This handout should give you the basics of good argumentation. This will help you in your paper, reading papers written by others, and in the essay part of the exam (as well as in life).
Rules to keep in mind:
1. Make sure that others can understand what you are trying to say. This is why good grammar and proofreading are important.
2. Be your own devil's advocate. Try to anticipate how someone who disagrees with your position would respond to your statements. Then, consider whether or not you can respond to these anticipated criticisms. If you can respond to the criticism without injuring your argument, then do it. If you can't, then consider your options - change your view slightly to compensate, put the criticism into perspective with similar criticisms of opposing arguments, or recognize the problem and explain that it needs to be considered in a later paper when more time can be devoted to it. The last two options can only be used when you can show that the damage from the criticism is not major.
3. Keep your arguments organized in a logical fashion. The reader should be able to follow your train of thought without getting lost. Make it clear how the main points fit together to support your conclusion.
Organization:
1. Make an outline of your paper. This organizes how you will support your thesis and guide the reader to your conclusion.
2. Generally, your introductory paragraph should state exactly what thesis you are arguing for and how you are going to support it. The details on how you are going to support it can be in the paragraph immediately following the introductory paragraph if the paper seems to flow better that way.
The thesis statement and explanation of how it will be supported provide the reader with an outline of the paper. They form a conceptual map that guides the reader through the paper to your conclusion.
3. Follow your outline.
4. Avoid going off on tangents. For example, while the history of a subject may be interesting, it is rarely useful in supporting your argument. Always ask yourself, "How does this help to prove my thesis statement?"
5. Your conclusion should not make any claims that you have not sufficiently supported in the paragraphs that form the body of your paper or essay.
Reading Others’ Works:
1. Read first for understanding. Try to understand what the author is trying to say.
2. Then read the work a second time for analysis and critique.
1. Strawperson - Essentially, this is when one decides to argue against a position that practically no one supports or for a position that almost everyone agrees with. This often involves a misrepresentation of to opposing argument to make it appear weaker than it actually is.
For example, "We should have voluntary medical insurance because national health care insurance would bankrupt the country and everyone would have to wait in line for health care."
2. Ad Hominem - This is where one attempts to disprove a proposition by attacking the person who makes it, even though the person's character does not affect the truth value of the proposition.
For example, "JFK had numerous extramarital affairs. So, he must have been a bad president."
3. False Dilemma - In this type of fallacy, the number of alternatives presented arranged so that the alternative argued for appears to be the only reasonable option, but in actuality other reasonable alternatives are available.
For example, consider the argument, "Either we legalize the death penalty or we go bankrupt trying to support criminals in jail." There are other reasonable alternatives including prison work programs, improved rehabilitation programs, and simply capping the prison budget.
4. Slippery Slope - A slippery slope argument claims that one should not accept a proposition, even if it appears to be reasonable, because it will lead to an undesirable situation. This type of argument is a fallacy when the proposition will not necessarily lead to the undesirable situation.
A popular example of this is the argument that legalizing voluntary euthanasia would lead to indiscriminate killing of any group that society deems to be undesirable. This is a fallacy since stringent controls might prevent the undesirable outcome. This is no longer a fallacy if one can support the claim that there is no way to prevent the slide down to indiscriminate killing of any group that society deems is undesirable.
5. Begging the Question - If your conclusion is assumed in your premises, then you are begging the question. The best way to explain this is by using an example.
Consider the argument, "Any action that involves directly causing a person's death is wrong because it is killing a person." This argument is a fallacy because it assumes that killing a person is always wrong at the start. But, this is really what one needs to prove to someone who does not immediately accept the conclusion that "Any action that involves directly causing a person's death is wrong." Essentially the argument is reducible to any action that involves killing a person is wrong because killing a person is wrong. This argument does not provide any new information. It does not address the real issues at hand which include whether or not it is always wrong to kill a person.
6. Appeal to Force - This type of fallacious argument basically depends on threats to gain agreement.
For example, someone might tell you that you better agree with the Boss' proposal to change thedepartment or else you might be the first person to be fired. Obviously, this is not the way to promote critical thinking. An appeal to force provides no support for the truth value of a given proposition.
7. Appeal to Pity - Like the argument above, this fallacious argument uses emotion to try to convince people. This argument, appeals to a person's compassion to try to convince someone of a proposal without considering characteristics that are more relevant to whether or not one should agree with it.
For example, one might argue that we must use air strikes against the Serbs by showing pictures of children injured and killed by the shelling. However, this is not a sufficient rationale. Other information is more relevant to this argument such as, the chances for improving the situation, alternatives available, the comparison of Serbian losses with Bosnian losses, the political realities, and whether or not there are other areas of the world that are in greater need of support.
8. Prejudicial Language - This involves using prejudicial language to persuade the reader that one side is more reasonable than the other.
For example, someone arguing against abortion may immediately call physicians who perform voluntary abortions murderers. This is obviously prejudicial. It is also begging the question since the main issue in the abortion debate is whether or not performing abortions constitutes murder (intentionally killing a person with morally bad motives). By calling the physician a murderer in his/her argument, the individual is assuming the conclusion that he/she is trying to prove.