Research argument

English 1020

Criteria of Argument

As we know, you must do each of the following to meet the criteria of argument:

1. address a controversial issue currently debated in our society and relevant to the theme of

Environmental Climate Justice;

2. take a position/make a claim very early on that is unambiguous and shall serve as the thesis statement

for the discussion;

3. provide 3 pieces of evidence which are backed up with facts and/or expert opinion, which should

come from research, and your evidence should be clearly identifiable as logos, ethos, or pathos;

4. address opposing viewpoint (also called anticipating objection, making a concession, taking a turn

against);

5. immediately counter-argue the opposing viewpoint with a restatement of your position that targets

specifically the opposing viewpoint you just addressed;

6. resolve with discussion that addresses the public resonance of your issue, utilizing any of the

following strategies: discussion of a recent development; discussion of precedent; proposal of a

hypothetical question/situation; looking to the future using a “what if” approach; perhaps incorporating

a rhetorical question; analysis of a related affective issue; allusion to literary example or a film, etc.;

7. conclude with a perhaps a look to the future of your issue or a final challenge to your audience to do

the right thing by adopting your position, or an urgent appeal to participate in the democratic process in

order to change the behavior, the law, the practice, etc. You may choose to provide a provocative

quotation that you tie in to a restatement of your position, literary allusion, or any other of the ways we

have learned that discussions can be brought to an end other than by blandly summarizing everything

you have already said.

Additionally, it is understood that your discussion has relied on source material support and that you

have documented it according to MLA guidelines. You are required to have at least three scholarly

sources from the TSU Library system, one of which must be a scholarly journal article from one of the

databases available to you through the TSU electronic library. Remember to provide both in-text

citations and a Works Cited page entry for each source that you use.

The MINIMUM WORD COUNT FOR THIS PAPER is 1200 words.

ABOUT QUOTATIONS: Refer to the guidelines established in The Purdue Owl MLA Guide (POMG)

with respect to using signal phrases and quoting effectively. You may have only one block quotation

(more than 4 lines; less than 10) and it must be set up as illustrated in the sample research paper the

POMG under the Resources/Links tab. Altogether, you should plan to have no more than 15 lines of

direct quotation. For the most part, you will be paraphrasing your source material. One important thing

you want to remember about paraphrasing is that even though the source material may be in your own

words, you still have to cite it, with both an in-text citation and a Works Cited page entry.

Your paper should be proofread before submission. Are there typos? Misspellings? Omitted words?

Wrong Words? Are there grammar errors, e.g. CS, FS, FRAG? Are there punctuation errors, e.g.

semicolon errors, apostrophe errors?

Have you stayed in the 3 rd

person? There should be no use of 1 st or 2

nd person in this essay. Also,

there should be no contractions.