English Composition

ASSIGNMENT PROMPT: ARGUMENTATION

The Argumentation essay involves debating one side of an issue and objectively presenting the opposing side to persuade the audience to see your side favorably. It further:

- appeals to logic and reason; presents statistics, scientific proof, and facts.

- appeals to emotions, prejudices, and values; uses description (caution: employ appealing to emotions with discretion).

- uses inductive and/or deductive reasoning to develop the argument within the body of the paper:

inductive reasoning starts with specific evidence and progresses to a general conclusion; can also allow an inference to be made.

deductive reasoning begins with a general truth and progresses to a specific conclusion. The simplest form of a deductive argument is thesyllogism, a three-step argument involving a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

ASSIGNMENT’S TOPICS

For your essay, take a position on one of the following societal issues:

1. Does Technology Make People More Anti-social?

2. Are college students abusing social media networks?

3. Can cellphones be effective educational tools?

4. Does rap promote violence against women?

5. Is There Sexism in the Gaming Industry?

6. Your own topic that is pre-approved by your instructor.

7. *Learning Communities Option: This topic is to be developed by the instructor who is in a linked learning community course.

You may use either the Rogerian or Toulmin structure of argumentation. Should you include research, you must use MLA Style of parenthetical documentation and citation.

NOTES:

1. The essay’s Title relates to the topic.

2. The essay’s introduction identifies clearly the issue and provides sufficient background information that leads to the thesis. The thesis must be precisely stated and is one side of the argument. Be careful that your thesis is not presented as a call-to-action. For example, in the statement, “Americans should be allowed to own guns,” “should be allowed” is a call-to-action. An appropriate argument thesis is: The prevalence of gun ownership in America that attributes to many related fatalities can be mitigated by gun control. The counter-argument thesis(NOT to appear in the introduction) can be: Gun control will have little measurable impact on the number of fatalities caused by guns.

3. The essay’s body avoids ALL the logical fallacies. It includes parenthetical documentation in Assignment III--2

MLA Style, and all quotations, paraphrases, and summaries are well introduced and analyzed.

4. If using the Rogerian structure, the essay’s conclusion includes a counter-argument thesis that relates to the thesis; the refutation to the counter-argument thesis; the return to the thesis (if not implied in the refutation); and, a call-to-action. If using the Toulmin, the conclusion iterates or reiterates the inference/s made. In either structure, the intended audience of the call-to-action is obvious. The following is a schematic of the two structures:

The Structure: Rogerian

The structure of the Rogerian argument includes all of the following:

 An argument thesis

 A counter-argument thesis

 The refutation to the counter-argument

 The return-to-thesis

 At least one call-to-action

See the student’s essay in Patterns that shows how this student-writer used the Rogerian structure. The Rogerian structure further requires that you engage in deductive reasoning (the syllogism) and inductive reasoning (inference) in your body paragraphs. Patterns offers clear instructions regarding these components of argumentation. See the outline on Blackboard.

The Structure: Toulmin

The structure of the Toulmin argument includes claims and warrants and relies primarily on inductive reasoning. Unfortunately, Patterns does not provide a sample, so unless you are familiar with and confident in using this structure you may opt out of it. See the outline on Blackboard.

NOTES:

i. This is a formal analysis essay presented in the third person; therefore, do not use any first- or second-person “I,” “my,” “we,” “us,” “our,” “you” and “your” in your analysis.

ii. This assignment is to adhere to academic writing in Standard English; therefore, you are not to use contractions, abbreviations and symbols, informal language, slang, and colloquialism.

iii. Avoid beginning sentences with: “There is,” “There are,” “It is,” “It was,” “There has,” “There have,” and so on. These openings delay the subject of the sentence and cause wordiness. EXAMPLE:

o Weak: There were many books borrowed from the library by diligent student-researchers (12 words).

o Revised: Diligent student-researchers borrowed many books from the library (9 words).

iv. See the “Argumentation” rubric on Bb that indicates how the paper will be graded and to make sure that you have met all of the criteria for the grade you desire.

v. Though research is not required, if, however, you include any in the analysis, you are required to document the source/s parenthetically and include a page that lists the source/s. You are required to use MLA style of documentation and citation. See Patterns, Ch. 18 for guidance.

Due Date 4/17/17

Last name and page number (in Header)

Name

Instructor’s name

Course’s name

Due date

Beware the Seemingly Innocuous

I emerged from that argument about the God particle and promised myself that I would never argue science again. Ever! I was sitting in the theater awaiting the arrival of the speaker and very excited. I had purchased his book, The God Particle,

Include this four-line information only on p. 1, NOT in the Header.

The College-Paper Format

The College-Paper Format adheres to the following: Times Roman font-face, 12-point font-size, one-inch margins all around, double-spaced, and formatted with a Header that includes your last name and page number to appear on every page. For further instructions, see the Common Syllabus’s “Introduction to Micro Word-Processing” and the box below: