Week 7: Knowledge Check Reflection: Visual Rhetorical Analysis around YOU

3

A Note about the Cover

Is everything really an argument? Seeing the images on the cover of
this book might make you wonder. The “Free Speech Zone” sign, for
example, instantly calls to mind the debates across the United States
about the limits of free expression, especially on college campuses.
The ominous-looking hand coming out of the laptop suggests the ease
with which hackers obtain personal data. Does the image of teens
playing on cell phones in the back seat of a car argue for or against the
ways that technology is shaping how we are communicating with one
another? The polar bear on a shrinking ice floe reminds us of the
scientific fact of climate change but also invites a discussion of how
powerful visuals can sway our opinions and beliefs. As for the “100%
vegan” sticker, what’s your impression? Is it a proud proclamation of

4

one’s identity or values? A straightforward fact about a food’s origins?
A sharp commentary on the influence of advertising on the food
industry? What’s your take?

5

6

7

8

Eighth Edition

Everything’s an Argument with Readings
Andrea A. Lunsford

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

John J. Ruszkiewicz

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Keith Walters

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

9

For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Vice President, Editorial, Macmillan Learning Humanities: Edwin Hill
Executive Program Director for English: Leasa Burton
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Text Design: Claire Seng-Niemoeller, Anna Palchik, and Graphic
World, Inc.
Cover Design: William Boardman
Cover Images: (laptop) fStop Images/Epoxydude/Getty Images; (polar

10

bear) dagsjo/Getty Images; (vegan label) Good_Studio/Getty Images;
(free speech sign) Imfoto/Shutterstock; (kids with cell phones) Hero
Images/Getty Images

Copyright © 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010 by Bedford/St. Martin’s.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except
as may be permitted by law or expressly permitted in writing by the
Publisher.

1 2 3 4 5 6    23 22 21 20 19 18

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street,
Boston, MA 02116

ISBN-13: 978-1-319-21159-2(mobi)

Acknowledgments
Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book
on pages 793–94, which constitute an extension of the copyright page.
Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the
art selections they cover.

11

Preface
When we began work on this text in 1996 (the first edition came out in
1998), we couldn’t have anticipated all the events of the next two
tumultuous decades, or all the changes to public and private discourse,
or the current deeply divided state of our nation. But we have tried
hard, over these decades, to track such changes and the ways rhetoric
and argument have evolved and responded to them.

Certainly, we recognized the increasingly important role digital culture
plays in all our lives, and so with each new edition we have included
more on the technologies of communication, particularly those
associated with social media; and we early on recognized that, like
rhetoric itself, social media can be used for good or for ill, to bring
people together or to separate them.

We have also carefully tracked the forms that arguments take today,
from cartoons and graphic narratives to blogs and other postings to
multimodal projects of almost every conceivable kind. While argument
has always surrounded us, today it does so in an amazing array of
genres and forms, including aural and visual components that
strengthen and amplify arguments.

The sheer proliferation of information (not to mention misinformation,
disinformation, and outright lies) that bombards all writers led us to
reaffirm our commitment to studying and teaching style, since (as
Richard Lanham and others argue) in the age of information overload,
style is the tool writers possess to try to capture and keep the attention
of audiences. Attention to style reveals other changes, such as the

12

increasing use of informal registers and conversational styles even in
academic arguments.

Perhaps most important, though, a look back over the last twenty-two
years reaffirms the crucial role that rhetoric can and should play in
personal, work, and school lives. At its best, rhetoric is the art, theory,
and practice of ethical communication, needed more sorely today than
perhaps ever before. Everything’s an Argument with Readings presents
this view of rhetoric and illustrates it with a fair and wide range of
perspectives and views, which we hope will inspire student writers to
think of themselves as rhetors, as Quintilian’s “good person, speaking
well.”

Key Features
Two books in one, neatly linked. Up front is a brief guide to
Aristotelian, Toulmin, and Rogerian argument; common types of
arguments; presenting arguments; and researching arguments. In the
back is a thematically organized anthology of readings in a wide range
of genres. Handy cross-references in the margins allow students to
move easily from the argument chapters to specific examples in the
readings and from the readings to appropriate rhetorical instruction.

Short, relatable excerpts weave in the debates that rage around us.
From #metoo tweets and protest posters to essays and scholarly
writing, boldfaced examples illustrate the arguments happening in
politics, economics, journalism, and media, with brief student-friendly
analyses.

Five thematic readings chapters that encourage students to explore

13

complex arguments. Readings on “How Does Popular Culture
Stereotype You?,” “Has the Internet Destroyed Privacy?,” and “How
Free Should Campus Speech Be?” demand that students consider the
many sides of contemporary issues across the political spectrum, going
beyond a simple pro/con stance.

A real-world, full-color design that builds students’ understanding
of visual rhetoric. Presenting readings in the style of their original
publications helps students recognize and think about the effect that
design and visuals have on written and multimodal arguments.

New to This Edition
A new section on rhetorical listening in Chapter 1. The very first
chapter of the eighth edition now emphasizes the importance of
listening rhetorically and respectfully, encouraging readers to move
beyond “echo chambers” and build bridges among all viewpoints.

Eight new full-length models in the guide provide engaging, topical
arguments of fact, definition, evaluation, cause and effect, proposals,
and rhetorical analysis. Legal scholar Stephen L. Carter offers a
Toulmin analysis of whether racial epithets should be considered free
speech, while New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof presents an
op-ed in defense of public wilderness.

Five new annotated student essays address topics students care about,
from millennials’ love of food to breaking a social media addiction.

Thirty-one engaging new readings on hot-button issues such as free
speech, food, language, privacy, and stereotypes. Selections

14

represent a range of genres and span the full gamut of social and
political views, including:

excerpts from a recent Gallup poll showing what college students
think about First Amendment issues
visual arguments and a scholarly essay supporting and critiquing
the concept of racial microaggressions
best-selling essayist Roxane Gay on the language we use to
describe sexual violence
an Economist blog post acknowledging that sport shooting can be,
well, fun
an argument against veganism . . . written by a vegan

A new introduction in the instructor’s notes. Focusing on the
teaching of argument, this new introduction gives experienced and
first-time instructors a strong pedagogical foundation. Sample syllabi
for both semester and quarter courses provide help for pacing all types
of courses.

We’re all in. As always.
Bedford/St. Martin’s is as passionately committed to the discipline of
English as ever, working hard to provide support and services that
make it easier for you to teach your course your way.

Find community support at the Bedford/St. Martin’s English
Community (community.macmillan.com), where you can follow our
Bits blog for new teaching ideas, download titles from our professional
resource series, and review projects in the pipeline.

15

Choose curriculum solutions that offer flexible custom options,
combining our carefully developed print and digital resources,
acclaimed works from Macmillan’s trade imprints, and your own
course or program materials to provide the exact resources your
students need. Our approach to customization makes it possible to
create a customized project uniquely suited for your students and,
based on your enrollment size, return money to your department and
raise your institutional profile with a high-impact author visit through
the Macmillan Author Program (“MAP”).

Rely on outstanding service from your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales
representative and editorial team. Contact us or visit
macmillanlearning.com to learn more about any of the options below.

LaunchPad for Everything’s an Argument with Readings:
Where Students Learn
LaunchPad provides engaging content and new ways to get the most
out of your book. Get an interactive e-book combined with assessment
tools in a fully customizable course space; then assign and mix our
resources with yours.

Reading comprehension quizzes, to help you quickly gauge your
students’ understanding of the assigned reading.
Interactive exercises and tutorials for reading, writing, and
research.
Diagnostics provide opportunities to assess areas for improvement
and assign additional exercises based on students’ needs. Visual
reports show performance by topic, class, and student as well as
improvement over time.

16

Pre-built units—including readings, videos, quizzes, and more—
are easy to adapt and assign by adding your own materials and
mixing them with our high-quality multimedia content and ready-
made assessment options, such as LearningCurve adaptive
quizzing and Exercise Central.
Use LaunchPad on its own or integrate it with your school’s
learning management system so that your class is always on the
same page.

LaunchPad for Everything’s an Argument with Readings can be
purchased on its own or packaged with the print book at a significant
discount. An activation code is required. To order LaunchPad for
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ISBN 978-1-319-25363-9. For more information, go to
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Choose from Alternative Formats of Everything’s an
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Bedford/St. Martin’s offers a range of formats. Choose what works
best for you and your students:

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Popular e-book formats For details of our e-book partners, visit
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Select Value Packages
Add value to your text by packaging a Bedford/St. Martin’s resource,
such as Writer’s Help 2.0, with Everything’s an Argument with

17

Readings at a significant discount. Contact your sales representative for
more information.

Writer’s Help 2.0 is a powerful online writing resource that helps
students find answers, whether they are searching for writing advice on
their own or as part of an assignment.

Smart search. Built on research with more than 1,600 student
writers, the smart search in Writer’s Help 2.0 provides reliable
results even when students use novice terms, such as flow and
unstuck.
Trusted content from our best-selling handbooks. Andrea
Lunsford’s user-friendly tone ensures that students have clear
advice and examples for all of their writing questions.
Diagnostics that help establish a baseline for instruction.
Assign diagnostics to identify areas of strength and areas for
improvement and to help students plan a course of study. Use
visual reports to track performance by topic, class, and student as
well as improvement over time.
Adaptive exercises that engage students. Writer’s Help 2.0
includes LearningCurve, game-like online quizzing that adapts to
what students already know and helps them focus on what they
need to learn.

Student access is packaged with Everything’s an Argument with
Readings at a significant discount. Order ISBN 978-1-319-25623-4 for
Writer’s Help 2.0, Lunsford Version, to ensure your students have easy
access to online writing support. Students who rent or buy a used book
can purchase access and instructors may request free access at
macmillanlearning.com/writershelp2.

18

Instructor Resources
You have a lot to do in your course. We want to make it easy for you to
find the support you need—and to get it quickly.

Instructor’s Notes for Everything’s an Argument with Readings is
available as a PDF that can be downloaded from
macmillanlearning.com. Visit the instructor resources tab for
Everything’s an Argument with Readings. In addition to chapter
overviews and teaching tips, the instructor’s manual offers an
introduction about teaching the argument course, sample syllabi,
correlations to the Council of Writing Program Administrators’
Outcomes Statement, and potential answers to the “Respond” questions
in the book.

Acknowledgments
We owe a debt of gratitude to many people for making Everything’s an
Argument with Readings possible. Our first thanks must go to the
thousands of people we have taught in our writing courses over nearly
four decades, particularly students at the Ohio State University,
Stanford University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Portland
State University. Almost every chapter in this book has been informed
by a classroom encounter with a student whose shrewd observation or
perceptive question sent an ambitious lesson plan spiraling to the
ground. (Anyone who has tried to teach claims and warrants on the fly
to skeptical first-year writers will surely appreciate why we have
qualified our claims in the Toulmin chapter so carefully.) But students
have also provided the motive for writing this book. More than ever,
they need to know how to read and write arguments effectively if they

19

are to secure a place in a world growing ever smaller and more
rhetorically challenging.

We are deeply grateful to the editors at Bedford/St. Martin’s who have
contributed their formidable talents to this book. In particular, we want
to thank the ingenious and efficient Rachel Goldberg for guiding us so
patiently and confidently—helping us locate just the right items
whenever we needed fresh examples and images and gracefully
recasting passage after passage to satisfy permissions mandates. Senior
content project manager Ryan Sullivan was relentlessly upbeat and
kind in all his communications, making the ever-more-complex stages
of production almost a pleasure. We also appreciate the extensive
support and help of Lexi DeConti, who kept us attuned to examples
and readings that might appeal to students today. We are similarly
grateful to senior program manager John Sullivan, whose support was
unfailing; Kalina Ingham, Arthur Johnson, and Tom Wilcox, for text
permissions; Angela Boehler and Krystyna Borgen, for art
permissions; William Boardman, for our cover design; Bridget Leahy,
copyeditor; and William Hwang, editorial assistant. All of you made
editing the eighth edition feel fresh and creative.

We’d also like to thank the astute instructors who reviewed the seventh
edition: Brigitte Anderson, University of Pikeville; Samantha Battrick,
Truman State University; Kathryn Bennett, Old Dominion University;
Jeanne Bohannon, Kennesaw State University; Rebecca Cepek,
Duquesne University; Laura Dumin, University of Central Oklahoma;
Tim Engles, Eastern Illinois University; Karen Feldman, Seminole
State College of Florida; Africa Fine, Palm Beach State College;

20

Darius Frasure, Mountain View College; Erin Gallagher, Washington
State University; Ben Graydon, Daytona State College; Joseph
Hernandez, Mt. San Jacinto College; Julie Moore-Felux, Northwest
Vista College; Laurie Murray, Anderson University; Kolawole Olaiya,
Anderson University; Leslie Rapparlie, University of Colorado;
Thomas Reynolds, Northwestern State University; Loreen Smith,
Isothermal Community College; Benjamin Syn, University of
Colorado; Gina Szabady, Lane Community College; Amy Walton,
Iowa State University; and Miriam Young, Truman State University.

Thanks, too, to Sherrie Weller of Loyola Chicago University and
Valerie Duff-Stroutmann of Newbury College, who updated the
instructor’s notes for this eighth edition with a new introduction, new
model syllabi, new points for discussion, and new classroom activities.
We hope this resource will be useful as instructors build their courses.
Finally, we are grateful to the students whose fine argumentative
essays or materials appear in our chapters: Cameron Hauer, Kate
Beispel, Jenny Kim, Laura Tarrant, Natasha Rodriguez, Caleb Wong,
Juliana Chang, George Chidiac, and Charlotte Geaghan-Breiner. We
hope that Everything’s an Argument with Readings responds to what
students and instructors have said they want and need.

Andrea A. Lunsford

John J. Ruszkiewicz

Keith Walters

Correlation to Council of Writing Program

21

Administrators’ (WPA) Outcomes
Everything’s an Argument with Readings works with the Council of
Writing Program Administrators’ Outcomes Statement for first-year
composition courses (last updated 2014).

2014 WPA
Outcomes

Support in Everything’s an Argument with Readings, 8e

Rhetorical
Knowledge

Learn and use
key rhetorical
concepts
through
analyzing and
composing a
variety of texts.

Chapter 1, “Understanding Arguments and Reading
Them Critically” (pp. 3–31), establishes the central
elements of the rhetorical situation and encourages
rhetorical listening.

Chapter 6, “Rhetorical Analysis” (pp. 97–132), further
develops these concepts and teaches students how to
analyze a rhetorical analysis and compose their own.

Each chapter offers dozens of written, visual, and
multimodal texts to analyze, in both the guide portion
and the thematic reader.

Gain experience
reading and
composing in
several genres to
understand how
genre
conventions
shape and are
shaped by
readers’ and
writers’

Everything’s an Argument with Readings provides
engaging readings across genres, from academic essays
and newspaper editorials to tweets and infographics.
“Respond” boxes throughout each chapter (e.g., pp.
56–57) invite students to think critically about the
material. For more genre variety, Everything’s an
Argument with Readings also contains a five-chapter
thematic reader with additional multimodal genres,
including an art installation, Web articles, scholarly
essays, and political cartoons.

22

practices and
purposes.

Each chapter on a specific type of argument features
project ideas (e.g., p. 186), giving students detailed
prompts to write their own arguments of fact,
arguments of definition, evaluations, causal arguments,
and proposals.

Develop facility
in responding to
a variety of
situations and
contexts, calling
for purposeful
shifts in voice,
tone, level of
formality,
design, medium,
and/or structure.

Chapter 13, “Style in Arguments” (pp. 321–45),
addresses word choice, tone, sentence structure,
punctuation, and figurative language, with engaging
examples of each.

The “Cultural Contexts for Argument” boxes
throughout the text (e.g., p. 163) address how people
from other cultures might respond to different styles or
structures of argument. This feature offers suggestions
on how to think about argument in an unfamiliar
cultural context.

Understand and
use a variety of
technologies to
address a range
of audiences.

Chapter 16, “Multimodal Arguments” (pp. 381–402),
addresses how new media has transformed the array of
choices for making arguments and reaching audiences.
This chapter teaches how to analyze multimodal
arguments as well as how to create them through Web
sites, videos, wikis, blogs, social media, memes, posters,
and comics.

Match the
capacities of
different
environments
(e.g., print &
electronic) to
varying
rhetorical
situations.

Chapter 14, “Visual Rhetoric” (pp. 346–62), discusses
the power of visual rhetoric and how students can use
visuals in their own work.

Chapter 15, “Presenting Arguments” (pp. 363–80),
includes material on incorporating various media into
presentations and Webcasts.

Chapter 16, “Multimodal Arguments” (pp. 381–402),
analyzes the evolving landscape of argument across
media platforms.

23

Chapter 17, “Academic Arguments” (pp. 405–37),
covers the conventions of academic arguments.

Critical Thinking,
Reading, and
Composing

Use composing
and reading for
inquiry, learning,
thinking, and
communicating
in various
rhetorical
contexts.

Chapter 1, “Understanding Arguments and Reading
Them Critically” (pp. 3–31), features a section called
“Why Listen to Arguments Rhetorically and
Respectfully” (pp. 7–8). It teaches students to listen
openly and constructively and calls attention to the
need to escape “echo chambers,” respectfully consider
all viewpoints, and find common ground.

Throughout Everything’s an Argument with Readings,
students are invited to delve deeper into current issues
in the world around them, considering the various
arguments presented in tweets, newspapers, scholarly
papers, court rulings, and even bumper stickers.
Everything’s an Argument with Readings guides students
in asking critical questions about these contexts and
learning how to respond to and create their own
compositions. Chapters dedicated to central types of
argument explain how students might best approach
each writing situation. The chapters close with a guide
to writing arguments of that type:

Chapter 8, “Arguments of Fact” (pp. 164–96)

Chapter 9, “Arguments of Definition” (pp. 197–223)

Chapter 10, “Evaluations” (pp. 224–54)

Chapter 11, “Causal Arguments” (pp. 255–85)

Chapter 12, “Proposals” (pp. 286–318)

24

Chapter 16, “Multimodal Arguments” (pp. 381–402)

Read a diverse
range of texts,
attending
especially to
relationships
between
assertion and
evidence, to
patterns of
organization, to
interplay
between verbal
and nonverbal
elements, and
how these
features function
for different
audiences and
situations.

Chapter 7, “Structuring Arguments” (pp. 135–63),
examines making claims and using evidence to support
those claims. It delves into the structure of Rogerian and
Toulmin arguments, showing how different argument
types work for different writing situations.

Each Guide to Writing features sections on
“Formulating a Claim” and “Thinking about
Organization” (e.g., pp. 212 and 214), emphasizing the
use of evidence and the structure of the argument.

Locate and
evaluate primary
and secondary
research
materials,
including journal
articles, essays,
books,
databases, and
informal Internet
sources.

Chapter 18, “Finding Evidence” (pp. 438–53), covers
locating evidence from print, electronic, and field
research sources.

Chapter 19, “Evaluating Sources” (pp. 454–63),
addresses how to assess those sources effectively.

