Essay 3 Position Paper Instructions

(Page 132) G. Prewriting: Using the Toulmin Model to Get Ideas for a Position Paper

You have used the Toulmin model in Exercises B through F to read and analyze other people’s argument. Now use it to identify the main parts of an argument you will write. You may use the model to help you plan any argument paper. Use the Toulmin model as a prewriting exercise to help you develop ideas for a position paper.

1. Write the claim. All of the rest of your paper will support this claim.

2. Write the support. Write two or three subclaims you will develop in the paper. To help you do this, write the word “because” after the claim, and list reasons that support it. Also jot down ideas for specific support for these subclaims, such as examples, facts, opinions, or visual images that come from your reading of the essays or from your own experience.

Student Paper #1

Sofia Diallou Professor Miller English 101 12 Feb. 2016

Toulmin Analysis of the “Road Trip” Cartoon

Identifies claim and support.

The reader has to infer the claim of this cartoon since it is not directly stated. The claim is that screens have replaced face-to-face conversation as the primary way people now interact with each other. The support is provided by the driver of the car, who notes how much lonelier car trips have become, and the other passengers, all of whom are focused on their smartphones and tablets.

Analyzes warrant.

The implied warrant is that screen-based technology makes us more isolated and disconnected from each other.

Identifies backing.

The backing is also implied and reinforced by the picture. It suggests that road trips are valuable opportunities for connection and conversation that many families are giving up. It also reinforces the common belief that interacting with screens is more appealing than interacting directly with people face-to-face.

Infers rebuttal.

No direct rebuttal or qualifier appears in this cartoon. I think, however, that this cartoon could be considered as a rebuttal to those who think that screen-based communication is always superior to face-to-face communication. As a rebuttal, this cartoon highlights the negative consequences of embracing screen-based communication.

3. Write the warrants. Decide whether to spell out the warrants in your paper or to leave them implicit so that the reading audience will have to infer them.

4. Decide on the backing. Assume that your classmates are your audience. They may be reading drafts of your paper. In your judgment, will some of them require backing for any of your warrants because they will not agree with them otherwise? If so, how can you back these warrants? Write out your ideas.

5. Plan rebuttal. Think about the positions others may hold on this issue. You identified some of these positions in your exploratory paper. Write out your strategies for weakening these arguments.

6. Decide whether to qualify the claim to make it more convincing to more people. Write one or more qualifiers that might work.

Read what you have written, and make a note about additional information you will need to find for your paper. Save what you have written in a folder or in your open computer file. You will use it later when you complete your planning and write your position paper.

(pg.304-305) Developing Your Claim

1. 11.2 Write a clear research claim.

Whether or not you write an issue proposal and an exploratory paper, you will want to write your claim for your position paper as early in the process as possible. Your claim is important because it provides purpose, control, and direction for everything else that you include in your paper. Here are some questions to get you started.

Is the Claim Narrow and Focused?

You may have started with a broad issue area, such as technology or education, that suggests many specific related issues. In order to narrow your topic, you may need to focus on one of these more specific issues. Here is an example:

· Issue area: The environment

· Specific related issue:

What are the key strategies for addressing the problem of global warming?

· Aspects of that issue:

How do we reduce global carbon emissions?

What should be done to assist those regions most affected by rising sea levels?

How do we overcome political gridlock to create effective policies for combating global warming?

In selecting a narrowed issue to write about, you may want to focus on only one of the three aspects of the global warming problem. You might, for instance, decide to make this claim: Creating stricter limits for automobile emission is one of the most effective ways to combat global warming. Later, as you write, you may need to narrow this topic even further and revise your claim: Creating stricter limits for automobile emission will aid the fight against global warming in several specific ways. Any topic can turn out to be too broad or complicated when you begin to write about it.

You could also change your focus or perspective to narrow your claim. You may, for example, begin to research the claim you have made in response to your issue but discover along the way that the real issue is something else. As a result, you decide to change your claim. For example, suppose you decide to write a policy paper about freedom of speech. Your claim is: Freedom of speech should be protected in all situations. As you read and research, however, you discover that an issue for many people is a narrower one related to freedom of speech, specifically as it relates to violent video games and children’s behavior. In fact, you encounter an article that claims that video game violence should be censored even if doing so violates free speech rights. You decide to refocus your paper and write a value paper that claims: Video game violence is harmful and not subject to the protection of free-speech rights.

Can You Learn Enough to Cover the Claim Fully?

If the information for an effective paper is unavailable or too complicated, write another claim, one that you know more about and can research more successfully. You could also decide to narrow the claim further to an aspect that you understand and can develop.

What are the Various Perspectives on Your Issue?

