Guide to Writing Argumentative Papers

page updated: September 20, 2008

introduction

There is often some confusion as to what is expected of a student paper for a course such as The Human Event. As this is a writing-intensive course, with "Literacy and Critical Inquiry" General Studies designation, you are expected to present papers which support a clear, defensible thesis. According to ASU standards, "[l]iteracy is competence in written and oral discourse; critical inquiry is the gathering, interpretation, and evaluation of evidence. The literacy and critical inquiry requirement helps students sustain and extend their ability to reason critically and communicate clearly through language" [link]. Note that there are two components here - first, critical inquiry and, second, clear communication. A satisfactory paper fulfills both of these components by logical text-based argument (for the former) and clear concise prose (for the latter).The goal of any paper is to persuade the reader of your viewpoint (or at least to persude the reader to think ), and if that reader cannot understand your argument because of poor writing, you have failed to reach that goal. Clearly, if you do not have a defensible argument, your paper is doomed to failure. Your arguments are expected to be critical, based solely on the primary sources you have read and, most importantly, to go beyond superficial viewpoints or rehashing in-class discussions. The key to all of this is to begin with an adequate thesis. In what follows, I hope to provide you with some guidelines to help you develop a strong argument and adequately communicate those ideas to an academic audience.

finding an argument / thesis

As an example, consider the following prompt that an instructor may give:

Discuss how the ideas of Hume - as presented in his "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" - nullify the power of the Argument from Design.

Note that this is a prompt or a topic - a hint, as it were, to get you started with the process of discovering a thesis. You should use this, coupled with your close readings of the text(s), to develop an point of argument around which your paper revolves. Your first task must be to return to the works you have read and to re-read them closely, making sure you fully understand the author's (in this case Hume's) argument. To ensure this, you need to be able to answer a number of questions:

1. What is the Argument from Design?
2. What is Hume's intent in the work? What is he trying to say?
3. What assumptions is Hume making? Are they defensible?
4. Does Hume successfully undermine the Argument from Design, and if so how?
5. Take a stand on Hume's argument - Do you agree/disagree with him? Why/why not?

At this stage, nothing too amazing is happening - all you are doing is making sure you understand what the author is doing. However, question 5 forces you to take a stand on the author's position which is a good start. It is, however, not enough to give you a good thesis. To develop a good thesis, you need to go beyond your view of the work. For example, you may make the following observations:

• The argument from design has not only been used to prove the existence of God but also to prove the attributes of God.
• Hume's argument shares form and content with that of Cicero in De Natura Deorum (which you have read for class), yet it also clearly is influenced by the ideas of earlier Enlightenment thinkers.
• After reading the Dialogues, one is left with the conclusion that while the existence of a designer or designers is possible, one cannot come to any rational conclusion about the characteristics of these individuals. To do that, one requires faith in a particular religious system.

You can see that we've gone beyond simply arguing that Hume nullifies the Argument from Design, and instead have developed some points regarding how Hume does this (by mixing Classical and Enlightenment ideas), and what the significance of the nullification is (one is left using Faith). So, with a bit of work we come to the following as a thesis:

David Hume, closely following the claim of the Enlightenment that Reason was a surer path to truth than was Faith, used a mixture of Enlightenment and classical thought to claim that, while the Argument could be used to prove the existence of a supernatural deity, it yields no reasonable claim about the characteristics of that deity, and as such the Argument does not provide any evidence for the Judeo-Christian God.

We have moved from a general statement (as in the prompt) to a specific. At this point, you might think that you have your work cut out for yourself. Indeed, you may, as long as you can answer the following question;

"Are there any non-trivial objections to my thesis?"

A good thesis will have some non-trivial objections to it; however these objections can be overcome. Most importantly, for a top-quality paper, you will need to identifiy, articulate and rebutt these objections. As you are beginning to critically analyze texts and arguments, you are not expected to identify and rebutt all counter-arguments; you will not, however, be able to avoid many of them. Try and anticipate any objections the reader may have and rebutt them.

structuring your argument

Now that you have a thesis and the bones of an argument, you can begin to start writing your paper. Perhaps the most important part of the paper will be your introductory paragraph - it is here that you establish your argument and catch the reader's attention. Initial paragraphs that fail to do this never give the reader (in this case, me) a reason to continue reading. Simply put, your first paragraph should start with the general and, in a few sentences, move to the specific (your thesis). Short papers, as you are asked to write here, do not require long introductions, so brevity is important.