Use strategies — 
such as
interpretation,

Chapter 20, “Using Sources,” provides detailed
explanations of summary, paraphrase, and quotation
and when to use each approach (pp. 467–73). The

25

synthesis,
response,
critique, and
design/redesign 
— to compose
texts that
integrate the
writer’s ideas
with those from
appropriate
sources.

chapter discusses framing with introductory phrases
and signal verbs, and it presents multiple ways to
connect source material to a student’s own ideas — by
establishing a context, introducing a term or concept,
developing a claim, highlighting differences, and
avoiding “patchwriting” (pp. 480–82).

Chapter 21, “Plagiarism and Academic Integrity” (pp.
484–93), highlights the importance of acknowledging
another writer’s work.

Chapter 22, “Documenting Sources” (pp. 494–532),
concludes the research section of the book with a
discussion of MLA and APA documentation, including a
wide range of citation models in both formats.

Processes

Develop a
writing project
through multiple
drafts.

Chapter 17, “Academic Arguments” (pp. 405–37),
stresses the importance of working through multiple
drafts of a project, using revision and peer feedback to
improve the document.

Develop flexible
strategies for
reading,
drafting,
reviewing,
collaboration,
revising,
rewriting,
rereading, and
editing.

Writing is a fundamental focus of Everything’s an
Argument with Readings, and students learn to critique
their own work and the work of others in almost every
part of the book. Each Guide to Writing, focusing on a
specific type of argument in the Part 2 chapters,
contains step-by-step advice on drafting, researching,
and organizing, as well as peer review questions about
the claim being made, the evidence provided for the
claim, and the organization and style of the essay.

The Guide to Writing also asks students to review their
spelling, punctuation, mechanics, documentation, and
format.

26

Use composing
processes and
tools as a means
to discover and
reconsider ideas.

Chapter 7, “Structuring Arguments” (pp. 135–63),
provides a clear explanation for how to construct an
argument and support it effectively, and it includes a
brief annotated model from a classic text.

The “Developing an Academic Argument” section (pp.
411–18) in Chapter 17, “Academic Arguments” (pp.
405–37), guides students through the specific process of
developing a paper in an academic setting, from
selecting a topic and exploring it in depth to entering
into the conversation around the chosen topic. Two
annotated examples of academic arguments are
provided at the end of the chapter.

Experience the
collaborative
and social
aspects of
writing
processes.

Many “Respond” questions have students work in pairs
or groups to analyze rhetorical situations, arguments, or
appeals. See p. 36, for instance.

In Chapter 21, “Plagiarism and Academic Integrity”
(pp. 484–93), students learn the importance of giving
credit, getting permission to use the materials of others,
citing sources appropriately, and acknowledging
collaboration with their peers.

Learn to give and
act on
productive
feedback to
works in
progress.

Each Guide to Writing, focusing on a specific type of
argument in the Part 2 chapters, contains a “Getting
and Giving Response: Questions for Peer Review”
section (e.g., pp. 183–85) tailored to that argument type.
These questions address the claim being made, the
evidence provided for the claim, and the organization
and style of the essay.

Adapt composing
processes for a
variety of
technologies and
modalities.

Awareness of technology runs throughout Everything’s
an Argument with Readings, beginning in the first
chapter with an exploration of arguments made via
Twitter. A particular focus on multimodal arguments is
made in Chapter 14, “Visual Rhetoric” (pp. 346–62),

27

which covers how effective images can be and instructs
students on incorporating them to achieve specific
rhetorical purposes, and in Chapter 16, “Multimodal
Arguments” (pp. 381–402), which focuses on how
technology offers new platforms and opportunities for
composition, as well as some new pitfalls to avoid.
These chapters provide students with tools for creating
their own multimodal compositions.

Reflect on the
development of
composing
practices and
how those
practices
influence their
work.

Everything’s an Argument with Readings presents
students with an important foundation in the purpose
and history of rhetoric (e.g., “Why We Make
Arguments,” pp. 8–9; “The Classical Oration,” pp.
136–39) as well as thoughtful reflections on how
composition and argument have changed in an
increasingly digital world (e.g., “Old Media
Transformed by New Media,” pp. 382–83;
“Conventions in Academic Argument Are Not Static,”
p. 410).

Knowledge of
Conventions

Develop
knowledge of
linguistic
structures,
including
grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling, through
practice in
composing and
revising.

Chapter 13, “Style in Arguments” (pp. 321–45), covers
sentence structure and punctuation.

Chapter 17, “Academic Arguments” (pp. 405–37),
discusses drafting, revising, and editing.

The Guide to Writing in each Part 2 chapter asks
students to review their spelling, punctuation,
mechanics, documentation, and format.

Understand why
genre

The argument chapters in Part 2 address genre
conventions, discussing how the approach and structure

28

conventions for
structure,
paragraphing,
tone, and
mechanics vary.

of a document adapt to its genre. Each chapter also
includes a Guide to Writing and Sample Arguments,
which highlight differing uses of sources and tone (e.g.,
“Guide to Writing a Proposal,” pp. 300–305).

Gain experience
negotiating
variations in
genre
conventions.

Each of the Part 2 chapters offers a section on
characterizing that particular genre (e.g.,
“Characterizing Evaluation,” pp. 229–32) as well as a
section to guide students to develop a paper in that
particular genre (e.g., “Developing an Evaluative
Argument,” pp. 233–39). These chapters pay particular
attention to the nuances and variations of differing
purposes and approaches.

For more genre variety, Everything’s an Argument with
Readings also contains a five-chapter thematic reader
with additional multimodal genres, including
infographics, professional reports, scholarly journal
articles, and comic strips.

Learn common
formats and/or
design features
for different
kinds of texts.

Part 3, “Style and Presentation in Arguments,” offers
four chapters on how to design an argument, paying
attention to how these choices will vary depending on
the student’s rhetorical purpose (e.g., “Using Images
and Visual Design to Create Pathos,” pp. 350–52).

The “Considering Design and Visuals” section (e.g., pp.
238–39) in each Part 2 argument chapter acquaints
students with common design features and formats of
that type of document.

The Guide to Writing in each Part 2 chapter contains a
“Considering Genre and Media” section that invites
students to think about how to choose the appropriate
format and medium for a particular argument.

29

Explore the
concepts of
intellectual
property (such
as fair use and
copyright) that
motivate
documentation
conventions.

Chapter 20, “Using Sources,” explores the topics of
summary, paraphrase, and quotation and when each
approach might be most appropriate (pp. 466–73). The
chapter discusses framing with introductory phrases
and signal verbs, and it presents multiple ways to
connect source material to a student’s own ideas by
establishing a context, introducing a term or concept,
developing a claim, highlighting differences, and
avoiding “patchwriting” (pp. 474–82).

Chapter 21, “Plagiarism and Academic Integrity” (pp.
484–93), shines a light on the importance of
acknowledging the work of another.

The section on MLA style in Chapter 22, “Documenting
Sources” (pp. 496–515), provides guidance on how to
get permission for copyrighted material (including
Internet sources) and how to navigate Creative
Commons and fair use. It also offers an in-depth
examination of in-text citations and Works Cited entries,
with more than fifty examples of citation types and
sample pages from a student essay.

Practice
applying citation
conventions
systematically in
their own work.

Chapter 22, “Documenting Sources” (pp. 494–532),
examines in-text citations and Works Cited entries for
both MLA and APA style, with more than fifty examples
of citation types and sample pages from a student essay.

30

Brief Contents
Preface

Part 1 Reading and Understanding Arguments

1. Understanding Arguments and Reading Them Critically

2. Arguments Based on Emotion: Pathos

3. Arguments Based on Character: Ethos

4. Arguments Based on Facts and Reason: Logos

5. Fallacies of Argument

6. Rhetorical Analysis

Part 2 Writing Arguments

7. Structuring Arguments

8. Arguments of Fact

9. Arguments of Definition

10. Evaluations

11. Causal Arguments

12. Proposals

Part 3 Style and Presentation in Arguments

13. Style in Arguments

14. Visual Rhetoric

15. Presenting Arguments

16. Multimodal Arguments

Part 4 Research and Arguments

17. Academic Arguments

18. Finding Evidence

31

19. Evaluating Sources

20. Using Sources

21. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

22. Documenting Sources

Part 5 Arguments

23. How Does Popular Culture Stereotype You?

24. How Does What We Eat Define Who We Are?

25. How Does Language Influence Our World?

26. Has the Internet Destroyed Privacy?

27. How Free Should Campus Speech Be?

Glossary

Index

Readings by Type of Argument

32

Contents
Preface

Part 1 Reading and Understanding Arguments

1. Understanding Arguments and Reading Them Critically

Everything Is an Argument

Why Read Arguments Critically and Rhetorically?

Why Listen to Arguments Rhetorically and Respectfully?

Why We Make Arguments

Arguments to Convince and Inform

Arguments to Persuade

Arguments to Make Decisions

Arguments to Understand and Explore

Occasions for Argument

Arguments about the Past

Arguments about the Future

Arguments about the Present

Kinds of Argument

Did Something Happen? Arguments of Fact

What Is the Nature of the Thing? Arguments of
Definition

What Is the Quality or Cause of the Thing? Arguments
of Evaluation

What Actions Should Be Taken? Proposal Arguments

STASIS QUESTIONS AT WORK

33

Appealing to Audiences

Emotional Appeals: Pathos

Ethical Appeals: Ethos

Logical Appeals: Logos

Bringing It Home: Kairos and the Rhetorical Situation

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

2. Arguments Based on Emotion: Pathos

Reading Critically for Pathos

Using Emotions to Build Bridges

Using Emotions to Sustain an Argument

Using Humor

Using Arguments Based on Emotion

3. Arguments Based on Character: Ethos

Thinking Critically about Arguments Based on Character

Establishing Trustworthiness and Credibility

Claiming Authority

Coming Clean about Motives

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

4. Arguments Based on Facts and Reason: Logos

Thinking Critically about Hard Evidence

Facts

Statistics

Surveys and Polls

Testimonies and Narratives

34

Using Reason and Common Sense

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Providing Logical Structures for Argument

Degree

Analogies

Precedent

5. Fallacies of Argument

Fallacies of Emotional Argument

Scare Tactics

Either/Or Choices

Slippery Slope

Overly Sentimental Appeals

Bandwagon Appeals

Fallacies of Ethical Argument

Appeals to False Authority

Dogmatism

Ad Hominem Arguments

Stacking the Deck

Fallacies of Logical Argument

Hasty Generalization

Faulty Causality

Begging the Question

Equivocation

Non Sequitur

35

Straw Man

Red Herring

Faulty Analogy

Paralipsis

6. Rhetorical Analysis

Composing a Rhetorical Analysis: Reading and Viewing
Critically

Understanding the Purpose of Arguments You Are
Analyzing

Understanding Who Makes an Argument

Identifying and Appealing to Audiences

Examining Arguments Based on Emotion: Pathos

Examining Arguments Based on Character: Ethos

Examining Arguments Based on Facts and Reason: Logos

Examining the Arrangement and Media of Arguments

Looking at Style

Examining a Rhetorical Analysis

Nicholas Kristof, Fleeing to the Mountains

“When public lands are lost — or mined in ways
that scar the landscape — something has been lost
forever on our watch. A public good has been
privatized, and our descendants have been robbed.”

Cameron Hauer, Appeal, Audience, and Narrative in
Kristof’s Wilderness [STUDENT ESSAY]

36

“To a liberal readership still reeling from the shock
of the 2016 election, the invocation of Trump is an
invitation for the audience to adopt Kristof’s pro-
wilderness platform as a plank of a broader anti-
Trump agenda.”

GUIDE TO WRITING A RHETORICAL
ANALYSIS

Part 2 Writing Arguments

7. Structuring Arguments

The Classical Oration

Rogerian and Invitational Arguments

Toulmin Argument

Making Claims

Offering Evidence and Good Reasons

Determining Warrants

Offering Evidence: Backing

Using Qualifiers

Understanding Conditions of Rebuttal

Outline of a Toulmin Argument

A Toulmin Analysis

Stephen L. Carter, Offensive Speech Is Free Speech.
If Only We’d Listen

“The First Amendment protects not admirable
speech or good speech or likeable speech. It
protects speech.”

37

What Toulmin Teaches

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

8. Arguments of Fact

Understanding Arguments of Fact

Characterizing Factual Arguments

Developing a Factual Argument

Identifying an Issue

Researching Your Hypothesis

Refining Your Claim

Deciding Which Evidence to Use

Presenting Your Evidence

Considering Design and Visuals

GUIDE TO WRITING AN ARGUMENT OF
FACT

Projects

Two Sample Factual Arguments

Kate Beispel, The Snacktivities and Musings of a
Millennial Foodie [STUDENT ESSAY]

“Where there’s a food line, there’s a Millennial
waiting: foodie culture is accessible to anyone
who wants to be a part of it.”

Michael Hiltzik, Don’t Believe Facebook: The
Demise of the Written Word Is Very Far Off

38

“Video is a linear medium: You have to allow it
to unspool frame by frame to glean what it’s
saying. Text can be absorbed in blocks; the eye
searches for keywords or names or other
pointers such as quotation marks.”

9. Arguments of Definition

Understanding Arguments of Definition

Kinds of Definition

Formal Definitions

Operational Definitions

Definitions by Example

Negative Definitions

Developing a Definitional Argument

Formulating Claims

Crafting Definitions

Matching Claims to Definitions

Considering Design and Visuals

GUIDE TO WRITING AN ARGUMENT OF
DEFINITION

Projects

Two Sample Definitional Arguments

Natasha Rodriguez, Who Are You Calling
Underprivileged? [STUDENT ESSAY]

“The word made me question how I saw myself

39

in the world.”

Rob Jenkins, Defining the Relationship

“I used to think the boundaries and expectations
were clear on both sides, but that no longer
seems to be the case.”

10. Evaluations

Understanding Evaluations

Criteria of Evaluation

Characterizing Evaluation

Quantitative Evaluations

Qualitative Evaluations

Developing an Evaluative Argument

Formulating Criteria

Making Claims

Presenting Evidence

Considering Design and Visuals

GUIDE TO WRITING AN EVALUATION

Projects

Two Sample Evaluations

Jenny Kim, The Toxicity in Learning [STUDENT
ESSAY]

“Across all disciplines, there is an unhealthy
infatuation with a 4.0 GPA that detracts from

40

true learning.”

Becca Stanek, I took vitamins every day for a decade.
Then I found out they’re useless

“At my appointment last Wednesday, my doctor
bluntly informed me that my multivitamins
weren’t doing a darn thing for me.”

11. Causal Arguments

Understanding Causal Arguments

Arguments That State a Cause and Then Examine Its
Effects

Arguments That State an Effect and Then Trace the
Effect Back to Its Causes

Arguments That Move through a Series of Links: A
Causes B, Which Leads to C and Perhaps to D

Characterizing Causal Arguments

They Are Often Part of Other Arguments

They Are Almost Always Complex

They Are Often Definition Based

They Usually Yield Probable Rather Than Absolute
Conclusions

Developing Causal Arguments

Exploring Possible Claims

Defining the Causal Relationships

Supporting Your Point

41

Considering Design and Visuals

GUIDE TO WRITING A CAUSAL ARGUMENT

Projects

Two Sample Causal Arguments

Laura Tarrant, Forever Alone (and Perfectly Fine)
[STUDENT ESSAY]

“Singleness doesn’t have to be a steppingstone
on the way to a relationship, nor does it have to
result from some emotional deficiency. Rather,
singleness is its own alternative lifestyle.”

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, America’s Birthrate Is
Now a National Emergency

“People’s willingness to have children is not
only a sign of confidence in the future, but a
sign of cultural health.”

12. Proposals

Understanding and Categorizing Proposals

Characterizing Proposals

Developing Proposals

Defining a Need or Problem

Making a Strong and Clear Claim

Showing That the Proposal Addresses the Need or
Problem

Showing That the Proposal Is Feasible

42

Considering Design and Visuals

GUIDE TO WRITING A PROPOSAL

Projects

Two Sample Proposals

Caleb Wong, Addiction to Social Media: How to
Overcome It [STUDENT ESSAY]

“Like tooth-brushing and nail-biting, using
social media regularly is a habit.”

Lenore Skenazy, My Free-Range Parenting
Manifesto

“We are crippling kids by convincing them they
can’t solve any issues on their own.”

Part 3 Style and Presentation in Arguments

13. Style in Arguments

Style and Word Choice

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Sentence Structure and Argument

Punctuation and Argument

Special Effects: Figurative Language

Tropes

Schemes

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

14. Visual Rhetoric

43

The Power of Visual Arguments

Using Visuals in Your Own Arguments

Using Images and Visual Design to Create Pathos

Using Images to Establish Ethos

Using Visual Images to Support Logos

15. Presenting Arguments

Class and Public Discussions

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Preparing a Presentation

Assess the Rhetorical Situation

Nail Down the Specific Details

Fashion a Script Designed to Be Heard by an
Audience

Choose Media to Fit Your Subject

Deliver a Good Show

A Note about Webcasts: Live Presentations over the
Web

16. Multimodal Arguments

Old Media Transformed by New Media

New Content in New Media

New Audiences in New Media

Analyzing Multimodal Arguments

Making Multimodal Arguments

Web Sites

Videos and Video Essays

44

Wikis

Blogs

Social Media

Posters

Comics

A Final Note on Time

Part 4 Research and Arguments

17. Academic Arguments

Understanding What Academic Argument Is

Conventions in Academic Argument Are Not Static

Developing an Academic Argument

Two Sample Academic Arguments

Charlotte Geaghan-Breiner, Where the Wild Things
Should Be: Healing Nature Deficit Disorder through
the Schoolyard [STUDENT ESSAY]

“The most practical solution to this staggering
rift between children and nature involves the
schoolyard.”

Sidra Montgomery, The Emotion Work of “Thank
You for Your Service”

“The well-meaning intent behind TYFYS isn’t
always received by post-9/11 veterans in the
same way.”

45

18. Finding Evidence

Considering the Rhetorical Situation

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Searching Effectively

SEARCHING ONLINE OR IN DATABASES

Collecting Data on Your Own

19. Evaluating Sources

Assessing Print Sources

Assessing Electronic Sources

Practicing Crap Detection

Assessing Field Research

20. Using Sources

Practicing Infotention

Building a Critical Mass

Synthesizing Information

Paraphrasing Sources You Will Use Extensively

Summarizing Sources

Using Quotations Selectively and Strategically

Framing Materials You Borrow with Signal Words
and Introductions

Using Sources to Clarify and Support Your Own
Argument

Avoiding “Patchwriting”

21. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Giving Credit

46

Getting Permission for and Using Copyrighted Internet
Sources

Acknowledging Your Sources Accurately and
Appropriately

Acknowledging Collaboration

22. Documenting Sources

MLA Style

In-Text Citations

Explanatory and Bibliographic Notes

List of Works Cited

Sample First Page for an Essay in MLA Style

Sample List of Works Cited for an Essay in MLA
Style

APA Style

In-Text Citations

Content Notes

List of References

Sample Title Page for an Essay in APA Style

Sample First Text Page for an Essay in APA Style

Sample References List for an Essay in APA Style

Part 5 Arguments

23. How Does Popular Culture Stereotype You?

Alli Joseph, With Disney’s Moana, Hollywood Almost
Gets It Right: Indigenous People Weigh In [WEB
ARTICLE]

47

“But the film’s achievements are not enough for
some to cite progress toward more accurate, less-
stereotypical portrayal of other cultures in film.”

