Claims & Arguments

1. Claims & Arguments Academic Writing’s Bread and Butter All quotes from chap 3 of Greene and Lidinsky’s “From Inquiry to Academic Writing” 2nd. edition

2. “Argument” is not a bad word In an academic sense, “arguing” is not angry, unrelenting, or unproductive negativity. To make an argument is to stake your place in a conversation of shared ideas by showing knowledge, reason, logic, and open-mindedness.

3. Things You can’t argue • PURE facts • Don’t write the paper arguing that Lincoln was NOT the sixteenth president of the USA • Caveat: what YOU think are facts might not be facts • The Purely Subjective • The Beatles were the most influential band in history. • Not to say you can’t write evaluative pieces of subjective things where you offer criteria for your approval/disapproval • Faith/Religious Doctrine • Primarily as the basis of your position • This does not mean religion can’t be argued about or used in AW (it’s not banned), but it must be done carefully.

4. CLAIMs “An assertion of fact or belief that needs to be supported with evidence.” The main claim is the THESIS (maybe you’ve heard of them) Sub-claims help add complexity and build the main argument.

5. Students often say: • “I don’t have any positions on issues. I just don’t think about these kinds of things. What does my opinion matter?” Let us discuss this briefly . . .

6. Claims of Fact • “Assertions that a problem or condition has existed, exists, or will exist. But claims are never simply facts, and some claims are more objective than others.” • The point is that even though the word “fact” is used, claims of fact are debatable. • Claims of fact involve interpretations of evidence.

7. Claims of Value • “Expresses an evaluation of a problem or condition that has existed, exists, or will exist. Is a condition good or bad? Is it important or inconsequential?” • At the core, claims of value try to make people care about something. A question we may want to explore later in the semester is whether or not pure logic and reason are always the best way to do this.

8. Claims of policy • “An argument for what should be the case, that a condition should exist.” • Claims of policy are claims for change. They are the most direct in calling for action.

9. Ye Old Banned Topic • Fact Based Paper Claim: The fetus qualifies for personhood, possesses “rights,” and this status should be considered in all decisions about abortion in this country. • Value Claim: Late term abortion is a perversion of Roe V. Wade’s original premises that should disturb even those invested in the pro-choice argument. • Policy Claim: Although abortion has been legal in this country for over 40 years, this precedence alone is no reason it should remain so. The law needs to be reexamined and changed in light of new scientific and cultural studies .

10. Sources to support claims • We will spend time later in the semester talking about the reliability and validity of sources, but pages 58-61 in your book are a good start.

11. Concessions A concession involves acknowledging to your audience that they might not believe you, might not be convinced, or that your information could be interpreted in different ways. They are valued in AW because they “acknowledge complexity and the important of multiple perspectives.”

12. Counterarguments An argument that is raised in response to another argument. Basically, you predict what your opponents might say and beat them to the punch by responding in your own text. Valued in AW, again, for the level of complexity it acknowledges and how it shows how informed you are on the depth of the issue.

13. My Claim • The process of making claims, supporting them, using credible evidence, making concessions, and addressing counterarguments is the skeletal frame of the academic paper. It’s how you flesh these things out that makes a readable and convincing paper, but this is where we begin.