Writing for Argument
Making a claim
What is an argument? In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a “claim” or
“thesis statement,” backed up with evidence that supports the idea. In the majority of college papers, you will
need to make some sort of claim and use evidence to support it, and your ability to do this well will separate
your papers from those of students who see assignments as mere accumulations of fact and detail. In other
words, gone are the happy days of being given a “topic” about which you can write anything. It is time to
stake out a position and prove why it is a good position for a thinking person to hold.
When beginning to write a paper, ask yourself, “What is my point?” If your papers do not have a main point,
they cannot be arguing for anything. Asking yourself what your point is can help you avoid a mere
“information dump.” Instructors are usually looking for two things:
1. Proof that you understand the material, AND
2. A demonstration of your ability to use or apply the material in ways that go beyond what you have
read or heard.
This second part can be done in many ways: you can critique the material, apply it to something else, or even
just explain it in a different way. In order to succeed at this second step, though, you must have a particular
point to argue.
Evidence
Do not stop with having a point. You have to back up your point with evidence. The strength of your
evidence, and your use of it, can make or break your argument.
Be consistent with your evidence. You can often use more than one type of evidence within a paper, but make
sure that within each section you are providing the reader with evidence appropriate to each claim.
Counterargument
One way to strengthen your argument and show that you have a deep understanding of the issue you are
discussing is to anticipate and address counterarguments or objections. By considering what someone who
disagrees with your position might have to say about your argument, you show that you have thought things
through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument.
You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself how someone who disagrees with you might respond
to each of the points you’ve made or your position as a whole.
Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them—will you
concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your
argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to
leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.
When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively,
rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have seriously considered the many
sides of the issue and that you are not simply attacking or caricaturing your opponents.
It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long
but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies.
Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes
your position, you will need to go back and revise your original argument accordingly.
Critical reading
Critical reading is a big part of understanding argument. Although some of the material you read will be very
persuasive, do not fall under the spell of the printed word as authority. Remember that the author of every text
has an agenda, something that he or she wants you to believe. This is OK—everything is written from
someone’s perspective—but it’s a good thing to be aware of.
Take notes either in the margins of your source (if you are using a photocopy or your own book) or on a
separate sheet as you read. Put away that highlighter! Simply highlighting a text is good for memorizing the
main ideas in that text—it does not encourage critical reading. Part of your goal as a reader should be to put
the author’s ideas in your own words. Then you can stop thinking of these ideas as facts and start thinking of
them as arguments.
When you read, ask yourself questions like
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“What is the author trying to prove?”
“What is the author assuming I will agree with?”
Do you agree with the author?
Does the author adequately defend his/her argument?
What kind of proof does s/he use? Is there something s/he leaves out that you would include?
Does putting it in hurt his/her argument?
As you get used to reading critically, you will start to see the sometimes hidden agendas of other writers, and
you can use this skill to improve your own ability to craft effective arguments.
Print and electronic sources
Books, journals, websites, newspapers, magazines, and documentary films are some of the most common
sources of evidence for academic writing.
Does evidence speak for itself?
Absolutely not. After you introduce evidence into your writing, you must say why and how this evidence
supports your argument. In other words, you have to explain the significance of the evidence and its function
in your paper. What turns a fact or piece of information into evidence is the connection it has with a larger
claim or argument: evidence is always evidence for or against something, and you have to make that link clear.
As writers, we sometimes assume that our readers already know what we are talking about; we may be wary
of elaborating too much because we think the point is obvious. But readers can’t read our minds: although
they may be familiar with many of the ideas we are discussing, they don’t know what we are trying to do with
those ideas unless we indicate it through explanations, organization, transitions, and so forth. Try to spell out
the connections that you were making in your mind when you chose your evidence, decided where to place it
in your paper, and drew conclusions based on it. Remember, you can always cut prose from your paper later if
you decide that you are stating the obvious.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself about a particular bit of evidence. Answering them may help
you explain how your evidence is related to your overall argument:
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I’ve just stated this point, but so what? Why is it interesting? Why should anyone care?
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What does this information imply?
What are the consequences of thinking this way or looking at a problem this way?
I’ve just described what something is like or how I see it, but why is it like that?
I’ve just said that something happens-so how does it happen? How does it come to be the way it is?
Why is this information important? Why does it matter?
How is this idea related to my thesis? What connections exist between them? Does it support my
thesis? If so, how does it do that?
Can I give an example to illustrate this point?
How can I incorporate evidence into my paper?
There are many ways to present your evidence. Often, your evidence will be included as text in the body of
your paper, as a quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Sometimes you might include graphs, charts, or tables;
excerpts from an interview; or photographs or illustrations with accompanying captions.