D.K., Shooting Guns: It’s Rather Fun, Actually
[MAGAZINE ARTICLE]

“For the majority of gun owners, being told that
their harmless hobby is somehow responsible for
the deaths of other people must be deeply
unpleasant.”

Nicole Pasulka, How a Bible-Belt Evangelical Church
Embraced Gay Rights [WEB ARTICLE]

“Despite some opposition from within the
congregation, this Bible Belt church is now making
a religious argument for gay rights.”

C. Richard King, Redskins: Insult and Brand [BOOK
EXCERPT]

“As much a weapon as a word, then, it injures and
excludes, denying history and humanity.”

Melinda C. R. Burgess, et al., Playing with Prejudice:
The Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes
in Video Games [JOURNAL ARTICLE]

“[I]magery that associates African American men

48

with the negative stereotypes of aggression,
hostility, and criminality conditions viewers to
associate this constellation of negativity with
African American men in general.”

MAKING A VISUAL ARGUMENT: Sonny Assu,
Breakfast Series [ARTWORK]

Sara Morrison, Covering the Transgender Community:
How Newsrooms Are Moving Beyond the “Coming Out”
Story to Report Crucial Transgender Issues [REPORT]

“How do journalists cover a community, which has
been for so long maligned and voiceless, in ways
that are considerate of that community’s needs as
well as those of readers, some of whom need basic
concepts explained?”

24. How Does What We Eat Define Who We Are?

Sophie Egan, The American Food Psyche [BOOK
EXCERPT]

“Korean tacos and naan pizza and California rolls.
Some might consider these horrors. Sullied versions
of the true cultural entities. But not us. In America,
collisions are commendable.”

MAKING A VISUAL ARGUMENT: United States
Department of Agriculture, How Do Your Eating Habits
Differ from Your Grandparents’? [GRAPH]

49

Rob Greenfield, An Argument against Veganism . . . 
from a Vegan [BLOG POST]

“There are cultures of people who eat meat and
animal products in a manner that causes less harm
to earth and animals than some vegan diets do.”

Jess Kapadia, I Still Don’t Understand the Cultural
Appropriation of Food [WEB ARTICLE]

“I’d venture to say that this many years into the age
of pop food media and recipe sharing, no food
belongs to anyone anymore.”

Briahna Joy Gray, The Question of Cultural
Appropriation [MAGAZINE ARTICLE]

“I think when we talk about appropriation, we’re
really talking about two separate issues: first, an
issue of cultural exploitation, and second, an issue
of cultural disrespect.”

James Dubick, Brandon Mathews, and Clare Cady,
Hunger on Campus: The Challenge of Food Insecurity
for College Students [REPORT]

“One in five students surveyed had the very lowest
levels of food security. Thirteen percent were
homeless.”

50

25. How Does Language Influence Our World?

Ernie Smith, They Should Stop: In Defense of the
Singular They [BLOG POST]

“It may be the most controversial word use in the
English language — because it highlights a hole in
the language where a better-fitting word should go.”

John McWhorter, Thick of Tongue [WEB ARTICLE]

“I am not referring to black slang. Plenty of black
people use little street slang and yet still have a
black sound. The question is why you could tell
most black people were black if they read you a
shopping list over the phone.”

Japanese American Citizens League, from The Power of
Words [HANDBOOK]

“During WWII, the U.S. government used
euphemistic language to control public perceptions
about the forced removal of Japanese American
citizens from their West Coast homes to desolate
American concentration camps further inland.”

MAKING A VISUAL ARGUMENT: Census Data,
English and Languages other Than English in the United
States [MAPS AND CHART]

Roxane Gay, The Careless Language of Sexual Violence
[BOOK EXCERPT]

51

“It was an eleven-year-old girl whose body was
ripped apart, not a town. It was an eleven-year-old
girl whose life was ripped apart, not the lives of the
men who raped her.”

Jorge Encinas, How Latino Players Are Helping Major
League Baseball Learn Spanish [BLOG POST]

“Spanish-speaking fans, millions of whom watch
Spanish-language broadcasts of baseball games,
will have little idea of the lingering challenge some
Latino players in the States have long faced.”

26. Has the Internet Destroyed Privacy?

Lindsay McKenzie, Getting Personal about
Cybersecurity [WEB ARTICLE]

“Today’s students may be digital natives, but that
doesn’t mean institutions can count on them to
protect themselves from cyberattacks.”

MAKING A VISUAL ARGUMENT: The Issue of
Privacy [CARTOONS]

Brian Crane, Oh, My Gosh! When Did Facebook
Start with Mind Infiltration?

Chris Slane, Window on the Internet

Chris Wildt, Impressive Résumé …

Mike Smith, I Agree with Apple . . .

J. D. Crowe, Congress Kills Internet Privacy

52

Lauren Salm, 70 Percent of Employers Are Snooping
Candidates’ Social Media Profiles [WEB ARTICLE]

“The bottom line? Think before you post, because
there’s always someone watching.”

Deanna Hartley, Creative Ways to Get Noticed by
Employers on Social Media [WEB ARTICLE]

“[S]ocial media could work in your favor if you’re
looking for a job—if you do it right.”

Lauren Carroll, Congress Let Internet Providers “Spy
On” Your Underwear Purchases, Advocacy Group Says
[WEB ARTICLE]

“Beyond shopping habits, ISPs and advertisers can
glean more significant personal information about
their customers from Internet browsing patterns.”

Franklin Foer, from World without Mind: The Existential
Threat of Big Tech [BOOK EXCERPT]

“Data provides an X-ray of the soul. Companies
turn that photograph of the inner self into a
commodity to be traded on a market, bought and
sold without our knowledge.”

Amanda Hess, How Privacy Became a Commodity for
the Rich and Powerful [WEB ARTICLE]

53

“We’ve come to understand that privacy is the
currency of our online lives, paying for petty
conveniences with bits of personal information.”

27. How Free Should Campus Speech Be?

John Palfrey, Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces [BOOK EXCERPT]

“While diversity and free expression are too often
pitted against one another as competing values, they are
more compatible than they are opposing.”

Gallup/Knight Foundation, Free Speech on Campus: What
Students Think about First Amendment Issues [REPORT]

“College students generally endorse First Amendment
ideals in the abstract. The vast majority say free speech
is important to democracy and favor an open learning
environment that promotes the airing of a wide variety
of ideas.”

Ben Schwartz, Shutting Up [WEB ARTICLE]

“Comedy isn’t supposed to be anything, except what
the comedian tries to make it—harmless, mean,
political, dirty, dumb.”

MAKING A VISUAL ARGUMENT: Racial
Microaggressions

Turner Consulting Group, Racial Microaggressions

54

[POSTER]

Alexandra Dal, Questions [CARTOON]

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Why a Moratorium on Microaggressions
Is Needed [SCHOLARLY ARTICLE]

“Distributing lists of ‘forbidden’ phrases to campus
administrators or faculty members or mandating
microaggression training for employees are unlikely to
be helpful.”

Sarah Brown, Activist Athletes [WEB ARTICLE]

“Since athletes are at the mercy of their coaches in
terms of playing time and scholarships, coaches and
team managers exercise a great deal of influence over
their players’ choices.”

Catherine Nolan-Ferrell, Balancing Classroom Civility and
Free Speech [MAGAZINE ARTICLE]

“I cannot claim complete neutrality about the subject
matter, but I do promise students that I will discuss
multiple perspectives and explain how and why I
reached my point of view.”

Glossary

Index

Readings by Type of Argument

55

PART 1 READING AND
UNDERSTANDING arguments

56

CHAPTER 1 Understanding Arguments and
Reading Them Critically

On October 15, 2017, actor and activist Alyssa Milano took to Twitter
to issue a call to action:

Milano was joining the conversation surrounding a spate of revelations
about very high-profile and powerful men accused of sexual

57

harassment: Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Harvey
Weinstein. Milano’s tweet argues for standing up and speaking out—in
big numbers—and her message certainly hit a nerve: within 24 hours,
4.7 million people around the world had joined the “me too”
conversation, with over 12 million posts and comments. Some of these
comments pointed out that the “me too” movement is actually more
than ten years old: it began with activist Tarana Burke, who was
directing a Girls for Gender Equity program in Brooklyn, aimed at
giving voice to young women of color. As Burke told CNN after
Milano’s tweet went viral: “It’s not about a viral campaign for me. It’s
about a movement.”

Burke’s reaction to the 2017 meme makes an important point, one that
was echoed in some of the responses Milano received and further
elaborated by Jessi Hempel, the editorial director of Backchannel, in
“The Problem with #metoo and Viral Outrage.” Hempel says that “on
its surface,” #metoo has what looks to be the makings of an “earnest
and effective social movement.” But like Burke, Hempel wonders
whether #metoo will actually have the power and longevity of a true
social movement. She’s concerned that while millions of people are
weighing in, at last, on a long-ignored issue, the campaign may not
culminate in real change:

In truth, however, #MeToo is a too-perfect meme. It harnesses
social media’s mechanisms to drive users (that’s you and me)
into escalating states of outrage while exhausting us to the
point where we cannot meaningfully act.

Hempel cites extensive research by Yale professor Molly Crockett that

58

suggests that “digital technologies may be transforming the way we
experience outrage, and limiting how much we can actually change
social realities.” In other words, expressing outrage online lets us talk
the talk but not walk the walk of actual change.

In spite of these caveats, the work begun by Tarana Burke over a
decade ago and given new urgency by Alyssa Milano has led to a
series of high-profile firings, and some criminal convictions, in many
sectors of society, from the Hollywood film industry (Weinstein’s
company had to declare bankruptcy) to New York’s cultural scene (the
Metropolitan Opera fired its conductor, James Levine) to Congress
(Senator Al Franken was forced to resign his seat) to the world of
sports (Olympics team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175
years in prison for assaulting as many as 160 women athletes). In short,
it now looks as though #metoo does constitute a genuine movement
that will continue to lead to actual, concrete changes in cultural
attitudes and practices. Certainly, the argument over its effectiveness
and reach will continue, much of it playing out on social media
platforms.

As this example shows, arguments on social media occur on crowded,
two-way channels, with claims and counterclaims whizzing by, fast
and furious. Such tools reach audiences (like the 4.7 million who
initially responded to #metoo) and they also create them, offering an
innovative way to make and share arguments. Just as importantly,
anyone, anywhere, with access to a phone, tablet, or other electronic
device, can launch arguments that circle the globe in seconds. Social
networking and digital tools are increasingly available to all—for

59

better or for worse, as shown by the recent example of Facebook’s
allowing data from 50 million users to be used for political purposes.

60

Everything Is an Argument
As you know from your own experiences with social media, arguments
are all around us, in every medium, in every genre, in everything we
do. There may be an argument on the T-shirt you put on in the
morning, in the sports column you read on the bus, in the prayers you
utter before an exam, in the off-the-cuff political remarks of a teacher
lecturing, on the bumper sticker on the car in front of you, in the
assurances of a health center nurse that “This won’t hurt one bit.”

The clothes you wear, the foods you eat, and the groups you join make
nuanced, sometimes unspoken assertions about who you are and what
you value. So an argument can be any text—written, spoken, aural, or
visual—that expresses a point of view. In fact, some theorists claim
that language is inherently persuasive. When you say, “Hi, how’s it
going?” in one sense you’re arguing that your hello deserves a
response. Even humor makes an argument when it causes readers to
recognize—through bursts of laughter or just a faint smile—how things
are and how they might be different.

More obvious as arguments are those that make direct claims based on
or drawn from evidence. Such writing often moves readers to
recognize problems and to consider solutions. Persuasion of this kind is
usually easy to recognize:

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, passed by
Congress [in 1984], is a gross violation of civil liberties and
must be repealed. It is absurd and unjust that young
Americans can vote, marry, enter contracts, and serve in the

61

military at 18 but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or
restaurant.

—Camille Paglia, “The Drinking Age Is Past Its Prime”

We will become a society of a million pictures without much
memory, a society that looks forward every second to an
immediate replication of what it has just done, but one that
does not sustain the difficult labor of transmitting culture
from one generation to the next.

—Christine Rosen, “The Image Culture”

RESPOND●
Can an argument really be any text that expresses a point of view?

What kinds of arguments—if any—might be made by the following

items?

a Golden State Warriors cap

Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 34

the “explicit lyrics” label on a best-selling rap CD

the health warnings on a package of cigarettes

a Tesla Model 3 electric car

a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses

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Why Read Arguments
Critically and
Rhetorically?
More than two millennia ago, Aristotle told students that they needed
to know and understand and use the arts of rhetoric for two major
reasons: to be able to get their ideas across effectively and persuasively
and to protect themselves from being manipulated by others. Today,
we need these abilities more than ever before: as we are inundated with
“alternative facts,” “fake news,” mis- and disinformation, and often
even outright lies, the ability to read between the lines, to become fact-
checkers, to practice what media critic Howard Rheingold calls “crap
detection” (see “Practicing Crap Detection” in Chapter 19), and to read
with careful attention are now survival skills.

This need is so acute that new courses are springing up on college

63

campuses, such as one at the University of Washington named
(provocatively) “Calling Bullshit,” which Professors Carl Bergstrom
and Jevin West define as “language, statistical figures, graphics, and
other forms of presentation intended to persuade by impressing and
overwhelming a reader or listener with a blatant disregard for truth and
logical coherence.” (Search for “The Fine Art of Sniffing Out Crappy
Science” on the Web.) These professors are particularly interested in
the use of statistics and visual representation of data to misinform or
confuse, and in showing how “big data” especially can often obscure
rather than reveal valid claims, although they acknowledge the power
of verbal misinformation as well.

You can practice self-defense against such misrepresentation by
following some sound advice:

Pay attention, close attention, to what you are reading or viewing.
While it’s tempting to skim, avoid the temptation, especially when
the stakes are high. Keep focused on the text at hand, with your
critical antenna up!
Keep an eye out for “click bait,” those subject lines or headings
that scream “read me, read me” but usually lead to little
information.
Be skeptical. Check the author, publisher, sources: how reliable
are they?
Look for unstated assumptions behind claims—and question them.
Distinguish between facts that have verifiable support and claims
and those which may or may not be completely empty.
Learn to triangulate: don’t take the word of a single source but
look for corroboration from other reliable sources.

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Become a fact checker! Get familiar with nonpartisan fact-
checkers like Politifact, FactCheck.org, the Sunlight Foundation,
and Snopes.com.

You will find additional information about reading attentively and
critically throughout this book, especially in Chapters 6 and 19.

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Why Listen to Arguments
Rhetorically and
Respectfully?
Rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe recommends that we all learn to listen
rhetorically, which she defines as “a stance of openness” you can take
in relation to any person, text, or culture. Taking such a stance is not
easy, especially when emotions and disagreements run high, but doing
so is a necessary step in understanding where other people are coming
from and in acknowledging that our own stances are deeply influenced
by forces we may not even be aware of. Even when we stand on the
shoulders of giants, our view is limited and partial, and it’s good to
remember that this maxim is true for everyone.

Amid the extreme divisions in the United States today, amid the
charges and countercharges, the ongoing attacks of one group on
another, it’s especially important to learn to listen to others, even
others with whom we drastically disagree. Scholars and pundits alike
have written about the “echo chambers” we often inhabit, especially
online, where we hear only from people who think as we do, act as we
act, believe as we believe. Such echo chambers are dangerous to a
democracy. As a result, some are advocating for rhetorical listening.
Oprah Winfrey, for example, brought together a group of women, half
of whom supported Trump and half of whom supported Clinton, over
“croissants and great jam.” At first no one wanted to participate, but
once Winfrey got them together and they started listening to one

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another’s stories, the women began to find small patches of common
ground. Listening openly and respectfully was the key. So it is with the
website and app “Hi from the Other Side,” where people can sign up to
be paired with someone on another side of an issue, get guidance on
how to begin a conversation, and eventually meet to pursue common
ground and common interests (see
https://www.hifromtheotherside.com for more information).

You can begin to practice rhetorical listening as you get to know
people who differ from you on major issues, listening to their views
carefully and respectfully, asking them for that same respect, and
beginning to search for some common ground, no matter how small.
Arguments are never won by going nowhere except “Yes I can”/“No
you can’t” over and over again, yet that’s the way many arguments are
conducted today. Learning to listen rhetorically and beginning to find
some small commonality is usually a better way to argue constructively
than plunging right in with accusations or dramatic claims.

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Why We Make Arguments
As this discussion suggests, in the politically divided and
entertainment-driven culture of the United States today, the word
argument may well call up negative images: the hostile scowl,
belligerent tweet, or shaking fist of a politician or news pundit who
wants to drown out other voices and prevail at all costs. This winner-
take-all view has a long history, but it often turns people off to the
whole process of using reasoned conversation to identify, explore, and
solve problems. Hoping to avoid perpetual standoffs with people on
“the other side,” many people now sidestep opportunities to speak their
minds on issues shaping their lives and work. We want to counter this
attitude throughout this book: we urge you to examine your values and
beliefs, to understand where they come from, and to voice them clearly
and cogently in arguments you make, all the while respecting the
values and beliefs of others.

Some arguments, of course, are aimed at winning, especially those
related to politics, business, and law. Two candidates for office, for
example, vie for a majority of votes; the makers of one smartphone try
to outsell their competitors by offering more features at a lower price;
and two lawyers try to outwit each other in pleading to a judge and
jury. In your college writing, you may also be called on to make
arguments that appeal to a “judge” and “jury” (perhaps your instructor
and classmates). You might, for instance, argue that students in every
field should be required to engage in service learning projects. In doing
so, you will need to offer better arguments or more convincing
evidence than those with other perspectives—such as those who might

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regard service learning as a politicized or coercive form of education.
You can do so reasonably and responsibly, no name-calling required.

There are many reasons to argue and principled ways to do so. We
explore some of them in this section.

Arguments to Convince and
Inform
We’re stepping into an argument ourselves in drawing what we hope is
a useful distinction between convincing and—in the next section
—persuading. (Feel free to disagree with us!) Arguments to convince
lead audiences to accept a claim as true or reasonable—based on
information or evidence that seems factual and reliable; arguments to
persuade then seek to move people beyond conviction to action.
Academic arguments often combine both elements.

Many news reports and analyses, white papers, and academic articles
aim to convince audiences by broadening what they know about a
subject. Such fact-based arguments might have no motives beyond
laying out what the facts are. Here’s an opening paragraph from a 2014
news story by Anahad O’Connor in the New York Times that itself
launched a thousand arguments (and lots of huzzahs) simply by
reporting the results of a recent scientific study:

Many of us have long been told that saturated fat, the type
found in meat, butter and cheese, causes heart disease. But a
large and exhaustive new analysis by a team of international
scientists found no evidence that eating saturated fat

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increased heart attacks and other cardiac events.

