Introduce the topic.
Provide background information.
Present the thesis statement or main argument.
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An argumentative essay presents a specific claim or argument and supports it with evidence and reasoning. Here’s an outline for an argumentative essay, along with examples for each section: 3
1. Introduction :
Example: “Did you know that plastic pollution is threatening marine life at an alarming rate?”
Example: “Plastic pollution has become a global environmental concern, with millions of tons of plastic waste entering our oceans yearly.”
Example: “We must take immediate action to reduce plastic usage and implement more sustainable alternatives to protect our marine ecosystem.”
2. Body Paragraphs :
Example: “The first step towards addressing the plastic pollution crisis is reducing single-use plastic consumption.”
Example: “Research shows that plastic straws alone contribute to millions of tons of plastic waste annually, and many marine animals suffer from ingestion or entanglement.”
Example: “Some argue that banning plastic straws is inconvenient for consumers, but the long-term environmental benefits far outweigh the temporary inconvenience.”
Example: “Having addressed the issue of single-use plastics, the focus must now shift to promoting sustainable alternatives.”
3. Counterargument Paragraph :
Example: “While some may argue that individual actions cannot significantly impact global plastic pollution, the cumulative effect of collective efforts must be considered.”
Example: “However, individual actions, when multiplied across millions of people, can substantially reduce plastic waste. Small changes in behavior, such as using reusable bags and containers, can have a significant positive impact.”
4. Conclusion :
Example: “In conclusion, adopting sustainable practices and reducing single-use plastic is crucial for preserving our oceans and marine life.”
Example: “It is our responsibility to make environmentally conscious choices and advocate for policies that prioritize the health of our planet. By collectively embracing sustainable alternatives, we can contribute to a cleaner and healthier future.”
A claim is a statement or proposition a writer puts forward with evidence to persuade the reader. 4 Here are some common types of argument claims, along with examples:
Understanding these argument claims can help writers construct more persuasive and well-supported arguments tailored to the specific nature of the claim.
If you’re wondering how to start an argumentative essay, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you with the argumentative essay format and writing process.
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Here are eight strategies to craft a compelling argumentative essay:
Let’s consider a sample of argumentative essay on how social media enhances connectivity:
In the digital age, social media has emerged as a powerful tool that transcends geographical boundaries, connecting individuals from diverse backgrounds and providing a platform for an array of voices to be heard. While critics argue that social media fosters division and amplifies negativity, it is essential to recognize the positive aspects of this digital revolution and how it enhances connectivity by providing a platform for diverse voices to flourish. One of the primary benefits of social media is its ability to facilitate instant communication and connection across the globe. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram break down geographical barriers, enabling people to establish and maintain relationships regardless of physical location and fostering a sense of global community. Furthermore, social media has transformed how people stay connected with friends and family. Whether separated by miles or time zones, social media ensures that relationships remain dynamic and relevant, contributing to a more interconnected world. Moreover, social media has played a pivotal role in giving voice to social justice movements and marginalized communities. Movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #ClimateStrike have gained momentum through social media, allowing individuals to share their stories and advocate for change on a global scale. This digital activism can shape public opinion and hold institutions accountable. Social media platforms provide a dynamic space for open dialogue and discourse. Users can engage in discussions, share information, and challenge each other’s perspectives, fostering a culture of critical thinking. This open exchange of ideas contributes to a more informed and enlightened society where individuals can broaden their horizons and develop a nuanced understanding of complex issues. While criticisms of social media abound, it is crucial to recognize its positive impact on connectivity and the amplification of diverse voices. Social media transcends physical and cultural barriers, connecting people across the globe and providing a platform for marginalized voices to be heard. By fostering open dialogue and facilitating the exchange of ideas, social media contributes to a more interconnected and empowered society. Embracing the positive aspects of social media allows us to harness its potential for positive change and collective growth.
Writing a winning argumentative essay not only showcases your ability to critically analyze a topic but also demonstrates your skill in persuasively presenting your stance backed by evidence. Achieving this level of writing excellence can be time-consuming. This is where Paperpal, your AI academic writing assistant, steps in to revolutionize the way you approach argumentative essays. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Paperpal to write your essay:
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The length of an argumentative essay can vary, but it typically falls within the range of 1,000 to 2,500 words. However, the specific requirements may depend on the guidelines provided.
You might write an argumentative essay when: 1. You want to convince others of the validity of your position. 2. There is a controversial or debatable issue that requires discussion. 3. You need to present evidence and logical reasoning to support your claims. 4. You want to explore and critically analyze different perspectives on a topic.
Argumentative Essay: Purpose : An argumentative essay aims to persuade the reader to accept or agree with a specific point of view or argument. Structure : It follows a clear structure with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs presenting arguments and evidence, counterarguments and refutations, and a conclusion. Tone : The tone is formal and relies on logical reasoning, evidence, and critical analysis. Narrative/Descriptive Essay: Purpose : These aim to tell a story or describe an experience, while a descriptive essay focuses on creating a vivid picture of a person, place, or thing. Structure : They may have a more flexible structure. They often include an engaging introduction, a well-developed body that builds the story or description, and a conclusion. Tone : The tone is more personal and expressive to evoke emotions or provide sensory details.
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Published by Carmen Troy at August 16th, 2021 , Revised On July 26, 2023
“An argument essay presents an original argument for a given thesis statement . In an argumentative essay, the author takes a clear stand on the topic and justifies their position with supporting evidence material.”
While there are many types of essays , an argumentative essay is hands down the most popular type of essay at the college and university level.
You could be asked to produce an argumentative essay in a composition class or as a course assignment. In most cases, the essay brief will prompt you to argue for one of two positions.
An argumentative essay title includes keywords such as “argument”, “assert”, “claim”, and usually takes the form of a question.
The title of an argumentative essay can be either open or two-sided. Here are examples of argumentative titles so you know when to write an argumentative essay.
What was the most outstanding achievement of Manchester United FC under Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson CBE?
Has distance learning had a positive or negative impact on education?
Most essay assignments at the college and university level involve some sort of argumentation. For example, literary analysis and rhetorical analysis also build up arguments about the text.
Even when the essay prompt does not tell you to write an argumentative essay, you should remember that the goal of academic writing in most cases is to express an argument and back it with evidence. This means that your default approach to essay writing should be to make evidence-based arguments unless you are told otherwise.
The following essay titles suggest that the essays in response should be argumentative in nature.
You will be able to develop an exact position as you dig deep to collect data and improve your knowledge. Once you have taken a defined stance, you will need to express the essay’s main argument and convince the reader to agree to your position by presenting analysis, evidence, and evaluation.
Discuss the effects of climate change on the human population.
Evaluate the efficacy of anti-racism measures put in place at workplaces in the UK.
Assess the impact of the conquest of Constantinople in the 15 th century on world history.
An argumentative essay should be based on rational thinking. The approach of the author should be objective in nature. Rather than basing your argument on emotions, you should rely on logic and evidence.
While there are many approaches to writing an argumentative essay, the two most common methods that would enable you to write a first-class piece are: The Rogerian method and the Toulmin method.
The Toulmin method involves four key steps to build an argument. The same strategy can be applied throughout the essay where necessary.
The Toulmin model is a popular argument-building strategy in academic essays. While using specific terms (refutations, warrants, claim) is not necessary, you should show a clear link between your claim and the grounds of your claim in an argumentative essay.
For example , if you are making an argument about the efficacy of anti-racism measures put in place at workplaces in the UK, then you should follow these four steps:
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The Rogerian model of building an argument also involves four steps:
The Rogerian model is an interesting way to reach a compromise between two sides of an argument. It is advised to approach an argumentative essay with this method when people strongly disagree on the issue under discussion.
Also read: How to write a summative essay
For example , if you had to make an argument about the positive effects of distance learning on the quality of education, then you might:
When writing an argumentative essay, you can use elements of both models. It is not necessary to stick to one of these two methods, but it would be helpful to do so to structure your argument appropriately.
However, regardless of the argument-building model you choose, your essay structure will include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
Like other essay types, an argumentative essay also begins with an introduction. This section includes a hook to grab the reader’s attention, background information to set up the main argument, a thesis statement, and a summary of the essay structure (for more extended essays).
Here is a how an introduction paragraph of an argumentative essay arguing for the positive effects of distance learning may look like:
Example: For many people looking to change or advance their professional careers, choosing if distance learning is the right choice is a question of critical importance. Distance education programs rely on information technology and online teaching tools to provide education to students who are not present in the classroom setting due to their personal commitments and limitations. Over the last several years, distance learning has emerged as one of the most popular education trends. It has provided opportunities to many non-traditional students to receive a high-quality education.
Compare your paper against millions of publications and billions of web pages.
This is where you present the details to support your arguments. The main body of your argumentative essay should present analysis, evidence, and interpretation to persuade readers to agree with your viewpoint.
For a high school essay that typically follows the standard five-paragraph format, the body comprises three to four paragraphs. However, there will be many more paragraphs in a university-level longer essay, and so the body can be divided into dedicated sections with headings.
Each paragraph starts with a topic sentence that must support the central argument. Avoid presenting any irrelevant information here.
Here is an example of a paragraph taken from the main body of an argumentative essay on the positive effects of distance learning on education.
Example: Distance learning is one of the most economical and viable forms of education available to adult students who are juggling many responsibilities due to financial and time constraints in their life. The burden of responsibilities prevents adult students from studying in a foreign country or another city. Distance learning enables them to overcome these challenges and complete their education. Learning in a distant mode, they can also mitigate the economic, social, psychological, and cultural difficulties. Distance learning students often achieve better results when compared with on-campus students because the pursuit of knowledge is undertaken for its own sake rather than as an obligation.
Your argumentative essay should end with a conclusion that provides a summary of the points discussed in the main body.
Refrain from presenting any new information here. The conclusion of an argumentative essay is made up of a concise summary or synthesis of the arguments made in the main body, the significance and relevance of your argument, and the strengths and weaknesses of your argument.
Example: The distance learning programs offered by various universities worldwide have had a very positive effect on the world of education. Occasional pitfalls aside, this teaching method has enabled underprivileged students and those with personal limitations to receive a high-quality education. Its value is evident in numerous applications. Digital education offers accessibility and flexibility to students, so the popularity of distance education has been rising in recent years. Educators should take advantage of this. The limitations of distance education such as lack of motivation for students, absence of physical interaction, and employers’ reluctance to embrace distance learning has been documented extensively by opponents. Still, this new method of teaching is here to say.
Note: Along with expert guides, ResearchProspect also provides top-notch writing services , which means provides essay writing help , research paper writing help , and other professional services.
What is the difference between an argumentative essay and an expository essay.
An argumentative essay is arguably the most popular type of essay in academic writing. It involves independent research and presenting an original argument about the topic in discussion in the form of a thesis statement . The claim made in the thesis statement must be supported by evidence and analysis.
An expository essay aims to explain an idea, topic, or process clearly and concisely. It does not express an original argument but is somewhat objective in nature. Expository essays are almost always less extensive as compared to argumentative essays.
All essays written for college and university-level assignments should include in-text citations and a list of references . You should use citations in an appropriate referencing style whenever you quote or paraphrase any information from another academic source. The in-text citations must match the items in the list of references or bibliography at the end of your essay.
It would be best to use the referencing style or citation style according to your institution’s instructions. Harvard referencing is the most popular style of academic referencing in the UK.
Most essays at university are argumentative. Unless told otherwise, you should aim to build an argument in an essay you have been assigned.
Argumentative essays include keywords like ‘discuss’, ‘claim’, ‘evaluate’, ‘argue’, so look out for these keywords and instructions in the essay title.
Learn what is the difference between essays and reports so you can work out why and you should prefer one form of writing over the other.
What are topic sentences? In academic writing they briefly describe what a paragprah will explore. Here is all you need to know about topic sentences.
Most students struggle to figure out how to use transitions in essay. Here is all you need to know about transitions in an essay.
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Last Updated: December 9, 2022 Fact Checked
This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 371,600 times.
An argumentative essay requires you to make an argument about something and support your point of view using evidence in the form of primary and secondary sources. The argumentative essay is a common assignment, but teachers may present it in a variety of different ways. You can learn how to write an argumentative essay by following some standard steps for writing an essay as well as by doing some things that are required for argumentative essays, such as citing your sources.
To write an argumentative research paper, choose a topic that can be argued from one or more perspectives, then pick a side. Start your paper with a thesis statement summing up your position, then support your statement with facts and arguments gathered from reputable sources. Use background information or context to help guide your readers through your essay, telling them what they need to know to understand the rest of your argument. For different approaches you can use while revising your paper, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No
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An argumentative essay is a structured, compelling piece of writing where an author clearly defines their stance on a specific topic. This is a very popular style of writing assigned to students at schools, colleges, and universities. Learn the steps to researching, structuring, and writing an effective argumentative essay below.
To effectively achieve its purpose, an argumentative essay must contain:
● A concise thesis statement that introduces readers to the central argument of the essay
● A clear, logical, argument that engages readers
● Ample research and evidence that supports your argument
1. classical.
