Planning, Drafting, and Developing

Reassess Your Position and Your Thesis. Now that you have looked into the issue, what is your current position? If necessary, revise the thesis that you formulated earlier. Then summarize your reasons for holding this view, and list your supporting evidence.

For practice developing and supporting effective thesis statements, go to the interactive “Take Action” charts in Re:Writing.

WORKING THESIS We should expect advertisers to fight rather than reinforce gender stereotypes.
REFINED THESIS Consumers should spend their shopping dollars thoughtfully in order to hold advertisers accountable for reinforcing rather than resisting gender stereotypes.

Organize Your Material to Persuade Your Audience. Arrange your notes into the order you think you’ll follow, perhaps making an outline. One useful pattern is the classical form of argument:

See more on outlines.

  1. Introduce the subject to gain the readers’ interest.
  2. State your main point or thesis.
  3. If useful, supply historical background or an overview of the situation.
  4. Present your points or reasons, and provide evidence to support them.
  5. Refute the opposition.
  6. Reaffirm your main point.

When you expect readers to be hostile to your position, stating your position too early might alienate resistant readers or make them defensive. Instead, you may want to refute the opposition first, then replace those views by building a logical chain of evidence that leads to your main point, and finally state your position. Of course, you can always try both approaches to see which one works better. Note also that some papers will be mostly based on refutation (countering opposing views) and some mostly on confirmation (directly supporting your position). Others might even alternate refutation and confirmation rather than separate them.

Define Your Terms. To prevent misunderstanding, make clear any unfamiliar or questionable terms used in your thesis. If your position is “Humanists are dangerous,” you will want to give a short definition of what you mean by humanists and by dangerous early in the paper.

See more on appeals.

Attend to Logical, Emotional, and Ethical Appeals. The logical appeal engages readers’ intellect; the emotional appeal touches their hearts; the ethical appeal draws on their sense of fairness and reasonableness. A persuasive argument usually operates on all three levels. For example, you might use all three appeals to support a thesis about the need to curb accidental gunshot deaths, as the following table illustrates.

Type of Appeal Ways of Making the Appeal Possible Supporting Evidence
Logical (logos)
  • Rely on clear reasoning and sound evidence to influence a reader’s thinking.
  • Demonstrate what you claim, and don’t claim what you can’t demonstrate.
  • Test and select your evidence.
  • Supply current and reliable statistics about gun ownership and accidental shootings.
  • Prepare a bar graph that shows the number of incidents each year in Lion Valley during the past ten years, using data from the county records.
  • Describe the immediate and long-term consequences of a typical shooting accident.
Emotional (pathos)
  • Choose examples and language that will influence a reader’s feelings.
  • Include effective images, but don’t overdo them.
  • Complement logical appeals, but don’t replace them.
  • Describe the wrenching scenario of a father whose college-age son unexpectedly returns home at 3 A.M. The father mistakes his son for an intruder and shoots him, throwing the family into turmoil.
  • Use quotations and descriptions from newspaper accounts to show reactions of family and friends.
Ethical (ethos)
  • Use a tone and approach that appeal to your reader’s sense of fairness and reasonableness.
  • Spell out your values and beliefs, and acknowledge values and beliefs of others with different opinions.
  • Establish your reasonable approach by acknowledging the views of hunters and others who store guns at home and follow recommended safety procedures.
  • Instill confidence in your readers so that they see you as a caring, trustworthy person with reliable views.
  • Establish your credentials, if any, and the credentials of experts you cite.
  • Supply the credentials or affiliation of experts (“Ray Fontaine, public safety director for the town of Lion Valley”).
  • Note ways in which experts have established their authority (“During my interview with Ms. Dutton, she related recent incidents involving gun accidents in the home, testifying to her extensive knowledge of this issue in our community.”)

For pointers on integrating and documenting sources, see Ch. 12 and D6 and E1–E2 in the Quick Research Guide.

Credit Your Sources. As you write, make your sources of evidence clear. One simple way to do so is to incorporate your source into the text: “As analyzed in an article in the October 15, 2012, issue of Time” or “According to my history professor, Dr. Harry Cleghorn...”