Part 5 Review: Combining Argumentative Strategies

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In Chapters 12–16, you have seen how argumentative essays can use different strategies to serve particular purposes. The discussions and examples in these chapters highlighted the use of a single strategy for a given essay. However, many (if not most) argumentative essays combine several different strategies.

For example, an argument recommending that the United States implement a national sales tax could be largely a proposal argument, but it could present a cause-and-effect argument to illustrate the likely benefits of the proposal, and it could also use an evaluation argument to demonstrate the relative advantages of this tax as compared to other kinds of taxes.

The following two essays—”Get the Lead out of Hunting” and “Fulfill George Washington’s Last Wish—a National University”—illustrate how various strategies can work together in a single argument. Note that both essays include the four pillars of argument—thesis statement, evidence, refutation, and concluding statement. (The first essay includes marginal annotations that identify the different strategies the writer uses to advance his argument.)