Arguments are around us all the time. We make and hear them whenever we try to persuade someone we're right or whenever someone wants to convince us to buy their product. To be a critical thinker and an effective academic writer, we need to understand how arguments are put together.
Prompt: Choose an opinion article (or letter to the editor) from a magazine or newspaper. In the journal first give the reference (APA style!) and then analyze the argument being made.
- What is the THESIS?
- What is the CLAIM (Definition, Cause, Value, Policy)?
- To what is the argument appealing - to reason (logos), to emotion (pathos), or to trust and values (ethos)?
- What is the evidence or premises the author uses to reach his conclusion?
- Finally - What do you think?
Daily Titan Opinion Articles
Orange County Register Opinion Articles
Los Angeles Times Opinion Articles
New York Times Opinion Articles
For example, here's a response to an article from the immaculate Daily Titan:
Landsman, A. (2008, October 27). I'll have some breast milk with my Ben and Jerry's please. Daily Titan, p. 4.
In this article Landsman pokes fun at the argument by PETA that the famous ice cream company, Ben & Jerry's, should use human breast milk instead of cow milk (par. 3). PETA's argument that we shouldn't use animal milk for nourishment (par. 8) is a claim of policy which appeals to emotion: disgust, in particular. Landsman seems to think this tactic is really strange. She admits that she doesn't have any scientific evidence on how hard it would be to do this (par. 15), but then PETA also offers weak evidence, too. They argue that it is stranger to use another creature's milk than our own (par. 8).
Due Wednesday, Nov. 9
Your very appealing teacher who claims to know it all,
