ENGL 1711 03

Argumentative Topics and Direction

It’s not so much what you decide to write on as what you say about it. Most good argument papers are guided by a significant question to which the writer does not yet have the answer to yet.

· It’s not so much the topic as the direction you’re taking it in that determines the success of your paper.

· The only topics you can’t write about are ones which are purely subjective. For instance, you can’t make yourself the center of an argument paper. Furthermore you can’t rely too heavily on your own experience to prove your point. One primary objective of an argument paper is to look for other sources that back up what you’re saying.

· Your topic has to be somewhat reasonable on both sides. That means you have to be able present an opposing point that has some validity.

· You can’t research something that hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, you can’t write an argument paper on what life on the moon would be like, or what this country would be like if illegal drugs were made legal.

· Since you have to prove a point in your paper, a thesis which is too factual has a hard time being persuasive. For example, most topics about diseases rely on medical sources which are based on facts and statistics. It’s difficult to say something about a medical topic that isn’t a fact. They don’t make the best topics.

· You have to be able to prove your idea using academic sources. That means your sources have to be valid and reliable.

· You can’t rely on speculation to prove a point. Therefore you have to avoid writing about whether something is morally right or wrong.