● Clearly present the central argument.
● Outline your opinion.
● Provide enough evidence to support your theory.
● State your claim.
● Supply the evidence for your stance.
● Explain how these findings support the argument.
● Include and discuss any limitations of your belief.
● Explain the opposing stance of your argument.
● Discuss the problems with adopting this viewpoint.
● Offer your position on the matter.
● Provide reasons for why yours is the more beneficial stance.
● Include a potential compromise for the topic at hand.
● Introduce your topic in a bold, direct, and engaging manner to captivate your readers and encourage them to keep reading.
● Provide sufficient evidence to justify your argument and convince readers to adopt this point of view.
● Consider, include, and fairly present all sides of the topic.
● Structure your argument in a clear, logical manner that helps your readers to understand your thought process.
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● Discuss any counterarguments that might be posed.
● Use persuasive writing that’s appropriate for your target audience and motivates them to agree with you.
Follow these basic steps to write a powerful and meaningful argumentative essay :
If you’ve already been given a topic to write about, pick a stance that resonates deeply with you. This will shine through in your writing, make the research process easier, and positively influence the outcome of your argument.
To write an emotive argumentative essay , finding enough research to support your theory is a must. You’ll need solid evidence to convince readers to agree with your take on the matter. You’ll also need to logically organize the research so that it naturally convinces readers of your viewpoint and leaves no room for questioning.
A good structure to ensure a well-written and effective argumentative essay includes:
● Introduce your topic.
● Offer background information on the claim.
● Discuss the evidence you’ll present to support your argument.
● State your thesis statement, a one-to-two sentence summary of your claim.
● This is the section where you’ll develop and expand on your argument.
● It should be split into three or four coherent paragraphs, with each one presenting its own idea.
● Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that indicates why readers should adopt your belief or stance.
● Include your research, statistics, citations, and other supporting evidence.
● Discuss opposing viewpoints and why they’re invalid.
● This part typically consists of one paragraph.
● Summarize your research and the findings that were presented.
● Emphasize your initial thesis statement.
● Persuade readers to agree with your stance.
We certainly hope that you feel inspired to use these tips when writing your next argumentative essay . And, if you’re currently elbow-deep in writing one, consider submitting a free sample to us once it’s completed. Our expert team of editors can help ensure that it’s concise, error-free, and effective!
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The argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in a concise manner.
Please note : Some confusion may occur between the argumentative essay and the expository essay. These two genres are similar, but the argumentative essay differs from the expository essay in the amount of pre-writing (invention) and research involved. The argumentative essay is commonly assigned as a capstone or final project in first year writing or advanced composition courses and involves lengthy, detailed research. Expository essays involve less research and are shorter in length. Expository essays are often used for in-class writing exercises or tests, such as the GED or GRE.
Argumentative essay assignments generally call for extensive research of literature or previously published material. Argumentative assignments may also require empirical research where the student collects data through interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments. Detailed research allows the student to learn about the topic and to understand different points of view regarding the topic so that she/he may choose a position and support it with the evidence collected during research. Regardless of the amount or type of research involved, argumentative essays must establish a clear thesis and follow sound reasoning.
The structure of the argumentative essay is held together by the following.
In the first paragraph of an argument essay, students should set the context by reviewing the topic in a general way. Next the author should explain why the topic is important ( exigence ) or why readers should care about the issue. Lastly, students should present the thesis statement. It is essential that this thesis statement be appropriately narrowed to follow the guidelines set forth in the assignment. If the student does not master this portion of the essay, it will be quite difficult to compose an effective or persuasive essay.
Transitions are the mortar that holds the foundation of the essay together. Without logical progression of thought, the reader is unable to follow the essay’s argument, and the structure will collapse. Transitions should wrap up the idea from the previous section and introduce the idea that is to follow in the next section.
Each paragraph should be limited to the discussion of one general idea. This will allow for clarity and direction throughout the essay. In addition, such conciseness creates an ease of readability for one’s audience. It is important to note that each paragraph in the body of the essay must have some logical connection to the thesis statement in the opening paragraph. Some paragraphs will directly support the thesis statement with evidence collected during research. It is also important to explain how and why the evidence supports the thesis ( warrant ).
However, argumentative essays should also consider and explain differing points of view regarding the topic. Depending on the length of the assignment, students should dedicate one or two paragraphs of an argumentative essay to discussing conflicting opinions on the topic. Rather than explaining how these differing opinions are wrong outright, students should note how opinions that do not align with their thesis might not be well informed or how they might be out of date.
The argumentative essay requires well-researched, accurate, detailed, and current information to support the thesis statement and consider other points of view. Some factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal evidence should support the thesis. However, students must consider multiple points of view when collecting evidence. As noted in the paragraph above, a successful and well-rounded argumentative essay will also discuss opinions not aligning with the thesis. It is unethical to exclude evidence that may not support the thesis. It is not the student’s job to point out how other positions are wrong outright, but rather to explain how other positions may not be well informed or up to date on the topic.
It is at this point of the essay that students may begin to struggle. This is the portion of the essay that will leave the most immediate impression on the mind of the reader. Therefore, it must be effective and logical. Do not introduce any new information into the conclusion; rather, synthesize the information presented in the body of the essay. Restate why the topic is important, review the main points, and review your thesis. You may also want to include a short discussion of more research that should be completed in light of your work.
Perhaps it is helpful to think of an essay in terms of a conversation or debate with a classmate. If I were to discuss the cause of World War II and its current effect on those who lived through the tumultuous time, there would be a beginning, middle, and end to the conversation. In fact, if I were to end the argument in the middle of my second point, questions would arise concerning the current effects on those who lived through the conflict. Therefore, the argumentative essay must be complete, and logically so, leaving no doubt as to its intent or argument.
A common method for writing an argumentative essay is the five-paragraph approach. This is, however, by no means the only formula for writing such essays. If it sounds straightforward, that is because it is; in fact, the method consists of (a) an introductory paragraph (b) three evidentiary body paragraphs that may include discussion of opposing views and (c) a conclusion.
Complex issues and detailed research call for complex and detailed essays. Argumentative essays discussing a number of research sources or empirical research will most certainly be longer than five paragraphs. Authors may have to discuss the context surrounding the topic, sources of information and their credibility, as well as a number of different opinions on the issue before concluding the essay. Many of these factors will be determined by the assignment.
Crafting a convincing argumentative essay can be challenging. You might feel lost about where to begin. But with a systematic approach and helpful tools that simplify sourcing and structuring, mastering good argumentative essay writing becomes achievable.
In this article, we'll explore what argumentative essays are, the critical steps to crafting a compelling argumentative essay, and best practices for essay organization.
An argumentative essay asserts a clear position on a controversial or debatable topic and backs it up with evidence and reasoning. They are written to hone critical thinking, structure clear arguments, influence academic and public discourse, underpin reform proposals, and change popular narratives.
Let's explore the essential components that make argumentative essays compelling.
The claim is the cornerstone of your argumentative essay. It represents your main argument or thesis statement , setting the stage for the discussion.
A robust claim is straightforward, debatable, and focused, challenging readers to consider your viewpoint. It's not merely an observation but a stance you're prepared to defend with logic and evidence.
The strength of your essay hinges on the clarity and assertiveness of your claim, guiding readers through your argumentative journey.
An effective argumentative essay should follow a logical structure to present your case persuasively. There are three models for structuring your argument essay:
Each model provides a framework for methodically supporting your position using evidence and logic. Your chosen structure depends on your argument's complexity, audience, and purpose.
The key is to select evidence that directly supports your claim, lending weight to your arguments and bolstering your position.
Effective use of evidence strengthens your argument and enhances your credibility, demonstrating thorough research and a deep understanding of the topic at hand.
A well-rounded argumentative essay acknowledges that there are two sides to every story. Introducing counterarguments and opposing viewpoints in an argument essay is a strategic move that showcases your awareness of alternative viewpoints.
This element of your argumentative essay demonstrates intellectual honesty and fairness, indicating that you have considered other perspectives before solidifying your position.
A compelling rebuttal anticipates the counterclaims and methodically counters them, ensuring your position stands unchallenged. By engaging critically with counterarguments in this manner, your essay becomes more resilient and persuasive.
Ultimately, the strength of an argumentative essay is not in avoiding opposing views but in directly confronting them through reasoned debate and evidence-based.
The workflow for crafting an effective argumentative essay involves several key steps:
Argumentative essay writing starts with selecting a topic with two or more main points so you can argue your position. Avoid topics that are too broad or have a clear right or wrong answer.
Use a semantic search engine to search for papers. Refine by subject area, publication date, citation count, institution, author, journal, and more to narrow down on promising topics. Explore citation interlinkages to ensure you pick a topic with sufficient academic discourse to allow crafting a compelling, evidence-based argument.
Seek an AI research assistant's help to assess a topic's potential and explore various angles quickly. They can generate both generic and custom questions tailored to each research paper. Additionally, look for tools that offer browser extensions . These allow you to interact with papers from sources like ArXiv, PubMed, and Wiley and evaluate potential topics from a broader range of academic databases and repositories.
Your thesis statement should clearly and concisely state your position on the topic identified. Ensure to develop a clear thesis statement which is a focused, assertive declaration that guides your discussion. Use strong, active language — avoid vague or passive statements. Keep it narrowly focused enough to be adequately supported in your essay.
The SciSpace literature review tool can help you extract thesis statements from existing papers on your chosen topic. Create a custom column called 'thesis statement' to compare multiple perspectives in one place, allowing you to uncover various viewpoints and position your concise thesis statement appropriately.
Ask AI assistants questions or summarize key sections to clarify the positions taken in existing papers. This helps sharpen your thesis statement stance and identify gaps. Locate related papers in similar stances.
The evidence you collect lends credibility and weight to your claims, convincing readers of your viewpoint. Effective evidence includes facts, statistics, expert opinions, and real-world examples reinforcing your thesis statement.
Use the SciSpace literature review tool to locate and evaluate high-quality studies. It quickly extracts vital insights, methodologies, findings, and conclusions from papers and presents them in a table format. Build custom tables with your uploaded PDFs or bookmarked papers. These tables can be saved for future reference or exported as CSV for further analysis or sharing.
AI-powered summarization tools can help you quickly grasp the core arguments and positions from lengthy papers. These can condense long sections or entire author viewpoints into concise summaries. Make PDF annotations to add custom notes and highlights to papers for easy reference. Data extraction tools can automatically pull key statistics from PDFs into spreadsheets for detailed quantitative analysis.
The argumentative model you choose will impact your outline's specific structure and progression. If you select the Classical model, your outline will follow a linear structure. On the other hand, if you opt for the Toulmin model, your outline will focus on meticulously mapping out the logical progression of your entire argument. Lastly, if you select the Rogerian model, your outline should explore the opposing viewpoint and seek a middle ground.
While the specific outline structure may vary, always begin the process by stating your central thesis or claim. Identify and organize your argument claims and main supporting points logically, adding 2-3 pieces of evidence under each point. Consider potential counterarguments to your position. Include 1-2 counterarguments for each main point and plan rebuttals to dismantle the opposition's reasoning. This balanced approach strengthens your overall argument.
As you outline, consider saving your notes, highlights, AI-generated summaries, and extracts in a digital notebook. Aggregating all your sources and ideas in one centralized location allows you to quickly refer to them as you draft your outline and essay.
To further enhance your workflow, you can use AI-powered writing or GPT tools to help generate an initial structure based on your crucial essay components, such as your thesis statement, main arguments, supporting evidence, counterarguments, and rebuttals.
Begin the introductory paragraph with a hook — a question, a startling statistic, or a bold statement to draw in your readers. Always logically structure your arguments with smooth transitions between ideas. Ensure the body paragraphs of argumentative essays focus on one central point backed by robust quantitative evidence from credible studies, properly cited.
Refer to the notes, highlights, and evidence you've gathered as you write. Organize these materials so that you can easily access and incorporate them into your draft while maintaining a logical flow. Literature review tables or spreadsheets can be beneficial for keeping track of crucial evidence from multiple sources.
Quote others in a way that blends seamlessly with the narrative flow. For numerical data, contextualize figures with practical examples. Try to pre-empt counterarguments and systematically dismantle them. Maintain an evidence-based, objective tone that avoids absolutism and emotional appeals. If you encounter overly complex sections during the writing process, use a paraphraser tool to rephrase and clarify the language. Finally, neatly tie together the rationale behind your position and directions for further discourse or research.
Set the draft aside so that you review it with fresh eyes. Check for clarity, conciseness, logical flow, and grammar. Ensure the body reflects your thesis well. Fill gaps in reasoning. Check that every claim links back to credible evidence. Replace weak arguments. Finally, format your citations and bibliography using your preferred style.
To simplify editing, save the rough draft or entire essay as a PDF and upload it to an AI-based chat-with-PDF tool. Use it to identify gaps in reasoning, weaker arguments requiring ample evidence, structural issues hampering the clarity of ideas, and suggestions for strengthening your essay.