—Anahad O’Connor, “Study Questions Fat and Heart
Disease Link”

Wow. You can imagine how carefully the reporter walked through the
scientific data, knowing how this new information might be understood
and repurposed by his readers.

Similarly, in a college paper on the viability of nuclear power as an
alternative source of energy, you might compare the health and safety
record of a nuclear plant to that of other forms of energy. Depending
upon your findings and your interpretation of the data, the result of
your fact-based presentation might be to raise or alleviate concerns
readers have about nuclear energy. Of course, your decision to write
the argument might be driven by your conviction that nuclear power is
much safer than most people believe.

Today, images offer especially powerful arguments designed both to
inform and to convince. For example, David Plunkert’s cover art for
the August 28, 2017, issue of the New Yorker is simple yet very
striking. Plunkert, who doesn’t often involve himself with political
subjects, said he was prompted to do so in response to what he saw as
President Trump’s “weak pushback” against the hateful violence on
exhibit in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11, 2017: “A picture
does a better job showing my thoughts than words do; it can have a
light touch on a subject that’s extremely scary.”

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In the excerpt from his scholarly journal article, Scott O. Lilienfeld
aims to persuade psychologists and other academics to put aside
the term “microaggressions” because—though they may be
offensive—these slights and insults aimed at minorities have not
been proven to be psychologically harmful.

LINK TO Lilienfeld, “Why a Moratorium on Microaggressions Is
Needed,” in Chapter 27

Arguments to Persuade

Today, climate change may be the public issue that best illustrates the
chasm that sometimes separates conviction from persuasion. Although
the weight of scientific research attests to the fact that the earth is

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warming and that humans are responsible for a good bit of that
warming, convincing people to accept this evidence and persuading
them to act on it still doesn’t follow easily. How then does change
occur? Some theorists suggest that persuasion—understood as moving
people to do more than nod in agreement—is best achieved via appeals
to emotions such as fear, anger, envy, pride, sympathy, or hope. We
think that’s an oversimplification. The fact is that persuasive
arguments, whether in advertisements, political blogs, YouTube
videos, tweets, or newspaper editorials, draw upon all the appeals of
rhetoric (see Appealing to Audiences in Chapter 10) to motivate people
to act—whether it be to buy a product, pull a lever for a candidate, or
volunteer for a civic organization. Here, once again, is Camille Paglia
driving home her argument that the 1984 federal law raising the
drinking age in the United States to 21 was a catastrophic decision in
need of reversal:

What this cruel 1984 law did is deprive young people of safe
spaces where they could happily drink cheap beer, socialize,
chat, and flirt in a free but controlled public environment.
Hence in the 1980s we immediately got the scourge of crude
binge drinking at campus fraternity keg parties, cut off from
the adult world. Women in that boorish free-for-all were
suddenly fighting off date rape. Club drugs—Ecstasy,
methamphetamine, ketamine (a veterinary tranquilizer)—
surged at raves for teenagers and on the gay male circuit
scene.

Paglia chooses to dramatize her argument by sharply contrasting a

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safer, more supportive past with a vastly more dangerous present when
drinking was forced underground and young people turned to highly
risky behaviors. She doesn’t hesitate to name them either: binge
drinking, club drugs, raves, and, most seriously, date rape. This highly
rhetorical, one might say emotional, argument pushes readers hard to
endorse a call for serious action—the repeal of the current drinking age
law.

Admit it, Duchess of Cornwall. You knew abandoned dogs need homes, but it
was heartrending photos on the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home Web site that
persuaded you to visit the shelter.

RESPOND●

Apply the distinction made here between convincing and

persuading to the way people respond to two or three current

political or social issues. Is there a useful distinction between being

convinced and being persuaded? Explain your position.

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Arguments to Make Decisions
Closely allied to arguments to convince and persuade are arguments to
examine the options in important matters, both civil and personal—
from managing out-of-control deficits to choosing careers. Arguments
to make decisions occur all the time in the public arena, where they are
often slow to evolve, caught up in electoral or legal squabbles, and yet
driven by a genuine desire to find consensus. In recent years, for
instance, Americans have argued hard to make decisions about health
care, the civil rights of same-sex couples, and the status of more than
11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. Subjects so
complex aren’t debated in straight lines. They get haggled over in
every imaginable medium by thousands of writers, politicians, and
ordinary citizens working alone or via political organizations to have
their ideas considered.

For college students, choosing a major can be an especially momentous
personal decision, and one way to go about making that decision is to
argue your way through several alternatives. By the time you’ve
explored the pros and cons of each alternative, you should be a little
closer to a reasonable and defensible decision.

Sometimes decisions, however, are not so easy to make.

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In the excerpt from her professional report “Covering the
Transgender Community,” Sara Morrison explores how journalists
are working to incorporate correct terminology, respect the
preferred gender pronouns and identities of their transgender
subjects, and address the issues that matter to transgender
individuals.

LINK TO Morrison, “Covering the Transgender Community,” in
Chapter 23

Arguments to Understand and
Explore

Arguments to make decisions often begin as choices between opposing
positions already set in stone. But is it possible to examine important

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issues in more open-ended ways? Many situations, again in civil or
personal arenas, seem to call for arguments that genuinely explore
possibilities without constraints or prejudices. If there’s an “opponent”
in such situations at all (often there is not), it’s likely to be the status
quo or a current trend which, for one reason or another, puzzles just
about everyone. For example, in trying to sort through the
extraordinary complexities of the 2011 budget debate, philosophy
professor Gary Gutting was able to show how two distinguished
economists—John Taylor and Paul Krugman—drew completely
different conclusions from the exact same sets of facts. Exploring how
such a thing could occur led Gutting to conclude that the two
economists were arguing from the same facts, all right, but that they
did not have all the facts possible. Those missing or unknown facts
allowed them to fill in the blanks as they could, thus leading them to
different conclusions. By discovering the source of a paradox, Gutting
potentially opened new avenues for understanding.

Exploratory arguments can also be personal, such as Zora Neale
Hurston’s ironic exploration of racism and of her own identity in the
essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” If you keep a journal or blog,
you have no doubt found yourself making arguments to explore issues
near and dear to you. Perhaps the essential argument in any such piece
is the writer’s realization that a problem exists—and that the writer or
reader needs to understand it and respond constructively to it if
possible.

Explorations of ideas that begin by trying to understand another’s
perspective have been described as invitational arguments by

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researchers Sonja Foss, Cindy Griffin, and Josina Makau. Such
arguments are interested in inviting others to join in mutual
explorations of ideas based on discovery and respect. Another kind of
argument, called Rogerian argument (after psychotherapist Carl
Rogers), approaches audiences in similarly nonthreatening ways,
finding common ground and establishing trust among those who
disagree about issues. Writers who take a Rogerian approach try to see
where the other person is coming from, looking for “both/and” or
“win/win” solutions whenever possible. (For more on Rogerian
strategies, see Chapter 7.)

The risks of Rogerian argument

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RESPOND●
What are your reasons for making arguments? Keep notes for two

days about every single argument you make, using our broad

definition to guide you. Then identify your reasons: How many times

did you aim to convince? To inform? To persuade? To explore? To

understand?

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Occasions for Argument
In a fifth-century BCE textbook of rhetoric (the art of persuasion), the
philosopher Aristotle provides an ingenious strategy for classifying
arguments based on their perspective on time—past, future, and
present. His ideas still help us to appreciate the role arguments play in
society in the twenty-first century. As you consider Aristotle’s
occasions for argument, remember that all such classifications overlap
(to a certain extent) and that we live in a world much different than his.

Arguments about the Past
Debates about what has happened in the past, what Aristotle called
forensic arguments, are the red meat of government, courts,
businesses, and academia. People want to know who did what in the
past, for what reasons, and with what liability. When you argue a
speeding ticket in court, you are making a forensic argument, claiming
perhaps that you weren’t over the limit or that the officer’s radar was
faulty. A judge will have to decide what exactly happened in the past in
the unlikely case you push the issue that far.

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, many researchers both in and

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outside the government devoted themselves to trying to understand the
effects of hacking on the election and, more specifically, the extent to
which Russia was involved in such activities. Cybersecurity experts
from agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security argued
that they had extensive evidence to show that Russia had conducted a
number of hacking expeditions and had manipulated messages on
social media to try to disrupt the American elections. Others inside the
Trump administration argued that the evidence wasn’t convincing; the
president even declared that it had been “made up.” As this book goes
to press, the argument over what happened is still raging. What hacks
actually occurred in the run-up to the election? Which state voting
procedures, if any, were violated? What part did the Russian
government play? These are all forensic questions to be carefully
investigated, argued, and answered by agencies and special counsels
currently at work.

Some forensic arguments go on . . . and on and on. Consider, for
example, the lingering arguments over Christopher Columbus’s
“discovery” of America. Are his expeditions cause for celebration or
notably unhappy chapters in human history? Or some of both? Such
arguments about past actions—heated enough to spill over into the
public realm—are common in disciplines such as history, philosophy,
and ethics.

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In his 2016 blog post at Tedium, Ernie Smith argues that the plural
pronoun they will and should continue to be used to represent a
subject in a gender-neutral way, even though it defies
conventional grammar.

LINK TO Smith, “They Should Stop: In Defense of the Singular
They,” in Chapter 25

James B. Comey, former director of the FBI who was fired by President Trump,
testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017.

Arguments about the Future

Debates about what will or should happen in the future— deliberative
arguments—often influence policies or legislation for the future.
Should local or state governments allow or even encourage the use of
self-driving cars on public roads? Should colleges and universities

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lend support to more dual-credit programs so that students can earn
college credits while still in high school? Should coal-fired power
plants be phased out of our energy grid? These are the sorts of
deliberative questions that legislatures, committees, or school boards
routinely address when making laws or establishing policies.

But arguments about the future can also be speculative, advancing by
means of projections and reasoned guesses, as shown in the following
passage from an essay by media analyst Marc Prensky. He argues that
while professors and colleges will always be responsible for teaching
students to learn from the knowledge provided by print texts, it’s about
time for some college or university to be the first to ban physical, that
is to say paper, books on its campus, a controversial proposal to say
the least:

So, as counterintuitive as it may sound, eliminating physical
books from college campuses would be a positive step for our
21st-century students, and, I believe, for 21st-century
scholarship as well. Academics, researchers, and particularly
teachers need to move to the tools of the future. Artifacts
belong in museums, not in our institutions of higher learning.

—Marc Prensky, “In the 21st-Century University, Let’s Ban
Books”

Arguments about the Present
Arguments about the present—what Aristotle terms epideictic or
ceremonial arguments—explore the current values of a society,

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affirming or challenging its widely shared beliefs and core
assumptions. Epideictic arguments are often made at public and formal
events such as inaugural addresses, sermons, eulogies, memorials, and
graduation speeches. Members of the audience listen carefully as
credible speakers share their wisdom. For example, as the selection of
college commencement speakers has grown increasingly contentious,
Ruth J. Simmons, the first African American woman to head an Ivy
League college, used the opportunity of such an address (herself
standing in for a rejected speaker) to offer a timely and ringing
endorsement of free speech. Her words perfectly illustrate epideictic
rhetoric:

Universities have a special obligation to protect free speech,
open discourse and the value of protest. The collision of views
and ideologies is in the DNA of the academic enterprise. No
collision avoidance technology is needed here. The noise from
this discord may cause others to criticize the legitimacy of the
academic enterprise, but how can knowledge advance without
the questions that overturn misconceptions, push further into
previously impenetrable areas of inquiry and assure us
stunning breakthroughs in human knowledge? If there is
anything that colleges must encourage and protect it is the
persistent questioning of the status quo. Our health as a
nation, our health as women, our health as an industry
requires it.

—Ruth J. Simmons, Smith College, 2014

Perhaps more common than Smith’s impassioned address are values

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arguments that examine contemporary culture, praising what’s
admirable and blaming what’s not. In the following argument, student
Latisha Chisholm looks at the state of rap music after Tupac Shakur:

With the death of Tupac, not only did one of the most
intriguing rap rivalries of all time die, but the motivation for
rapping seems to have changed. Where money had always
been a plus, now it is obviously more important than wanting
to express the hardships of Black communities. With current
rappers, the positive power that came from the desire to
represent Black people is lost. One of the biggest rappers now
got his big break while talking about sneakers. Others
announce retirement without really having done much for the
soul or for Black people’s morale. I equate new rappers to
NFL players that don’t love the game anymore. They’re only
in it for the money. . . . It looks like the voice of a people has
lost its heart.

—Latisha Chisholm, “Has Rap Lost Its Soul?”

As in many ceremonial arguments, Chisholm here reinforces common
values such as representing one’s community honorably and fairly.

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Are rappers since Tupac—like Jay Z—only in it for the money? Many epideictic
arguments either praise or blame contemporary culture in this way.

RESPOND●

In a recent magazine, newspaper, or blog, find three editorials—one

that makes a forensic argument, one a deliberative argument, and

one a ceremonial argument. Analyze the arguments by asking these

questions: Who is arguing? What purposes are the writers trying to

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achieve? To whom are they directing their arguments? Then decide

whether the arguments’ purposes have been achieved and how you

know.

Occasions for Argument
Past Future Present

What is it
called?

Forensic Deliberative Epideictic

What are
its
concerns?

What happened in the past? What should be
done in the
future?

Who or what
deserves praise or
blame?

What
does it
look like?

Court decisions, legal briefs,
legislative hearings,
investigative reports,
academic studies

White papers,
proposals, bills,
regulations,
mandates

Eulogies,
graduation
speeches,
inaugural
addresses, roasts

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Kinds of Argument
Yet another way of categorizing arguments is to consider their status or
stasis—that is, the specific kinds of issues they address. This approach,
called stasis theory, was used in ancient Greek and Roman
civilizations to provide questions designed to help citizens and lawyers
work their way through legal cases. The status questions were posed in
sequence because each depended on answers from the preceding ones.
Together, the queries helped determine the point of contention in an
argument—where the parties disagreed or what exactly had to be
proven. A modern version of those questions might look like the
following:

Did something happen?
What is its nature?
What is its quality or cause?
What actions should be taken?

Each stasis question explores a different aspect of a problem and uses
different evidence or techniques to reach conclusions. You can use
these questions to explore the aspects of any topic you’re considering.
You’ll discover that we use the stasis issues to define key types of
argument in Part 2.

Did Something Happen?
Arguments of Fact
There’s no point in arguing a case until its basic facts are established.
So an argument of fact usually involves a statement that can be

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proved or disproved with specific evidence or testimony. For example,
the question of pollution of the oceans—is it really occurring?—might
seem relatively easy to settle. Either scientific data prove that the
oceans are being dirtied as a result of human activity, or they don’t.
But to settle the matter, writers and readers need to ask a number of
other questions about the “facts”:

Where did the facts come from?
Are they reliable?
Is there a problem with the facts?
Where did the problem begin and what caused it?

For more on arguments based on facts, see Chapters 4 and 8.

What Is the Nature of the Thing?
Arguments of Definition
Some of the most hotly debated issues in American life today involve
questions of definition: we argue over the nature of the human fetus,
the meaning of “amnesty” for immigrants, the boundaries of sexual
assault. As you might guess, issues of definition have mighty
consequences, and decades of debate may nonetheless leave the matter
unresolved. Here, for example, is how one type of sexual assault is
defined in an important 2007 report submitted to the U.S. Department
of Justice by the National Institute of Justice:

We consider as incapacitated sexual assault any unwanted
sexual contact occurring when a victim is unable to provide
consent or stop what is happening because she is passed out,

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drugged, drunk, incapacitated, or asleep, regardless of
whether the perpetrator was responsible for her substance use
or whether substances were administered without her
knowledge. We break down incapacitated sexual assault into
four subtypes. . . .

—“The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study: Final Report”

The specifications of the definition go on for another two hundred
words, each of consequence in determining how sexual assault on
college campuses might be understood, measured, and addressed.

Of course many arguments of definition are less weighty than this,
though still hotly contested: Is playing video games a sport? Can
Batman be a tragic figure? Is LeBron James a hero for our age? (For
more about arguments of definition, see Chapter 9.)

What Is the Quality or Cause of
the Thing? Arguments of
Evaluation
Arguments of evaluation present criteria and then measure individual
people, ideas, or things against those standards. For instance, a 2017
article in the Atlantic examined “How Pixar Lost Its Way,” arguing
that “The golden age of Pixar is over.” Chronicling the company’s
success from the first Toy Story (1995), the writer identifies what Pixar
accomplished so well:

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The theme that the studio mined with greatest success during
its first decade and a half was parenthood, whether real
(Finding Nemo, The Incredibles) or implicit (Monsters, Inc.,
Up). Pixar’s distinctive insight into parent-child relations
stood out from the start, in Toy Story, and lost none of its
power in two innovative and unified sequels.

—Christopher Orr, “How Pixar Lost Its Way”

As we read this article, we are bound to ask what happened: why and
how did Pixar lose its way? And Christopher Orr probes further,
suggesting that the sale of Pixar to Disney and the dependence on
sequel after sequel led to the downturn. As he concludes his analysis of
Pixar’s evolution, Orr distressingly notes the announcement of plans
for Toy Story 4, which unravels the trilogy’s neat arc.

Although evaluations differ from causal analyses, in practice the
boundaries between stasis questions are often porous: particular
arguments have a way of defining their own issues.

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For much more about arguments of evaluation, see Chapter 10; for
causal arguments, see Chapter 11.

What Actions Should Be Taken?
Proposal Arguments
After facts in a controversy have been confirmed, definitions agreed
on, evaluations made, and causes traced, it may be time for a proposal
argument answering the question Now, what do we do about all this?
For example, in developing an argument about out-of-control student
fees at your college, you might use all the prior stasis questions to
study the issue and determine exactly how much and for what reasons
these costs are escalating. Only then will you be prepared to offer
knowledgeable suggestions for action. In examining a nationwide
move to eliminate remedial education in four-year colleges, John
Cloud offers a notably moderate proposal to address the problem:

Students age twenty-two and over account for 43 percent of
those in remedial classrooms, according to the National
Center for Developmental Education. . . . [But] 55 percent of
those needing remediation must take just one course. Is it too
much to ask them to pay extra for that class or take it at a
community college?

—John Cloud, “Who’s Ready for College?”

For more about proposal arguments, see Chapter 12.

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The No Child Left Behind Act was signed in 2002 with great hopes and bipartisan
support, but it did not lead to the successes those proposing it had hoped for.

STATIS QUESTIONS AT WORK

Suppose you have an opportunity to speak at a student conference on
the impact of climate change. You are tentatively in favor of
strengthening industrial pollution standards aimed at reducing global
warming trends. But to learn more about the issue, you use the stasis
questions to get started.