Quotations
When you quote, you are reproducing another writer’s words exactly as they appear on the page. Here are
some tips to help you decide when to use quotations:
1. Quote if you can’t say it any better and the author’s words are particularly brilliant, witty, edgy,
distinctive, a good illustration of a point you’re making, or otherwise interesting.
2. Quote if you are using a particularly authoritative source and you need the author’s expertise to back
up your point.
3. Quote if you are analyzing diction, tone, or a writer’s use of a specific word or phrase.
4. Quote if you are taking a position that relies on the reader’s understanding exactly what another writer
says about the topic.
Be sure to introduce each quotation you use, and always cite your sources.
Like all pieces of evidence, a quotation can’t speak for itself. If you end a paragraph with a quotation, that may
be a sign that you have neglected to discuss the importance of the quotation in terms of your argument. It’s
important to avoid “plop quotations,” that is, quotations that are just dropped into your paper without any
introduction, discussion, or follow-up.
Paraphrasing
When you paraphrase, you take a specific section of a text and put it into your own words. Putting it into your
own words doesn’t mean just changing or rearranging a few of the author’s words: to paraphrase well and
avoid plagiarism, try setting your source aside and restating the sentence or paragraph you have just read, as
though you were describing it to another person. Paraphrasing is different than summary because a
paraphrase focuses on a particular, fairly short bit of text (like a phrase, sentence, or paragraph). You’ll need to
indicate when you are paraphrasing someone else’s text by citing your source correctly, just as you would with
a quotation.
When might you want to paraphrase?
1. Paraphrase when you want to introduce a writer’s position, but his or her original words aren’t special
enough to quote.
2. Paraphrase when you are supporting a particular point and need to draw on a certain place in a text
that supports your point—for example, when one paragraph in a source is especially relevant.
3. Paraphrase when you want to present a writer’s view on a topic that differs from your position or that
of another writer; you can then refute writer’s specific points in your own words after you paraphrase.
4. Paraphrase when you want to comment on a particular example that another writer uses.
5. Paraphrase when you need to present information that’s unlikely to be questioned.
Summary
When you summarize, you are offering an overview of an entire text, or at least a lengthy section of a text.
Summary is useful when you are providing background information, grounding your own argument, or
mentioning a source as a counter-argument. A summary is less nuanced than paraphrased material. It can be
the most effective way to incorporate a large number of sources when you don’t have a lot of space. When you
are summarizing someone else’s argument or ideas, be sure this is clear to the reader and cite your source
appropriately.
Quotations
Used effectively, quotations can provide important pieces of evidence and lend fresh voices and perspectives
to your narrative. Used ineffectively, however, quotations can clutter your text and interrupt the flow of your
argument.
When should I quote?
Use quotations at strategically selected moments. You have probably been told by teachers to provide as much
evidence as possible in support of your thesis. But packing your paper with quotations will not necessarily
strengthen your argument. The majority of your paper should still be your original ideas in your own words
(after all, it’s your paper). And quotations are only one type of evidence: well-balanced papers may also make
use of paraphrases, data, and statistics. The types of evidence you use will depend in part on the conventions
of the discipline or audience for which you are writing. For example, papers analyzing literature may rely
heavily on direct quotations of the text, while papers in the social sciences may have more paraphrasing, data,
and statistics than quotations.
Sometimes, in order to have a clear, accurate discussion of the ideas of others, you need to quote those ideas
word for word. Suppose you want to challenge the following statement made by John Doe, a well-known
historian:
“At the beginning of World War Two, almost all Americans assumed the war would end quickly.”
If it is especially important that you formulate a counterargument to this claim, then you might wish to quote
the part of the statement that you find questionable and establish a dialogue between yourself and John Doe:
Historian John Doe has argued that in 1941 “almost all Americans assumed the war would end
quickly” (Doe 223). Yet during the first six months of U.S. involvement, the wives and mothers of
soldiers often noted in their diaries their fear that the war would drag on for years.
Giving added emphasis to a particularly authoritative source on your topic.
There will be times when you want to highlight the words of a particularly important and authoritative source
on your topic. For example, suppose you were writing an essay about the differences between the lives of male
and female slaves in the U.S. South. One of your most provocative sources is a narrative written by a former
slave, Harriet Jacobs. It would then be appropriate to quote some of Jacobs’s words:
Harriet Jacobs, a former slave from North Carolina, published an autobiographical slave narrative in
1861. She exposed the hardships of both male and female slaves but ultimately concluded that “slavery
is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”
In this particular example, Jacobs is providing a crucial first-hand perspective on slavery. Thus, her words
deserve more exposure than a paraphrase could provide.
