Argumentative Essay Background Paragraph Text

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your audience. for what kind of reader are you writing the paper? your teacher? classmates? the general public? it matters, because different audiences call for different approaches, for different amounts of background information and detail to be provided, and the like. If in doubt, ask your teachers about who you should consider your target audience to be. the main ingredients of an argumentative paper the argumentative paper involves five main ingredients: 1 thesis claim, proposition, main idea 2 context background, framework, setting 3 reasons support, evidence 4 counter arguments objections, contrary considerations and 5 responses refutations, answers to objections. These ingredients can be put together or organized in a good many different ways. In a very short, very simple argumentative paper, the last two may not appear at all so the absolute minimum ingredients are: thesis, context, and supporting reasons and the thesis should appear prior to the reasons it will also usually be restated after the reasons.

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As you plan and write your argumentative paper, keep these things circulating in your head! thesis context reasons objections responses thesis. without a good thesis. Typical characteristics of a good thesis: specific not overly general , accurate not vague , and arguable. Arguable means that the thesis is a statement that a reasonable person might disagree with – or at least, might disagree with prior to reading your brilliant defense of it! a good thesis is not merely descriptive, is not merely factual. After doing a full draft of your paper and reflecting what you've said overall, you'll usually need to revise or polish up your thesis. context. you need to provide your readers with some background about the issues your paper deals with. In a very short, simple argumentative paper this can sometimes be given in the introductory paragraph, prior to your thesis statement but typically you will need one or more context paragraphs after your thesis paragraph, sometimes before your reasons and counter argument paragraphs, sometimes interspersed among them.

reasons. your reasons plus your thesis form an argument with the thesis as the argument's conclusion hence, an argumentative paper. But reasons can also be conclusions – there can be reasons for reasons! arguments within arguments! if x is a reason for y, and y is a reason for z, that makes y both a reason in relation to z and a conclusion in relation to x. Typical supporting paragraph structure goes like this: topic sentence, which is a reason for your thesis or for a subconclusion then the rest of the paragraph consists largely of reasons for or elaborations of the topic sentence. Remember to make liberal use of inference indicators so it will be clear what is a reason for what! counter arguments objections. imaginatively put yourself in the place of those who might disagree with your thesis, or disagree with some of your supporting reasons.

Then articulate the strongest objections you can think of to your thesis or to some of your reasons. Impressive papers present strong objections – and then respond to them convincingly! it's often very helpful to get someone else to look over your draft and suggest counter arguments. Be aware that considering counter arguments can have unexpected consequences: you may discover that you don't have effective responses! in other words, you may find that a counter argument is better than your own initial argument! then you'll need to make some significant revisions or add some qualifications to your own thesis, subconclusions, or reasons.

responses to counter arguments. these are your answers to, or refutations of, the objections you've presented to your thesis or to some of your reasons. One is straightforward refutation: explain why a counter argument's reasons are false or at least, suspect , or that it's reasons, even if true, do not adequately support it's conclusion. Another, more subtle, approach is to concede that a counter argument does have some merit, but then you explain why it doesn't really undermine your own arguments – it only appears to do so at first glance. A counter argument might be that he was an alcoholic supported by several eyewitness accounts of his drunkenness , and how can an alcoholic be an outstanding commander? your response might be that, yes, he did have a bit of an alcohol problem – but only during periods of military inactivity, so it didn't affect his generalship.

As you plan and write your argumentative paper, keep these things circulating in your head! thesis – context – reasons – counter arguments – responses for special paper writing advice, click here ! ways to organize an argumentative paper there are various good and effective ways to organize or structure an argumentative paper, but there are two general principles you should follow. one is that whatever your overall organizational scheme is, it should be pretty obvious to a reader. In longer papers it may be advisable to describe, in a short paragraph or a sentence or two, how the rest of your paper is organized. The second general principle is that you should clearly state your overall thesis early in the paper, before you start providing your support for it.

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Argumentative papers should not be like mystery novels with surprise endings! here are several example general organizational approaches there are others each part thesis, context, etc. Remember that all three of the major essays for this course should be on the same topic, though the way that you narrow it and your research question will continue to evolve throughout the quarter contact me if you want to change your topic altogether after submitting the background essay. Review the assignments page to get a sense of how the background essay fits in with the literature review and the final research article a revised version of the background essay will become the background section of your final research article. introduction: the first paragraph of your essay should present some context for your narrowed topic and introduce the kinds of information and issues that your paper will present. Close your introduction with a single sentence that provides an overview of the main subpoints of information that your paper will cover.

Note that you are including an overview statement rather than a thesis statement since you are not putting forth an argument in this paper. body paragraphs: you should have at least five body paragraphs, each with a clear topic sentence, that cover the following types of information. For example, you may have more than one paragraph on history, and you discussion of history may include statistics.

Historical background including a relevant current event may include descriptions of causes and effects, though keep in mind that those may be debated rather than fact statistics laws or policies stakeholders e.g. Communities, organizations, groups, agencies along with their perspectives and interests debates and conflicts what stakeholders may disagree about and why, but without taking a position in those debates yourself additional information can include relevant definitions, current news stories, key figures, programs, etc. Conclusion: the concluding paragraph should indicate any important information you were not able to find. Also, tell us how you intend to narrow your topic further, that is, what aspects of the topic you will continue to research. 3 that you would like to answer about your narrowed topic it should not be merely informational, opinion based, nor a good/bad, either/or, for/against, pro/con, yes/no, etc. Type of question nor should it predict the future or try to solve a problem your job will not be to solve a problem in the three papers but to contribute to its analysis.

Explain what is significant about your research question, that is, why is it important to understand that aspect in particular? note that how youre narrowing your topic and your proposed research question will continue to evolve. Do not use i or other forms of first person voice in the three formal essays for this course, including here in the conclusion. A minimum of five substantial and diverse sources are required for this essay at least two of which should be no more than two years old. Do not rely on any one source for the majority of your information demonstrate that you have synthesized information from multiple sources, especially for your historical accounts. You should plan to sift through and evaluate numerous sources to finalize the ones that you plan to use. your five sources must come from the three source types listed below, with at least one source from each type. if you make use of more than five sources, you may include some information from other source types, including organizational websites, documentaries, radio programs, news stories, etc. , social science textbooks, print materials from a librarys reference section, etc.

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You may not use wikipedia as one of your sources, though you may consult the references section of a wikipedia article to locate other relevant sources see the wikipedia section of iris: note the difference between magazine articles where the audience is the general public, as in newsweek. Academic journal articles where the audience is made of scholars, such as journal of popular culture or journal of american history . You will focus on scholarly sources for the second major paper, the literature review. It can be difficult to distinguish between magazines and academic journals when you do a database search e.g. You may end up using an academic journal article for the be, but you should also make sure you have the other three required source types listed above. you are encouraged to find as much relevant background information on your topic as you can, so look far and wide at many different kinds of sources, but the bulk of your information should come from the three source types above.

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