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Argumentative Essay

Argumentative Essay   Introduction Why do we argue? We can somehow argue about this one question, for we believe that to state our arguments and to hear other people argue makes us explore different opinions thoroughly. Most of us love to say our opinions regarding different issues, which would practically inform the people around us that we are “speaking our mind”. Nevertheless, speaking our mind can be done in several ways, either by literally speaking, by doing works of art, or by writing. I believe that the easiest way for us to state our opinions, organize them in a logical way, and be heard, is by writing an argumentative essay. In this way, we can continually update our ideas, and improve on them whenever possible. This paper discusses on the tips on how to successfully compose an argumentative essay. The purpose of this paper to somehow help you to become certain of stating your ideas in an organized manner, choose the most debatable topic, and clearly inform your readers of your argument.   What is an Argumentative Essay?              (2006) reports that an argument, as a term in rhetoric, refers to the process of reasoning by advancing proof. In addition, though an academic argument often does grow very discordant, it is more often a product of careful research and thoughtful consideration of all the facts one can acquire regarding a certain issue. Furthermore, for many centuries, rhetoricians advocated the writing of an argumentative essay as a means of learning how to think (2006), as arguments demand that the writer examine a belief by testing the strength of the reasons for holding such a belief. The author also states that an argument of this kind forms a “dialectical structure”, a dialog, within the essay itself, wherein the writer explores several sides of the issue under consideration with the readers in an attempt to demonstrate why one perspective is the most enlightened. In this way, an argumentative essay or paper is formed.             It has been reported that argumentative writing is the act of forming reasons, making inductions, drawing conclusions, and applying them to the case in discussion (2006). Writing an argumentative essay clearly explains the process of your reasoning from the known or assumed to the unknown. Numerous arguments teach us to deliberate on opposing statements, and to present distinct and precise information. The art of arguing is to treat the opposition with respect and at the same time rebate his or her claims. The function of an argumentative essay is to show your opponent that your assertion, opinion, theory or hypothesis about an issue or topic is correct or more truthful. Its purpose is to win your point of view, which will actually depend much on your topic and your knowledge on the topic.    How to Make an Argumentative Essay?             An argumentative essay, like most other essays, has several goals. Its primary goal is to persuade and move your audience to accept your position on an issue, which is often a difficult task to do. The second goal, and the modest goal, is for you to articulate your stand on an issue. This recognizes the fact that to persuade your audience is a challenging objective, but at least try to explain your reasoning behind your position. Making these two goals as your guide in writing your argumentative essay would be helpful, for keeping your ideas on track and focusing on your objective.              (1988) emphasizes that the art of argumentation is not an easy skill to acquire, and you might think that if you simply have an opinion, you can easily argue about it effectively. However, writing a successful argumentative essay is not an effortless task, and following the basic steps in writing it could be very helpful. <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Decide on a topic.</li> You have to make sure that the topic you will be writing about is the one you are interested in, and that it is not too broad or too narrow to analyze adequately. When you pick a topic, you should avoid writing about issues that cannot be won, no matter how strongly you might feel about them, such as issues touching on matters of faith and beliefs. These issues, for many, are unshakable and deeply private.             Choose a well-defined and controversial issue, by spending some time reading magazines, watching television, or listening to the radio to generate ideas. Your issue must be arguable and debatable. Some samples of arguable topics could be the following: ·         Should Gambling Be Legalized? ·         Are Exams Helping Students to Improve Studies or Just Causing Stress? ·         Should the Philippines Change the Form of Government? From Democratic to Parliamentary? ·         Should Prostitution Be Legalized? <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> State your position and make an argument. </li> Your stand might be for or against the issue, or sometimes neutral. You must clear your position regarding the topic you have chosen and state your thesis or argument about it. When you know your position regarding the issue, it would be easy for you to yield convincing arguments and back it up with evidences.              (2006) points out that the single most common misunderstanding in composing an argument is to assume that there is no difference between an argument and an opinion. At first glance, it may seem that argumentative essays are merely asking you to write your opinion, but, the crucial difference is that an argument should present a claim (an opinion) supported by reasoning and evidence, which persuades your reader that the thesis your paper advances is a solid one. In this light, an opinion is only an assertion that is not supported by logic or evidence. <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Begin your research.</li> It was already explained that arguments must be backed up by data that persuades the readers that your opinion is valid. This data consists of facts, statistics, and the testimony of others through personal interviews and questionnaires or through articles and books, and examples (1988). You should seek educated sources that are nonbiased, such as encyclopedias, reference books, newspaper, microfilm, the Internet, and other professor’s advice. It is also useful to find many different quotes from researchers coming to the same opinion, as it provides greater weight to support your argument. To avoid plagiarism, you must cite your sources. Research is a back-and-forth, in-and-out process in finding the necessary data needed to support your claims. <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Structure your essay.</li> You must figure out what support or evidence you will include in your essay and in what order you will present your evidences. You also have to keep in mind that each part on the essay, namely, introduction, body and the conclusion, has different contents and importance to effectively convey your arguments to the readers. The introduction of the argumentative essay must contain specific details. First, you must identify and state your objects of analysis, or the topic of the essay. This will often ask you to discuss central texts, key ideas or concepts, issues, or its combination. Second, the introduction must provide some background to the thesis and reveal the motive for arguing it. An effective description of the context, situation or problem can demonstrate why the thesis is interesting and worth arguing (2003). This is your chance to convince your readers that your essay is worth reading. Third, the introduction is where you formulate and state your thesis, which is a clearly articulated general idea that expresses the main point that you want to argue in your essay. You must also define key terms, state the assumptions, and describe the methodology in the introduction. Key terms are terms whose meanings are essentially contested, indeterminate, or ambiguous because of colloquial misuse, and may be crucial in your larger analysis, so it must be defined before you can hinge your arguments on them. Assumptions are a set of fundamental givens that make your arguments