Did something happen? Does global warming exist? Maybe not,
say many in the oil and gas industry; at best, evidence for global
warming is inconclusive. Yes, say most scientists and
governments; climate change is real and even seems to be
accelerating. To come to your conclusion, you’ll weigh the facts
carefully and identify problems with opposing arguments.
What is the nature of the thing? Skeptics define climate change

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as a naturally occurring event; most scientists base their
definitions on change due to human causes. You look at each
definition carefully: How do the definitions foster the goals of each
group? What’s at stake for each group in defining it that way?
What is the quality or cause of the thing? Exploring the differing
assessments of damage done by climate change leads you to ask
who will gain from such analysis: Do oil executives want to protect
their investments? Do scientists want government money for
grants? Where does evidence for the dangers of global warming
come from? Who benefits if the dangers are accepted as real and
present, and who loses?
What actions should be taken? If climate change is occurring
naturally or causing little harm, then arguably nothing needs to be
or can be done. But if it is caused mainly by human activity and
dangers, action is definitely called for (although not everyone may
agree on what such action should be). As you investigate the
proposals being made and the reasons behind them, you come
closer to developing your own argument.

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Appealing to Audiences
Exploring all the occasions and kinds of arguments available will lead
you to think about the audience(s) you are addressing and the specific
ways you can appeal to them. Audiences for arguments today are
amazingly diverse, from the flesh-and-blood person sitting across a
desk when you negotiate a student loan to your “friends” on social
media, to the “ideal” reader you imagine for whatever you are writing,
to the unknown people around the world who may read a blog you
have posted. The figure below suggests just how many dimensions an
audience can have as writers and readers negotiate their relationships
with a text, whether it be oral, written, or digital.

As you see there, texts usually have intended readers, the people
writers hope and expect to address—let’s say, routine browsers of a
newspaper’s op-ed page. But writers also shape the responses of these
actual readers in ways they imagine as appropriate or desirable—for
example, maneuvering readers of editorials into making focused and
knowledgeable judgments about politics and culture. Such audiences,
as imagined and fashioned by writers within their texts, are called
invoked readers.

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Readers and writers in context

Making matters even more complicated, readers can respond to
writers’ maneuvers by choosing to join the invoked audiences, to resist
them, or maybe even to ignore them. Arguments may also attract “real”
readers from groups not among those that writers originally imagined
or expected to reach. You may post something on the Web, for
instance, and discover that people you did not intend to address are
commenting on it. (For them, the experience may be like reading
private email intended for someone else: they find themselves drawn to
and fascinated by your ideas!) As authors of this book, we think about
students like you whenever we write: you are our intended readers. But
notice how in dozens of ways, from the images we choose to the tone
of our language, we also invoke an audience of people who take
writing arguments seriously. We want you to become that kind of
reader.

So audiences are very complicated and subtle and challenging, and yet
you somehow have to attract and even persuade them. As always,
Aristotle offers an answer. He identified three time-tested appeals that

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speakers and writers can use to reach almost any audience, labeling
them pathos, ethos, and logos—strategies as effective today as they
were in ancient times, though we usually think of them in slightly
different terms. Used in the right way and deployed at the right
moment, emotional, ethical, and logical appeals have enormous power,
as we’ll see in subsequent chapters.

RESPOND●
You can probably provide concise descriptions of the intended

audience for most textbooks you have encountered. But can you

detect their invoked audiences—that is, the way their authors are

imagining (and perhaps shaping) the readers they would like to

have? Carefully review this entire first chapter, looking for signals

and strategies that might identify the audience and readers invoked

by the authors of Everything’s an Argument.

Emotional Appeals: Pathos
Emotional appeals, or pathos, generate emotions (fear, pity, love,
anger, jealousy) that the writer hopes will lead the audience to accept a
claim. Here is an alarming sentence from a book by Barry B. LePatner
arguing that Americans need to make hard decisions about repairing
the country’s failing infrastructure:

When the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis shuddered, buckled,
and collapsed during the evening rush hour on Wednesday,
August 1, 2007, plunging 111 vehicles into the Mississippi
River and sending thirteen people to their deaths, the sudden,

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apparently inexplicable nature of the event at first gave the
appearance of an act of God.

—Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the
Way Forward

If you ever drive across a bridge, LePatner has probably gotten your
attention. His sober and yet descriptive language helps readers imagine
the dire consequence of neglected road maintenance and bad design
decisions. Making an emotional appeal like this can dramatize an issue
and sometimes even create a bond between writer and readers. (For
more about emotional appeals, see Chapter 2.)

Ethical Appeals: Ethos
When writers or speakers come across as trustworthy, audiences are
likely to listen to and accept their arguments. That trustworthiness
(along with fairness and respect) is a mark of ethos, or credibility.
Showing that you know what you are talking about exerts an ethical
appeal, as does emphasizing that you share values with and respect
your audience. Once again, here’s Barry LePatner from Too Big to
Fall, shoring up his authority for writing about problems with
America’s roads and bridges by invoking the ethos of people even
more credible:

For those who would seek to dismiss the facts that support the
thesis of this book, I ask them to consult the many
professional engineers in state transportation departments
who face these problems on a daily basis. These professionals

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understand the physics of bridge and road design, and the real
problems of ignoring what happens to steel and concrete when
they are exposed to the elements without a strict regimen of
ongoing maintenance.

It’s a sound rhetorical move to enhance credibility this way. For more
about ethical appeals, see Chapter 3.

Logical Appeals: Logos
Appeals to logic, or logos, are often given prominence and authority in
U.S. culture: “Just the facts, ma’am,” a famous early TV detective on
Dragnet used to say. Indeed, audiences respond well to the use of
reasons and evidence—to the presentation of facts, statistics, credible
testimony, cogent examples, or even a narrative or story that embodies
a sound reason in support of an argument. Following almost two
hundred pages of facts, statistics, case studies, and arguments about the
sad state of American bridges, LePatner can offer this sober, logical,
and inevitable conclusion:

We can no longer afford to ignore the fact that we are in the
midst of a transportation funding crisis, which has been
exacerbated by an even larger and longer-term problem: how
we choose to invest in our infrastructure. It is not difficult to
imagine the serious consequences that will unfold if we fail to
address the deplorable conditions of our bridges and roads,
including the increasingly higher costs we will pay for goods
and services that rely on that transportation network, and a
concomitant reduction in our standard of living.

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For more about logical appeals, see Chapter 4.

Bringing It Home: Kairos and the
Rhetorical Situation
In Greek mythology, Kairos—the youngest son of Zeus—was the god
of opportunity. He is most often depicted as running, and his most
unusual characteristic is a shock of hair on his forehead. As Kairos
dashes by, you have a chance to seize that lock of hair, thereby seizing
the opportune moment; once he passes you by, however, you’ve
missed your chance.

Time as Occasion (Kairos) by Italian Renaissance painter Francesco de’ Rossi

Kairos is also a term used to describe the most suitable time and place
for making an argument and the most opportune ways of expressing it.
It is easy to point to rhetorical moments, when speakers find exactly
the right words to stir—and stir up—an audience: Franklin Roosevelt’s

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“We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Ronald Reagan’s “Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and of course Martin Luther King
Jr.’s majestic “I have a dream. . . .” But kairos matters just as much in
less dramatic situations, whenever speakers or writers must size up the
core elements of a rhetorical situation to decide how best to make their
expertise and ethos work for a particular message aimed at a specific
audience. The diagram below hints at the dynamic complexity of the
rhetorical situation.

But rhetorical situations are embedded in contexts of enormous social
complexity. The moment you find a subject, you inherit all the
knowledge, history, culture, and technological significations that
surround it. To lesser and greater degrees (depending on the subject),
you also bring personal circumstances into the field—perhaps your
gender, your race, your religion, your economic class, your habits of
language. And all those issues weigh also upon the people you write to
and for.

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The rhetorical situation

So considering your rhetorical situation calls on you to think hard
about the notion of kairos. Being aware of your rhetorical moment
means being able to understand and take advantage of dynamic,
shifting circumstances and to choose the best (most timely) proofs and
evidence for a particular place, situation, and audience. It means
seizing moments and enjoying opportunities, not being overwhelmed
by them. Doing so might even lead you to challenge the title of this
text: is everything an argument?

That’s what makes writing arguments exciting.

RESPOND●

Take a look at the bumper sticker below, and then analyze it. What

is its purpose? What kind of argument is it? Which of the stasis

questions does it most appropriately respond to? To what

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audiences does it appeal? What appeals does it make and how?

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Considering What’s “Normal”
If you want to communicate effectively with people across cultures,
then learn about the traditions in those cultures and examine the
norms guiding your own behavior:

Explore your assumptions! Most of us regard our ways of thinking
as “normal” or “right.” Such assumptions guide our judgments
about what works in persuasive situations. But just because it
may seem natural to speak bluntly in arguments, consider that
others may find such aggression startling or even alarming.
Remember: ways of arguing differ widely across cultures. Pay
attention to how people from groups or cultures other than your
own argue, and be sensitive to different paths of thinking you’ll

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encounter as well as to differences in language.
Don’t assume that all people share your cultural values, ethical
principles, or political assumptions. People across the world have
different ways of defining family, work, or happiness. As you
present arguments to them, consider that they may be content
with their different ways of organizing their lives and societies.
Respect the differences among individuals within a given group.
Don’t expect that every member of a community behaves—or
argues—in the same way or shares the same beliefs. Avoid
thinking, for instance, that there is a single Asian, African, or
Hispanic culture or that Europeans are any less diverse or more
predictable than Americans or Canadians in their thinking. In
other words, be skeptical of stereotypes.

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CHAPTER 2 Arguments Based on Emotion:
Pathos

Emotional appeals (appeals to pathos) are powerful tools for
influencing what people think and believe. We all make decisions—
even including the most important ones—based on our feelings. That’s
what many environmental advocates are counting on when they use
images like those above to warn of the catastrophic effects of global
warming on the earth and its peoples. The first image shows a boy and
his boat on what used to be a lake but is now cracked dry earth; the
second, a polar bear stranded on a small ice floe as the oceans rise
around it; and the third, a graphic design of a melting earth.

Of course, some people don’t believe the warnings about climate
change, arguing instead that they represent a hoax and that even if the
climate is changing, it is not a result of human activities. And, as we
would expect, this opposite side of the argument also uses emotionally
persuasive images, like the following one from American Patriot, a
news commentary YouTube channel.

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The arguments packed into these four images all appeal to emotion,
and research has shown us that we often make decisions based on just
such appeals. So when you hear that formal or academic arguments
should rely solely on facts to convince us, remember that facts alone
often won’t carry the day, even for a worthy cause. The largely
successful case made for same-sex marriage provides a notable
example of a movement that persuaded people equally by virtue of the
reasonableness and the passion of its claims. Like many political and
social debates, though, the issue provoked powerful emotions on every
side—feelings that sometimes led to extreme words and tactics.

Recent research also shows that images that evoke fear are less
effective than those that arouse interest, worry, or hope. When the Yale
Center for Climate Change Communication asked both supporters and
deniers of climate change what they felt when they thought about this
topic, they got the following results:

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In spite of the findings from such research, we don’t have to look hard
for arguments that appeal to fear, hatred, envy, and greed, or for
campaigns intended to drive wedges between economic or social
groups, making them fearful or resentful. For that reason alone, writers
should not use emotional appeals rashly or casually. But used carefully
and ethically, appeals to emotions—especially ones like worry or hope
—can be very helpful in moving an audience to action. (For more
about emotional fallacies, see “Fallacies of Emotional Argument” in
Chapter 5.)

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Reading Critically for
Pathos
On February 24, 2014, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, fresh from two
fact-finding trips to Cuba, described his experiences on the Senate
floor in a speech praising that island nation’s accomplishments in
health care and education and urging a normalization of Cuban–
American relationships, a recommendation taken up by then-President
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, who announced on
December 17, 2014, that such normalization would begin. Many in the
United States applauded this move, but others, including many Cuban
Americans in the Miami area, objected strenuously. Florida senator
Marco Rubio was one of those speaking most passionately against
normalization of relationships. Shortly after Senator Harkin’s talk
about the “fascinating” socialist experiment ninety miles from the coast
of the United States, Rubio delivered a fifteen-minute rejoinder to
Harkin without a script or teleprompter. After a sarcastic taunt
(“Sounded like he had a wonderful trip visiting what he described as a
real paradise”), Rubio quickly turned serious, even angry, as he offered
his take on the country Harkin had toured:

I heard him also talk about these great doctors that they have
in Cuba. I have no doubt they’re very talented. I’ve met a
bunch of them. You know where I met them? In the United
States because they defected. Because in Cuba, doctors would
rather drive a taxi cab or work in a hotel than be a doctor. I
wonder if they spoke to him about the outbreak of cholera

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that they’ve been unable to control, or about the three-tiered
system of health care that exists where foreigners and
government officials get health care much better than that
that’s available to the general population.

Language this heated and pointed has risks, especially when a young
legislator is taking on a far more experienced colleague. But Rubio, the
son of Cuban immigrants, isn’t shy about allowing his feelings to
show: in the following passage, he uses the kind of emotion-stirring
verbal repetition common in oratory to drive home his major concern
about Cuba, its influence on other nations:

Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at, because
they don’t know how to run their economy, they don’t know
how to build, they don’t know how to govern a people. What
they are really good at is repression. What they are really
good at is shutting off information to the Internet and to radio
and television and social media. That’s what they’re really
good at. And they’re not just good at it domestically, they’re
good exporters of these things.

When the Obama administration indeed loosened restrictions on travel
to Cuba and began establishing diplomatic relations, Rubio stuck to his
guns, consistently and emotionally arguing against this move. And
while he was a bitter primary campaign rival of Donald Trump, who
ridiculed Rubio during the campaign as “little Marco” who was always
sweating (“It looked like he had just jumped into a swimming pool
with his clothes on”), once Trump was elected president Rubio
continued his impassioned campaign to reverse policy on Cuba. So in

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June 2017, when President Trump announced tightening of restrictions
on travel to Cuba and other changes to the Obama policy, Rubio spoke
glowingly of the president, saying that “A year and a half ago, an
American president landed in Havana and outstretched his hand to a
regime. Today, a new president lands in Miami to reach out his hand to
the people of Cuba.” It’s likely that we have not heard the end of this
debate, and that we will continue to hear emotion-filled arguments on
all sides of this contentious issue.

Senator Rubio with President Trump

RESPOND●
Working with a classmate, find a speech or a print editorial that you

think uses emotional appeals effectively but sparingly, in an

understated way. Make a list of those appeals and briefly explain

how each one appeals to an audience. What difference would it

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have made if the emotional appeals had been presented more

forcefully and dramatically? Would doing so have been likely to

appeal more strongly to the audience—and why or why not? What is

at stake for the writer or speaker in such situations, in terms of

credibility and ethos? What are the advantages of evoking emotions

in support of your claims or ideas?

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Using Emotions to Build
Bridges
You may sometimes want to use emotions to connect with readers to
assure them that you understand their experiences or “feel their pain,”
to borrow a sentiment popularized by President Bill Clinton. Such a
bridge is especially important when you’re writing about matters that
readers regard as sensitive. Before they’ll trust you, they’ll want
assurances that you understand the issues in depth. If you strike the
right emotional note, you’ll establish an important connection. That’s
what Apple founder Steve Jobs does in a much-admired 2005
commencement address in which he tells the audience that he doesn’t
have a fancy speech, just three stories from his life:

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found
what I loved to do early in life. Woz [Steve Wozniak] and I
started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was twenty. We
worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the
two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over four
thousand employees. We’d just released our finest creation,
the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I’d just turned thirty, and
then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you
started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I
thought was very talented to run the company with me, and
for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions
of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling
out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and

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so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. . . .

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from
Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the
lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.
It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life.
During the next five years I started a company named NeXT,
another company named Pixar and fell in love with an
amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to
create the world’s first computer-animated feature film, Toy
Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the
world.

—Steve Jobs, “You’ve Got to Find What You Love, Jobs
Says”

In no obvious way is Jobs’s recollection a formal argument. But it
prepares his audience to accept the advice he’ll give later in his speech,
at least partly because he’s speaking from meaningful personal
experiences.

A more obvious way to build an emotional tie is simply to help readers
identify with your experiences. If, like Georgina Kleege, you were
blind and wanted to argue for more sensible attitudes toward blind
people, you might ask readers in the first paragraph of your argument
to confront their prejudices. Here Kleege, a writer and college
instructor who in July 2017 was featured on PBS’s “Brief but
Spectacular” video series, makes an emotional point by telling a story:

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Alexandra Dal’s cartoon “Questions” offers insight into what it
feels like to be on the receiving end of racial microaggressions on a
regular basis.

LINK TO Alexandra Dal, “Questions,” in Chapter 27

I tell the class, “I am legally blind.” There is a pause, a
collective intake of breath. I feel them look away uncertainly
and then look back. After all, I just said I couldn’t see. Or did
I? I had managed to get there on my own—no cane, no dog,
none of the usual trappings of blindness. Eyeing me askance
now, they might detect that my gaze is not quite focused. . . .
They watch me glance down, or towards the door where
someone’s coming in late. I’m just like anyone else.

—Georgina Kleege, “Call It Blindness”

Given the way she narrates the first day of class, readers are as likely to
identify with the students as with Kleege, imagining themselves sitting
in a classroom, facing a sightless instructor, confronting their own
prejudices about the blind. Kleege wants to put her audience on the
edge emotionally.

Let’s consider another rhetorical situation: how do you win over an
audience when the logical claims that you’re making are likely to go
against what many in the audience believe? Once again, a slightly risky
appeal to emotions on a personal level may work. That’s the tack that
Michael Pollan takes in bringing readers to consider that “the great

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moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.” In
introducing his lengthy exploratory argument, Pollan uses personal
experience to appeal to his audience:

The first time I opened Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, I
was dining alone at the Palm, trying to enjoy a rib-eye steak
cooked medium-rare. If this sounds like a good recipe for
cognitive dissonance (if not indigestion), that was sort of the
idea. Preposterous as it might seem to supporters of animal
rights, what I was doing was tantamount to reading Uncle
Tom’s Cabin on a plantation in the Deep South in 1852.

—Michael Pollan, “An Animal’s Place”

A visual version of Michael Pollan’s rhetorical situation

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In creating a vivid image of his first encounter with Singer’s book,
Pollan’s opening builds a bridge between himself as a person trying to
enter into the animal rights debate in a fair and open-minded, if still
skeptical, way and readers who might be passionate about either side of
this argument.

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Using Emotions to Sustain
an Argument
You can also use emotional appeals to make logical claims stronger or
more memorable. In a TV political attack ad, a video clip of a
scowling, blustering candidate talking dismissively about an important
issue has the potential to damage that candidate considerably. In
contrast, a human face smiling or showing honest emotion can sell just
about any product—that’s why so many political figures now routinely
smile at any camera they see. Using emotion is tricky, however, and it
can sometimes backfire. Lay on too much feeling—especially
sentiments like outrage, pity, or shame, which make people
uncomfortable—and you may offend the very audiences you hoped to
convince.

Still, strong emotions can add energy to a passage or an entire
argument, as they do in Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami:
Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone. In this passage, Parry
describes in vivid detail the scene that greeted one mother the day the
2011 earthquake hit:

On the near side was Hitomi’s home village of Magaki and
then an expanse of paddies stretching to the Fuji lake; the
polished blue and red roofs of other hamlets glittered at the
edges of the hills. It was an archetypal view of the Japanese
countryside: abundant nature, tamed and cultivated by man.
But now she struggled to make sense of what she saw.