Use a citation tool to generate citations for sources instantly quoted and quickly compile your bibliography or works cited in RIS/BibTex formats. Export the updated literature review tables as handy CSV files to share with co-authors or reviewers in collaborative projects or attach them as supplementary data for journal submissions. You can also refer to this article that provides you with argumentative essay writing tips .
Remember, the strength of your argumentative essay lies in the clarity of your strong argument, the robustness of supporting evidence, and the consideration with which you treat opposing viewpoints. Refining these core skills will make you a sharper, more convincing writer and communicator.
Strategic enrollment management and student success, argumentative writing, breaking the blank page: how to get started with argumentative writing in college.
An argumentative essay is a type of paper where you try to prove a point. It's like a debate. In the essay, you explain why someone should agree with your side of the argument.
Argumentative essays will help you:
See what that looks like in practice
Introduction
Example: Many important questions face our generation, but one rises above the rest: cake or pie? Both desserts can be delicious, but pie has several clear advantages over cake. Due to its healthiness, pie is superior to cake.
Body paragraphs
Example: Pie is often healthier than cake because it is more likely to contain fiber. Both sweet and savory pies are likely to have fiber. Fiber can help control blood sugar, especially for those with diabetes. Thus, pie’s fiber content can make it a healthier dessert option for everyone.
Counter-argument
Example: Some people may say pie is more difficult to put candles in than a cake. However, silken pies like key lime pie can be used to hold candles.
Example: Food choices have a direct impact on personal health. Healthy eating does not mean food has to be bland. People can enjoy delicious food and live a healthier lifestyle by eating pie instead of cake.
Discover the world's research
(10 reviews)
Terri Pantuso, Texas A&M University
Sarah LeMire, Texas A&M University
Kathy Anders, Texas A&M University
Copyright Year: 2019
Last Update: 2022
Publisher: Texas A&M University
Language: English
Conditions of use.
Learn more about reviews.
Reviewed by Yongkang Wei, Professor, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on 12/21/22
This would be a useful source for teaching first-year writing courses, as it covers all the subjects that are supposed to be dealt with, esp. if the focus of teaching is placed on argumentation. I have been actively looking for a textbook that... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less
This would be a useful source for teaching first-year writing courses, as it covers all the subjects that are supposed to be dealt with, esp. if the focus of teaching is placed on argumentation. I have been actively looking for a textbook that puts emphasis on a rhetorical approach to writing. And this one would come in handy for its rather comprehensive coverage of the approach. It features a chapter on "rhetorical situation" that includes a section called "rhetorical analysis," a topic not commonly, or extensively, discussed in similar types of textbooks.
Content Accuracy rating: 5
I'm not aware of anything that is not accurate, error-free or unbiased.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 5
While I cannot speak for other instructors, the content of this Open Education Resource textbook would be a good match for what I will teach using a non-OER (i.e., paid) textbook. For example, my syllabus covers the topic of rhetorical analysis, which is conveniently found in the third chapter of the book. My syllabus also covers the three models of argumentation: Classical, Rogerian, and Toulmin, which are all discussed and presented in full length by the authors/editors. Nowadays, going rhetorical is the trend, so I anticipate this OER book will enjoy a long period of relevancy and currency as course material for those teaching first-year writing courses. Plus, its online formation can make a quick update.
Clarity rating: 5
The text is written in a way suitable to the level of first-year college students. Jargons or technical terms are minimal. If they do occur, they are well explained within context, as seen, for example, in those terms of logical fallacies. At the end, there is a list of glossaries, which is of additional help if a student encounters an unfamiliar term.
Consistency rating: 5
The authors/editors stress the rhetorical approach to writing. The whole textbook is built around that approach, which also ensures a framework of consistency for content delivery.
Modularity rating: 5
The modularity of the book is excellent. The whole book is divided into eight chapters, each of which is further divided into sections and subsections. The smaller reading sections can keep students away from "boredom," but more importantly they also make it easy and convenient for instructors to pick and reorganize subunits of a course that will best fit their own needs or situations.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4
The topics of the book are presented in a sequence as expected. However, Chapter 8, the last chapter, may not be up to its title, Ethics, as most of the sections are more related to the previous chapter on researched writing. For example, citation formatting and APA or MLA format can well be incorporated into Chapter 7.
Interface rating: 5
I have not encountered interface issues when reading through the book.
Grammatical Errors rating: 5
This is a non-issue. All contributors to the book are excellent writers.
Cultural Relevance rating: 5
I have not come across any issues in the textbook that can be described as culturally insensitive or offensive.
I wish a list of readings, or their links, were incorporated into each chapter to save instructors' time and energy looking for relevant reading materials. Additional readings are part of a writing course. They provide material for fruitful classroom discussions. Used as examples, they also help illustrate subjects to ensure a better understanding on the part of students.
Reviewed by Tara Montague, Part-time instructor, Portland Community College on 6/28/22
I’d give this a 4.5 if I could. This text covers nearly everything that I’d want to cover in a FYW course on thesis-driven argument. I would love to see a revised introduction with a more robust intro aimed at the student – one that formally... read more
I’d give this a 4.5 if I could. This text covers nearly everything that I’d want to cover in a FYW course on thesis-driven argument. I would love to see a revised introduction with a more robust intro aimed at the student – one that formally introduces thesis-driven argument (and previews the text's approach/structure). I think that would help the rest of the pieces fall into place more clearly for me. The glossary is great, and the way glossary items are handled when they show up in the text (active link with a pop-up box) is extremely useful and appreciated.
I did not notice any inaccuracies, biases, or errors.
Current examples were used (a 2010 textbook, Kamala Harris’s VP Acceptance speech), and I believe they were used in a way that will remain relevant to readers.
The writing is clear and accessible. It does go into more depth about rhetoric and argument (Toulmin, Rogerian) than I think many FYW classes would go, but is still accessible. I do feel like a clearer spelling out of the relationship/usage of the terms persuasion and argument would help. This is kind of approached in chapter 3.7, but it’s a bit lacking for me.
Consistency rating: 4
Some of the chapters and sections seem a bit broad and generic given the text’s stated focus on thesis-driven argument. And some examples of thesis statements seem too simplistic for argument – or don’t really match the genre of thesis-driven argument.
The text is easily and readily divisible. My interest is in adopting specific chapter/sections; this can be done without any difficulty whatsoever. It would also be easy to reorganize to improve upon the organizational issues that I believe the text has.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3
The overall structure of the text is not super intuitive. It starts with the writing process (section 2: analyzing assignment, prewriting), and then circles back to it in section 5. As I refer back to the text to write this review, I see this even more strongly – I have trouble finding the chapters I’m looking for as they’re not under the sections of the text I’d expect them to be; I keep getting lost.
Given the text’s title, I would expect introduction/discussion of main concepts – especially thesis-driven argumentation – before launching into the writing process or even rhetoric. Additionally, some chapters/sections/pages are two paragraphs long, and some are more than ten screens’ worth, and the variation (and what is chunked into a separate chapter/section vs. what is just a heading within a chapter/section) isn’t guided by a clear organizational principle. If I were looking to adopt an entire text (as opposed to selecting sections of it), this would cause me problems. (It should be noted that the authors make it clear that this text is written for a specific course at TAMU.)
The heading “Writing a persuasive essay” comes within a chapter/section about using visual elements (3.11). I believe this is a mistake.
The text is offered in various formats and is downloadable. Extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate. In the eBook, the text contains an active glossary: when you click on an underlined term (i.e. secondary sources), its glossary entry/definition/explanation pops up.
The text has been carefully edited and is very clean. I didn’t see any grammatical errors. The only thing I noticed is a confusing lack of “strike-through” in a subtitle of Chapter 4.6: “Thesis Is Not Doesn’t Have to Be a Bad Thing (Or Why Write Antithesis Essays in the First Place”).
I don’t believe the text is culturally insensitive or offensive. I believe it used a couple of examples that were inclusive of a variety of backgrounds.
There are definitely elements of this text that I will use in my FYW (Writing 122) course. I appreciate how succinctly and clearly the text distinguishes between (intended) audience and reader. I also like the logical fallacies section. I typically don’t go into these in my FYW course, but this text does a good job of selecting fallacies that many students tend to use in their own arguments; it provides a solid short list for students to evaluate their own reasoning. I really like the chapter on counterargument / antithetical writing by Steven D. Krause that they included.
Reviewed by Carrie Dickison, Associate Teaching Professor, Wichita State University on 6/3/21
The text covers the writing process, rhetoric and argumentation, and research-based writing sufficiently in-depth to work as a primary textbook for a composition course focusing on these topics. As with most OERs, instructors will likely need to... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less
The text covers the writing process, rhetoric and argumentation, and research-based writing sufficiently in-depth to work as a primary textbook for a composition course focusing on these topics. As with most OERs, instructors will likely need to supplement the text with examples. Unfortunately, there is no table of contents or index, so instructors using the text will need to spend extra time scrolling to identify content.
Content is in-line with other mainstream composition textbooks.
The content is up-to-date, and most examples will seem relevant to students. For example, it references the keto diet and Trump’s inaugural address. The section on MLA is updated for MLA 8, which is better than many open-access composition texts.
The register is appropriate for first-year students, and the text does a nice job of explaining discipline-specific terminology.
The text is consistent in its approach to writing, argumentation, and research.
Modularity rating: 4
Each section is divided into sub-sections with sub-headings, making it fairly easy to assign different parts of a section. However, sub-sections are not numbered, making them somewhat cumbersome to put on a syllabus.
In general, the text is organized logically. Most sections have a clear focus (e.g. the writing process, an introduction to rhetoric, structuring an argument). However, there are a few sections that I found confusing. For example, there are two different discussions of types of sources (in two different sections), and the discussion of evaluating sources comes before the discussion of research strategies. However, it wouldn’t be too difficult to assign these sections in a different order.
Interface rating: 4
The text is only available as a PDF, which cuts down on image distortion and broken links. However, it also makes it harder to navigate the text, especially since there is no table of contents.
I didn’t notice any grammatical errors in the text.
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive.
This is a good choice for a course that focuses on rhetoric, argumentation, and research-based writing. It’s also less institution specific than other OERs with similar content, making it easier to adapt for another institution.
Reviewed by Stefanie Shipe, Associate Professor, Northern Virginia Community College on 5/10/21
The textbook offers a thorough discussion of the writing process and the research process. The section on paragraph development is especially comprehensive. The section on the Writing Process could be more robust, particularly the discussion of... read more
The textbook offers a thorough discussion of the writing process and the research process. The section on paragraph development is especially comprehensive. The section on the Writing Process could be more robust, particularly the discussion of medium. With more and more emphasis on multimodality in freshman-level composition classes, this textbook would benefit from an expanded section on visual argument and/or non-traditional argument. The section on Rogerian Argument is very brief.
Content Accuracy rating: 4
The content is accurate, although the section on Rogerian Argument doesn't give a complete picture of the strategy.
All the content is relevant, and examples can be easily updated as needed.
The language is accessible, and new terms are explained for readers.
Terminology and framework remain consistent.
The text is broken down into logical sections. It might be helpful to make the section numbers more easily accessible for readers. Some sections also have very large blocks of text that may be somewhat difficult to follow.
Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5
Topics are presented logically.
The PDF is mostly written text, which may be challenging for certain readers. The addition of more tables, graphs, colors, or images might help to break up the text to make it more accessible and easy to read. Section headings could also be more clear and easier to locate.
Grammatical Errors rating: 4
I noticed a few minor issues with widows/orphans, I also noticed one minor error: in section 4.18, "pro-choice" contains the hyphen, but "prolife" does not.
I don't see any major issues with inclusivity, although one or two sections might benefit from some language to alert a reader to sensitive content (such as the abortion issue).
Reviewed by Lee Ann Regan, Adjunct Professor, Northern Virginia Community College on 5/5/21
This textbook covers all the topics I cover in my Composition II class, though I would like more on analyzing visual arguments (ads, photos, political cartoons). read more
This textbook covers all the topics I cover in my Composition II class, though I would like more on analyzing visual arguments (ads, photos, political cartoons).
Accurate, though to be picky in the block quote example (6.15) there is a period after the parenthetical citation contrary to MLA style.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 4
Although mention of specific TV shows and Trump's inaugural speech may date quickly, these are tiny elements in the material. Most of the content will remain relevant for a long time.
The text's prose is accessible without being condescending.
In Section 3, Rhetorical Modes of Writing discusses narration, description, and exposition which I found out of place in a book on writing arguments. However, these are types of essays often assigned in freshman composition classes.
The text is divided into clear sections on each topic aspect which could easily be assigned.
There is a clear progression from assignment through the writing process.
The screenshot of database functions is distorted. Scrolling back and forth in a PDF can be awkward.
I noticed no grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 4
Nothing stood out as offensive.
This textbook covers the topic of writing academic argument well. While I missed sample essays to analyze they can date a book quickly and instructors can easily add them to supplement the text. I found the sections on research and maintaining voice, areas where students sometimes struggle, particularly strong.
