For this assignment, you will need to select an issue, take a stand, develop a clear position, and assemble evidence that supports your view.

Find an Issue. The topic for this paper should be an issue or controversy that interests both you and your audience. Try brainstorming a list of possible topics. Start with the headlines of a newspaper or newsmagazine, review the letters to the editor, check the political cartoons on the opinion page, or watch for stories on demonstrations or protests. You might also consult the library index to CQ Researcher, browse news or opinion Web sites, talk with friends, or consider topics raised in class. If you keep a journal, look over your entries to see what has perplexed or angered you. If you need to understand the issue better or aren’t sure you want to take a stand on it, investigate by freewriting, reading, or turning to other sources.

Once you have a list of possible topics, drop those that seem too broad or complex or that you don’t know much about. Weed out anything that might not hold your — or your readers’ — interest. From your new list, pick the issue or controversy for which you can make the strongest argument.

Start with a Question and a Thesis. At this stage, many writers try to pose the issue as a question — one that will be answered through the position they take. Skip vague questions that most readers wouldn’t debate, or convert them to questions that allow different stands.

You can help focus your position by stating it in a sentence — a thesis, or statement of your stand. Your statement can answer your question:

Your thesis should invite continued debate by taking a strong position that can be argued rather than stating a fact.

Use Formal Reasoning to Refine Your Position. As you take a stand on a debatable matter, you are likely to use reasoning as well as specific evidence to support your position. A syllogism is a series of statements, or premises, used in traditional formal logic to lead deductively to a logical conclusion.

For a syllogism to be logical, ensuring that its conclusion always applies, its major and minor statements must be true, its definitions of terms must remain stable, and its classification of specific persons or items must be accurate. In real-life arguments, such tidiness may be hard to achieve.

For example, maybe we all agree with the major statement above that all students must pay tuition. However, some students’ tuition is paid for them through a loan or scholarship. Others are admitted under special programs, such as a free-tuition benefit for families of college employees or a back-to-college program for retirees. Further, the word student is general; it might apply to students at public high schools who pay no tuition. Next, everyone might agree that you are a student, but maybe you haven’t completed registration or the computer has mysteriously dropped you from the class list. Such complications can threaten the success of your conclusion, especially if your audience doesn’t accept it. In fact, many civic and social arguments revolve around questions such as these: What — exactly — is the category or group affected? Is its definition or consequence stable — or does it vary? Who falls in or out of the category?

Use Informal Toulmin Reasoning to Refine Your Position. A contemporary approach to logic is presented by the philosopher Stephen Toulmin (1922–2009) in The Uses of Argument (2nd ed., 2003). He describes an informal way of arguing that acknowledges the power of assumptions in our day-to-day reasoning. This approach starts with a concise statement — the essence of an argument — that makes a claim and supplies a reason to support it.

You develop a claim by supporting your reasons with evidence — your data or grounds. For example, your evidence might include facts about the cost of lunches on campus, especially in contrast to local fast-food options, and statistics about the limited resources of most students at your campus.

However, most practical arguments rely on a warrant, your thinking about the connection or relationship between your claim and your supporting data. Because you accept this connection and assume that it applies, you generally assume that others also take it for granted. For instance, nearly all students might accept your assumption that a campus café should serve the needs of its customers. Many might also agree that students should take action rather than allow a campus facility to take advantage of them by charging high prices. Even so, you could state your warrant directly if you thought that your readers would not see the connection that you do. You also could back up your warrant, if necessary, in various ways:

As you develop your reasoning, you might adjust your claim or your data to suit your audience, your issue, or your refined thinking. For instance, you might qualify your argument (perhaps limiting your objections to most, but not all, of the lunch prices). You might also add a rebuttal by identifying an exception to it (perhaps excluding the fortunate, but few, students without financial worries due to good jobs or family support). Or you might simply reconsider your claim, concluding that the campus café is, after all, convenient for students and that the manager might be willing to offer more inexpensive options without a student boycott.

Toulmin reasoning is especially effective for making claims like these:

Select Evidence to Support Your Position. When you state your claim, you state your overall position. You also may state supporting claims as topic sentences that establish your supporting points, introduce supporting evidence, and help your reader follow your reasoning. To decide how to support a claim, try to reduce it to its core question. Then figure out what reliable and persuasive evidence might answer the question.

As you begin to look for supporting evidence, consider the issue in terms of the three general types of claims — claims that require substantiation, provide evaluation, and endorse policy.

Consider Your Audience as You Develop Your Claim. The nature of your audience might influence the type of claim you choose to make. For example, suppose that the nurse or social worker at the high school you attended or that your children now attend proposed distributing free condoms to students. The following table illustrates how the responses of different audiences to this proposal might vary with the claim. As you develop your claims, try to put yourself in the place of your audience. For example, if you are a former student, what claim would most effectively persuade you? If you are the parent of a teenager, what claim would best address both your general views and your specific concerns about your own child?

Assemble Supporting Evidence. Your claim stated, you’ll need evidence to support it. That evidence can be anything that demonstrates the soundness of your position and the points you make — facts, statistics, observations, expert testimony, illustrations, examples, and case studies.

The three most important sources of evidence are these:

Of course, evidence must be used carefully to avoid defending logical fallacies — common mistakes in thinking — and making statements that lead to wrong conclusions. Examples are easy to misuse (claiming proof by example or too few examples). Because two professors you know are dissatisfied with state-mandated testing programs, you can’t claim that all — or even most — professors are. Even if you surveyed more professors at your school, you could speak only generally of “many professors.” To claim more, you might need to conduct scientific surveys, access reliable statistics from the library or Internet, or solicit the views of a respected expert in the area.

Record Evidence. For this assignment, you will need to record your evidence in written form in a notebook or a computer file. Note exactly where each piece of information comes from. Keep the form of your notes flexible so that you can easily rearrange them as you plan your draft.

Test and Select Evidence to Persuade Your Audience. Now that you’ve collected some evidence, sift through it to decide which information to use. Evidence is useful and trustworthy when it is accurate, reliable, up-to-date, to the point, representative, appropriately complex, and sufficient and strong enough to back the claim and persuade readers. You may find that your evidence supports a different stand than you intended to take. Might you find facts, testimony, and observations to support your original position after all? Or should you rethink your position? If so, revise your working thesis. Does your evidence cluster around several points or reasons? If so, use your evidence to plan the sequence of your essay.

In addition, consider whether information presented visually would strengthen your case or make your evidence easier for readers to grasp.

Test each visual as you would test other evidence for accuracy, reliability, and relevance. Mention each visual in your text, and place the visual close to that reference. Cite the source of any visual you use and of any data you consolidate in your own graph or table.

Most effective arguments take opposing viewpoints into consideration whenever possible. Use these questions to help you assess your evidence from this standpoint.

ANALYZE YOUR READERS’ POINTS OF VIEW

FOCUS ON THOSE WITH DIFFERENT OR OPPOSING OPINIONS

ACKNOWLEDGE AND REBUT THE COUNTERARGUMENTS