Jacobs is quoted in Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1987).
How do I set up and follow up a quotation?
Once you’ve carefully selected the quotations that you want to use, your next job is to weave those quotations
into your text. The words that precede and follow a quotation are just as important as the quotation itself. You
can think of each quote as the filling in a sandwich: it may be tasty on its own, but it’s messy to eat without
some bread on either side of it. Your words can serve as the “bread” that helps readers digest each quote
easily. Below are four guidelines for setting up and following up quotations.
In illustrating these four steps, we’ll use as our example, Franklin Roosevelt’s famous quotation, “The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
1. Provide context for each quotation.
Do not rely on quotations to tell your story for you. It is your responsibility to provide your reader with
context for the quotation. The context should set the basic scene for when, possibly where, and under what
circumstances the quotation was spoken or written. So, in providing context for our above example, you might
write:
When Franklin Roosevelt gave his inaugural speech on March 4, 1933, he addressed a nation weakened
and demoralized by economic depression.
2. Explain the significance of the quotation.
Once you’ve inserted your quotation, along with its context and attribution, don’t stop! Your reader still needs
your assessment of why the quotation holds significance for your paper. Using our Roosevelt example, if you
were writing a paper on the first one-hundred days of FDR’s administration, you might follow the quotation
by linking it to that topic:
With that message of hope and confidence, the new president set the stage for his next one-hundred
days in office and helped restore the faith of the American people in their government.
3. Provide a citation for the quotation.
All quotations, just like all paraphrases, require a formal citation. In general, you should remember one rule
of thumb: Place the parenthetical reference or footnote/endnote number after—not within—the closed
quotation mark.
Roosevelt declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (Roosevelt, Public Papers, 11).
Roosevelt declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”1
How do I embed a quotation into a sentence?
In general, avoid leaving quotes as sentences unto themselves. Even if you have provided some context for the
quote, a quote standing alone can disrupt your flow. Take a look at this example:
Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. “I could be bounded
in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).
Standing by itself, the quote’s connection to the preceding sentence is unclear. There are several ways to
incorporate a quote more smoothly:
Lead into the quote with a colon: The colon announces that a quote will follow to provide evidence for the
sentence’s claim.
Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression: “I could be bounded
in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).
Introduce or conclude the quote by attributing it to the speaker. If your attribution precedes the quote, you
will need to use a comma after the verb.
Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. He states, “I could
be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).
When faced with a twelve-foot mountain troll, Ron gathers his courage, shouting, “Wingardium
Leviosa!” (Rowling, 176).
The Pirate King sees an element of regality in their impoverished and dishonest life. “It is, it is a
glorious thing/To be a pirate king,” he declares (Pirates of Penzance, 1983).
Interrupt the quote with an attribution to the speaker. Again, you will need to use a comma after the verb,
as well as a comma leading into the attribution.
“There is nothing either good or bad,” Hamlet argues, “but thinking makes it so” (Hamlet 2.2).
“And death shall be no more,” Donne writes, “Death thou shalt die” (“Death, Be Not Proud,” l. 14).
Use the words of the quote grammatically within your own sentence.
When Hamlet tells Rosencrantz that he “could be bounded in a nutshell and count [him]self a king of
infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2), he implies that thwarted ambition did not cause his depression.
Ultimately, death holds no power over Donne since in the afterlife, “death shall be no more” (“Death,
Be Not Proud,” l. 14).
Note that when you use “that” after the verb that introduces the quote, you no longer need a comma.
The Pirate King argues that “it is, it is a glorious thing/to be a pirate king” (Pirates of Penzance, 1983).
How much should I quote?
Use as few words as possible! Remember, your paper should primarily contain your own words, so quote only
the most pithy and memorable parts of sources. Here are guidelines for selecting quoted material
judiciously:
Excerpt fragments.
Sometimes, you should quote short fragments, rather than whole sentences. Suppose you interviewed Jane
Doe about her reaction to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. She commented:
“I couldn’t believe it. It was just unreal and so sad. It was just unbelievable. I had never experienced
such denial. I don’t know why I felt so strongly. Perhaps it was because JFK was more to me than a
president. He represented the hopes of young people everywhere.”
You could quote all of Jane’s comments, but her first three sentences are fairly redundant. You might instead
want to quote Jane when she arrives at the ultimate reason for her strong emotions:
Jane Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. She had viewed JFK, not just as a national figurehead, but
as someone who “represented the hopes of young people everywhere.”