Reviewed by Linda McHenry, Instructor of First-Year Composition & Coordinator of Composition-Sequence Assessment, Fort Hays State University on 3/26/21
This comprehensive textbook, appropriate for an English Composition II course, both describes and explains six steps in the writing process for a first-year composition student. An example of a student’s prewriting is included. Rhetorical... read more
This comprehensive textbook, appropriate for an English Composition II course, both describes and explains six steps in the writing process for a first-year composition student. An example of a student’s prewriting is included. Rhetorical situation is explained well for first-year students. “Rhetorical Modes of Writing” provides explanation for many writing assignments students typically encounter in the composition sequence, including narration, description, classification, process, definition, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and persuasion. Also, there are explanations and examples of a visual analysis essay. Toulmin Argument is written clearly for first-year students in a writing course, and Rogerian Argument is discussed and explained, as well. Inclusion of both arguments gives composition faculty options for how to best approach specific argumentative assignments in their courses.
Content is error-free and mostly unbiased. Initially, I found the logical fallacies sections cursory but appreciate the depth of argument in the last half of the textbook.
Most of the textbook reads as relevant and will remain relevant for some time. Most examples, such as TVs, e-books, reality TV shows, and hybrid cars, will remain relatable to first-year students. There is an outdated reference to TV Guide, which I’m confident traditional first-year students will need explained.
One of the most-impressive strengths of this textbook is the way the writers introduce, define, explain, and use terms throughout the text. Argument can be a complicated concept for students, and the sections focusing on types of argument and ways to construct effective arguments meaningfully and deliberately demystify the ways writers tailor their messages for target audiences. Later in the textbook, library database searching is explained well, especially with the Boolean examples.
Writing is discussed and explained before researching, which makes complete sense. The text also features helpful research worksheets to aid with search terms.
The textbook is available in multiple formats, including .pdf and Google Doc, allowing for integration with various learning-management systems. The textbook’s clear headings and page numbers allow faculty to point to specific sections or assignments from their syllabus. Or faculty can copy and paste particular parts into their specific learning-management system with section titles and authors clearly listed.
The textbook is logically organized, beginning with writing process. The research process is well written and provides solid examples of student research plans. The argument sections are well organized and build on one another.
Interface rating: 3
Text and visual aides are mostly clear. The screen grab of library research results is blurry and difficult to view. I had no problems moving between the sections. Visual aides are labeled but are missing descriptive text that would help readers with visual deficits understand drawings, graphics, and charts.
I found no grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance rating: 2
In a section that asks students to “Imagine Hostile Audiences” (p. 78), the textbook engages positions on abortion. In a first-year composition textbook, naming issues that some students will have lived through lacks sensitivity to what some of our students have had to endure—for both those who have carried an unwanted pregnancy to full term and those who have terminated a pregnancy. Certainly, other issues can illustrate hostile audiences without evoking the pain and stress that surround abortion.
Overall, this is an effective textbook for English Composition II.
Reviewed by Andrew Howard, Assistant Professor/Program Coordinator of English, The University of the District of Columbia on 2/26/21
This book covers everything that a first-year writing professor would expect to see, and it covers everything a first-year writing student will need to encounter for academic writing. The layout is logical and the tone is approachable enough that... read more
This book covers everything that a first-year writing professor would expect to see, and it covers everything a first-year writing student will need to encounter for academic writing. The layout is logical and the tone is approachable enough that students will not only be guided through the writing process, but will be given a guide and reference they can use throughout the rest of their academic careers. The information and its presentation concerning research is top-notch! Very informative and practical.
I found nothing inaccurate! The fundamental topics this book approaches are clearly and concisely illuminated, but they are, at heart, near-universal truths. Pantuso et al. present the basic tenets of the writing process in rock-solid terms and cite when necessary, giving a real sense of relevance, accuracy, and currency.
Relevance/Longevity rating: 3
It appears that the main ideas presented in Informed Arguments will be in place for some time, so the relevance is not much of an issue here. As for being up-to-date, I'd hope that the authors do a once-over every few years with an eye toward their characterization of students, particularly when you see examples of student voice. The other area I'd suggest giving attention is the acknowledgment of multi-modal assignments; I'd expect more beyond the usual rhetorical mode structure found in so many textbooks.
The text is absolutely clear in how it presents ideas. Pantuso et al. never get bogged down purple or overly-academic prose. They never speak down to their audience or hold the subject of writing is such high esteem as to present themselves as elites guarding inaccessible information. There's a real sense that this textbook was written by humans who are concerned with getting across the important nuances of writing--something that we often miss in textbooks.
The no-nonsense approach that the authors take ensures that their text is indeed consistent throughout.
Modularity rating: 3
My biggest issues here are addressed in the interface portion, but I'd like to see clearer breaks, not only between sections, but in the writing examples. Occasionally you'll get a title at the end of one page, then the writing example begins on the next. Could use a bit more cleanup or widow/orphan consideration.
No issues here--the text is presented in the most logical
I may be biased against pdf textbooks, but I find them impossible to navigate with any sense of surety. This text could likely be reorganized of necessary, and seems to be presented somewhat modularly (though there is certainly a logical order to the text overall). If the material were presented as a central hub with explorable modules, I believe the layout would be easier to navigate. I'd also like more visual cues that I am moving from one topic to the next. Aside from the occasional obvious page break and slightly larger text for headings, I don't get much of a sense that I've moved from one section to another. The visuals that are provided are very helpful and logical; however, there are not enough. I'd like to see a few visuals related to the examples in the text. Take 4.8, for example: there's a student essay on the X-Files. While there is surely an issue of copyright concerning an image of Mulder and Scully, throw a clip art alien or something in there!
I noticed no grammatical issues!
Cultural Relevance rating: 3
I didn't see much to suggest that this book went either way on the scale of cultural sensitivity.
Reviewed by Oline Eaton, Lecturer, Howard University on 1/27/21
This is an especially comprehensive text on writing arguments intended for an audience of first year students. The authors very effectively assess the knowledge base of that readership and, accordingly, open the book with a chapter that offers... read more
This is an especially comprehensive text on writing arguments intended for an audience of first year students. The authors very effectively assess the knowledge base of that readership and, accordingly, open the book with a chapter that offers students a practical, step-by-step guide to the college essay writing process (from understanding the assignment on through incorporating feedback into a final, polished version of an essay). The authors also adeptly introduce the vocabulary students will need in the writing classroom and use it to introduce and unpack complex concepts in a way that avoids jargon and is, therefore, likely to be more easily understood by students. The text gives students a very solid foundation for understanding the essay assignments they are likely to encounter, not only in the writing class that uses this book but in their other college classes.
I saw nothing in the text that gave me concerns regarding its accuracy.
The book has a really nice, readable tone that is likely to appeal to students and was clearly produced by writers who are actively teaching students today. Their examples are ones students will likely relate to. One such instance is in the section on audience, where two different descriptions of the same event (one formal and intended for public consumption; the other reading more like a text to a friend and opening with "OMG!") are used to make the point that students are accustomed to taking audience into account often in their daily lives, even if unconsciously. The text very deliberately builds from the discussion in the opening chapter on how to read an assignment to the final chapter's highly detailed discussion of how to conduct robust academic research online. The research section, in particular, is something I'm now contemplating incorporating into my classes on Zoom this semester, in lieu of or in conjunction with a librarian visit. If you're teaching argument and/or researched argument, this book very elegantly and straight-forwardly covers all the bases. The book was written explicitly for use at Texas A&M, by professors at Texas A&M. This isn't all that intrusive, and I think it would absolutely be usable in classes outside of that university. It's just something to be aware of and explains why there are Texas A&M examples throughout.
This is a very clearly written text, that would be very accessible to first year college students of all ages. The authors do an excellent job of defining their terms and fully unpacking concepts that might be new to students.
The text builds a cohesive, internally consistent argument about how students may best go about argumentative writing. By the time students reach the final section on research and ethics, they should have everything they need to produce robust, ethical arguments within the writing process developed through the earlier sections.
Because it opens with the focus on simply how to read an assignment and goes all the way through the research progress, the book is structured in such a way that it could easily be incorporated into a one- or two-semester writing/research course.
I can think of no better way to organize this text. It very logically proceeds from one phase of the process of writing arguments to the next. Reading it, it very nicely aligns with how I already structure my own classes and one can easily see how it could be used to scaffold a one- or even a two-semester first year writing course.
The text was very user-friendly, with helpful charts and graphics. One thing to note is that there is a screenshot of the University Library page search box, which may not perfectly match all university libraries. A small detail, but something to be aware of if you're trying to bring this into your classroom outside of Texas A&M.
This is a very well edited and proofread text, which is obviously extra important in a writing class.
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive. However, I'm not sure that it's particularly inclusive either. I'm unfamiliar with the student demographics of Texas A&M, so perhaps it is a great fit for them. However, the text might have benefited from a few examples that demonstrate the variety of student experiences. In classrooms with populations of students of color, parents, or disabled students, it might be desirable to augment the reading by bringing in some more inclusive examples for classroom discussion.
I highly recommend this text for first year writing classrooms.
Reviewed by Grant Bain, Instructor, Colorado State University on 12/28/20
The textbook is amazingly comprehensive, especially given its brevity. I was surprised to see, for example, how thoroughly the authors were able to cover major concepts in argument theory. The authors introduce not only classical argument, but... read more
The textbook is amazingly comprehensive, especially given its brevity. I was surprised to see, for example, how thoroughly the authors were able to cover major concepts in argument theory. The authors introduce not only classical argument, but also the Toulmin model and Rogerian argument, which is a great way to introduce students to the complexities of this concept. The only major shortcoming that I see is its focus on essays. While the essay is an important and useful genre for exploring ideas and generating knowledge, students need to be given opportunity to practice other forms (reports or proposals, for example) in order to more fully understand how to adapt their writing across varying contexts and purposes. The authors focus very heavily on the rhetorical situation, which they should, but that focus its somewhat belied by their concurrent focus on the form of the essay, which limits the purpose, audience, and texts with which a student might interact.
This text is remarkably well-aligned with current practices in writing scholarship and pedagogy. It's chapters offer concise yet thorough discussions of major concepts like the rhetorical situation, rhetorical appeals, and even ethics in writing. While "accuracy" is a tricky concept to apply to something as qualitative as writing, the text is in agreement with prevailing scholarly trends and practices.
The text is very relevant to its intended audience of freshman composition students. I particularly like the focus on process and rhetorical situation. The textbook begins by prompting students to understand a writing assignment, which is something that I cannot foresee ever becoming outdated. Having students begin by assessing the needs of their specific situation is so important and yet still so undervalued in a lot of writing curricula.
The text's rhetoric and examples are clear and very accessible. In fact, I think this textbook may be the most accessible to freshman college students that I've seen. The author's shy away from all but the most necessary jargon, and what specialized terms they do use (rhetorical situation, etc) are very fully contextualized and explained.
The books is very consistent across all chapters. Its rhetoric is well-organized around the central concept of the rhetorical situation. Even though the text doesn't fully address that term until Section 3, it opens by encouraging students to understand each specific writing assignment, thereby prompting them from the very beginning to understand fully the situation in which they are writing.
For the most part I feel like this text could be used in a variety of ways and its chapters assigned in varying sequences.
Given the recursive nature of writing, this text is organized in a very logical and utilitarian way. Each chapter develops its subject very well and provides enough context along the way for a freshman audience to be able to understand that subject. The overall chapter organization is also very practical, and develops the point of the book quite well, even if teachers decide to assign chapters in a different order than that in which they are arranged in the book.
This is one of the biggest flaws for me. A PDF is one of the least user-friendly interfaces; even a physical book makes it easier to mark important passages and easily move back and forth between them. I realize that OER funding availability makes interface a challenge, but this is a notable flaw of this text. It's hardly a reason not to adopt it, however.
I detected no grammatical errors whatsoever.
I would agree with this for the most part. I do question the use of President Trump's inaugural speech to exemplify the rhetorical situation, however. Maybe the divisiveness of Trump's administration will fade over time, but right now it seems like a poor choice, in that many students will have a hard time thinking in any way objectively about it. Given that no specific examples from the address are used, I'm not sure why the authors chose to specify Trump's inaugural address over the situation of an inaugural address more generally. For now and for the next few years, however, it seems like a poor choice.
Pantuso et al. have produced a clear, concise, and very useful textbook. It would be a great supplement or even primary rhetoric for a freshman composition course. If the authors were to revise the textbook to include a wider variety of genres--thereby exposing students to a wider variety of rhetorical situations--this would be an outstanding OER text.
Reviewed by Paul Lee, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Arlington on 11/11/20
I think it covers a lot of the basics, which is good, and I understand that it is intended to be a short, more concise introduction to academic writing. However, I would like to see a little more depth in areas like ethos, pathos, logos and the... read more
Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less
I think it covers a lot of the basics, which is good, and I understand that it is intended to be a short, more concise introduction to academic writing. However, I would like to see a little more depth in areas like ethos, pathos, logos and the rhetorical situation. These form the basis of modern argument, so it seems important to dig a bit deeper and to provide some relevant examples and situations to further explain these appeals.
