn how to do these things.

For this reason, Unit 1 (and the accompanying readings) are geared toward helping you practice this skill set. Incidentally, this is a skill set that tends to come in handy. Not just for this course, or for your academic career, but more broadly as a life skill. Later essays in the 1213 curriculum will ask you to practice and perform additional writing tasks.

But first comes the listening. Always the listening .

Step 4: And now for a word about argument…

Hopefully the emphasis on argument in in English 1213 has not escaped your attention. When we use the word argument in this context, like the word critical , it should be read with a neutral connotation . To present an argument does not mean a heated exchange or verbal disagreement. Instead, it conveys the act of presenting reasons or evidence as means of supporting a position for the purpose of evaluating that position’s validity .

Likewise, our use of the word critical does not necessarily mean to criticize or find fault, but simply to critique —to offer a detailed analysis or interpretation of a text. Think of a film critic, for instance, who routinely highlights positive as well as negative aspects of a movie.

Much of the work you do in this course will be predicated on your recognition of argument and critical as neutral terms . Consider the stage of your writing process when you receive feedback on a draft or your finished essay. This critique of your writing may be neutral, but in some instances, it can feel very personal. Keep in mind, learning to listen to critical feedback , truly listen, also requires practice. And patience. Just like writing .

Step 5: Thank you for listening.

Please keep reading. And listening. Always the listening.

Writing Spaces at Oklahoma State University Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Joshua Daniel; Dr. Kathy Essmiller; Mark DiFrusio; Natasha Tinsley; Dr. Josiah Meints; Dr. Courtney Lund O'Neil; Dane Howard; and Roseanna Recchia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Lesson Share: Presenting convincing arguments

By Gabrielle Jones

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Gabrielle Jones wins the lesson share competition with a useful lesson on how to formulate convincing arguments and give structured opinions when debating a topic.

Presenting convincing arguments: Lesson plan

• Business / ESP
• Up to 60 mins
• Upper-Intermediate
• Whole Class

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Moyle v. United States Oral Arugment

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Moyle v. United States , a consolidated case on whether a federal law allowing emergency abortion ca… read more

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Moyle v. United States , a consolidated case on whether a federal law allowing emergency abortion care at hospitals receiving Medicare funding preempts Idaho’s ban on nearly all abortions. Under the 2020 Defense of Life Act there are very limited exceptions for abortions in the state. An abortion can only occur if it is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” or in cases of rape or incest. This law took effect in August 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade . The Biden administration filed suit against Idaho arguing its abortion law conflicts with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires emergency care including abortions if needed. close

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Judge to allow new argument in rape case involving former Illinois basketball player; multiple KU players may be called as witnesses

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Former Illinois basketball player Terrence Edward Shannon at his preliminary hearing on Friday, May 10, 2024, in Douglas County District Court. Shannon was ordered to stand trial on a rape charge for an incident at a Lawrence bar in September 2023.

A former University of Illinois basketball player accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Lawrence bar can present evidence to suggest another patron at the bar may have committed the assault.

A Douglas County judge made the ruling on Friday in the case of former Illinois basketball player Terrence Edward Shannon. District Court Judge Amy Hanley made the ruling after viewing a video that shows a man who previously has been accused of sexual assault being near the victim in the same small, crowded area of the bar at the time the assault was alleged to have occurred.

The name of the man was not revealed in court on Friday. However, court records show that Shannon’s defense lawyers had recently requested and received police reports and an arrest affidavit related to former KU’s men’s basketball team member Arterio Morris. The defense on Friday later went on to describe previous criminal complaints filed against the unnamed man, and those complaints closely follow those made against Morris, including being on the same day, Aug. 26, 2023.

Shannon’s charging documents regarding the alleged assault list multiple former or current KU basketball players as having been at the bar at the time of the alleged assault. Court records show three current or former KU men’s basketball players have been issued subpoenas and may be called as witnesses in the upcoming trial.

Shannon, 23, of Champaign, Illinois, is charged in Douglas County District Court with one felony count of rape or, in the alternative, one felony count of aggravated sexual battery, according to charging documents. His trial — which is expected to be followed nationally by sports media due to Shannon’s status as a top NBA prospect — is set to begin on Monday.

The incident is alleged to have occurred on Sept. 9, 2023, at the Jayhawk Cafe, 1340 Ohio St., while Shannon was in Kansas to attend a KU football game against Illinois. The woman testified in May that Shannon grabbed her by the bottom and violated her under her skirt.

Shannon’s attorney, Tricia Bath, of Leawood, argued on Friday that the unnamed third party may have been responsible for the alleged assault.