Make certain that the issue you have selected invites two or more perspectives. If you have written an exploratory paper on this issue, you already know what several views are. If you have not written such a paper, explore your issue by writing several claims that represent a number of points of view, and then select the one you want to prove. For example:

· Creating stricter limits for automobile emission is one of the most effective ways to combat global warming.

· Creating stricter limits for automobile emission is an ineffective way to combat global warming.

· Creating stricter limits for automobile emission has some advantages and some disadvantages as a strategy for combating global warming.

· Creating stricter limits for automobile emission aids the fight against global warming in particular ways.

Review Question

a. What are the claim questions, and how can they be used to establish the purposes in your position paper? 

(pg.207) F. Prewriting: Using the Proofs to Generate Ideas for a Position Paper

You have analyzed other authors’ use of proofs in the preceding exercises. Now think about how you can use the proofs in your own writing. Write out answers for those that are most promising.

1. Signs: What symptoms or signs will demonstrate that this is so?

2. Induction: What examples can I use and what conclusions can I draw from them? Are they convincing enough to help the reader make the “inductive leap”?

3. Cause: What has caused this? Why is this happening? Think of explanations and examples of both cause and effect.

4. Deduction: What concluding statements do I want to make? What general principles and examples (or cases) are they based on?

5. Analogies: How can I show that what happened in one case will probably happen again in another case? Can I use a literal analogy to compare items in the same general category? Can I use a figurative analogy to compare items from different categories? Can I demonstrate that history repeats itself by citing a historical analogy?

6. Definition: What words or concepts will I need to define?

7. Statistics: What statistics can I use? Would they be more convincing in graph form?

8. Values: To what values can I appeal? Should I spell them out or leave them implicit? Will narratives and emotional language make my appeals to values stronger?

9. Authority: Whom should I quote? What can I use from my own background and experience to establish my own expertise? How can I use language to create common ground and establish ethos?

10. Motives: What does my audience need and want in regard to this topic? How can I appeal to those needs? Will emotional language help?

11. Visual proof: Could I strengthen my paper with visual proof, if that is part of the assignment? What could I use?

page 227 Question 6: Use the following evaluation questions to improve your support and eliminate fallacies. You can ask these questions both before you write and after you draft your paper as part of the revision process. They will help you focus on the quantity and quality of your support. Correct or eliminate any items that might weaken your argument.

a. Do I have enough support to be convincing? What can I add?

b. Is my support reliable and convincing? How can I make it more so?

c. Is anything exaggerated or oversimplified? How can I be more accurate?

d. Do I rely too much on my own authority (“This is true because I say so”) instead of giving support? Can I add support and the opinions of additional authorities to be more convincing?

e. Am I weakening this argument with too much emotional appeal? Should any of it be eliminated?

f. Have I used any fallacies as proof? (Check especially for hasty generalizations and post hoc or faulty cause, probably the two most common fallacies. Look for other fallacies. If you find any, either clarify and rewrite to make them acceptable or eliminate them.)

(pg.326-327)Matching Patterns and Support to Claims

1. 12.2 Identify the appropriate patterns for developing and supporting different claims.

One of the first things you need to decide when beginning the drafting process is how to organize your essay. Depending on the issue you are examining, the sources you have chosen, and the audience you are addressing, the decision you make about which organizational strategies to use will vary. Specific organizational patterns will prove most useful when matched with the most appropriate types of claims.  Table 12.1  that follows suggests patterns you might want to consider as promising for particular argumentation purposes. You could, of course, combine more than one pattern to develop a paper. For example, you might begin with a narrative of what happened, then describe its causes and effects, and finally propose a solution for dealing with the problems created by the effects.

When you use organizational patterns to help you think, these same patterns can function to organize your ideas into a complete argument. However, the patterns may be too constraining if you start with one and try to fill it in with your material. If you prefer to work with ideas first without the conscious constraints of a pattern to guide you, at some point patterns of argumentation must be considered. When you are finished or nearly finished organizing your research and ideas, move out of the creative mode and into the critical mode to analyze what you have done. You may find that you have arranged your ideas according to one or more of the patterns without being consciously aware of it. This is a common discovery. Now use what you know about the patterns to improve and sharpen the divisions among your ideas and to clarify these ideas with transitions. You will ultimately improve the readability of your paper by making it conform more closely to one or more specific patterns of organization.

Some proofs and support work better than others to establish different types of claims. 1   Table 12.2  offers suggestions, not rules, for you to consider. Remember that a variety of types of proof and a generous amount of specific support create the best, most convincing argument papers.

1We are indebted to Wayne E. Brockriede and Douglas Ehninger for some of the suggestions in  Table 12.2 . They identify some types of proof as appropriate for different sorts of claims in their article “Toulmin on Argument: An Interpretation and Application.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 46 (1960): 44–53.