The authors did an excellent job of accuracy and avoiding bias. Some of the points they make may give the wrong impression to students, however, like their description of the thesis statement being in the introduction in most cases. This is true, but it can be practically anywhere in the paper and I think it is relevant to let the students know that so their papers aren’t quite so mechanical and formulaic.
They did an excellent job of this, as well. This information doesn’t tend to change very quickly, but they still presented it in a way that should stand up to time very well, so I would say that this text will be useful for quite a while. A lot of texts tend to use examples that are quickly out-of-date (like political issues or current events); these can be more relevant and relatable to the students so they can help them to understand more easily, but they can quickly become irrelevant and have the opposite effect. Unless I overlooked it, I didn’t see any issues like that with this text.
Clarity rating: 4
It definitely is very clear. Again, some further elaboration on certain topics/concepts might make it even more clear (e.g., examples, more detailed explanations, and so on).
I didn’t see any issues with the consistency. Overall this book does a great job of holding together and explaining how each individual topic relates to the overall discussion of writing and the writing process. It speaks to the clarity of the text, as well, that each section of the book allows the text overall to support its own thesis about writing.
The book felt more linear than modular; in other words, it feels like the book should be read at the beginning as each section builds on the previous one. There were some exceptions like the visual arguments section; even these need some previous material to be fully understood and utilized, however.
The organization is excellent. This is the upside to the linear style I mentioned in the earlier section. If you tend to organize your class in this fashion, then this is a great book to do that; it will allow you to provide information that consistently builds upon the information before it.
Interface rating: 1
I am NOT a fan of long texts that are in PDF format. This made it very difficult to navigate around in the text, particularly with a smaller device like an iPhone. I read it both on an iPad and an iPhone and when I was on the iPhone I found myself getting very weary of constant speed-scrolling to find an area later in the book (say, page 160 for example). I think a different format (like ePub) would be a huge improvement.
The book’s grammar looked excellent. I didn’t notice any particular issues, and being a rhetoric & composition instructor I’m very observant of things like that.
Being about a fairly innocuous topic in the first place (unless controversial examples are used) this book didn’t have any issues that stood out to me. I mentioned earlier that it tends to stay fairly up-to-date in its examples, and this is another upside of that — it’s not using anything that is overly controversial.
Overall it’s a very well-written text that could be used if you want a more concise and to-the-point discussion of the major aspects of writing and the writing process. I think it could use a little more detail, development, as well as examples, however. And I’m not a fan of having to scroll endlessly through a PDF document, so a different format seems to be in order.
About the book.
Welcome to composition and rhetoric! While most of you are taking this course because it is required, we hope that all of you will leave with more confidence in your reading, writing, researching, and speaking abilities as these are all elements of freshman composition. Many times, these elements are presented in excellent textbooks written by top scholars. While the collaborators of this particular textbook respect and value those textbooks available from publishers, we have been concerned about students who do not have the resources to purchase textbooks. Therefore, we decided to put together this Open Educational Resource (OER) explicitly for use in freshman composition courses at Texas A&M University. It is important to note that the focus for this text is on thesis-driven argumentation as that is the focus of the first year writing course at Texas A&M University at the time of development. However, other first year writing courses at different colleges and universities include a variety of types of writing such as personal essays, informative articles, and/or creative writing pieces. The collaborators for this project acknowledge each program is unique; therefore, the adaptability of an OER textbook for first year writing allows for academic freedom across campuses.
Dr. Terri Pantuso is the Coordinator of the English 104 Program and an Instructional Assistant Professor in the English Department at Texas A&M University.
Prof. Sarah LeMire is the Coordinator of First Year Programs and an Associate Professor in the Texas A&M University Libraries.
Dr. Kathy Anders is the Graduate Studies Librarian and an Associate Professor in the Texas A&M University Libraries.
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Despite the early emergence of oral argumentation, written argumentation is slow to develop, insensitive to alternative perspectives, and generally of poor quality. These findings are unsettling because high quality argumentative writing is expected throughout the curriculum and needed in an increasingly competitive workplace that requires advanced communication skills. In this introduction, we provide background about the theoretical perspectives that inform the papers included in this special issue and highlight their contributions to the extant literature about argumentative writing.
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The argumentative impulse originates with the anticipation of a real or imagined difference of opinion about a controversial issue (van Eemeren et al., 2014 ). Given people’s inherently self-interested tendencies, it is likely that the appearance of argumentation as a form of verbal communication was nearly coincident with the emergence of human speech itself. In any case, we know that the systematic study of argumentation, its purposes, and the discursive strategies used to argue have a long and venerable history in Western thought. In fact, many theoretical and metalinguistic concepts that we now use to understand the varieties of argumentation originate in antiquity (van Eemeren et al., 2014 ).
The fifth century BC is seminal in the development of argumentation and human rationality because we see for the first time the construction of a written meta - representational system designed to formalize principles of reasonable argumentation (Harris, 2009 ). Aristotle ( 1962 ) clearly had an inchoate understanding of the importance of meta-representation when he wrote “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words”. The importance of this realization cannot be overstated because it suggests “…any full writing system is capable of rendering in visual form anything that is spoken (Olson, 2016 , p. 22),” and by implication, anything that can be mentally represented. Furthermore, and perhaps more important in this context, the creation of written meta-representational concepts and principles focusing on reasonable argumentation resulted in a sapient consciousness of the relevance, validity, and evidential basis for reasons (Olson, 2016 ). Simply put, writing enabled people to record, examine, and evaluate representations of reasoning as objects of reflection. The consequences of this discovery for the development of Western civilization are incalculable.
Naturalistic studies of argumentative discourse show that very young children engage in a variety of discursive tactics to influence other people (Bartsch, Wright, & Estes, 2009 ; Dunn, 1988 ; Dunn & Munn, 1985 ). Between 18 and 24 months, toddlers use sentences to argue with parents and siblings (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990 ; Perlman & Ross, 2005 ), and at 36 months, they are able to produce negative and positive reasons to justify a decision (Stein & Bernas, 1999 ). Despite this precocity, children and adults are prone to my-side bias (Kuhn, 1991 ; Perkins, Farady, & Bushey, 1991 ) and are predisposed to use self-interested standards to evaluate their arguments and those of other people (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ). The insensitivity to alternative perspectives and neglect of evaluative standards are also seen in students’ written arguments (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012 ). The NAEP report showed that only about 25% of students’ argumentative essays provide strong reasons and supporting examples, but they often fail to consider alternative perspectives. Evidence for my-side bias is widely found in the empirical literature (see Ferretti and Fan, 2016 ). These findings have sparked research about argumentative writing and given impetus to the design of interventions to improve the quality of students’ written arguments (Ferretti & Lewis, 2019 ).
Concern about students’ preparedness for the modern workplace has also heightened interest in their argumentative writing (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ). Opportunities for blue-collar jobs are diminishing, and work increasingly depends upon the use of sophisticated technology and the acquisition of specialized reading and writing skills (Biancrosa & Snow, 2006 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ). Furthermore, reading, writing, and content area learning have become inextricably interconnected throughout the curriculum (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008 ; 2012 ). As a result, students are expected to make and evaluate interpretative claims by using disciplinary strategies and evaluative standards when reading and writing (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ). These expectations are reflected in the emphasis in Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ) on argumentative writing across the curriculum.
Current theories of argumentative writing (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ) recognize its intrinsically social and dialogical nature, and that it involves the presentation of a constellation of propositions intended to achieve the interlocutors’ discursive goals (van Eemeren, 2018 ). There are, however, theoretically-motivated differences of perspective about the foci of argumentative writing research, the methods used to study written arguments, and the instructional strategies that can be implemented to improve written argumentation. In what follows, we provide some background about these matters for the purpose of contextualizing the contributions to this special issue.
Sociocultural theorists investigate how social mediation shapes meaning-making in historical and cultural context (Bazerman, 2016 ; Beach, Newell, & VanDerHeide, 2016 ; Englert, Mariage, & Dunsmore, 2006 ; Newell, Beach, Smith, & VanDerHeide, 2011 ). In the sociocultural view, writing is a semiotic tool that supports communication and social relationships, is learned and practiced in social situations, and is used to accomplish inherently social goals (Bazerman, 2016 ; Graham, 2018 ; Newell, Bloome, Kim, & Goff, 2018 ). Given the focus on communication and social interaction, writing research in this tradition focuses on the situations within which people write and the influence of those situations on the writer’s participation is social activities. The writing context is never static (Bazerman, 2016 ). New texts become available, new communicative relationships develop, and new social practices emerge that influence human communication. Hence, the sociocultural tradition focuses on the interactions that take place among people over time and in different situations, and how writing creates shared meanings and representations that have consequences for the participants (Bazerman, 2016 ; Beach et al., 2016 ).
Sociocultural theorists also believe that writing development is influenced by participating in situations that afford opportunities to appropriate semiotic tools and social practices (Bazerman, 2016 ; Newell et al., 2011 ). Research in this tradition tends to use qualitative methods to reveal aspects of the context that affect and are affected by participation in social activity. Newell et al.’s ( 2018 ) study of a teacher’s shifting argumentative epistemologies during instructional interactions with her students illustrates how ethnographic methods can be used to capture the contextual and situational influences on her representation of argumentation, the development of her teaching practices, and the standards she used to evaluate her students’ argumentative writing.
In a similar vein, Monte-Sano and Allen ( 2018 ) used comparative case study methods to investigate the development of novice history teachers’ writing instruction after completing their pre-service teaching program. This study, which involved comparisons across multiple units of analysis, found that the types and sophistication of students’ written arguments depended on the kind of historical work they were assigned, the types of prompts to which they were asked to respond, and the degree to which their argumentative writing was supported by their teachers. Both studies relied on careful analysis of the contextual factors that influenced teachers’ instructional practices and students’ argumentative writing. Newell et al. ( 2018 ) and Monte-Sano and Allen ( 2018 ) also provide information about how the appropriation of disciplinary processes and standards in the English Language Arts and History influenced the development of teaching practices related to argumentative writing.
The cognitive perspective (Graham, 2018 ; Hayes, 1996 ; Hayes & Flower, 1986 ; MacArthur & Graham, 2016 ) views argumentative writing as a problem-solving process that requires self-regulation to achieve the author’s rhetorical goals (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ; Graham & Harris, 1997 ). Problem solving is done in a problem space that results from the person’s internal representation of the task environment (Newell & Simon, 1972 ). The internal representation amounts to the problem solver’s understanding of the task environment, and the problem space is a network of paths for transforming this understanding into the goal. In the cognitive view, problem solving operates within an information processing system that is constrained by the writer’s available capacities and resources (Flower & Hayes, 1980 , 1981 ). Skilled writers manage these constraints by setting goals and then planning, writing, and revising their essays. Research shows that the failure to strategically allocate limited cognitive resources adversely impacts writing performance (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ).
Writers draw on their knowledge of argumentative discourse, the topic, their interlocutor, and critical standards of evaluation to write arguments (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ; Ferretti & Lewis, 2019 ). Expert writers possess fluent linguistic skills, genre and topic knowledge (McCutchen, 1986 ; 2011 ), and are skilled at setting goals to guide the writing process. In contrast, novices are less fluent, possess less genre and topic knowledge, and have difficulty strategically regulating the writing process (Graham, Harris, & McKeown, 2013 ; Harris, Graham, MacArthur, Reid, & Mason, 2011 ; McCutchen, 2011 ). In contrast to experts, novices write down topically relevant information that is used to generate related information (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ). Difficulties with self-regulation are seen in all aspects of the problem solving of unskilled writers (Graham et al., 2013 ).
Studies in the cognitive tradition often use experimental procedures and quantitative analyses to make inferences about the factors that influence argumentative writing. Ferretti and Lewis’s ( 2018 ) studied the effects of writing goals and knowledge of the persuasion genre on the quality of elementary and middle-school students’ argumentative writing. In addition, they examined students’ knowledge of persuasive discourse by analyzing the types of ideas they generated to help an imaginary student who was having difficulty writing. Their analyses showed that genre-specific writing goals and knowledge of persuasion predicted writing quality, and furthermore, that the ideas students generated to support an imaginary student revealed implicit knowledge about the intentions of other people that was not evidenced in their essays.
Graham et al. ( 2018 ) provided evidence about Alexander’s ( 1997 , 1998 ) model of domain learning, which posits that knowledge, motivation, and strategic behavior impact students’ writing development. In particular, Graham et al. measured whether individual differences in these characteristics predicted growth in the argumentative writing of fifth-grade students before and after writing instruction. There were some differences in the predictive value of different variables before and after instruction, but the most robust predictor of writing quality was topic knowledge. This finding is consistent with Ferretti and Lewis’s findings ( 2018 ), and provides further evidence for the influence of topic and genre knowledge on students’ argumentative writing (Gillespie, Olinghouse, & Graham, 2013 ; Olinghouse, & Graham, 2009 ; Olinghouse, Graham, & Gillespie, 2015 ).