Attorney Tricia Bath appears on June 7, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

Bath said the third party is a possible suspect in the case because after reviewing surveillance video from the bar of the alleged incident, the third party is in the same 9-square-foot area of the crowded bar along the same 2-foot wall.

Bath said the third party’s presence near the woman is relevant because he was previously accused of a similar act less than two weeks earlier in the same Lawrence bar and in the same location within that bar. In that alleged incident, the victim was wearing leather pants and the sexual assault amounted to groping over the clothes, Bath said.

That allegation was never pursued by police, though, despite there being an affidavit filed with the DA’s office in support of the third party’s arrest, Bath said. She said it may have been because the third party was accused of raping the woman later that night and police may have focused on that incident instead. She said that police the night of the incident involving Shannon knew that the third party was there and that he had been accused of a similar crime, but for whatever reason they did not question the third party the night of the incident.

“(Police) failed to run down a witness who might have been a suspect,” Bath said.

Morris, 21, of Dallas, was eventually charged with rape in connection with the August incident and those charges led to Morris’ dismissal from the men’s basketball team. However, those charges were later dismissed due to insufficient evidence, as the Journal-World reported. Bath, without mentioning Morris’ name, referred to a rape case matching that description and date on multiple occasions Friday.

That rape case and the incident described above in which a woman said she was groped over her clothes both happened on the same night and involved the same woman and the same suspect, and the defense says that suspect is the third party who was in the bar on the night that Shannon has been accused of sexual assault. Bath, the attorney, said she does not intend to bring up the rape allegation in Shannon’s trial, only the allegations that occurred at the bar.

The state argued in a motion filed by Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden that the defense should not be allowed to present any evidence about the third party. Seiden, in his written motion, said the allegations that the third party groped a woman at the same bar two weeks earlier are unrelated to the allegations against Shannon.

Seiden’s motion also noted that the alleged victim identified Shannon as the man who assaulted her, and the presence of the third party at the bar does nothing to diminish the validity of that identification.

Judge Hanley, though, ruled that that third party’s presence could be considered legally relevant to Shannon’s defense. Hanley said that she had reviewed the video and she found that the suspected third party’s presence in the same small area at the time of the allegations makes the introduction of the third party admissible.

Shannon is set to go to trial on Monday. He is currently free on a $50,000 bond.

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Here’s what every key witness said at Donald Trump’s hush money trial

This combination photo shows, top row from left, Michael Cohen on May 14, 2024, in New York, Stormy Daniels on May 23, 2018, in West Hollywood, Calif., Hope Hick on Feb. 27, 2018, in Washington, and bottom row from left, Jeffrey McConney on Nov. 15, 2022, in New York, David Pecker on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York and Madeleine Westerhout on April 2, 2018, in Washington. After 22 witnesses, testimony is over at former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York. Prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers are scheduled to make their closing arguments Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo)

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NEW YORK (AP) — After 22 witnesses, including a porn actor, tabloid publisher and White House insiders, testimony is over at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York.

Prosecutors called 20 witnesses. The defense called just two. Trump decided not to testify on his own behalf.

What to know:

• Prosecutors and defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial delivered closing arguments to the jury after more than four weeks of testimony.
• Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison.
• A verdict might not come by the end of the week.
• Follow AP’s live coverage of Trump hush money trial.

The trial now shifts to closing arguments, scheduled for Tuesday.

After that, it will be up to 12 jurors to decide whether prosecutors have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified his company’s business records as part of a broader effort to keep stories about marital infidelity from becoming public during his 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.

A conviction could come down to how the jurors interpret the testimony and which witnesses they find credible. The jury must be unanimous. The records involved include 11 checks sent to Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as invoices and company ledger entries related to those payments.

Here’s a look at key trial witnesses and what they had to say:

STORMY DANIELS

In this courtroom sketch, Stormy Daniels testifies on the witness stand as Judge Juan Merchan looks on in Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in New York.. A photo of Donald Trump and Daniels from their first meeting is displayed on a monitor. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

As Trump sat feet away, the porn actor, writer and director, gave a detailed and at times graphic account of a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in Nevada in 2006. After they met at a celebrity golf tournament, she said, Trump invited her to dinner but then engaged her in conversation in his hotel room and startled her by stripping to his underwear while she was in the bathroom.

“I felt the room spin in slow motion. I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet,” Daniels testified. “I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’ Because the intention was pretty clear, somebody stripped down in their underwear and posing on the bed, like waiting for you.”