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Everything up to and in between the hills was water. There
was only water: buildings and fields had gone. The water was
black in the early light; floating on it were continents and
trailing archipelagos of dark scummy rubble, brown in color
and composed of tree trunks. Every patch of land that was not
elevated had been absorbed by the river, which had been
annexed in turn by the sea.

In this new geography, the Fuji lake was no longer a lake. . . .
The river was no longer a river. . . . Okawa Elementary
School was invisible, hidden from view by the great shoulder
of hills from which Hitomi looked down. But the road, the
houses, and Magaki, where Hitomi’s home and family had
been, were washed from the earth.

A wrecked car lies submerged in floodwaters after the earthquake and tsunami
in Fukushima prefecture, Japan.

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As this example suggests, it can be difficult to gauge how much
emotion will work in a given argument. Some issues—such as racism,
immigration, abortion, and gun control—provoke strong feelings and,
as a result, are often argued on emotional terms. But even issues that
seem deadly dull—such as reform of federal student loan programs—
can be argued passionately when proposed changes in these programs
are set in human terms: reduce support for college loans and Kai,
Riley, and Jayden end up in dead-end, low-paying jobs; don’t reform
the program and we’re looking at another Wall Street–sized loan
bailout and subsequent recession. Both alternatives might scare people
into paying enough attention to take political action.

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Using Humor
Humor has always played an important role in argument, sometimes as
the sugar that makes the medicine go down. You can slip humor into
an argument to put readers at ease, thereby making them more open to
a proposal you have to offer. It’s hard to say no when you’re laughing.
Humor also makes otherwise sober people suspend their judgment and
even their prejudices, perhaps because the surprise and naughtiness of
wit are combustive: they provoke laughter or smiles, not reflection.
Who can resist a no-holds-barred attack on a famous personality, such
as this assessment of model/actor Cara Delevingne in the 2017 sci-fi
flop Valerian:

As played by model Cara Delevingne with a smirk that just
won’t quit, Laureline is way ballsier than Valerian, who still
looks in need of a mother’s love. She can pose and preen like
an expert in her space gear—and those eyebrows!—but
there’s no there there.

—Peter Travers, in Rolling Stone

Humor deployed cleverly may be why TV shows like South Park and
Modern Family became popular with mainstream audiences, despite
their willingness to explore controversial themes. Similarly, it’s
possible to make a point through humor that might not work that well
in more academic writing. The subject of standardized testing, for
instance, has generated much heat and light, as researchers and
teachers and policy makers argue endlessly over whether it is helpful—
or not. TV talk show host and satirist John Oliver took a crack at the

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subject in a segment of Last Week Tonight, arguing that the testing
business in America has gotten way out of hand and that it does not
help students but rather funnels money into the coffers of companies
such as Pearson, who dominate the testing market.

After introducing the subject, Oliver goes on one of his signature
humorous rampages, skewering the country’s obsession with testing:

Look, standardized tests are the fastest way to terrify any
child with five letters outside of just whispering the word
“clown.”

After showing a video clip of kids rapping about the joys of testing,
Oliver continues:

Standardized tests look like amazing fun. I wish I could take
one right now: bring me a pencil please—a number 2 pencil!
But it just gets better, because an elementary school in Texas

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even held a test-themed pep rally featuring a monkey mascot.

Fade to a monkey cavorting around the auditorium stage, swooning
over testing fun and yelling “here comes the monkey.” Then after a
video clip showing teachers describing how many students get
physically sick while taking tests (“Something is wrong with our
system when we just assume that a certain number of kids will vomit”),
Oliver asks,

Is it any wonder that students are sick of tests? . . . If
standardized tests are bad for teachers and bad for kids, who
exactly are they good for? Well, it turns out, they’re operated
by companies like Pearson, who control forty percent of the
testing market.

Pearson, Oliver says, is

the equivalent of Time Warner Cable: either you never had
an interaction with them and don’t care, or they ruined your
[entire] life.

Viewers may not agree with Oliver’s claims about standardized testing,
but his use of humor and satire certainly gets him a large viewing
audience and keeps them listening to the end.

A writer or speaker can even use humor to deal with sensitive issues.
For example, sports commentator Bob Costas, given the honor of
eulogizing the great baseball player Mickey Mantle, couldn’t ignore
problems in Mantle’s life. So he argues for Mantle’s greatness by

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admitting the man’s weaknesses indirectly through humor:

It brings to mind a story Mickey liked to tell on himself and
maybe some of you have heard it. He pictured himself at the
pearly gates, met by St. Peter, who shook his head and said,
“Mick, we checked the record. We know some of what went
on. Sorry, we can’t let you in. But before you go, God wants to
know if you’d sign these six dozen baseballs.”

—Bob Costas, “Eulogy for Mickey Mantle”

Similarly, politicians may use humor to deal with issues they couldn’t
acknowledge in any other way. Here, for example, is former president
George W. Bush at the 2004 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner
discussing his much-mocked intellect:

Those stories about my intellectual capacity do get under my
skin. You know, for a while I even thought my staff believed
it. There on my schedule first thing every morning it said,
“Intelligence briefing.”

—George W. Bush

Not all humor is well-intentioned or barb-free. In fact, among the most
powerful forms of emotional argument is ridicule—humor aimed at a
particular target. Eighteenth-century poet and critic Samuel Johnson
was known for his stinging and humorous put-downs, such as this
comment to an aspiring writer: “Your manuscript is both good and
original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is

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original is not good.” (Expect your own writing teachers to be kinder.)
In our own time, the Onion has earned a reputation for its mastery of
both ridicule and satire, the art of using over-the-top humor to make a
serious point.

But because ridicule is a double-edged sword, it requires a deft hand to
wield it. Humor that reflects bad taste discredits a writer completely, as
does satire that misses its mark. Unless your target deserves riposte and
you can be very funny, it’s usually better to steer clear of such humor.

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Using Arguments Based
on Emotion
You don’t want to play puppet master with people’s emotions when
you write arguments, but it’s a good idea to spend some time early in
your work thinking about how you want readers to feel as they
consider your persuasive claims. For example, would readers of your
editorial about campus traffic policies be more inclined to agree with
you if you made them envy faculty privileges, or would arousing their
sense of fairness work better? What emotional appeals might persuade
meat eaters to consider a vegan diet—or vice versa? Would sketches of
stage props on a Web site persuade people to buy a season ticket to the
theater, or would you spark more interest by featuring pictures of
costumed performers?

Consider, too, the effect that a story can have on readers. Writers and
journalists routinely use what are called human-interest stories to give
presence to issues or arguments. You can do the same, using a
particular incident to evoke sympathy, understanding, outrage, or
amusement. Take care, though, to tell an honest story.

RESPOND●

1. To what specific emotions do the following slogans, sales
pitches, and maxims appeal?

“Make America Great Again” (Donald Trump rallying cry)

“Just do it.” (ad for Nike)

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“Think different.” (ad for Apple computers)

“Reach out and touch someone.” (ad for AT&T)

“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else,
there’s MasterCard.” (slogan for MasterCard)

“Have it your way.” (slogan for Burger King)

“The ultimate driving machine.” (slogan for BMW)

“It’s everywhere you want to be.” (slogan for Visa)

“Don’t mess with Texas!” (anti-litter campaign slogan)

“American by Birth. Rebel by Choice.” (slogan for Harley-
Davidson)

2. Bring a magazine to class, and analyze the emotional appeals
in as many full-page ads as you can. Then practice your critical
reading skills by classifying those ads by types of emotional
appeal, and see whether you can connect the appeals to the
subject or target audience of the magazine. Compare your
results with those of your classmates, and discuss your
findings. For instance, how exactly are the ads in publications
such as Cosmopolitan, Wired, Sports Illustrated, Motor Trend,
and Smithsonian adapted to their specific audiences?

3. How do arguments based on emotion work in different media?
Are such arguments more or less effective in books, articles,
television (both news and entertainment shows), films,
brochures, magazines, email, Web sites, the theater, street
protests, and so on? You might explore how a single medium
handles emotional appeals or compare different media. For
example, why do the comments sections of blogs seem to

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encourage angry outbursts? Are newspapers an emotionally
colder source of information than television news programs? If
so, why?

4. Spend some time looking for arguments that use ridicule or
humor to make their point: check out your favorite Twitter
feeds or blogs; watch for bumper stickers, posters, or
advertisements; and listen to popular song lyrics. Bring one or
two examples to class, and be ready to explain how the humor
makes an emotional appeal and whether it’s effective.

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CHAPTER 3 Arguments Based on Character:
Ethos

Whenever you read anything—whether it’s a news article, an
advertisement, a speech, or a tweet—you no doubt subconsciously
analyze the message for a sense of the character and credibility of the
sender: Is this someone I know and trust? Does the Fox News reporter
—or the Doctors Without Borders Web site—seem biased, and if so,
how? Why should I believe an advertisement for a car? Is this scholar
really an authority on the subject? Our culture teaches us to be
skeptical of most messages, especially those that bombard us with
slogans, and such reasonable doubt is a crucial skill in reading and
evaluating arguments.

For that reason, people and institutions that hope to influence us do
everything they can to establish their character and credibility, what
ancient rhetors referred to as ethos. And sometimes slogans such as
“All the News That’s Fit to Print,” “The Most Trusted Name in News,”
or “Lean In” can be effective. At the very least, if a phrase is repeated
often enough, it begins to sound plausible. Maybe Fox News really IS
the most watched and most trusted news source!

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But establishing character usually takes more than repetition, as
marketers of all kinds know. It arises from credentials actually earned
in some way. In the auto industry, for instance, Subaru builds on its
customer loyalty by telling buyers that love makes a Subaru, and
companies such as Toyota, General Motors, and Nissan are hustling to
present themselves as environmentally responsible producers of fuel-
efficient, low-emission cars—the Prius, Bolt, and Leaf. BMW, maker
of “the ultimate driving machine,” points to its fuel-sipping i3 and i8
cars as evidence of its commitment to “sustainable mobility.” And
Elon Musk (who builds rockets as well as Tesla cars) polishes his
good-citizenship bona fides by releasing an affordable mass market
electric car and by sharing his electric vehicle patents with other
manufacturers. All of these companies realize that their future success
is linked to an ability to project a convincing ethos for themselves and
their products.

If corporations and institutions can establish an ethos, consider how
much character matters when we think about people in the public
arena. Perhaps no individual managed a more exceptional assertion of
personal ethos than Jorge Mario Bergoglio did after he became Pope
Francis on March 13, 2013, following the abdication of Benedict XVI
—a man many found scholarly, cold, and out of touch with the modern
world. James Carroll, writing for the New Yorker, identifies the precise
moment when the world realized that it was dealing with a new sort of
pope:

“Who am I to judge?” With those five words, spoken in late
July [2013] in reply to a reporter’s question about the status

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of gay priests in the Church, Pope Francis stepped away from
the disapproving tone, the explicit moralizing typical of popes
and bishops.

—James Carroll, “Who Am I to Judge?”

Carroll goes on to explain that Francis quickly established his ethos
with a series of specific actions, decisions, and moments of
identification with ordinary people, marking him as someone even
nonbelievers might listen to and respect:

As pope, Francis has simplified the Renaissance regalia of the
papacy by abandoning fur-trimmed velvet capes, choosing to
live in a two-room apartment instead of the Apostolic Palace,
and replacing the papal Mercedes with a Ford Focus. Instead
of the traditional red slip-ons, Francis wears ordinary black
shoes. . . . Yet Francis didn’t criticize the choices of other
prelates. “He makes changes without attacking people,” a
Jesuit official told me. In his interview with La Civiltà
Cattolica, Francis said, “My choices, including those related to
the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are
related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that
arises from looking at things, at people, and from reading the
signs of the times.”

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In that last sentence, Francis acknowledges that ethos is gained, in part,
through identification with one’s audience and era. And this man,
movingly photographed embracing the sick and disfigured, also posed
for selfies!

You can see, then, why Aristotle treats ethos as a powerful
argumentative appeal. Ethos creates quick and sometimes almost
irresistible connections between readers and arguments. We observe
people, groups, or institutions making and defending claims all the
time and inevitably ask ourselves, Should we pay attention to them?
Can we rely on them? Do we dare to trust them? Consider, though, that
the same questions will be asked about you and your work, especially
in academic settings.

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Thinking Critically about
Arguments Based on
Character
Put simply, arguments based on character (ethos) depend on trust. We
tend to accept arguments from those we trust, and we trust them
(whether individuals, groups, or institutions) in good part because of
their reputations. Three main elements—credibility, authority, and
unselfish or clear motives—add up to ethos.

To answer serious and important questions, we often turn to
professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, pastors) or to
experts (those with knowledge and experience) for good advice. Based
on their backgrounds, such people come with their ethos already
established. Thus, appeals or arguments about character often turn on
claims like these:

A person (or group or institution) is or is not trustworthy or
credible on this issue.
A person (or group or institution) does or does not have the
authority to speak to this issue.
A person (or group or institution) does or does not have unselfish
or clear motives for addressing this subject.

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The UMass Amherst Information Security department uses humor
in its posters reminding students that their pets’ names are not
the best choice for a secure password.

Establishing
Trustworthiness and
Credibility
Trustworthiness and credibility speak to a writer’s honesty, respect for
an audience and its values, and plain old likability. Sometimes a sense
of humor can play an important role in getting an audience to listen to
or “like” you. It’s no accident that all but the most serious speeches
begin with a joke or funny story: the humor puts listeners at ease and
helps them identify with the speaker. Writer J. K. Rowling, for
example, puts her audience (and herself) at ease early in the
commencement address she delivered at Harvard by getting real about
such speeches, recalling her own commencement:

The speaker that day was the distinguished British
philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her
speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because
it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said.

—J. K. Rowling, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the
Importance of Imagination”

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LINK TO McKenzie, “Getting Personal about Cybersecurity,” in
Chapter 26

In just two sentences, Rowling pokes fun at herself and undercuts the
expectation that graduation addresses change people’s lives. For an
audience well disposed toward her already, Rowling has likely lived up
to expectations.

But using humor to enhance your credibility may be more common in
oratory than in the kind of writing you’ll do in school. Fortunately, you
have many options, one being simply to make plausible claims and
then back them up with evidence. Academic audiences appreciate a
reasonable disposition; we will discuss this approach at greater length
in the next chapter.

You can also establish trustworthiness by connecting your own beliefs
to core principles that are well established and widely respected. This
strategy is particularly effective when your position seems to be—at
first glance, at least—a threat to traditional values. For example, when
former Smith College president Ruth J. Simmons describes her
professional self to a commencement audience, she presents her
acquired reputation in terms that align perfectly with contemporary
values:

For my part, I was cast as a troublemaker in my early career
and accepted the disapproval that accompanies the expression
of unpopular views: unpopular views about disparate pay for
women and minorities; unpopular views about sexual
harassment; unpopular views about exclusionary practices in

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our universities.

—Ruth J. Simmons

It’s fine to be a rebel when you are on the right side of history.

Writers who establish their credibility seem trustworthy. But
sometimes, to be credible, you have to admit limitations, too, as New
York Times columnist Frank Bruni does as he positions himself in
relation to issues of oppression and deep-seated bias in an editorial
titled “I’m a White Man: Hear Me Out.” First acknowledging his racial
and socioeconomic privilege as a white man from an upper-class
background (private school, backyard swimming pool), Bruni then
addresses another, less-privileged facet of his identity:

But wait. I’m gay. . . . Gay from a different, darker day, . . .
when gay stereotypes went unchallenged, gay jokes drew
hearty laughter and exponentially more Americans were
closeted than out. . . . Then AIDS spread, and . . . our rallying
cry, “silence = death,” defined marginalization as well as any
words could.

—Frank Bruni, “I’m a White Man: Hear Me Out”

Making such concessions to readers sends a strong signal that you’ve
looked critically at your own position and can therefore be trusted
when you turn to arguing its merits. Speaking to readers directly, using
I or you or us, can also help you connect with them, as can using
contractions and everyday or colloquial language—both strategies

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employed by Bruni. In other situations, you may find that a more
formal tone gives your claims greater credibility. You’ll be making
such choices as you search for the ethos that represents you best.

In fact, whenever you write an essay or present an idea, you are
sending signals about your credibility, whether you intend to or not. If
your ideas are reasonable, your sources are reliable, and your language
is appropriate to the project, you suggest to academic readers that
you’re someone whose ideas might deserve attention. Details matter:
helpful graphs, tables, charts, or illustrations may carry weight with
readers, as will the visual attractiveness of your text, whether in print
or digital form. Obviously, correct spelling, grammar, and mechanics
are important too. And though you might not worry about it now, at
some point you may need letters of recommendation from instructors
or supervisors. How will they remember you? Often chiefly from the
ethos you have established in your work. Think about that.

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Rob Greenfield establishes his ethos right in the title of his blog
post, “An Argument against Veganism . . . from a Vegan.”

LINK TO Greenfield, “An Argument against Veganism . . . from a
Vegan,” in Chapter 24

Claiming Authority

When you read or listen to an argument, you have every right to ask
about the writer’s authority: What does he know about the subject?
What experiences does she have that make her especially
knowledgeable? Why should I pay attention to this person? When you
offer an argument yourself, you have to anticipate and be prepared to
answer questions like these, either directly or indirectly.

How does someone construct an authoritative ethos? In an essay about
John McCain’s decision to vote against a Senate bill to repeal the
Affordable Care Act, AP reporter Laurie Kellman notes some of
McCain’s experiences that help build his credibility:

Longtime colleagues . . . say [McCain] developed his
fearlessness as a navy aviator held as a prisoner for more than
five years in Vietnam. Resilience, they say, has fueled his long
Senate career and helped him overcome two failed
presidential campaigns. For some, McCain has become the
moral voice of the Republican Party.

—Laurie Kellman, “Cancer Isn’t Silencing McCain”

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Here Kellman stresses McCain’s length of service in the Senate as well
as his military service and prisoner of war status, and she refers to him
as a “standard bearer” and “moral voice” of the Republican Party. In
doing so, she indicates that McCain’s ethos is hard won and to be taken
seriously.

Senator John McCain

Of course, writers establish their authority in various ways. Sometimes
the assertion of ethos will be bold and personal, as it is when writer and
activist Terry Tempest Williams attacks those who poisoned the Utah
deserts with nuclear radiation. What gives her the right to speak on this
subject? Not scientific expertise, but gut-wrenching personal
experience:

I belong to the Clan of One-Breasted Women. My mother, my
grandmothers, and six aunts have all had mastectomies. Seven
are dead. The two who survive have just completed rounds of

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chemotherapy and radiation.

I’ve had my own problems: two biopsies for breast cancer and
a small tumor between my ribs diagnosed as a “borderline
malignancy.”

—Terry Tempest Williams, “The Clan of One-Breasted
Women”

We are willing to listen to Williams because she has lived with the
nuclear peril she will deal with in the remainder of her essay.