Excerpt those fragments carefully!
Quoting the words of others carries a big responsibility. Misquoting misrepresents the ideas of others. Here’s a
classic example of a misquote:
John Adams has often been quoted as having said: “This would be the best of all possible worlds if
there were no religion in it.”
John Adams did, in fact, write the above words. But if you see those words in context, the meaning changes
entirely. Here’s the rest of the quotation:
Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, ‘this would be
the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!’ But in this exclamation, I should have
been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be
mentioned in public company—I mean hell.
As you can see from this example, context matters!
This example is from Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and
Misleading Attributions (Oxford University Press, 1989).
How do I combine quotation marks with other punctuation marks?
It can be confusing when you start combining quotation marks with other punctuation marks. You should
consult a style manual for complicated situations, but the following two rules apply to most cases:
Keep periods and commas within quotation marks.
So, for example:
According to Professor Jones, Lincoln “feared the spread of slavery,” but many of his aides advised
him to “watch and wait.”
In the above example, both the comma and period were enclosed in the quotation marks. The main exception
to this rule involves the use of internal citations, which always precede the last period of the sentence. For
example:
According to Professor Jones, Lincoln “feared the spread of slavery,” but many of his aides advised
him to “watch and wait” (Jones 143).
Note, however, that the period remains inside the quotation marks when your citation style involved
superscript footnotes or endnotes. For example:
According to Professor Jones, Lincoln “feared the spread of slavery,” but many of his aides advised
him to “watch and wait.”2
Place all other punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, exclamation marks, question marks) outside the
quotation marks, except when they were part of the original quotation.
Take a look at the following examples:
The student wrote that the U. S. Civil War “finally ended around 1900″!
The coach yelled, “Run!”
In the first example, the author placed the exclamation point outside the quotation mark because she added it
herself to emphasize the absurdity of the student’s comment. The student’s original comment had not included
an exclamation mark. In the second example, the exclamation mark remains within the quotation mark
because it is indicating the excited tone in which the coach yelled the command. Thus, the exclamation mark is
considered to be part of the original quotation.
How do I indicate quotations within quotations?
If you are quoting a passage that contains a quotation, then you use single quotation marks for the internal
quotation. Quite rarely, you quote a passage that has a quotation within a quotation. In that rare instance, you
would use double quotation marks for the second internal quotation.
Here’s an example of a quotation within a quotation:
In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “‘But the Emperor has nothing on
at all!’ cried a little child.”
MLA in-text citations
MLA in-text citations are made with a combination of signal phrases and parenthetical references. A signal
phrase introduces information taken from a source (a quotation, summary, paraphrase, or fact); usually the
signal phrase includes the author’s name. The parenthetical reference comes after the cited material, often at
the end of the sentence. It includes at least a page number (except for unpaginated sources, such as those
found online).
IN-TEXT CITATION
Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’
“unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).
Readers can look up the author’s last name in the alphabetized list of works cited, where they will learn the
work’s title and other publication information. If readers decide to consult the source, the page number will
take them straight to the passage that has been cited.
Basic rules for print and online sources
The MLA system of in-text citations, which depends heavily on authors’ names and page numbers, was
created with print sources in mind. Although many online sources have unclear authorship and lack page
numbers, the basic rules are the same for both print and online sources.
The models in this section (items 1–5) show how the MLA system usually works and explain what to do if
your source has no author or page numbers.
1. Author named in a signal phrase.
a. Ordinarily, introduce the material being cited with a signal phrase that includes the author’s
name. In addition to preparing readers for the source, the signal phrase allows you to keep the
parenthetical citation brief.
Frederick Lane reports that employers do not necessarily have to use software to monitor how their employees
use the Web: employers can “use a hidden video camera pointed at an employee’s monitor” and even position
a camera ”so that a number of monitors [can] be viewed at the same time” (147).
The signal phrase — Frederick Lane reports — names the author; the parenthetical citation gives the page
number of the book in which the quoted words may be found.
Notice that the period follows the parenthetical citation. When a quotation ends with a question mark or an
exclamation point, leave the end punctuation inside the quotation mark and add a period at the end of your
sentence: “. . .?” (8).
2. Author named in parentheses.
a. If a signal phrase does not name the author, put the author’s last name in parentheses along
with the page number. Use no punctuation between the name and the page number.
Companies can monitor employees’ every keystroke without legal penalty, but they may have to combat low
morale as a result (Lane 129).
3. Author unknown.
a. Either use the complete title in a signal phrase or use a short form of the title in parentheses.
Titles of books are italicized; titles of articles are put in quotation marks.