Daniels said Trump did not physically threaten her, but “my own insecurities in that moment kept me from saying no.” Daniels said she kept in touch with Trump for about a year in hopes of appearing on his TV show “The Apprentice,” but it never happened.

Daniels spoke about accepting $15,000 for a magazine interview in 2011. The story was not printed at the time but ended up on a gossip website without her consent. Her lawyer, in consultation with Cohen, complained and had the story taken down.

In 2016, Daniels authorized her manager to shop her story again but found little interest until the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump boasting about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission.

Daniels told the jury she accepted $130,000 from Cohen in the final weeks of the election in exchange for a legal agreement to keep the claim to herself.

Trump’s lawyers grilled Daniels about her motivation , eliciting testimony that she hates the former Republican president. She pushed back on the defense’s suggestion that her story was fabricated, saying if it was fiction, “I would have written it to be a lot better.”

Daniels’ testimony was among the most awaited in the trial. She had shared her story before, but this was the first time she testified about it in front of Trump. Trump’s lawyers objected to much of Daniels’ testimony and twice sought a mistrial, arguing that her feelings of a power imbalance with Trump and her blunt answers about the alleged sexual encounter should not have been put before the jury.

DAVID PECKER

Defense attorney Emil Bove, left, cross examines David Pecker on the witness stand with Judge Juan Merchan presiding, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

A longtime Trump friend, Pecker was the publisher of the National Enquirer and chief executive of its parent company, American Media Inc., during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Pecker told the jury he agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s campaign , looking out for damaging stories so they could be suppressed. He said he agreed to the role — and to a plan to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents — at an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen.

“If there were any rumors in the marketplace about Mr. Trump or his family or any negative stories that were coming out or anything that I heard overall,” Pecker said, “I would call Michael Cohen directly.”

He said he told the National Enquirer’s editor at the time, Dylan Howard, “that we are going to try to help the campaign, and to do that, I want to keep this as quiet as possible.”

Pecker testified that the company squashed one potential story by paying $30,000 to a Trump Tower doorman. It paid $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to keep her from going public with a claim that she had had a yearlong affair with Trump.

But when Daniels came forward, Pecker said, he told Howard: “I am not a bank, and we are not paying out any further disbursements or monies.”

Instead, he alerted Cohen that Daniels was shopping a story about Trump , and let the lawyer handle it. Trump denies having sex with either McDougal or Daniels.

When The Wall Street Journal reported, just days before Election Day, that the Enquirer had paid McDougal, Pecker said Trump was upset, saying, “How could this happen? I thought you had this under control?”

“Our call ended very abruptly,” Pecker said. “He didn’t say goodbye, which was very unusual.”

KEITH DAVIDSON

A lawyer known for representing people trying to sell celebrity sex tapes or other embarrassing information, Davidson negotiated the hush money deals for McDougal and Daniels. He gave jurors an inside look at the negotiations and helped corroborate Pecker’s testimony .

At first, Davidson said, the National Enquirer was not interested in acquiring McDougal’s story , saying she “lacked documentary evidence.” But the tabloid eventually bought it at Pecker’s behest. Davidson said he understood it would never be published because of “an unspoken understanding that there was an affiliation” between Pecker and Trump and that the National Enquirer would not run the story “because it would hurt Donald Trump.”

Davidson said he dealt directly with Cohen, never with Trump. While Cohen may not have explicitly stated he was working on Trump’s behalf, Davidson said he felt the implication was clear.

Davidson testified that about a month after Trump won the election, Cohen complained in a phone conversation that the president-elect hadn’t yet paid him back for the $130,000 payment to Daniels.

MICHAEL COHEN

Michael Cohen testifies on the witness stand with a National Enquirer cover story about Donald Trump displayed on a screen in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Cohen, a flawed but vital prosecution witness , testified about working with the National Enquirer to suppress negative stories about Trump. Cohen insisted he was working at Trump’s direction when the lawyer helped orchestrate the payments to McDougal and Daniels.

Cohen testified that he kept the detail-oriented Trump updated on the payoffs .

Regarding the decision to pay Daniels, Cohen said Trump felt it was best to buy her silence.

“He stated to me that he had spoken to some friends, some individuals, very smart people, and that it’s $130,000. You’re like a billionaire. Just pay it. There is no reason to keep this thing out there. So do it,” Cohen said.

“And he expressed to me: Just do it. Go meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure this whole thing out,” Cohen said, referring to the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer at the time.

Testifying over the course of four days, Cohen told the jury he sought Trump’s approval for the Daniels payment because “everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off. On top of that, I wanted the money back.”