Many of the papers that appear in this special issue draw on the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives to conceptualize, analyze, and interpret their research. Three intervention studies (Harris, Ray, Graham, & Houston, 2018 ; McKeown et al., 2018 ; Ray, Graham, & Liu, 2018 ) were inspired by the Self - Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of writing development (Harris & Graham, 1985 , 2009 , 2016 ; Harris et al., 2011 ). The SRSD approach is founded on multiple lines of theoretical and empirical inquiry that address the cognitive, social, and motivational dimensions of writing (Harris & Graham, 2016 ). The cognitive components address the aforementioned limits on students’ knowledge and processing capacities by explicitly teaching writing strategies that enable them to plan, write, and revise their essays. The social components include the dialogic interactions that take place between teachers and students to scaffold the student’s self-regulated problem solving. The motivational aspects are seen in the use of instructional procedures that are intended to improve students’ self-efficacy, increase their expectations for success, and attribute their success to effort and other controllable aspects of their performance. Collectively, these three papers contribute additional evidence to a well-established literature about the benefits of SRSD writing instruction.
Harris et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the effects of SRSD instruction for close reading of informational text to support the persuasive writing of unskilled fourth- and fifth-grade writers. The instruction focused on how material from the informational text could be used to elaborate and support students’ persuasive essays. SRSD instruction was associated with improvements in genre elements, the complexity of students’ plans, and the holistic quality of their essays. These finding highlight the integration of reading and writing instruction that is increasingly important as students make progress through the curriculum (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ; Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ).
Ray et al. ( 2018 ) developed a SRSD strategy to teach struggling high school writers to analyze prompts used on the ACT examination, and then plan and write their argumentative essays. Writing is a gateway skill for college success (Applebee & Langer, 2006 ), and high quality writing on admission tests can positively impact a student’s future educational prospects. Ray and her colleagues found that SRSD instruction for the ACT examination resulted in better plans, a greater number of genre elements, and higher ACT essay scores. These findings provide encouragement to students who may have difficulty writing arguments but seek the many benefits of attending a college of their choosing.
SRSD instruction is demonstrably effective in improving writing outcomes for novice and more experienced writers (Harris & Graham, 2016 ; Harris et al., 2011 ; Lewis & Ferretti, 2011 ; Song & Ferretti, 2013 ) when it is delivered under conditions that ensure its procedural fidelity. Unfortunately, many classroom teachers are poorly prepared to deliver high quality writing instruction with fidelity (Graham, in press), so there is a relative dearth of information about the effects of teacher-led, classroom-based interventions on the quality of students’ argumentative writing. McKeown et al. ( 2018 ) addressed this issue by comparing the writing quality of students in urban schools whose teachers either did or did not receive professional development for SRSD writing instruction. The authors found that the quality of students’ argumentative essays was better if their teachers received SRSD professional development despite the fact that procedural fidelity was not always observed. The authors surmised that the effects on students’ writing quality may have been even stronger if the instruction had been delivered with greater fidelity.
Earlier we mentioned that people generally fail to apply critical standards when evaluating arguments. Studies of argumentative writing have almost exclusively focused on the goal of persuading a real or imagined audience (Ferretti & Lewis, 2018 ). Audience considerations reflect a rhetorical judgment (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992 ; Santos & Santos, 1999 ) because they are based a community’s prevailing standards of acceptability. However, audience considerations alone are insufficient because judgments about an argument’s reasonableness require the use of normative standards for evaluating the person’s argumentative strategies (Ferretti, Andrews-Weckerly, & Lewis, 2007 ; Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ). The reasonableness standard is tested when interlocutors answer critical questions about the argumentative strategies used by them (Walton, Reed, & Macagno, 2008 ).
Nussbaum et al. ( 2018 ) assessed whether dialogic interactions and instructional support for the use of critical questions affected college students’ argumentative writing. Students engaged in debates and wrote arguments about controversial issues associated with assigned reading materials. All students were provided with argumentation vee diagrams (AVD) that were used to represent the reasons for and against a position prior to and during class discussions. However, in contrast to the control condition, the AVDs of students in the experimental condition also included information about the critical questions that could be used to evaluate the argument from consequences strategy. The authors found that over time, students who used AVDs with critical questions generated more refutations than those in the control condition. Some transfer was also seen when students wrote without the critical questions. These findings contribute to a relatively meager literature about the benefits of supporting students’ use of critical questions to evaluate their written arguments (Nussbaum & Edwards, 2011 ; Song & Ferretti, 2013 ; Wissinger & De La Paz, 2016 ).
A number of studies reported in this special issue are informed by constructs and methods drawn from sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic perspectives. Linguistic analyses can be helpful because texts are written in natural language by writers who have considerable discretion with respect to their goals, genre, word choice, and grammatical structures (Pirnay-Dummer, 2016). Skilled readers bring their knowledge of language, text structures, and world knowledge to bear on the interpretation of text (Duke, Pearson, Strachan, & Billman, 2011 ). However, even skilled readers can draw different interpretations about the simplest of texts. For this reason, considerable effort has been invested in conducting detailed analyses of linguistic features that are associated with high quality texts (McNamara, Crossley, & McCarthy, 2010 ).
MacArthur, Jennings, and Philippatkos ( 2018 ) analyzed the argumentative essays of basic college writers to determine the linguistic features that predicted their writing development. A corpus of argumentative essays was drawn from an earlier study focusing on the effects of strategy instruction on writing quality. Coh-Metrix, a natural language processing (NLP) tool (McNamara, Graesser, McCarthy, & Cai, 2014 ), was used to develop a model of linguistic constructs to predict writing quality before and after instruction, and also to analyze how those constructs changed in response to instruction. They found that essay length, referential cohesion, and lexical complexity were positively associated with writing quality. Furthermore, changes in writing in response to instruction were linked to improvements in referential cohesion and lexical complexity. These findings suggest that the text’s linguistic features are sensitive to instruction, and that NLP tools can be used to detect changes in those features. The latter finding is important because formative assessments using NLP-based scoring systems should be sensitive to changes in students’ writing in response to instruction (Chapelle, Cotos, & Lee, 2015 ).
Argumentative essays are difficult to score in vivo when the assessment goal is to guide timely instructional decisions and support student learning. Concerns about the time-sensitivity of writing assessments have led researchers to develop automated essay scoring (AES) systems (Shermis & Burstein, 2013 ). AES systems analyze observable components of text to identify approximations to intrinsic characteristics of writing (Shermis, Burstein, Higgins, & Zechner, 2010 ) These systems have traditionally been designed to yield a holistic score for on-demand, timed summative assessments that are correlated with human judgment (Deane, 2013 ). However, serious questions have been raised about the usefulness of AES systems in providing feedback for instructional purposes, as well as the construct validity of scores derived from these systems. Deane ( 2013 ) argues that these concerns may be mitigated if information derived from AES systems is augmented with data about the component reasoning skills related to writing collected from other tasks.
Deane et al. ( 2018 ) reported about the use of scenario-based assessments (SBAs) to measure the component skills that underlie written argumentation. SBAs provide students with a purpose for reading thematically related texts and engaging in tasks that are sequenced to assess increasingly complex reasoning skills. The sequence of SBAs is guided by an hypothesized learning progression (LP) framework that describes skills of increasing sophistication that are thought to contribute to proficiency in argumentative writing (Deane and Song, 2014 ). Deane and his colleagues measured students’ performance on SBAs that tapped the component skills of creating, evaluating, and summarizing arguments. In addition, linguistic features of students’ essays were measured with the AES system E - rater (Attali and Burstein, 2005 ). Measures of the linguistic features and component skills were used to predict the quality of students’ argumentative writing. Furthermore, the component skills were analyzed to see if they were aligned with the hypothesized LP. They found that linguistic features and the component skills contributed unique variance to the prediction of argumentative writing. Furthermore, the component skills were generally aligned with the hypothesized LP. These findings provide suggestive evidence for the hypothesized LP and for Deane’s ( 2013 ) conjecture about the value of measuring genre-related reasoning skills that influence students’ argumentative writing.
Allen, Likens, and McNamara ( 2018 ) observed that associations between linguistic features and writing quality can vary across a range of contextual factors, resulting in multiple linguistic profiles of high quality writing (Allen, Snow, & McNamara, 2016 ; Crossley, Roscoe, & McNamara, 2014 ). This finding has resulted in the hypothesis that skilled writing results from the flexible use of linguistic style rather than a fixed set of linguistic features (Allen et al., 2016 ). Allen and her colleagues examined this hypothesis by having high school students write and revise their argumentative essays in Writing Pal (W-PAL; Roscoe, Allen, Weston, Crossley, & McNamara, 2014 ; Roscoe & McNamara, 2013 ), a NLP-based intelligent tutoring system that can provide formative and summative feedback about writing, support practice for mechanics, and deliver strategy instruction. All students in this study received formative and summative feedback about their writing, and half of students also received feedback about spelling and grammar.
The authors were interested in whether feedback about spelling and grammar affected linguistic flexibility, and whether linguistic flexibility was related to writing quality. In addition, they sought information about the dimensions along which linguistic variation was observed. Statistical analyses showed that students’ essays varied along a number of linguistic dimensions across prompts and within drafts, and that variation in some of these dimensions was related to essay quality. However, feedback about writing mechanics did not influence the linguistic properties of their writing. These findings are consistent with the linguistic flexibility hypothesis and with Graham and Perin’s ( 2007 ) conclusion that writing quality is unaffected by spelling and grammar instruction.
We mentioned earlier that curricula increasingly emphasize the interdependence of reading and writing (Biancrosa & Snow, 2006 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ). Students are expected to integrate and evaluate information from diverse sources when writing, identify arguments and evaluate specific claims in a text, and assess the adequacy of the evidence offered in support of those claims (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ). These are formidable tasks for native language (L1) speakers, and even more challenging for second language (L2) students. L2 students may have limited reading and writing proficiency, lack L2 fluency for academic communication, possess minimal background knowledge in L2, and have difficulty making inferences in L2, especially when those inferences rely of genre-specific cultural conventions (Grabe & Zhang, 2013 ). Confronted with these challenges, Cummins ( 2016 ) has argued that L2 students may draw on a shared pool of shared academic concepts and skills to support transfer across languages, that is, the linguistic interdependence hypothesis (LIH).
van Weijen, Rijlaarsdam, and Bergh ( 2018 ) tested the LIH by having Dutch speaking college students write essays in their native language and in English after reading sources that could be used as evidence for their argument. The authors sought information about the degree to which students’ essays were of comparable quality in L1 and L2, and whether their use of sources was similar across languages and predictive of essay quality. van Weijen and her colleagues found a relatively strong positive correlation between essay quality in L1 and L2. In addition, they found that students tended to rely more heavily on source material when writing in L2, but in general, writers tended to use common source features when writing in both languages. Students also tended to incorporate evidence for and against the proposition in L1 and L2. Finally, the same two features of source material predicted writing quality in L1 and L2, and that these relationships were not language dependent. In sum, these findings provide some support for the LIH, and suggest that students draw on a shared pool of concepts and skills when writing from source material in L1 and L2.
The papers in this special issue highlight a range of theoretical perspectives and analytic methods that have been used to study argumentative writing and understand the conditions that influence its development. The sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic perspectives have each made important contributions to our understanding of argumentative writing, but as the studies in this special issue show, unique synergies arise when scholarship is not constrained by theoretical, methodological, and analytic siloes.
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A Guide to Argumentative Research Writing and Thinking
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This book focuses only on the greatest challenges in research writing, specifically those that supervisors find most difficult to explain to novice researchers. These challenges include both basic and more complex skills, such as: finding original research contributions; establishing one’s voice while drawing on other authors; turning a vague idea into a feasible research question; generating literature reviews that are original in themselves; and avoiding list-like writing when discussing the research methodology.
Wentzel shows that it is easier to overcome these challenges, not with lists of prescriptions that are difficult to remember while writing, but rather by cultivating an argumentative mindset. Not only is such a mindset much easier to maintain, but it offers a central point around which one can organise any difficult writing task. The book shows how to use the argumentative mindset to approach every important writing challenge. It translates all the necessary skills into jargon-free language using a variety of visuals and simple step-by-step procedures that will enable any person to read the book quickly and start writing immediately.
The book is accompanied by a website containing an instructor’s manual with guidance on the teaching and assessment of research writing, as well as lecture slides.
Chapter 1 | 13 pages, research as argument, chapter 2 | 14 pages, understanding the basic research skills in the light of argument, chapter 3 | 28 pages, finding an original contribution, chapter 4 | 39 pages, writing argumentatively, chapter 5 | 24 pages, how to get started and write introductions, chapter 6 | 16 pages, writing an original and argumentative literature review, chapter 7 | 14 pages, principles of writing argumentatively about your research design and methodology, chapter 8 | 1 pages, in conclusion.