Other means of claiming authority are less dramatic. By simply
attaching titles to their names, writers assert that they hold medical or
legal or engineering degrees, or some other important credentials. Or
they may mention the number of years they’ve worked in a given field
or the distinguished positions they have held. As a reader, you’ll pay
more attention to an argument about sustainability offered by a
professor of ecology and agriculture at the University of Minnesota
than one by your Uncle Sid, who sells tools. But you’ll prefer your
uncle to the professor when you need advice about a reliable rotary
saw.

In our current political climate, the ethos of experts—such as scientists
or other academics with deep knowledge about a subject—is being
questioned. Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, professors of
public policy and political science, identify this trend particularly at the
right end of the political spectrum:

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Data from the General Social Survey demonstrate that
declining public faith in science is concentrated among
conservatives. Compared to Democrats, Republicans are
significantly less likely to trust what scientists say, more
critical of political bias in academe and less confident in
colleges and universities. Negative attitudes toward science
and the media also intersect, with one-third of Republicans
reporting no trust in journalists to accurately report scientific
studies.

—Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, “How
Information Became Ideological”

Like the attacks on “fake news,” here Grossmann and Hopkins identify
an assault on the ethos of scientists and other academic experts.

When readers might be skeptical of both you and your claims, you may
have to be even more specific about your credentials. That’s exactly
the strategy Richard Bernstein uses to establish his right to speak on
the subject of “Asian culture.” What gives a New York writer named
Bernstein the authority to write about Asian peoples? Bernstein tells us
in a sparkling example of an argument based on character:

The Asian culture, as it happens, is something I know a bit
about, having spent five years at Harvard striving for a Ph.D.
in a joint program called History and East Asian Languages
and, after that, living either as a student (for one year) or a
journalist (six years) in China and Southeast Asia. At least I
know enough to know there is no such thing as the “Asian

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culture.”

—Richard Bernstein, Dictatorship of Virtue

When you write for readers who trust you and your work, you may not
have to make such an open claim to authority. But making this type of
appeal is always an option.

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Coming Clean about
Motives
When people are trying to convince you of something, it’s important
(and natural) to ask: Whose interests are they serving? How will they
profit from their proposal? Such questions go to the heart of ethical
arguments.

In a hugely controversial 2014 essay published in the Princeton Tory,
Tal Fortgang, a first-year student at the Ivy League school, argues that
those on campus who used the phrase “Check your privilege” to berate
white male students like him for the advantages they enjoy are, in fact,
judging him according to gender and race, and not for “all the hard
work I have done in my life.” To challenge stereotypical assumptions
about the “racist patriarchy” that supposedly paved his way to
Princeton, Fortgang writes about the experiences of his ancestors,
opening the paragraphs with a striking parallel structure:

Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had
to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded
Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind,
running and running. . . .

Or maybe it’s the privilege my grandmother had of spending
weeks upon weeks on a death march through Polish forests in
subzero temperatures, one of just a handful to survive. . . .

Perhaps my privilege is that those two resilient individuals

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came to America with no money and no English, obtained
citizenship, learned the language and met each other. . . .

Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard
enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school,
got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of
dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those
he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living.

—Tal Fortgang, “Checking My Privilege: Character as the
Basis of Privilege”

Fortgang thus attempts to establish his own ethos and win the argument
against those who make assumptions about his roots by dramatizing the
ethos of his ancestors:

That’s the problem with calling someone out for the
“privilege” which you assume has defined their narrative. You
don’t know what their struggles have been, what they may
have gone through to be where they are. Assuming they’ve
benefitted from “power systems” or other conspiratorial
imaginary institutions denies them credit for all they’ve done,
things of which you may not even conceive. You don’t know
whose father died defending your freedom. You don’t know
whose mother escaped oppression. You don’t know who
conquered their demons, or may still [be] conquering them
now.

As you might imagine, the pushback to “Checking My Privilege” was

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enormous, some of the hundreds of comments posted to an online
version accusing Fortgang himself of assuming the very ethos of
victimhood against which he inveighs. Peter Finocchiaro, a reviewer
on Slate, is especially brutal: “Only a few short months ago he was
living at home with his parents. His life experience, one presumes, is
fairly limited. So in that sense, he doesn’t really know any better. . . .
He is an ignorant 19-year-old white guy from Westchester.” You can
see in this debate how ethos quickly raises issues of knowledge and
motives. Fortgang tries to resist the stereotype others would impose on
his character, but others regard the very ethos he fashions in his essay
as evidence of his naïveté about race, discrimination, and, yes,
privilege.

We all, of course, have connections and interests that bind us to other
human beings. It makes sense that a young man would explore his
social identity, that a woman might be concerned with women’s issues,
that members of minority groups might define social and cultural
conditions on their own terms—or even that investors might look out
for their investments. It’s simply good strategy, not to mention ethical,
to let your audiences know where your loyalties lie when such
information does, in fact, shape your work.

Using Ethos in Your Own Writing

Establish your credibility by listening carefully to and
acknowledging your audience’s values, showing respect for them,
and establishing common ground where (and if) possible. How
will you convince your audience you are trustworthy? What will
you admit about your own limitations?

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Establish your authority by showing you have done your
homework and know your topic well. How will you show that you
know your topic well? What appropriate personal experience can
you draw on?
Examine your motives for writing. What, if anything, do you stand
to gain from your argument? How can you explain those
advantages to your audience?

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Ethos
In the United States, students are often asked to establish authority by
drawing on personal experiences, by reporting on research they or
others have conducted, and by taking a position for which they can
offer strong evidence. But this expectation about student authority is
by no means universal.

Some cultures regard student writers as novices who can most
effectively make arguments by reflecting on what they’ve learned from
their teachers and elders—those who hold the most important
knowledge and, hence, authority. When you’re arguing a point with
people from cultures other than your own, ask questions like:

Whom are you addressing, and what is your relationship with that
person?
What knowledge are you expected to have? Is it appropriate or
expected for you to demonstrate that knowledge—and if so, how?
What tone is appropriate? And remember: politeness is rarely, if
ever, inappropriate.

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RESPOND●

1. Consider the ethos of these public figures. Then describe one or
two products that might benefit from their endorsements as
well as several that would not.

Edward Snowden—whistleblower

Beyoncé—singer, dancer, actress

Denzel Washington—actor

Tom Brady—football player

Rachel Maddow—TV news commentator

Ariana Grande—singer

Seth Meyers—late-night TV host

Lin-Manuel Miranda—hip hop artist and playwright

Venus Williams—tennis player

2. Opponents of Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh president of the
United States, once raised doubts about his integrity by asking
a single ruinous question: Would you buy a used car from this
man? Create your own version of the argument of character.
Begin by choosing an intriguing or controversial person or
group and finding an image online. Then download the image
into a word-processing file. Create a caption for the photo that
is modeled after the question asked about Nixon: Would you
give this woman your email password? Would you share a
campsite with this couple? Would you eat lasagna that this guy
fixed? Finally, write a serious 300-word argument that explores

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the character flaws or strengths of your subject(s).
3. Practice reading rhetorically and critically by taking a close

look at your own Facebook page (or your page on any other
social media site). What are some aspects of your character,
true or not, that might be conveyed by the photos, videos, and
messages you have posted online? Analyze the ethos or
character you see projected there, using the advice in this
chapter to guide your analysis.

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CHAPTER 4 Arguments Based on Facts and
Reason: Logos

In 2018, it feels like facts are under siege, as these three images
suggest. Cartoonists are having a field day with a “post-fact” world,
while serious scientists are hard at work trying to understand “why
facts don’t change our minds.” From Kellyanne Conway’s evocation of
“alternative facts” to Donald Trump’s tendency to label reports that do
not support his views as “fake news,” we are witnessing a world in
which the statement by Through the Looking-Glass’s White Queen that
“sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before
breakfast” seems, well, unremarkable. After the 2016 election, for
example, President Trump declared that there was “serious voter fraud”
in Virginia, in New Hampshire, in California, and elsewhere, although
researchers could find no evidence to back up his claim, and fact-
checkers across the board found the “fact” to be baseless. In June 2017,
three CNN employees resigned after the network retracted a story that
claimed Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with
ties to Trump officials”; the journalists had used only one unreliable
source to back up this supposedly factual claim. We could go on and

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on with such examples from across the political spectrum, and no
doubt you could add your own to the list.

In “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds,” Elizabeth Kolbert surveys
cognitive science research that’s trying to understand why this is so,
pointing to a series of experiments at Stanford University that found
that “Even after the evidence for their beliefs had been totally refuted,
people fail to make appropriate revisions to those beliefs”:

Thousands of subsequent experiments have confirmed (and
elaborated on) this finding. As everyone who’s followed the
research—or even occasionally picked up a copy of
Psychology Today—knows, any graduate student with a
clipboard can demonstrate that reasonable-seeming people
are often totally irrational. Rarely has this insight seemed
more relevant than it does now.

Scientists working on this issue point to the “confirmation” or
“myside” bias, the strong tendency to accept information that supports
our beliefs and values and to reject information that opposes them, as
well as to our tendency to think we know a whole lot more than we
actually do. A study at Yale asked graduate students to rate their
knowledge of everyday items, including toilets, and to write up an
explanation of how such devices worked. While the graduate students
rated their knowledge/understanding as high before they wrote up the
explanations, that exercise showed them that they didn’t really know
how toilets worked, and their self-assessment dropped significantly.
The researchers, Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach, call this effect
the “illusion of explanatory depth” and find that it is very widespread.

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“Where it gets us into trouble,” they say, is in “the political domain.”
As Kolbert writes, “It’s one thing for me to flush a toilet without
knowing how it operates, and another for me to favor (or oppose) an
immigration ban without knowing what I’m talking about.” Sloman
and Fernbach explain: “As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not
emerge from deep understanding. . . . This is how a community of
knowledge can become dangerous.”

Such findings are important to all of us, and they suggest several steps
all writers, readers, and speakers should take as they deal with
arguments based on facts and reason. First, examine your own beliefs
in particular facts and pieces of information: do you really know what
you’re talking about or are you simply echoing what others you know
say or think? Second, you need to become a conscientious fact-
checker, digging deep to make sure claims are backed by evidence.
Doing so is especially important with information you get from social
media, where misinformation, disinformation, and even outright lies
may be presented as “facts” that you might retweet or post, thus
perpetuating false or questionable information.

Finally, don’t give up on facts. The researchers discussed above also
show that, when given a choice, most people still say they respect and
even prefer appeals to claims based on facts, evidence, and reason. Just
make sure that the logical appeals you are using are factually correct
and ethical as well.

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Thinking Critically about
Hard Evidence
Aristotle helps us out in classifying arguments by distinguishing two
kinds:

Artistic
Proofs

Arguments the
writer/speaker
creates

Constructed
arguments

Appeals to reason; common sense

Inartistic
Proofs

Arguments the
writer/speaker is
given

Hard
evidence

Facts, statistics, testimonies,
witnesses, contracts, documents

We can see these different kinds of logical appeals at work in a passage
from a statement made on September 5, 2017, by Attorney General Jeff
Sessions:

Good morning. I am here today to announce that the program
known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama
Administration is being rescinded. The DACA program was
implemented in 2012 and essentially provided a legal status
for recipients for a renewable two-year term, work
authorization and other benefits, including participation in
the social security program, to 800,000 mostly-adult illegal
aliens. This policy was implemented unilaterally to great
controversy and legal concern after Congress rejected
legislative proposals to extend similar benefits on numerous
occasions to this same group of illegal aliens.

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In other words, the executive branch, through DACA,
deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch
specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions. Such
an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an
unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive
Branch. The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among
other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors
on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian
consequences. It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of
Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.

Jeff Sessions announcing that DACA would be rescinded by the Trump
administration

Sessions opens his statement with a simple “good morning” and a
direct announcement of his purpose: to rescind the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program initiated by the Obama

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administration in 2012. In the next sentence, he uses “inartistic”
evidence of what DACA provided (it was renewable and provided
work authorization and other benefits) for “800,000 mostly-adult
illegal aliens.” Noting that Congress had refused on several occasions
to extend benefits to the “same group of illegal aliens,” Sessions offers
the constructed argument that Obama’s “open-ended circumvention of
immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority.”
Presumably now drawing on hard evidence, Sessions argues that
DACA led to “a surge of unaccompanied minors,” that it denied jobs to
“hundreds of thousands” of Americans, and, by neglecting the “rule of
law,” it subjected the United States to “the risk of crime, violence, and
even terrorism.”

Sessions says early on in his statement that DACA was implemented
amidst “great controversy,” and indeed that fact checks out. Other
claims made in the statement, however, were quickly challenged. The
nonpartisan FactCheck.org, for example, calls out Sessions’s
description of DACA recipients as “mostly-adult illegal aliens” (a label
he uses several times), citing research by Professor Tom Wong of the
University of California, San Diego, whose national survey of 3,063
DACA holders in summer 2017 found that “on average they were six
and a half years old when they arrived in the U.S. Most of them—54
percent—were under the age of 7.” So while they are adults today, they
were not adults when they were brought to the United States. Likewise,
FactCheck.org points out that Sessions’s claim that DACA contributed
to a “surge of unaccompanied minors” is, at best, misleading and out of
context:

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It is true that there was a surge of unaccompanied children
that caught the Obama administration off guard in fiscal
2012. The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the
border peaked in fiscal 2014 at 68,541, dropping 42 percent to
39,970 in fiscal 2015 before rising again in fiscal year 2016 to
59,692.

But the children who crossed the border illegally were not
eligible for DACA. As we said earlier, the criteria for DACA is
continuous residence in the United States since June 15, 2007.

If you were reading or listening to this statement and wanted to do
some fact-checking of your own, you might well begin by determining
whether DACA really led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
In today’s political climate, in fact, it’s important that every one of us
read with a critical eye, refusing to accept claims without proof,
constructed arguments, or even “hard evidence” that we can’t fact-
check for ourselves.

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Two DACA “Dreamers” protesting near Trump Tower in New York the day after
Sessions’s statement rescinding the program

RESPOND●
Discuss whether the following statements are examples of hard

evidence or constructed arguments. Not all cases are clear-cut.

1. Drunk drivers are involved in more than 50 percent of traffic
deaths.

2. DNA tests of skin found under the victim’s fingernails suggest
that the defendant was responsible for the assault.

3. A psychologist testified that teenage violence could not be
blamed on video games.

4. The crowds at President Trump’s inauguration were the largest
on record.

5. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
6. Air bags ought to be removed from vehicles because they can

kill young children and small-framed adults.

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Facts
Gathering factual information and transmitting it faithfully practically
define what we mean by professional journalism and scholarship.
Carole Cadwalladr, a reviewer for the British newspaper the Guardian,
praises the research underlying It’s Complicated: The Networked Lives
of Teens. Drawing on almost a decade of research by assistant
professor danah boyd of New York University,

the book is grounded in hard academic research: proper
interviews conducted with actual teenagers. What comes
across most strongly, more so than the various “myths” and
“panics” that the author describes, is just how narrow and
circumscribed many of these teenagers’ lives have become.

Here the “hard academic research” the reviewer mentions is the
ethnographic research that yields an accurate description of these
young people’s lives.

When your facts are compelling, they might stand on their own in a
low-stakes argument, supported by little more than saying where they
come from. Consider the power of phrases such as “reported by the
Wall Street Journal” or “according to FactCheck.org.” Such sources
gain credibility if they have reported facts accurately and reliably over
time. Using such credible sources in an argument can also reflect
positively on you.

In scholarly arguments, which have higher expectations for accuracy,
what counts is drawing sober conclusions from the evidence turned up

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through detailed research or empirical studies. The language of such
material may seem dryly factual to you, even when the content is
inherently interesting. But presenting new knowledge dispassionately
is (ideally at least) the whole point of scholarly writing, marking a
contrast between it and the kind of intellectual warfare that occurs in
many media forums, especially news programs and blogs. Here for
example is a portion of a lengthy opening paragraph in the “Discussion
and Conclusions” section of a scholarly paper arguing that people who
spend a great deal of time on Facebook often frame their lives by what
they observe there:

As expected in the first hypothesis, the results show that the
longer people have used Facebook, the stronger was their
belief that others were happier than themselves, and the less
they agreed that life is fair. Furthermore, as predicted in the
second hypothesis, this research found that the more “friends”
people included on their Facebook whom they did not know
personally, the stronger they believed that others had better
lives than themselves. In other words, looking at happy
pictures of others on Facebook gives people an impression
that others are “always” happy and having good lives, as
evident from these pictures of happy moments.

—Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, PhD, and Nicholas Edge, BS, “‘They
Are Happier and Having Better Lives Than I Am’: The
Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others’ Lives”

There are no fireworks in this conclusion, no slanted or hot language,
no unfair or selective reporting of data, just a careful attention to the

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Lindsay McKenzie cites statistics in her Web article about how
secure students feel in protecting themselves from cyberattacks.

LINK TO McKenzie, “Getting Personal about Cybersecurity,” in
Chapter 26

facts and behaviors uncovered by the study. But one can easily imagine
these facts being subsequently used to support overdramatized claims
about the dangers of social networks. That’s often what happens to
scholarly studies when they are read and interpreted in the popular
media.

Of course, arguing with facts can involve challenging even the most
reputable sources if they lead to unfair or selective reporting or if the
stories are presented or “framed” unfairly.

In an ideal world, good information—no matter where it comes from—
would always drive out bad. But you already know that we don’t live
in an ideal world, so all too often bad information gets repeated in an
echo chamber that amplifies the errors.

Statistics

You’ve probably heard the old saying “There are three kinds of lies:
lies, damned lies, and statistics,” and it is certainly possible to lie with
numbers, even those that are accurate, because numbers rarely speak
for themselves. They need to be interpreted by writers—and writers
almost always have agendas that shape the interpretations.

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Of course, just because they are often misused doesn’t mean that
statistics are meaningless, but it does suggest that you need to use them
carefully and to remember that your careful reading of numbers is
essential. Consider the attention-grabbing map below that went viral in
June 2014. Created by Mark Gongloff of the Huffington Post in the
wake of a school shooting in Oregon, it plotted the location of all
seventy-four school shootings that had occurred in the United States
since the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012, when twenty
elementary school children and six adults were gunned down by a rifle-
wielding killer. For the graphic, Gongloff drew on a list assembled by
the group Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization formed by
former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg to
counter the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Both
the map and Everytown’s sobering list of shootings received wide
attention in the media, given the startling number of incidents it
recorded.

It didn’t take long before questions were raised about their accuracy.

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Were American elementary and secondary school children under such
frequent assault as the map based on Everytown’s list suggested? Well,
yes and no. Guns were going off on and around school campuses, but
the firearms weren’t always aimed at children. The Washington Post,
CNN, and other news outlets soon found themselves pulling back on
their initial reporting, offering a more nuanced view of the
controversial number. To do that, the Washington Post began by
posing an important question:

What constitutes a school shooting?

That five-word question has no simple answer, a fact
underscored by the backlash to an advocacy group’s recent
list of school shootings. The list, maintained by Everytown, a
group that backs policies to limit gun violence, was updated
last week to reflect what it identified as the 74 school shootings
since the massacre in Newtown, Conn., a massacre that
sparked a national debate over gun control.