When it briefly looked like the deal with Daniels might fall apart, Cohen said Trump got “really angry with me,” saying, “I thought you took care of this?”

Cohen used money he borrowed money from a bank to make the $130,000 payment to Daniels. Trump later reimbursed him. How Trump’s company recorded those reimbursements — paid out of a Trump trust and personal accounts — is the core of the prosecution’s case. Cohen said he submitted monthly invoices for a year for legal work he never actually performed, pursuant to a purported retainer agreement that he said did not exist.

Cohen said he discussed the reimbursement plan with Trump at the White House in February 2017. He recalled that Trump asked him whether he needed money, then promised a check soon would cover the first two months of invoices, totaling $70,000.

Jurors also heard a secret recording Cohen made of a meeting he had with Trump in 2016 in which he briefed his boss about the plan to buy McDougal’s story.

Trump’s lawyers have fought to discredit Cohen, pressing him on his own criminal history, past lies and his recollection of key details . On cross-examination, Cohen admitted stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company by asking to be reimbursed for money he had not spent. Cohen acknowledged once telling a prosecutor he felt that Daniels and her lawyer were extorting Trump. Cohen also insisted he did not actually commit some crimes to which he pleaded guilty in 2018, including bank fraud and tax evasion. In that case, Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and to campaign finance violations .

Cohen is the linchpin of the prosecution case, the only witness to testify that Trump had direct involvement in arranging his repayment. The verdict could hinge on whether jurors believe him.

Trump’s former campaign and White House communications director, Hicks testified about the frenetic days after the “Access Hollywood” leak as she and Trump’s political advisers tried to contain the fallout. Hicks said she was “very concerned” about the impact of the tape and she subsequently asked Cohen to chase down a rumor about another potentially damaging recording, which turned out not to exist.

Hicks said that after The Wall Street Journal published its article detailing McDougal’s hush money deal, Trump was concerned about how his wife, Melania, would take it.

“He wanted me to make sure the newspapers weren’t delivered to their residence that morning,” Hicks said.

When news of the Daniels payoff started to emerge in 2018, Cohen initially told reporters he made the payment with his own money and without Trump’s knowledge. Hicks said Trump also told her “that Michael had paid this woman to protect him from a false allegation, and that Michael felt like it was his job to protect him, and that’s what he was doing. And he did it out of the kindness of his own heart.”

She said, however, that it was “out of character” for Cohen to take such an action on his own.

“I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” Hicks said. “He’s the kind of person who seeks credit.”

ROBERT COSTELLO

Judge Juan Merchan, left, castigates witness Robert Costello about his “decorum” in the courtroom in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 20, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Trump’s lawyers called Costello, an attorney and ex-federal prosecutor, as their primary witness in a terse defense case aimed at undermining Cohen’s credibility.

After the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018, Costello offered to become his lawyer. He told the jury that during their first meeting, Cohen paced anxiously, saying his life, and his family’s life, had been “shattered.”

“He said: ‘I really want you to explain to me what my options are. What’s my escape route?’” Costello said.

Costello said Cohen also insisted that he had made the Daniels deal on his own, that Trump “knew nothing” about it, and that Cohen had no incriminating information about Trump he could offer to federal prosecutors.

“I swear to God, Bob. I don’t have anything on Donald Trump,” Costello quoted Cohen as saying.

Prosecutors countered that Costello, who was close to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, cozied up to Cohen to keep him loyal to Trump.

In one email, Costello told Cohen: “Sleep well tonight. you have friends in high places,” and relayed that there were “some very positive comments about you from the White House.”

Cohen ultimately chose other lawyers.

OTHER NOTABLE WITNESSES

JEFFREY McCONNEY: The Trump Organization’s former controller testified about working with Weisselberg to set up payments to Cohen, including reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, a bonus and money for taxes.

RHONA GRAFF: Trump’s former executive assistant testified about adding McDougal’s and Daniels’ contacts to Trump’s contact list in the company’s computer system, the latter listed simply as “Stormy.” Graff also said she had a “vague recollection” of seeing Daniels once at Trump Tower.

DEBORAH TARASOFF: The Trump Organization’s accounts payable supervisor testified about processing the payments to Cohen, including receiving checks that Trump had signed at the White House. Under defense questioning, she acknowledged permission to cut Cohen’s checks came not from Trump himself, but from Weisselberg and McConney.

MADELEINE WESTERHOUT: Trump’s White House secretary from 2017 to 2019 testified about Trump signing checks, saying he sometimes would sign without reviewing them.

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer and Colleen Long in Washington and Michelle L. Price, Jill Colvin, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker contributed to this report.