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An argumentative essay attempts to convince your reader of the validity of a particular opinion on a controversial issue. These following steps may assist you in forming your written argument:
1. Choose a topic that interests you. It doesn't have to be a vital topic of the day but it should be something that you can feel strongly about. 2. Clearly identify the issue at stake, and where you stand on it in the introductory paragraph. This is your thesis. 3. Provide support to your stated argument (thesis) in the subsequent body paragraphs. Support this thesis with the 3 strongest arguments you can find. Draw on statistics, expert opinions, facts, personal experiences, research studies drawn from journals, books, newspaper articles, reports etc.. 4. Acknowledge and address opposing viewpoints and repudiate them using your sources. This will lend additional persuasiveness to your argument. 5. Provide a forceful conclusion that restates your position in different words. It may include a call to action. (Adapted from Indian River State College Writing Handout)
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature using the familiar Google interface. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research. If you are off-campus, use these instructions to set it up for full access to library resources .
Thank you to Edward Metz for his permission to adopt and adapt his guide The Argument Essay .
Research and instruction librarian.
General Education
Need to defend your opinion on an issue? Argumentative essays are one of the most popular types of essays you’ll write in school. They combine persuasive arguments with fact-based research, and, when done well, can be powerful tools for making someone agree with your point of view. If you’re struggling to write an argumentative essay or just want to learn more about them, seeing examples can be a big help.
After giving an overview of this type of essay, we provide three argumentative essay examples. After each essay, we explain in-depth how the essay was structured, what worked, and where the essay could be improved. We end with tips for making your own argumentative essay as strong as possible.
An argumentative essay is an essay that uses evidence and facts to support the claim it’s making. Its purpose is to persuade the reader to agree with the argument being made.
A good argumentative essay will use facts and evidence to support the argument, rather than just the author’s thoughts and opinions. For example, say you wanted to write an argumentative essay stating that Charleston, SC is a great destination for families. You couldn’t just say that it’s a great place because you took your family there and enjoyed it. For it to be an argumentative essay, you need to have facts and data to support your argument, such as the number of child-friendly attractions in Charleston, special deals you can get with kids, and surveys of people who visited Charleston as a family and enjoyed it. The first argument is based entirely on feelings, whereas the second is based on evidence that can be proven.
The standard five paragraph format is common, but not required, for argumentative essays. These essays typically follow one of two formats: the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model.
Below are three examples of argumentative essays, written by yours truly in my school days, as well as analysis of what each did well and where it could be improved.
Proponents of this idea state that it will save local cities and towns money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won’t have to travel to a library to get a book; they can simply click on what they want to read and read it from wherever they are. They could also access more materials because libraries won’t have to buy physical copies of books; they can simply rent out as many digital copies as they need.
However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems than print resources. A study done on tablet vs book reading found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, retain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause numerous health problems, including blurred vision, dizziness, dry eyes, headaches, and eye strain, at much higher instances than reading print does. People who use tablets and mobile devices excessively also have a higher incidence of more serious health issues such as fibromyalgia, shoulder and back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and muscle strain. I know that whenever I read from my e-reader for too long, my eyes begin to feel tired and my neck hurts. We should not add to these problems by giving people, especially young people, more reasons to look at screens.
Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have a multitude of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to converse with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering patron questions, and keeping the community connected. One neighborhood found that, after a local library instituted community events such as play times for toddlers and parents, job fairs for teenagers, and meeting spaces for senior citizens, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community. Similarly, a Pew survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others and get their questions answered, benefits tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.
While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens, despite the myriad issues surrounding them. It would also end access to many of the benefits of libraries that people have come to rely on. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.
The author begins by giving an overview of the counter-argument, then the thesis appears as the first sentence in the third paragraph. The essay then spends the rest of the paper dismantling the counter argument and showing why readers should believe the other side.
What this essay does well:
There are multiple drugs available to treat malaria, and many of them work well and save lives, but malaria eradication programs that focus too much on them and not enough on prevention haven’t seen long-term success in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major program to combat malaria was WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Started in 1955, it had a goal of eliminating malaria in Africa within the next ten years. Based upon previously successful programs in Brazil and the United States, the program focused mainly on vector control. This included widely distributing chloroquine and spraying large amounts of DDT. More than one billion dollars was spent trying to abolish malaria. However, the program suffered from many problems and in 1969, WHO was forced to admit that the program had not succeeded in eradicating malaria. The number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa who contracted malaria as well as the number of malaria deaths had actually increased over 10% during the time the program was active.
One of the major reasons for the failure of the project was that it set uniform strategies and policies. By failing to consider variations between governments, geography, and infrastructure, the program was not nearly as successful as it could have been. Sub-Saharan Africa has neither the money nor the infrastructure to support such an elaborate program, and it couldn’t be run the way it was meant to. Most African countries don't have the resources to send all their people to doctors and get shots, nor can they afford to clear wetlands or other malaria prone areas. The continent’s spending per person for eradicating malaria was just a quarter of what Brazil spent. Sub-Saharan Africa simply can’t rely on a plan that requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise than they have to spare.
Additionally, the widespread use of chloroquine has created drug resistant parasites which are now plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa. Because chloroquine was used widely but inconsistently, mosquitoes developed resistance, and chloroquine is now nearly completely ineffective in Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 95% of mosquitoes resistant to it. As a result, newer, more expensive drugs need to be used to prevent and treat malaria, which further drives up the cost of malaria treatment for a region that can ill afford it.
Instead of developing plans to treat malaria after the infection has incurred, programs should focus on preventing infection from occurring in the first place. Not only is this plan cheaper and more effective, reducing the number of people who contract malaria also reduces loss of work/school days which can further bring down the productivity of the region.
One of the cheapest and most effective ways of preventing malaria is to implement insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs). These nets provide a protective barrier around the person or people using them. While untreated bed nets are still helpful, those treated with insecticides are much more useful because they stop mosquitoes from biting people through the nets, and they help reduce mosquito populations in a community, thus helping people who don’t even own bed nets. Bed nets are also very effective because most mosquito bites occur while the person is sleeping, so bed nets would be able to drastically reduce the number of transmissions during the night. In fact, transmission of malaria can be reduced by as much as 90% in areas where the use of ITNs is widespread. Because money is so scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa, the low cost is a great benefit and a major reason why the program is so successful. Bed nets cost roughly 2 USD to make, last several years, and can protect two adults. Studies have shown that, for every 100-1000 more nets are being used, one less child dies of malaria. With an estimated 300 million people in Africa not being protected by mosquito nets, there’s the potential to save three million lives by spending just a few dollars per person.
Reducing the number of people who contract malaria would also reduce poverty levels in Africa significantly, thus improving other aspects of society like education levels and the economy. Vector control is more effective than treatment strategies because it means fewer people are getting sick. When fewer people get sick, the working population is stronger as a whole because people are not put out of work from malaria, nor are they caring for sick relatives. Malaria-afflicted families can typically only harvest 40% of the crops that healthy families can harvest. Additionally, a family with members who have malaria spends roughly a quarter of its income treatment, not including the loss of work they also must deal with due to the illness. It’s estimated that malaria costs Africa 12 billion USD in lost income every year. A strong working population creates a stronger economy, which Sub-Saharan Africa is in desperate need of.
This essay begins with an introduction, which ends with the thesis (that malaria eradication plans in Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on prevention rather than treatment). The first part of the essay lays out why the counter argument (treatment rather than prevention) is not as effective, and the second part of the essay focuses on why prevention of malaria is the better path to take.
There are many ways payments could work. They could be in the form of a free-market approach, where athletes are able to earn whatever the market is willing to pay them, it could be a set amount of money per athlete, or student athletes could earn income from endorsements, autographs, and control of their likeness, similar to the way top Olympians earn money.
Proponents of the idea believe that, because college athletes are the ones who are training, participating in games, and bringing in audiences, they should receive some sort of compensation for their work. If there were no college athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist, college coaches wouldn’t receive there (sometimes very high) salaries, and brands like Nike couldn’t profit from college sports. In fact, the NCAA brings in roughly $1 billion in revenue a year, but college athletes don’t receive any of that money in the form of a paycheck. Additionally, people who believe college athletes should be paid state that paying college athletes will actually encourage them to remain in college longer and not turn pro as quickly, either by giving them a way to begin earning money in college or requiring them to sign a contract stating they’ll stay at the university for a certain number of years while making an agreed-upon salary.
Supporters of this idea point to Zion Williamson, the Duke basketball superstar, who, during his freshman year, sustained a serious knee injury. Many argued that, even if he enjoyed playing for Duke, it wasn’t worth risking another injury and ending his professional career before it even began for a program that wasn’t paying him. Williamson seems to have agreed with them and declared his eligibility for the NCAA draft later that year. If he was being paid, he may have stayed at Duke longer. In fact, roughly a third of student athletes surveyed stated that receiving a salary while in college would make them “strongly consider” remaining collegiate athletes longer before turning pro.
Paying athletes could also stop the recruitment scandals that have plagued the NCAA. In 2018, the NCAA stripped the University of Louisville's men's basketball team of its 2013 national championship title because it was discovered coaches were using sex workers to entice recruits to join the team. There have been dozens of other recruitment scandals where college athletes and recruits have been bribed with anything from having their grades changed, to getting free cars, to being straight out bribed. By paying college athletes and putting their salaries out in the open, the NCAA could end the illegal and underhanded ways some schools and coaches try to entice athletes to join.
People who argue against the idea of paying college athletes believe the practice could be disastrous for college sports. By paying athletes, they argue, they’d turn college sports into a bidding war, where only the richest schools could afford top athletes, and the majority of schools would be shut out from developing a talented team (though some argue this already happens because the best players often go to the most established college sports programs, who typically pay their coaches millions of dollars per year). It could also ruin the tight camaraderie of many college teams if players become jealous that certain teammates are making more money than they are.
They also argue that paying college athletes actually means only a small fraction would make significant money. Out of the 350 Division I athletic departments, fewer than a dozen earn any money. Nearly all the money the NCAA makes comes from men’s football and basketball, so paying college athletes would make a small group of men--who likely will be signed to pro teams and begin making millions immediately out of college--rich at the expense of other players.
Those against paying college athletes also believe that the athletes are receiving enough benefits already. The top athletes already receive scholarships that are worth tens of thousands per year, they receive free food/housing/textbooks, have access to top medical care if they are injured, receive top coaching, get travel perks and free gear, and can use their time in college as a way to capture the attention of professional recruiters. No other college students receive anywhere near as much from their schools.
People on this side also point out that, while the NCAA brings in a massive amount of money each year, it is still a non-profit organization. How? Because over 95% of those profits are redistributed to its members’ institutions in the form of scholarships, grants, conferences, support for Division II and Division III teams, and educational programs. Taking away a significant part of that revenue would hurt smaller programs that rely on that money to keep running.
While both sides have good points, it’s clear that the negatives of paying college athletes far outweigh the positives. College athletes spend a significant amount of time and energy playing for their school, but they are compensated for it by the scholarships and perks they receive. Adding a salary to that would result in a college athletic system where only a small handful of athletes (those likely to become millionaires in the professional leagues) are paid by a handful of schools who enter bidding wars to recruit them, while the majority of student athletics and college athletic programs suffer or even shut down for lack of money. Continuing to offer the current level of benefits to student athletes makes it possible for as many people to benefit from and enjoy college sports as possible.
This argumentative essay follows the Rogerian model. It discusses each side, first laying out multiple reasons people believe student athletes should be paid, then discussing reasons why the athletes shouldn’t be paid. It ends by stating that college athletes shouldn’t be paid by arguing that paying them would destroy college athletics programs and cause them to have many of the issues professional sports leagues have.
Now that you’ve seen examples of what good argumentative essay samples look like, follow these three tips when crafting your own essay.
The thesis is the key to your argumentative essay; if it isn’t clear or readers can’t find it easily, your entire essay will be weak as a result. Always make sure that your thesis statement is easy to find. The typical spot for it is the final sentence of the introduction paragraph, but if it doesn’t fit in that spot for your essay, try to at least put it as the first or last sentence of a different paragraph so it stands out more.
Also make sure that your thesis makes clear what side of the argument you’re on. After you’ve written it, it’s a great idea to show your thesis to a couple different people--classmates are great for this. Just by reading your thesis they should be able to understand what point you’ll be trying to make with the rest of your essay.
When writing your essay, you may be tempted to ignore the other side of the argument and just focus on your side, but don’t do this. The best argumentative essays really tear apart the other side to show why readers shouldn’t believe it. Before you begin writing your essay, research what the other side believes, and what their strongest points are. Then, in your essay, be sure to mention each of these and use evidence to explain why they’re incorrect/weak arguments. That’ll make your essay much more effective than if you only focused on your side of the argument.
Remember, an essay can’t be an argumentative essay if it doesn’t support its argument with evidence. For every point you make, make sure you have facts to back it up. Some examples are previous studies done on the topic, surveys of large groups of people, data points, etc. There should be lots of numbers in your argumentative essay that support your side of the argument. This will make your essay much stronger compared to only relying on your own opinions to support your argument.
Argumentative essays are persuasive essays that use facts and evidence to support their side of the argument. Most argumentative essays follow either the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model. By reading good argumentative essay examples, you can learn how to develop your essay and provide enough support to make readers agree with your opinion. When writing your essay, remember to always make your thesis clear, show where the other side is weak, and back up your opinion with data and evidence.
Do you need to write an argumentative essay as well? Check out our guide on the best argumentative essay topics for ideas!