It is important to stress that starting with a general statement is different from starting with a generalization. Avoid constructions such as; "Ever since the beginning of time ...," "Humans have always ...," "All men know that ... ." Instead, make sure your initial statements are closely tied with your thesis statement and do not begin too far away from where you intend to go. The following is a reasonable initial paragraph with the thesis underlined:

Since the writings of Aristotle, many individuals have used the argument from design to use observations from nature to prove the existence of their deity. Simply put, the argument states that the complexity and inter-relatedness of what we see around us bears the marks of a designer, and that this designer must be a supernatural deity. Following this, many writers proceed to infer the characteristics of this supernatural entity, thus serving an apologetic goal. In this paper, I will discuss how David Hume, closely following the claim of the Enlightenment that Reason was a surer path to truth than was Faith, used a mixture of Enlightenment and classical thought to claim that, while the Argument could be used to prove the existence of a supernatural deity, it yields no reasonable claim about the characteristics of that deity, and as such the Argument does not provide any evidence for the Judeo-Christian God.

Note how this paragraph moves - in five sentences - from the general to the specific, while clearly outlining what the paper is going to achieve.

The middle portions of your paper should provide a point-by-point proof of your thesis. Every paragraph, every quote, and every statement should be essential to your argument and nothing should be superfluous. Each paragraph should argue a single point which has been presented as a topic sentence, i.e. as the first sentence of the paragraph. Each paragraph should use a selection of quotations and references to establish its point, and should then flow into the next paragraph. If this is indeed the case, there is some hope that your argument will form a logical progression. For our essay here, I might have the following paragraphs:

1. Introduction (see above)
2. Establish the similarities between Cicero's argument and that of Hume
3. Establish what is unique about Hume's argument
4. Establish how the points discussed in [3] stem from the Enlightenment view of Reason versus Faith
5. Discuss what is left (Faith) if Reason cannot characterize God
6. Conclusion (see below)

Assemble your supporting evidence (quotes/references), be specific in what they mean, and begin to write!

What about the conclusion? A good conclusion leaves the reader with a feeling that they have reached the end of a logical and coherent argument. There is always a danger that you simply re-hash what you have said earlier, so avoid " In conclusion, in this paper I have discussed ..." or similar constructions. Instead, sum up the main concerns of the paper without mere repetition by trying to a way to shine new light on the thread within the paper. For example,

Hume would appear to have successfully shown that the Argument from Design was of limited apologetic and explanatory value. In so doing, he - like other philosophes - priviledged Reason over Faith. Yet to many writing in the half-century following his work, Hume's argument (and thus Cicero's), was itself seen as flawed, and design would remain the dominant explanation within the natural sciences. It would only be in 1859, with the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" that design would be shown to be apparent rather than real, and that, while God may indeed exist, such a claim was a matter of Faith.

quotations and citing of sources

There are a number of ways that you can refer to supporting material within your essay. In some cases you will want to directly quote the words of the author. The simplest form of this is the embedded partial quote, in which a portion of the authors sentence is "wrapped" in your words and presented to the reader. Next is the full sentence quote, and last is the embedded block quote. Be very wary of using the latter strategy as you need to establish why such a lengthy quote is required to prove your point. Ask yourself whether or not you may be better off paraphrasing the author.

In other cases, you may just wish to paraphrase the author and allude to what she is saying. Whichever you choose, you need to document the source of the information. For this class, we will be using simple parenthetical style - e.g. In "Origin," Darwin clearly states that there is a "struggle for existence" (Darwin 234).

As papers for HON 171/273 are not research papers, there is no need for you to be accessing any secondary sources whether printed or electronic, and there is therefore no need to be quoting anything but the texts we have read.

links

Ian Johnston (Malaspina University College) has two very useful resources which will help; the first is a guide to writing argumentative essays , the second is a general guide to grammer and suchlike.