Do not ignore sources that seem contrary to your position or that offer arguments different from your own. Instead, use them to give voice to opposing points of view and alternative interpretations before you counter them.

Readers often have opposing points of view in mind already, whether or not they agree with you. Ned Bishop, for example, presents conflicting evidence from a biography by Jack Hurst to acknowledge that some readers may credit Nathan Bedford Forrest with stopping the massacre. In doing so, Bishop creates an opportunity to counter that objection and persuade those readers that Forrest can be held accountable.

Hurst suggests that the temperamental Forrest “may have ragingly ordered a massacre and even intended to carry it out—until he rode inside the fort and viewed the horrifying result” and ordered it stopped.¹⁵ While this is an intriguing interpretation of events, even Hurst would probably admit that it is merely speculation.