ENG 106: Composition 2 |
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By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following:
Read Chapter 10 of Everything’s an
Argument and excerpts from Captain John Smith’s A Description of New
England (97-100) and Chapter IX of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth
Plantation (126-129) before you come to class on Tuesday. Write an outline for your evaluation and bring it to class on Thursday. This outline should include a clear, argumentative claim, along with notes on criteria gathered from the course syllabus, the department guidelines, and one of your textbooks. Think Fast: In
what ways are Captain John Smith and William Bradford making arguments of
evaluation in the excerpts you read from A Description of New England
and Of Plymouth Plantation?
What are their criteria?
Which argument do you find more compelling and why? Presentation:
Evaluation (Professor Canada) Cooperative Learning:
Introduce yourself to the other members of your group. After the introductions, discuss
Smith’s or Bradford’s argument.
In particular, identify the claim, the criteria, and the evidence. Discussion: During
this time, we will discuss the insights and questions that have emerged
during our reading, “Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative
learning. Workshop: During
this time, you will learn how to set up a detailed outline for an
argumentative essay, and you will begin drafting an outline for your
evaluation. Think Again: Pair
up with a partner and read his or her outline. Evaluate your partner’s claim and evidence. Suggest ways to improve these
components. Conferences: During
these one-on-one conferences, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz
you on lesson objectives, and field your questions. Announcements: We
will wrap up this lesson with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as
well as other relevant subjects. Terms
Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following names and terms:
Resources
Everything’s an Argument contains
extensive discussion of evaluations. Be
Your Best: Internet contains general information about the
structure of the Internet, along with tips for designing a Web site. The
Easy Way to a Web Site features step-by-step instructions for creating and
posting Web pages. Updated December 30, 2002
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IntroductionIn our previous lesson, we began building a sound foundation in rhetoric and study skills. In this lesson, we will take a closer look at argument, and you will begin constructing an outline of your evaluation. Please bring a blank diskette to Dial 149 each class this week so that you can save the work we do in class. Since I will be offering you the option of posting your essays on the Internet, I also will set aside some time during class this week to show you how to reserve space on the Internet and how to post a Web site there. I also will be offering an optional computer help session from 10 to 11 a.m. this Wednesday, Jan. 15, in Dial 149. If you have any questions about word processing, creating an outline on a computer, reserving space on the Geocities server, or creating a Web site, please plan to attend this session. DiscussionArgumentLike language itself, argument is something you have known nearly your entire life. The first time you tried to talk your parents out of making you go to bed, you are were arguing. Since that time, you have formed a few hundred other arguments—that it was your sister's fault and not yours, that you should be able to stay out until midnight instead of 11 p.m., that the teacher's test was unfair, that UNCP should admit you, that you are eligible for financial aid. Indeed, every time that you try convince someone that something is true or persuade someone to do something, you are engaging in argument. Most of the time, you probably use words, either written or spoken, but you also may have used pictures, gestures, facial expressions, and other tools. Argument, then, is nothing new. Still, just as college composition classes help you to improve language skills you already have, these same classes—and others in history, psychology, chemistry, and every other discipline—can help you to polish your argumentative skills. In fact, argument is at the core of the kind of study that goes on in college. Both you and your professors use argument when you study a subject, interpret the facts and opinions about it, reach a conclusion, and then try to convince others that your conclusion is the right one. Unlike high school, which tends to emphasize the learning of facts, college focuses on the skill of interpretation. You still have to try to absorb a lot of information, but now you have to think a great deal about it, synthesize various details, and draw conclusions. Indeed, one of the most important--and most difficult--lessons that college has to teach is that truth is in most cases a matter of interpretation. In college, you study and practice the various steps for making an effective argument. That is, you will learn how to collect and evaluate evidence, how to state a clear claim, and how to organize and present compelling support for this claim. Before beginning to develop these skills, however, you can prepare yourself for success by studying a few basic principles of argument, not only so that you can engage in it yourself, but also so that you can be an effective critical reader of others’ arguments. In his discussions of rhetoric, the art of communicating effectively, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle identified three particular means of making an argument: logos, the appeal to the audience's sense of logic; ethos, the invocation of the speaker's character; and pathos, the appeal to the audience's emotions. Of these three means, the first two are the most useful in academic argument. When making the first, you often will have to present evidence--that is, factual material or other people's interpretations. Whereas your early arguments over bedtime may have amounted to shallow pleading—“Pleeeeease, just five more minutes!”