Chapter 47 Summary

Chapter 48 discusses how to write a good argument paper. The goal of writing reasonable arguments is to "explain your understanding of the truth about a subject or to propose the best solution available." The purpose of a reasonable argument paper is to convince readers to rethink their opinions by providing them with new information that makes them question their viewpoint. You do not want to be to aggressive or too passive when stating your position on the topic that you are arguing. You want to "create an assertive tone by acknowledging different opinions and supporting your view with specific evidence."

Diana Hacker offers some very valuable tips for how to write a reasonable argument. The first tip she writes about tells you that you should examine the issue's social and intellectual contexts. She states that if you are not informed about the social or intellectual contexts of your issue you will be at a serious disadvantage for trying to argue your point because most of readers know the social and intellectual contexts of your issue. If you do not know them then you will appear to be ill-informed on your issue, which will make your argument not as trustworthy.The next tip that Diana states is that you should view the audience of your paper as a panel of jurors. This is a great tip. It will help you figure out what points are strong enough to support your argument and which ones are not. Another tip is to anticipate objections and counter opposing arguments. The last tip Diana writes about is that you should build common ground. Basically, this means that you should show your readers that do no initially agree with you that you share their concerns.

In the introduction of your paper you need to establish your credibility and state your position on your argument. You establish credibility by showing your readers that you know about and understand what you are writing about. The next thing that you need to do is back up your thesis with persuasive lines of argument. You also need to support the claims in your paper with evidence. There are lots of types of evidence that you can use. One of the most common forms of evidence is using facts and statistics. Facts and statistics are very strong sources of evidence because they have been verified. Citing expert opinion can also be a strong type of evidence that you can use. Using examples and illustrations cannot really prove a point by themselves, but they can be rather strong when used in combination with other forms of evidence.

I plan to use these tips next time I have to construct a reasonable argument. Of course I will be using evidence to support my position on the argument. I will definitely research the topic that I am arguing so that I make sure that I am well-informed on the topic. The more that I show that I a well-informed the more likely my readers will consider my point of view.