A popular keystroke logging program operates invisibly on workers’ computers yet provides supervisors with
details of the workers’ online activities (“Automatically”).
TIP: Before assuming that a Web source has no author, do some detective work. Often the author’s name is
available but is not easy to find. For example, it may appear at the end of the page, in tiny print. Or it may
appear on another page of the site, such as the home page.
NOTE: If a source has no author and is sponsored by a corporation or government agency, name the
corporation or agency as the author.
4. Page number unknown
a. Do not include the page number if a work lacks page numbers, as is the case with many Web
sources. Even if a printout from a Web site shows page numbers, treat the source as
unpaginated in the in-text citation because not all printouts give the same page numbers. (When
the pages of a Web source are stable, as in PDF files, supply a page number in your in-text
citation.)
As a 2005 study by Salary.com and America Online indicates, the Internet ranked as the top choice among
employees for ways of wasting time on the job; it beat talking with co-workers—the second most popular
method—by a margin of nearly two to one (Frauenheim).
5. One-page source If the source is one page long, MLA allows (but does not require) you to omit the
page number.
a. Many instructors will want you to supply the page number because without it readers may not
know where your citation ends or, worse, may not realize that you have provided a citation at
all.
NO PAGE NUMBER IN CITATION
Anush Yegyazarian reports that in 2000 the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of the General Counsel
helped win restitution for two workers who had been dismissed because their employers were displeased by
the employees’ e-mails about work-related issues. The case points to the ongoing struggle to define what
constitutes protected speech in the workplace.
PAGE NUMBER IN CITATION
Anush Yegyazarian reports that in 2000 the National Labor Relations Board’s Office of the General Counsel
helped win restitution for two workers who had been dismissed because their employers were displeased by
the employees’ e-mails about work-related issues (62). The case points to the ongoing struggle to define what
constitutes protected speech in the workplace.
MLA list of works cited
An alphabetized list of works cited, which appears at the end of your research paper, gives publication
information for each of the sources you have cited in the paper. Include only sources that you have quoted,
summarized, or paraphrased.
Please note that for the intents and purposes of this assignment, we will be using at least two sources from an online
database. The proper citation for each source is printed at the end of the article. Please be sure to copy and paste this into
a word document so you can include a works cited page after your argument.
The general argument made by author X in her/his work, _______________, is that _______________.
More specifically, X argues that _______________. She/he writes, “ _______________.” In this passage, X is
suggesting that _______________. In conclusion, X’s belief is that _______________.
In my view, X is wrong/right, because _______________. More specifically, I believe that
_______________. For example, ___________. Although X might object that __________, I maintain that
_______________. Therefore, I conclude that _______________.
Just Say ‘No’ to... Bubble-Gum-Flavored Nicotine?
The general argument made by the New York Times’ Editorial Board in their work, “E-Smoking Among
Teenagers,” is that the FDA needs to prohibit e-cig manufacturers from marketing and selling their wares to
teens and children. More specifically, the Board argues that even child-enticing flavorings should be banned.
They write, “The new rules ought to… outlaw flavorings clearly designed to entice children” (3). In this
passage, the editors are suggesting that fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigs are a ploy to get minors “vaping”. In
conclusion, the Board’s belief is that e-cigarettes should be banned from in any way enticing minors.
In my view, the Board is right, because, while e-cigarettes may be healthy compared to adults with
pack-a-day tobacco habits, they are in no way positive for teenagers to smoke. According to Dr. Foulds, ecigarettes appear to be less addictive that traditional cigarettes, but I believe that the facts speak for
themselves: “Nicotine--delivered in any manner--can impair adolescent brain development, is extremely
addictive, and can be dangerous at very high doses to people of all ages” (“E-smoking Among Teenagers” 3).
In other words, e-cigarettes still spell danger--and a lifetime of addiction--for minors. Although e-cig
manufacturers might object that restricting e-cig flavorings is unnecessarily harsh, I maintain that flavorings
are a form of marketing, and when those flavorings appeal to the tastes of middle and high school students,
they should be banned. I do recognize that there’s a slippery slope here--after all, look at all of the alcoholic
beverages that are fruit-flavored, for instance--but just because one addictive substance has teen-enticing
flavors doesn’t mean every addictive substance has to. Therefore, I conclude that e-cigarettes ought to be
regulated in the manner set forth by the article “E-smoking Among Teenagers”.
Works Cited
"E-Smoking Among Teenagers." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Dec.
2014.
Foulds, Jonathan, PhD. "E-cigarettes Not as Addictive as Tobacco Cigarettes." News-Medical.net. N.p., n.d.
Web. 11 Dec. 2014.