—the type of sophisticated arguments you will do in college, on the job, and in your communities must be logical and grounded if they are to be effective. As you examine this evidence in your various sources, you will want to beware of logical fallacies. These errors in reasoning actually serve to mislead or distract readers and thus do not belong in honest argument; nevertheless, they are quite common. Politicians, for example, are notorious for a type of fallacy called an ad hominem attack, which is aimed at a person rather than an issue. Many people are guilty of using the post hoc fallacy, which implies that one event caused another simply because it came first. Other logical fallacies include begging the question, which involves using unproven evidence to support a claim; the false dilemma, which implies that someone must choose from a limited number of options even though others actually exist; and a red herring, which merely distracts the audience from the issue by introducing something not directly related to the argument at hand. Finally, once you have examined and thoughtfully considered the evidence, you are ready to draft your own argument. First, you will want to write a working claim. Similar to a thesis, a claim is a statement that offers an interpretation of the evidence. In their book The Craft of Research, Joseph Williams, George Colomb, and Wayne Booth explain that a strong claim has four qualities. First, they say, it should have substance. In other words, it should relate to something meaningful to someone. A second quality of a good claim is contestability. That is, it should be open to discussion and disagreement and not be simply a statement of fact. The third quality is precision, or the degree of specificity in a claim. Finally, a claim must exhibit exceptional clarity. Because the claim sets up your entire argument, your readers should know exactly what it is saying. Claims and arguments come in different varieties. A definition, for example, deals with the nature of something. An article about Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman might argue that it is or is not an example of a tragedy. An evaluation offers an assessment of someone or something's value. Movie reviews are examples of evaluations. Causal arguments try to show how one person, thing, or event resulted in something. Historians, for instance, can argue about causes or consequences of wars, recessions, immigration, and the like. A proposal suggests a course of action. Politicians often make proposals about tax policies and other government matters. EvaluationYou walk out of a cinema with a friend and say, “That was a great movie!” Someone asks you what you think of your new car, and you say, “It’s the perfect car for me.” Your roommate asks you about the course you took with Dr. Canada, and you say—well, I’ll leave that up to you. In each of these instances, you are making arguments of evaluation. Specifically, you are presenting your ideas about whether something was good or bad. On a broader level, an evaluation is a kind of argument in which the writer or speaker measures a specific thing—a movie, a car, a college course, or just about anything else—against a set of criteria in order to determine its value. The criteria are the standards of measurement, the factors that give something value. In many cases, evaluations may argue simply that something is “good”; in others, however, the value may be something more specific. For example, a military analyst may evaluate the strength of a nation’s navy, or magazine’s reporters may evaluate the academic atmosphere of a university. In each case, the evaluator is using a set of criteria, but these criteria refer to specific kinds of value: strength or academic atmosphere. Like all kinds of arguments, evaluations can themselves be evaluated. That is, readers or listeners can decide whether the evaluation is compelling. In other words, do they believe the evaluator’s assessment? Two factors determine the effectiveness of an evaluation. First, the criteria should consist of standards that the audience accepts. If, for example, you argue that the movie you saw was good because it had great special effects and your audience cares nothing for special effects, then you have not gained much ground with that audience. For this reason, you generally will want to use widely accepted criteria in your evaluation or, if you choose unusual criteria, show why your criteria are appropriate. Second, your evaluation should clearly show that the movie, car, course, or other item you are evaluating meets the criteria you have set. Plan to use numerous examples to illustrate your points. For instance, if you are arguing that your car is perfect for you because it is very safe, point out several specific safety features, such as air bags and anti-lock brakes. You already have encountered and created hundreds or thousands of evaluations, and you will engage in many more over the course of your life. Knowing how to assess their strengths and weaknesses and how to create compelling evaluations of your own can help make you a successful consumer, voter, and more. ConclusionIn this lesson, we studied some of the basic principles of argument, looked at a specific brand of argument called evaluation, began constructing outlines, and discussed the process of posting material on the Internet. In our next lesson, we will take a close look at using sources to make an argument. |