1) State your claim or thesis for your paper.

2) Qualify your claim, if necessary, by using a qualifier or noting exceptions.

Unqualified claim: One thing is certain about romantic comedies: in the end, the guy always gets the girl.

Unqualified claims are not necessarily bad; however, they are much more difficult to defend.

Qualified claim: In the end, the guy usually gets the girl in romantic comedies.

The qualified claim is easier to defend since they put limits on the claim.

Qualifiers delimit claims. Words such as usually, often, frequently, many, most, in general, etc. are
typically used to qualify a claim. Similarly, time may be used to qualify a claim, e.g., Until recently, vampires have always been portrayed as evil in horror movies.

Claim with Exception: In romantic comedies, the guy always ended up with girl until My Best Friend's Wedding.

Exceptions are similar to qualifiers in that they delimit a claim. However, exceptions refer to specific cases or situations, whereas qualifiers are more indeterminate.

3) State the reasons supporting your claim.

Let's start with a claim: Psychological thrillers are most effective when they put the audience in the position of the hero.

Ineffective Reason: Because that's my favorite kind of movie.

Reasons are only effective when they invoke values that an audience agrees with. The reason given above is not very effective because your audience probably doesn't care whether or not it's your favorite kind of movie.

Effective Reason: Because by withholding the same information from the audience that is withheld from the hero, the audience identifies more closely with the hero.

This reason would likely be viewed in a more positive light by the audience because the audience believes that people identify with others in a similar situation.

4) State the evidence you have backing up each of your reasons.

Obviously, an audience won't just take your word as evidence to support your claim. Instead, you'll need to include examples, statistics, facts, expert testimony, logic, theory, etc.

5) In order for your evidence to be convincing, your audience must judge it as

a) sufficient (is there enough evidence to support you?)

b) convincing (is the evidence credible? For example, if your source is not a scholarly source, it may not be viewed as credible within academia)

c) accurate (is the evidence valid? For example, if you are using 10 year old statistics, your audience may well doubt their validity today)

Rate your evidence for each reason for the above criteria using a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being very weak, 2 weak, 3 adequate, 4 strong, and 5 very strong. Explain your rating for each score. For example, you may cite one instance of a psychological thriller that puts the audience in the same position as our hero. I would rank that as a 2 (weak) for sufficiency. You would need more evidence for it to be considered a 5. However, you might receive a 5 (very strong) as far as convincing and accurate for that particular reason. Nevertheless, you would need to find more evidence in order to fully support your reason since your evidence must meet all three criteria to be convincing to an audience.

6) Anticipate any objections/counterarguments to your claim.

For example, someone might argue that a movie like Alfred Hitchock's Marnie doesn't really put you in the same position as the hero, yet is a very effective psychological thriller.

In order to write an effective argument, you must anticipate counterarguments.

7) Note how you plan to deal with objections/counterarguments.

There are 3 basic strategies you can employ:

i) Refute. This is the best of all possible worlds. Your opponent is wrong and you can prove it.

Let's say you're arguing that a new drug should be approved by the FDA. However, you know that one objection to the new drug is that similar drugs have caused increased rates of cancer among users. If you have access to a new study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine that shows that this class of drugs does not increase the risk of cancer, then you can simply refute the objection with your new evidence.

ii) Minimize. If you can't refute, the next best option is to minimize.

Once again, you are arguing that a new drug should be approved by the FDA. The objection is that the drug has side effects. You could minimize the objection by pointing out that the side effects -- headache and dizziness -- are relatively mild compared to the benefits -- lowering high blood pressure.

iii) Acknowledge. If you truly have an arguable claim, then usually the other side has valid points, too (otherwise it wouldn't be an argument, right?). Rather than ignore them, you should acknowledge them? Why?

By acknowledging valid objections, your ethos (the audience's perception of your character) increases. As a result, you are seen as more objective and you can gain the audience's trust. Failing to acknowledge the objection makes you seem either ignorant (you should have anticipated counterarguments if you'd done your homework) or deceitful (you're trying to hide evidence that weakens your case).

State how you will refute, minimize or acknowledge objections/counterarguments.