You'll probably also need to write research papers for school. We've got you covered with 113 potential topics for research papers.
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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.
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Writing good argumentative research paper topics can always place you in a rock and a hard place. Writing from scratch can be daunting, but writing to a deadline is worse. Creating a terrific academic argumentative research paper takes a few tweaks. Through them, you will eventually craft a standardized paper that would earn you all points and, if not all, perhaps better grades.
This article will discuss the various angles you could take flawlessly to finish an argumentative research paper. Consequently, do not let terror take over you when writing a research paper.
Instead, it will be your forte after reading through this article’s steps.
An argumentative research paper is a paper that is structured in a way that allows you to present and defend your ideas about the topic, and that’s what definitional argument paper topics involve. The main purpose of an argumentative research paper is to make it possible for you to demonstrate your arguments. They may be based on either scientific knowledge or personal experience.
College argumentative research paper topics can be a single paper or a collection of several papers that you have written. Alternatively, it can be a series of papers in which you have analyzed different aspects of the topic. It will take you a while of introspection to understand this.
An award-winning research paper or one that could earn you better grades must be deeply rooted in facts. Generally, you must employ extensive evidence to defend your opinion or point.
The are many different types of argumentative research paper topics. Here we explore the classic classification of the topics and their characteristics
A thesis statement outlines the topic of your assignments, that is, argumentative research essay topics, and provides a summary of the article’s content, particularly your position on the subject. It is helpful to pose a concern before making your assertion in a thesis, so that your thesis can provide a resolution.
This is a powerful strategy for getting the reader interested in your subject and the viewpoint you advocate. The basic custom of any argument should be briefly covered in a thesis. By accomplishing this-getting thesis writing help, you can assist the reader in becoming ready for the essay’s main body.
When writing a thesis statement, you must include: A question A provocative statement A well-laid description An anecdote that compels the readers to find out more about the essay
Whenever you start writing, make an effort to define your aim explicitly. This is what argumentative research paper topics college institutions demand. Constantly write on your subject if you cannot express your purpose effectively.
You might occasionally find yourself debating points you do not particularly agree with. That is just good – making a convincing argument does not need you to believe what you are saying fervently.
However, picking a subject you are passionate about is a fantastic option when you have complete freedom over it. A strong perspective and various supporting arguments are the two essential elements of a high quality successful argumentative essay.
It will be simpler for a student to obtain proof to back up an argument if they are fascinated and enthusiastic about the issue that they chose. The evidence itself is what matters most.
Decide on a topic by considering issues that are important to you, irrespective of whether they are good or bad. Create a list of concepts, and then pick a couple to focus on. You will then elaborate upon such concepts by addressing a few compensatory picks.
Making these lists may lead you to discover that a few are more powerful than others. The greater the issue, the more proof you have and the more compelling you believe that proved to be.
Again, choosing a different argument research topic is acceptable if you think one issue would have more verifiable data, but you would prefer not to pen about it. If you are enthusiastic about our topic, it might be much simpler to uncover solid arguments and evidence to support your claims than if you are not.
Well, here is a list of sample argumentative research paper topics you could decide to choose from and develop a terrific essay.
Here are some ingenious argumentative essay sample topics touching on matters of education:
When faced with an argumentative essay touching on ethics, here are samples to jog your mind:
Sports argumentative essay topics can prove hard to formulate. Here are samples:
Argumentative essay topics on religion could prove contentious. Below are samples:
Argumentative topics in economics essays are easy. Here are some examples:
Formulating argumentative essay topics on culture and society, in general, should not bother you that much. Here are samples. But if you have problems with your writing you can order a dissertation online .
Many learners avoid technology-related argumentative topics due to their technicality. Below are samples:
Below are argumentative topics touching on the science field:
Argumentative topics on the environment tend to be broad. Here are useful samples:
Politics is not everyone. Below are argumentative topics on governance you could exploit:
There are numerous argumentative topics on health to choose from. Below are samples:
Working students can consider our consulting and thesis writing services when faced with tough argumentative research paper assignments. Our writers are some of the best experts and can provide a fast turnaround with your argumentative research essays to help you beat the deadlines. Even so, writing essays and coming up with good argument paper topics can be strenuous. Our team of writers can help you get the best argumentative research paper topics that will earn you grades generously.
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Top 10 countries hiring freelancers in 2024, from research.
Demand for freelance talent is up this year
Are you hoping to join the new wave of workers known as the freelance workforce this year? Are you intending to leave your job—or begin the process so you can be in a financially strong enough position to hand in your notice this year?
If you plan on joining the gig economy, or starting a side hustle and scaling it into a fulltime venture, you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that demand for freelancers is up this year, according to expert analysts at Worksuite , a freelance management platform that connects businesses and freelancers.
Their research concluded that there was a "22.4% year-on-year growth in the dollar amount of invoiced contract work being managed" via their platform, with major corporate clients hiring these freelancers including big names such as Marriott Bonvoy, Mediabrands, The New York Academy of Sciences, Microsoft, and WebMD.
According to the same report, the top 10 countries that held the greatest number of freelance professionals in 2023 were:
In 2024, that list remains fairly the same, with the exception of three countries—Germany, Puerto Rico, and Sweden—dropping out, and being replaced by Brazil, Australia, and South Africa in the final three positions in the ranking.
Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.
The report continues to note that within the first half of 2024, the top five countries churning out freelancers that experienced an increase in fresh freelance talent (based on Worksuite usage data), compared to last year, are South Africa with a 126% increase, followed by the U.S. (68%), Canada (64%), Australia (62%), and the UAE (47%).
But perhaps one of the most interesting insights from the Worksuite report is the countries it listed which are the most keen on hiring freelance talent right now.
According to their findings, in the first half of 2023, the top 10 countries that spent the most money in hiring freelance talent were the U.S., U.K., Canada, Netherlands, India, Panama, Switzerland, Australia, Poland, and Uruguay.
Within the first half of 2024, we are seeing some major differences compared to last year. The top 10 countries where you can witness companies spending the most money on freelancers now are:
Understanding the current state of the freelance market can help you uncover areas of strong job demand and growth within your specialism or niche, and industry, and can lead to more high-growth and high-paying gigs and projects. You might even decide to move to one of these countries, or opt for switching up your marketing strategy to ensure that corporations and entities based in, or having a presence in, these top countries hiring freelancers, are better placed to view your services and contract with you.
Here are some ideas on how to use this information to inform your freelancing strategy when growing your small business and bidding for projects:
Don't just take the findings of the report at face value and run with it. Conduct thorough market research to ensure these countries would work best for you and your business idea. Then you can set competitive rates based on the spending power and market rates within the countries listed above. For example, you may find that high-spending markets are more willing to pay premium rates for your quality expertise. This knowledge enables you to confidently negotiate better pay rates.
Focus your marketing efforts, especially digital marketing and social media outreach, on the countries you wish to target, to reap the most benefits. This is particularly helpful if you are narrowing down your audience for PPC (pay-per-click) advertizing on Facebook for example, or if you are sending new connection requests and InMails on LinkedIn.
Think about where you wish to establish your presence and thought leadership as a freelance professional, and reduce the risk of over-dependence on one market by diversifying your geographical reach. Build a global client base and develop mechanisms that allow you to work for and collaborate with stakeholders across the world, whether that be new software or something as simple as developing your communication skills.
Understanding which countries are spending the most on freelancers can help you make informed ... [+] decisions for your marketing strategy
As a freelancer, you're stepping into an entire new world of work. Remember to think smart, strategize your way to success, and physically position yourself and your business visibility where you will be most likely to gain the most profit and opportunities.
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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.
1. Conduct thorough research: Before you start writing your essay, conduct thorough research to gather relevant and reliable evidence and examples that support your arguments. Look for reputable sources such as academic journals, books, and credible websites to ensure the accuracy of the information. 2.
When writing an argumentative research essay, create an outline to structure the research you find as well as help with the writing process. The outline of an argumentative essay should include an introduction with thesis statement, 3 main body paragraphs with supporting evidence and opposing viewpoints with evidence to disprove, along with an ...
An argumentative essay is a piece of writing that uses logical evidence and empirical data to convince readers of a particular position on a topic. Because of its reliance on structure and planning, the first step in writing one is often drafting a solid argumentative essay outline. ... Writing Tips Paraphrasing for Better Research Papers: A ...
An argumentative essay in academic writing is where one takes a stance on a particular topic, presents arguments to support that stance, and aims to persuade readers to accept the point of view presented. Read this to learn how to write an argumentative essay with examples, create an argumentative essay outline, and gain expert tips for authors.
When you're writing a persuasive essay, you need more than just an opinion to make your voice heard. Even the strongest stance won't be compelling if it's not structured properly and reinforced with solid reasoning and evidence. Learn what elements every argumentative essay should include and how to structure it depending on your audience in this easy step-by-step guide.
In most cases, the essay brief will prompt you to argue for one of two positions. An argumentative essay title includes keywords such as "argument", "assert", "claim", and usually takes the form of a question. The title of an argumentative essay can be either open or two-sided. Here are examples of argumentative titles so you know ...
X Research source. Clustering Write a brief explanation (phrase or short sentence) of the subject of your argumentative essay on the center of a piece of paper and circle it. Then draw three or more lines extending from the circle. Write a corresponding idea at the end of each of these lines.
3 Drafting: Write a rough draft of your essay. It helps to include any data and direct quotes as early as possible, especially with argumentative essays that often cite outside sources. 4 Revising: Polish your rough draft, optimize word choice, and restructure your arguments if necessary. Make sure your language is clear and appropriate for the ...
This will shine through in your writing, make the research process easier, and positively influence the outcome of your argument. Step 2: Conduct ample research to prove the validity of your argument. To write an emotive argumentative essay, finding enough research to support your theory is a must. You'll need solid evidence to convince ...
The argumentative essay is commonly assigned as a capstone or final project in first year writing or advanced composition courses and involves lengthy, detailed research. Expository essays involve less research and are shorter in length. Expository essays are often used for in-class writing exercises or tests, such as the GED or GRE.
Focus Area #3: Writing the Conclusion. It's common to conclude an argumentative essay by reiterating the thesis statement in some way, either by reminding the reader what the overarching argument was in the first place or by reviewing the main points and evidence that you covered.
Effective use of evidence strengthens your argument and enhances your credibility, demonstrating thorough research and a deep understanding of the topic at hand. 4. The balance: Acknowledging counterarguments for the argumentative essay. A well-rounded argumentative essay acknowledges that there are two sides to every story.
Find a debatable topic. This means that someone could argue against you. Research your topic. Come up with an argument that is supported by your research. This is your claim. Jot down several good reasons why you support your claim. Use your research to back up those reasons. Look at the reasons you gave and try to argue with yourself.
Existing literature explores doctoral dissertation writing problems (Odena & Burgess, 2017), lack of writing instructions (Graham, 2018), and argumentative writing (Andrews, 2007; Wentzel, 2018 ...
The heading "Writing a persuasive essay" comes within a chapter/section about using visual elements (3.11). I believe this is a mistake. ... The text covers the writing process, rhetoric and argumentation, and research-based writing sufficiently in-depth to work as a primary textbook for a composition course focusing on these topics.
Current theories of argumentative writing (Ferretti & Fan, 2016) recognize its intrinsically social and dialogical nature, and that it involves the presentation of a constellation of propositions intended to achieve the interlocutors' discursive goals (van Eemeren, 2018).There are, however, theoretically-motivated differences of perspective about the foci of argumentative writing research ...
DOI link for A Guide to Argumentative Research Writing and Thinking. A Guide to Argumentative Research Writing and Thinking. Overcoming Challenges. By Arnold Wentzel. Edition 1st Edition. First Published 2017. eBook Published 17 November 2017. Pub. Location London.
The Research Argument: Resources. If you have been assigned a research argument paper, this guide will give you an overview of what an argumentative essay is, tips on how to write a good one, examples, and suggested databases to find resources. College Writing.
Remember the differences between a persuasive essay and an argumentative one, make sure your thesis is clear, and double-check that your supporting evidence is both relevant to your point and well-sourced. Pick your topic, do your research, make your outline, and fill in the gaps. Before you know it, you'll have yourself an A+ argumentative ...
Try our student writing prompts. In 2017, we compiled a list of 401 argumentative writing prompts, all drawn from our daily Student Opinion column. Now, we're rounding up 130 more we've ...
Argumentative Essay Example 2. Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through female Anopheles mosquitoes. Each year, over half a billion people will become infected with malaria, with roughly 80% of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Writing good argumentative research paper topics can always place you in a rock and a hard place. Writing from scratch can be daunting, but writing to a deadline is worse. Creating a terrific academic argumentative research paper takes a few tweaks. Through them, you will eventually craft a standardized paper that would earn you all points and ...
To support the contest, we have a robust argumentative writing unit that includes links to a decade's worth of lesson plans, videos, mentor texts, writing prompts, webinars and even a book of ...
Their research concluded that there was a "22.4% year-on-year growth in the dollar amount of invoiced contract work being managed" via their platform, with major corporate clients hiring these ...