consistent, coherent, and meaningful. This can be stated at the start, and is sometimes done in the interest of intellectual honesty and to indicate to the reader where you might be coming from ideologically. In stating your research methodology, you may want to describe your main analytical approach, the sources that you use in your analysis and how you obtained them. Lastly, you can sketch a roadmap in the introduction. If your thesis tells the readers where you want to take them in the journey of your essay, a roadmap will tell them how they will get there, stating which main roads, turning points, and detours they can expect to take. The body of the paper must provide the evidences to support the introduction, and like the introduction, contains specific details. First, the body of the paper contains your arguments. In developing your essay, you will need to construct a series of smaller supporting arguments that are relevant. While every argument should be directed to the topic, the individual arguments should not simply be linked together as a random chain of implicitly related but distinct reasons (2003). Instead, they should follow a coherent and logical sequence that builds up dramatically, to a convincing and satisfying restatement of the argument in the conclusion. Furthermore, using clear topic sentences that state the main point of each paragraph can help you to be more sensitive in shaping your arguments. Other related considerations include a sense of timing and proportion. Second, you must support your arguments with evidences. As mentioned earlier, evidences include facts, data, statistics, examples, controlled observations, and many more. These evidences should not simply be mentioned, but you have to elaborate on them by giving details to be connected deliberately with the arguments being made, and try to give an indication of the reliability of your evidence. Third, you also have to deal with counter-arguments. You need to imagine and anticipate reasonable objections to your essay and the arguments developed around it. You will need to describe these objections fairly, deal with them decisively, demonstrating the superiority of your argument. This not only strengthens your arguments, but also makes your essay more complicated and therefore, more interesting ( 2003). Lastly, you have to provide your reader with the necessary orientation. Knowing your readers will give you a good idea of what kind and extent of background information you will need to provide before your ideas, arguments, and evidence can make full sense to the readers (2003). An example would be the following paragraph. “The modern world greatly affected the occurrence of coronary heart disease or CHD worldwide. It has been reported that the age of technology has made life easier and made people more prone to heart disease ( 1996). In addition, with the arrival of automation, life became less strenuous, and most manual labor was either replaced or assisted by machinery. Modern conveniences made physical activity unnecessary, so along with the change in lifestyle came a change in diet. The combination of a sedentary lifestyle and a rich diet led to an increase in clogged blood vessels, heart attacks, and strokes (1996). Today, the different causes of CHD are already known, as well as its cure. As reported, the field of cardiology has grown tremendously to meet the demands of the disease, and through the years, tools and techniques for treating heart disease have also evolved to meet the increased need ( 1996). One of this is nuclear imaging. It plays an increasing role in both the detection of CHD and, more specifically, the composition of plaque build up that can block the flow of blood through an artery ( 2004). In addition, nuclear imaging has the potential to provide invaluable information on the cellular, metabolic and molecular composition of the plaque and can provide both functional and anatomical information. The PET/CT scan may be potentially useful in early detection of disease, prevention, monitoring response to therapy and prognosis ( 2004).” The paragraph clearly states its claims and the evidences that support them. Evidences support other evidences also to justify the argument.  The last part of the essay is the conclusion. In the conclusion, you must retrace your steps, to remind the readers, in summary, where they have been. You have to restate your topic or argument, and confidently reassert your original argument, or an adjusted or improved version that has taken into account the counter-arguments dealt along the way. You can also point towards the wider significance of your essay, by being careful not to introduce any new idea. It is also helpful to explain further implications your essay might have for other similar or wider questions, and make recommendations for further study or action. At the end, make an impact with the final word, by ending it with a witty and relevant detail, illustration, recurring motif, quotation, or an anecdote that may keep your readers think about your essay long after they have read it. You must also make sure that your essay has a reasonable tone. You must assume that your reader will disagree with you or be skeptical. It is important that your tone be reasonable, professional, and trustworthy, by anticipating objections and making concessions, to inspire confidence and show your good will to the readers. It has been reported that some writers use two common patterns of development to compose arguments and present evidences, namely, clustering and alternating patterns (2006). These two patterns can be useful in presenting your arguments and evidences in an organized manner. In the clustering pattern, the writer collects the evidence in one place, the objections in another section, and the rebuttal in a third section, while in the alternating pattern, the writer shifts between evidence, objection, and rebuttal for each separate piece of evidence before moving to the next piece of evidence. <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Review, analyze and revise your paper.</li> Reviewing your paper will help for further analysis and accuracy of details and evidences. Revising and rewriting your paper can make it sound more professional, help in detecting errors and put some additional comments on the essay. This is also the time to check your spelling and grammar. You can also seek the help of a friend to read your essay and have him or her to respond to your argument. In this way, you will know if your essay was effective in stating your arguments. Conclusion             In argumentative writing, we try to convince others to agree with our ideas and facts, share our values, accept our arguments and conclusions and adopt our way of thinking.             An effective argumentative paper works toward building or establishing facts to support an argument, and clarify relevant values or issues to your audience or readers. It aims also to prioritize, edit, and sequence facts and values in importance of building an argument, and form and state conclusions. It tries to convince your audience or readers that your conclusions are based upon the agreed-upon facts and shared values. Most of all, writing an effective argumentative essay gives you the confidence to communicate to your readers, and overcome your fear of expressing your ideas about a certain issue or topic.             To summarize, your power to persuade and convince your readers depends on your knowledge and interest on the topic that you will choose to make your argumentative essay. It is not easy to make an argumentative essay, so a good deal of research and evidence would be very helpful to support and justify your arguments. Although it is relatively easy to find these evidences, the organization of ideas is a little difficult, so it is better to consult several reading materials to practically gather much information. The more information that you can gather to support your argument, the more you will be able to effectively convince your readers regarding your stand, and the more effective your argumentative essay will become.                 Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Argumentative Essay

