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planning the writing task

Formulating a tentative argument

Developing an argument is often one of the most difficult writing tasks. Even experienced writers can struggle with developing an effective argument. Nonetheless, it is well worth persisting with. Being able to convey your stance on a particular topic, and to do so effectively, can be a very powerful skill.

1. An argument

• presents the case for and/or against a particular proposition

2. Essentially, developing a well-formed argument involves

• adopting a particular stance, or making a particular proposition
• supporting that stance with evidence,
• structuring your argument and the supporting evidence, and
• critically examining the logic of your argument

Adopting a stance and supporting that stance with evidence

There are a number of stages you must pass through when you are formulating a tentative argument. First, you need to have a good understanding of the general topic area of your essay. This involves reading broadly and comprehensively, in order to obtain a good grasp of all of the issues. Your broad reading will help you to identify the components of your topic area that you need to focus on. Once you have identified the areas you need to focus on, you then need to read more narrowly, so that you can identify the points you want to make in your essay. From your more focused reading, you should identify a number of important points within each of the areas you are focusing on. Each of these points, in turn, should be supported by evidence.

Structuring your argument and the supporting evidence

The next step is to develop a tentative structure for your argument. This involves ordering your points and the evidence you have gathered to support each point. Generally, your points should be ordered from the broadest to the most focused. When you have read through this tentative structure or ordering of your points, you should see an argument, sometimes referred to as a "thesis", developing. You may have to reorder some of your points until they flow logically from one point to the next.

The structure of your argument is essential to its effectiveness. At the broadest level, you need to convey your argument by the structure and order of your paragraphs. Your argument should develop logically from paragraph to paragraph. Each paragraph should convey only one or two main points. Each point is communicated in a topic sentence. This sentence alerts the reader to what the paragraph is about. The remaining sentences within a paragraph are supporting sentences. The logical development of your argument is indicated by the selective use of connective words and phrases. In addition, the structure of your sentences adds to the development of your argument. The first part of the sentence is the focus. The second part contains new information, which often forms the focus of the next sentence.

Let’s consider an example.

• Suppose you are asked to write an essay and your topic is the following,
  
  What influence has Freud’s theory of personality development, in particular, the assumptions made about how personality differences between boys and girls come about, had on research and practice in psychology?
  
  The broad topic area is Freud’s theory of personality. The more specific aspects are the impact of his assumptions about how personality differences between boys and girls come about on research and practice in psychology.
  
  Your reading should initially be quite broad, examining Freud’s personality theory and its impact on psychological practice and theory. Your reading should then focus more narrowly on Freud’s assumptions about how the personalities of boys and girls arise, and the impact of his assumptions on theory and practice. Once you have read extensively and then more narrowly, you should have started to take a position or stance, and have some evidence to support your stance. So, for instance, you might want to argue that Freud’s theory of personality development has been influential in the recognition that early childhood experiences can influence adult life. Your supporting evidence might be the work of other researchers who have drawn upon Freud’s work to develop their own theories and research questions. These other researchers may have made significant advances in our understanding of personality development in childhood. If you were to take this stance, you would also have to acknowledge that Freud’s theory itself has little empirical support for its major tenets, and that most psychologists today do not base their research or practice around Freud’s theory.
  
  The structure of this argument might look something like the following. The first paragraph might outline Freud’s theory of personality, discussing the different aspects of personality (such as the id, ego, and super-ego) and their role in determining behaviour. The second paragraph might focus on Freud’s theory of how personality develops. Freud’s assumptions about the development of personality differences between boys and girls may be dealt with in the third paragraph. The fourth paragraph might focus on the impact of Freud’s theory on research, and the fifth might focus on the impact of his theory on practice. The fourth and fifth paragraphs should contain your argument about how much of an impact Freud’s theory has had on research and practice, and evidence for and against your argument.

Examining the logic of your argument

Once you have taken a particular stance on an issue, provided supporting evidence for that stance, and structured the points in a meaningful and coherent way, you then need to critically examine the logic of your argument or proposition. In order for an argument to be successful, it has to be logically coherent. That is, the argument you are putting forward must be sound, and the conclusions you draw must derive from your propositions and the evidence you have put forward.

Now that you have familiarised yourself with the main principles of logic, you will find it easier to detect any problems in the logic of your own piece of written work. Two of the greatest difficulties involve conclusions that are either logically or factually false. The most common logical errors involve inconsistencies or "leaps" in logic and overgeneralisation. Ignoring contradictory evidence and false dichotomisation are two common factual errors.

First, let’s look at some errors of logic

1. The first error involves inconsistencies in logic or "leaps" in logic

"Leaps" in logic occur

• when all the premises that are necessary for a given conclusion have not been provided

	For example,
		For anorexia nervosa to be diagnosed, patients must have weight loss leading to a body weight less than 85% of that expected	is a premise
	and	Patients must have an intense fear of becoming fat or gaining weight	is a premise
	and	Patients must display an absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles	is a premise
	and	Sally’s body weight is less than 85% of what is expected & she has an intense fear of gaining weight	is a premise
	then	Sally has anorexia nervosa	is a conclusion

There is a leap in logic in the above example. Sally does not have an absence of at least 3 consecutive menstrual periods, and so cannot be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.

2. The second error is overgeneralisation

Overgeneralisation occurs

• when a writer generalises beyond the evidence provided

• For example,
  Envisage an experiment where laboratory rats were required to learn that they are forbidden to eat a certain type of food. When the rat ate the food, it was given a mild electric shock. Learning continued until the rat stopped eating the food. Imagine the results showed that one week later the rats ate less of the food paired with the shock than foods that were not paired with shock. While this suggests that providing punishments results in learning, if a writer concluded from this experiment that punishment is the best way to achieve learning or that the effects of punishment last for long periods of time, the writer would be guilty of overgeneralisation.

Students also frequently make factual errors

1. The first error is ignoring contradictory evidence

This occurs

• when a writer favours an argument by ignoring or "leaving out" of their work any contradictory positions or evidence
• when students do not read widely enough. You must read enough of a topic to be able to identify, and write about, all the valid approaches to, and evidence concerning, a particular issue.

2. The second error is false dichotomisation

False dichotomisation occurs when

• only two sides of an argument or a way of examining a topic area are presented or identified, when more than two are possible.

• For example,
  
  There are two types of people, people who are happy and have never been depressed, and people who are depressed.

This is a false dichotomy as it omits people who are happy but who have been depressed in the past.

• Now that you understand what is involved in adopting a stance and supporting that stance with evidence, structuring your argument and the supporting evidence, and in examining the logic of your argument, you should now try the following activity: Formulating an argument

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Last updated September 12, 2016
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