Argumentative Essay

Overview

Argumentative essays differ from narrative, expository, or analytical essays fundamentally in that you're writing to take a stand, to persuade your audience to accept a particular position, to convince your audience of a particular argument. The emphasis in argumentative essays is to make and prove an argument with convincing evidence and sound, logical reasoning. The purposes and requirements for this essay, therefore, are quite different from those for the previous essays.

Objectives

Through this assignment, you will learn to:

? construct an argument using various methods of argumentation,

? gather, summarize, synthesize, and explain information from various sources,

? incorporate sources into your argumentation using MLA style,

? produce coherent, organized, readable prose for different rhetorical situations,

? engage in writing as a process, including invention (such as brainstorming for ideas),

? developing a thesis statement, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading,

? respond to your classmates' writing and provide constructive feedback,

? respond to your classmates' response to your writing and learn how to incorporate
your classmates' suggestions into your revision,

? use grammatical, stylistic, and mechanical formats and conventions appropriate for different audiences and writing situations, and

? reflect on your own writing and writing process and on your classmates' writing and writing process.

Topic--Identifying a Controversial Issue

An appropriate topic for the argumentative essay should be one that

? interests you

? is neither too broad nor too narrow,

? is open to controversy, and

? is not already overly argued by other people.