Argumentative Essay Introduction Why do we argue? We can somehow argue about this one question, for we believe that to state our argu...

LSU ESSAY WRITING

AIC LSU Student Resources ESSAY WRITING What is an essay? Structure - Introduction - Body - Conclusion - Basic Essay Structure Standard conventions (presentation) Tips Essay checklist What is an essay? An essay is a piece of writing that allows you to develop ideas and arguments using a logical sequence of interrelated paragraphs. Unlike reports, essays usually do not contain any headings, lists (bullet points) or diagrams. Rather they depend on direct links from one paragraph to the next in order to gradually build the argument and justify the point of view. Essay structure Before beginning an essay, there are several planning steps that need to be undertaken. Do not attempt to begin writing without having first done the planning and research as you will find that your essay will have little to say and will lack organisation and structure. Academic writing requires you to develop your ideas with reference to evidence and the arguments of expert authors in the field. In an essay you need to support your opinion by discussing the opinions of experts. To find these expert opinions, you need to research. An essay is made up of four key parts: • Introduction (beginning) – This is the first paragraph (approximately 10% of the length of the essay). • Body (middle) – These paragraphs develop the main idea and provide supporting arguments and evidence. • Conclusion (end) –This is the last paragraph (approximately 10% of the length of the essay). • Reference List Each part of the essay plays an important role in its overall effect. Note however that although an essay must have these four parts, you should not put headings for any section except the Reference List. The first and last paragraphs should automatically serve as the introduction and conclusion and therefore everything in between constitutes the body. Basic Essay Structure Introduction (approx 10% of word count) Paragraph Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

LSU ESSAY WRITING

AIC LSU Student Resources ESSAY WRITING What is an essay? Structure - Introduction - Body - Conclusion - Basic Essay Structure ...

Argumentative Essay

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LSU ESSAY WRITING