Multiple news outlets, including this one, reported on
Everytown’s data, prompting a backlash over the broad
methodology used. As we wrote in our original post, the group
considered any instance of a firearm discharging on school
property as a shooting—thus casting a broad net that includes
homicides, suicides, accidental discharges and, in a handful of
cases, shootings that had no relation to the schools themselves
and occurred with no students apparently present.

—Niraj Chokshi, “Fight over School Shooting List

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Underscores Difficulty in Quantifying Gun Violence”

CNN followed the same path, re-evaluating its original reporting in
light of criticism from groups not on the same page as Everytown for
Gun Safety:

Without a doubt, that number is startling.

So . . . CNN took a closer look at the list, delving into the
circumstances of each incident Everytown included. . . .

CNN determined that 15 of the incidents Everytown included
were situations similar to the violence in Newtown or Oregon
—a minor or adult actively shooting inside or near a school.
That works out to about one such shooting every five weeks, a
startling figure in its own right.

Some of the other incidents on Everytown’s list included
personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and
drug deals.

—Ashley Fantz, Lindsey Knight, and Kevin Wang, “A Closer
Look: How Many Newtown-like School Shootings since Sandy
Hook?”

Other news organizations came up with their own revised numbers, but
clearly the interpretation of a number can be as important as the
statistic itself. And what were Mark Gongloff’s Twitter reactions to
these reassessments? They made an argument as well:

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Arguments over gun violence in schools reached a new peak in 2018
after seventeen students and staff members were killed at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, leading to a nationwide
student walkout on March 14 and massive protests at eight hundred
sites around the world on March 24 (including over half a million in
Washington, D.C., alone), all organized and led by students. Articulate
and media savvy, the student leaders knew to rely on “hard evidence”
and solid, fact-checked statistics, and they conducted the research
necessary to do so. Students across the United States learned a lesson
well: when you rely on statistics in your arguments, make sure you
understand where they come from, what they mean, and what their
limitations might be. Check and double-check them or get help in
doing so: you don’t want to be accused of using fictitious data based on
questionable assumptions.

RESPOND●

Statistical evidence becomes useful only when interpreted fairly and

reasonably. Go to the Business Insider Australia Web site and look

for one or more charts of the day

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(www.businessinsider.com/au/category/chart-of-the-day). Choose

one, and use the information in it to support three different claims,

at least two of which make very different points. Share your claims

with classmates. (The point is not to learn to use data dishonestly

but to see firsthand how the same statistics can serve a variety of

arguments.)

Surveys and Polls
When they verify the popularity of an idea or a proposal, surveys and
polls provide strong persuasive appeals because they come as close to
expressing the will of the people as anything short of an election—the
most decisive poll of all. However, surveys and polls can do much
more than help politicians make decisions. They can be important
elements in scientific research, documenting the complexities of
human behavior. They can also provide persuasive reasons for action
or intervention. When surveys show, for example, that most American
sixth-graders can’t locate France or Wyoming on a map—not to
mention Ukraine or Afghanistan—that’s an appeal for better
instruction in geography. It always makes sense, however, to question
poll numbers, especially when they support our own point of view. Ask
who commissioned the poll, who is publishing its outcome, who was
surveyed (and in what proportions), and what stakes these parties
might have in its outcome.

Are we being too suspicious? Not at all, and especially not today. In
fact, this sort of scrutiny is exactly what you might anticipate from
your readers whenever you use (or create) surveys to explore an issue.

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You should be confident that enough subjects have been surveyed to be
accurate, that the people chosen for the study were representative of the
selected population as a whole, and that they were chosen randomly—
not selected because of what they were likely to say. In a splendid
article on how women can make research-based choices during
pregnancy, economist Emily Oster explores, for example, whether an
expectant mother might in fact be able to drink responsibly. She
researches not only the results of the data, but also who was surveyed,
and how their participation might have influenced the results. One
2001 study of pregnant women’s drinking habits and their children’s
behavior years later cautioned that even a single drink per day while
pregnant could cause behavioral issues. However, Oster uncovered a
serious flaw in the study, noting that

18% of the women who didn’t drink at all and 45% of the
women who had one drink a day reported using cocaine
during pregnancy. . . . [R]eally? Cocaine? Perhaps the
problem is that cocaine, not the occasional glass of
Chardonnay, makes your child more likely to have behavior
problems.

—Emily Oster, “Take Back Your Pregnancy”

Clearly, polls, surveys, and studies need to be examined critically. You
can’t take even academic research at face value until you have explored
its details.

The meaning of polls and surveys is also affected by the way that
questions are posed. In the past, research revealed, for example, that

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polling about same-sex unions got differing responses according to
how questions were worded. When people were asked whether gay and
lesbian couples should be eligible for the same inheritance and partner
health benefits that heterosexual couples receive, a majority of those
polled said yes—unless the word marriage appeared in the question;
then the responses were primarily negative. If anything, the differences
here reveal how conflicted people may have been about the issue and
how quickly opinions might shift—as they have clearly done.
Remember, then, to be very careful in reviewing the wording of survey
or poll questions.

Finally, always keep in mind that the date of a poll may strongly affect
the results—and their usefulness in an argument. In 2014, for example,
a Reuters poll found that 20 percent of California residents said they
supported “CalExit,” a proposal for California to secede from the
United States and become a country in its own right. In 2017, however,
the same poll found that figure had jumped from 20 percent to 32
percent. The pollsters note, however, that the “margin of error for the
California answers was plus or minus 5 percentage points.” On public
and political issues, you need to be sure that you are using the most
timely information you can get.

RESPOND●

Choose an important issue and design a series of questions to evoke

a range of responses in a poll. Try to design a question that would

make people strongly inclined to agree, another question that

would lead them to oppose the same proposition, and a third that

tries to be more neutral. Then try out your questions on your

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In his article “Thick of Tongue,” linguist John McWhorter shares
his personal experience as a black man whom others insist
“sounds white.”

LINK TO McWhorter, “Thick of Tongue,” in Chapter 25

classmates and note what you learn about how to improve your

questions.

Testimonies and Narratives

Writers often support arguments by presenting human experiences in
the form of narrative or testimony—particularly if those experiences
are their own. When Republican Senator Orrin Hatch condemned
KKK, neo-Nazi, and white nationalist protests in Charlottesville,
Virginia, in August 2017, he did so by calling on personal experience:

In courts, judges and juries often take into consideration detailed
descriptions and narratives of exactly what occurred. In the case of Doe
v. City of Belleville, the judges of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
decided, based on the testimony presented, that a man (known as H.)

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had been sexually harassed by other men in his workplace. The
narrative, in this case, supplies the evidence, noting that one coworker

constantly referred to H. as “queer” and “fag” and urged H.
to “go back to San Francisco with the rest of the queers.” . . .
The verbal taunting of H. turned physical one day when [a
coworker] trapped [him] against a wall, proceeded to grab H.
by the testicles and, having done so, announced to the
assemblage of co-workers present, “Well, I guess he’s a guy.”

Personal perspectives can support a claim convincingly and logically,
especially if a writer has earned the trust of readers. In arguing that Tea
Party supporters of a government shutdown had no business being
offended when some opponents described them as “terrorists,” Froma
Harrop, one of the writers who used the term, argued logically and
from experience why the characterization was appropriate:

[T]he hurt the tea party writers most complained of was to
their feelings. I had engaged in name-calling, they kept saying.
One professing to want more civility in our national
conversation, as I do, should not be flinging around the
terrorist word.

May I presume to disagree? Civility is a subjective concept, to
be sure, but hurting people’s feelings in the course of making
solid arguments is fair and square. The decline in the quality
of our public discourse results not so much from an excess of
spleen, but a deficit of well-constructed arguments. Few things
upset partisans more than when the other side makes a case

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that bats home.

“Most of us know that effectively scoring on a point of
argument opens us to the accusation of mean-spiritedness,”
writes Frank Partsch, who leads the National Conference of
Editorial Writers’ Civility Project. “It comes with the
territory, and a commitment to civility should not suggest that
punches will be pulled in order to avoid such accusations.”

—Froma Harrop, “Hurt Feelings Can Be a Consequence of
Strong Arguments”

This narrative introduction gives a rationale for supporting the claim
Harrop is making: we can expect consequences when we argue
ineffectively. (For more on establishing credibility with readers, see
Chapter 3.)

RESPOND●

Bring to class a full review of a recent film that you either enjoyed or

did not enjoy. Using testimony from that review, write a brief

argument to your classmates explaining why they should see that

movie (or why they should avoid it), being sure to use evidence from

the review fairly and reasonably. Then exchange arguments with a

classmate, and decide whether the evidence in your peer’s

argument helps to change your opinion about the movie. What’s

convincing about the evidence? If it doesn’t convince you, why

doesn’t it?

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Using Reason and
Common Sense
If you don’t have “hard facts,” you can turn to those arguments
Aristotle describes as “constructed” from reason and common sense.
The formal study of such reasoning is called logic, and you probably
recognize a famous example of deductive reasoning, called a
syllogism:

All human beings are mortal.

Socrates is a human being.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

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In valid syllogisms, the conclusion follows logically—and technically
—from the premises that lead up to it. Many have criticized syllogistic
reasoning for being limited, and others have poked fun at it, as in the
cartoon above.

But we routinely see something like syllogistic reasoning operating in
public arguments, particularly when writers take the time to explain
key principles. Consider the step-by-step reasoning Michael Gerson
uses to explain why exactly it was wrong for the Internal Revenue
Service in 2010–2011 to target specific political groups, making it
more difficult for them to organize politically:

Why does this matter deserve heightened scrutiny from the

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rest of us? Because crimes against democracy are particularly
insidious. Representative government involves a type of trade.
As citizens, we cede power to public officials for important
purposes that require centralized power: defending the
country, imposing order, collecting taxes to promote the
common good. In exchange, we expect public institutions to be
evenhanded and disinterested. When the stewards of power—
biased judges or corrupt policemen or politically motivated
IRS officials—act unfairly, it undermines trust in the whole
system.

—Michael Gerson, “An Arrogant and Lawless IRS”

Gerson’s criticism of the IRS actions might be mapped out by the
following sequence of statements.

Crimes against democracy undermine trust in the system.

Treating taxpayers differently because of their political beliefs
is a crime against democracy.

Therefore, IRS actions that target political groups undermine
the American system.

Few writers, of course, think about formal deductive reasoning when
they support their claims. Even Aristotle recognized that most people
argue perfectly well using informal logic. To do so, they rely mostly on
habits of mind and assumptions that they share with their readers or
listeners—as Gerson essentially does in his paragraph.

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In Chapter 7, we describe a system of informal logic that you may find
useful in shaping credible appeals to reason—Toulmin argument. Here,
we briefly examine some ways that people use informal logic in their
everyday lives. Once again, we begin with Aristotle, who used the term
enthymeme to describe an ordinary kind of sentence that includes both
a claim and a reason but depends on the audience’s agreement with an
assumption that is left implicit rather than spelled out. Enthymemes
can be very persuasive when most people agree with the assumptions
they rest on. The following sentences are all enthymemes:

We’d better cancel the picnic because it’s going to rain.

Flat taxes are fair because they treat everyone the same.

I’ll buy a PC instead of a Mac because it’s cheaper.

Sometimes enthymemes seem so obvious that readers don’t realize that
they’re drawing inferences when they agree with them. Consider the
first example:

We’d better cancel the picnic because it’s going to rain.

Let’s expand the enthymeme a bit to say more of what the speaker may
mean:

We’d better cancel the picnic this afternoon because the
weather bureau is predicting a 70 percent chance of rain for
the remainder of the day.

Embedded in this brief argument are all sorts of assumptions and

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fragments of cultural information that are left implicit but that help to
make it persuasive:

Picnics are ordinarily held outdoors.

When the weather is bad, it’s best to cancel picnics.

Rain is bad weather for picnics.

A 70 percent chance of rain means that rain is more likely to
occur than not.

When rain is more likely to occur than not, it makes sense to
cancel picnics.

For most people, the original statement carries all this information on
its own; the enthymeme is a compressed argument, based on what
audiences know and will accept.

But sometimes enthymemes aren’t self-evident:

Be wary of environmentalism because it’s religion disguised as
science.

iPhones are undermining civil society by making us even more
focused on ourselves.

It’s time to make all public toilets unisex because to do
otherwise is discriminatory.

In these cases, you’ll have to work much harder to defend both the

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claim and the implicit assumptions that it’s based on by drawing out
the inferences that seem self-evident in other enthymemes. And you’ll
likely also have to supply credible evidence; just calling something a
fact doesn’t make it one, so a simple declaration of fact won’t suffice.

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Logos
In the United States, student writers are expected to draw on “hard
facts” and evidence as often as possible in supporting their claims:
while ethical and emotional appeals are increasingly important and
often used in making decisions, logical appeals still tend to hold sway
in academic writing. So statistics and facts speak volumes, as does
reasoning based on time-honored values such as fairness and equity. In
writing to global audiences, you need to remember that not all cultures
value the same kinds of appeals. If you want to write to audiences
across cultures, you need to know about the norms and values in those
cultures. Chinese culture, for example, values authority and often
indirect allusion over “facts” alone. Some African cultures value
cooperation and community over individualism, and still other cultures
value religious texts as providing compelling evidence. So think
carefully about what you consider strong evidence, and pay attention
to what counts as evidence to others. You can begin by asking yourself
questions like:

What evidence is most valued by your audience: Facts? Concrete
examples? Firsthand experience? Religious or philosophical texts?
Something else?
Will analogies count as support? How about precedents?
Will the testimony of experts count? If so, what kinds of experts

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are valued most?

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Providing Logical
Structures for Argument
Some arguments depend on particular logical structures to make their
points. In the following pages, we identify a few of these logical
structures.

Degree
Arguments based on degree are so common that people barely notice
them, nor do they pay much attention to how they work because they
seem self-evident. Most audiences will readily accept that more of a
good thing or less of a bad thing is good. In her novel The
Fountainhead, Ayn Rand asks: “If physical slavery is repulsive, how
much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit?” Most
readers immediately comprehend the point Rand intends to make about
slavery of the spirit because they already know that physical slavery is
cruel and would reject any forms of slavery that were even crueler on
the principle that more of a bad thing is bad. Rand still needs to offer
evidence that “servility of the spirit” is, in fact, worse than bodily
servitude, but she has begun with a logical structure readers can grasp.
Here are other arguments that work similarly:

If I can get a ten-year warranty on an inexpensive Kia,
shouldn’t I get the same or better warranty from a more
expensive Lexus?

The health benefits from using stem cells in research will

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surely outweigh the ethical risks.

Better a conventional war now than a nuclear confrontation
later.

A demonstrator at an immigrants’ rights rally in New York City in 2007.
Arguments based on values that are widely shared within a society—such as the
idea of equal rights in American culture—have a strong advantage with
audiences.

Analogies
Analogies, typically complex or extended comparisons, explain one

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Alli Joseph discusses the portrayal of Pacific Islanders in Disney’s
Moana and compares it to the studio’s previous depictions of
ethnic minorities.

LINK TO Joseph, “With Disney’s Moana, Hollywood Almost Gets It
Right,” in Chapter 23

idea or concept by comparing it to something else.

Here, writer and founder of literacy project 826 Valencia, Dave Eggers,
uses an analogy in arguing that we do not value teachers as much as we
should:

When we don’t get the results we want in our military
endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s
these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s
why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results
aren’t there, we blame the planners. . . . No one contemplates
blaming the men and women fighting every day in the
trenches for little pay and scant recognition. And yet in
education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our
students score on international standardized tests, we blame
the teachers.

—Dave Eggers and Nínive Calegari, “The High Cost of Low
Teacher Salaries”

Precedent

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Arguments from precedent and arguments of analogy both involve
comparisons. Consider an assertion like this one, which uses a
comparison as a precedent:

If motorists in most other states can pump their own gas
safely, surely the state of Oregon can trust its own drivers to
be as capable. It’s time for Oregon to permit self-service gas
stations.

You could tease out several inferences from this claim to explain its
reasonableness: people in Oregon are as capable as people in other
states; people with equivalent capabilities can do the same thing;
pumping gas is not hard; and so forth. But you don’t have to because
most readers get the argument simply because of the way it is put
together. In any case, that argument has begun to have traction: as of
January 2018, Oregon began permitting self-service pumps in fifteen
rural counties, though doing so called forth virulent pushback on social
media. So the debate goes on!

Here is an excerpt from an analytical argument by Kriston Capps that
examines attempts by the sculptor of Wall Street’s Charging Bull to
have a new, competing sculpture, Fearless Girl, removed on the basis
of legal precedents supporting the rights of visual artists. Sculptor
Arturo Di Modica’s assertion,

that Visbal’s work infringes on his own, is unlikely to hold
sway, under recent readings of the Visual Artists Rights Act. .
. . The argument that Fearless Girl modifies or destroys
Charging Bull by blocking its path would represent a leap that

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courts have been reluctant to take even in clearer cases.

—Kriston Capps, “Why Wall Street’s Charging Bull
Sculptor Has No Real Case against Fearless Girl”

You’ll encounter additional kinds of logical structures as you create
your own arguments. You’ll find some of them in Chapter 5, “Fallacies
of Argument,” and still more in Chapter 7 on Toulmin argument.

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CHAPTER 5 Fallacies of Argument

Do these cartoons ring a bell with you? The first panel skewers
slippery slope arguments, which aim to thwart action by predicting dire
consequences: “occupy” enough spaces and the Occupy movement
looks just like the Tea Party. In the second item, an example of a straw
man argument, the first author of an academic paper puts down his
coauthor by shifting the subject, saying that the coauthor is an egotist
who cares only for fame, not what the coauthor had said at all. And the
third image provides an example of a very common fallacy, the ad
hominem argument, in which a speaker impugns the character of an
opponent rather than addressing the arguments that person raises.
Rather than argue the point that human cloning is wrong, the bird says,
simply, “you’re an idiot.”

Candidate Donald Trump made something of a specialty of the ad
hominem argument. Rather than address their arguments directly, he
attacked the characters of his opponents: Marco Rubio was always
“little Marco,” Hillary Clinton was always “crooked,” Elizabeth
Warren was “goofy,” and Cruz was always “Lyin’ Ted.” Early on in
the campaign, when asked about rival candidate Carly Fiorina’s plans,

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he said, “Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean,
she’s a woman and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really,
folks, come on.” Classic ad hominem, and oftentimes such tactics work
all too well!

Fallacies are argumentative moves flawed by their nature or structure.
Because such tactics can make principled argument more difficult, they
potentially hurt everyone involved, including the people responsible
for them. The worst sorts of fallacies muck up the frank but civil
conversations that people should be able to have, regardless of their
differences.

Yet it’s hard to deny the power in offering audiences a compelling
either/or choice or a vulnerable straw man in an argument: these
fallacies can have great persuasive power. For exactly that reason, it’s
important that you can recognize and point out fallacies in the work of
others—and avoid them in your own writing. This chapter aims to help
you meet these goals: here we’ll introduce you to fallacies of argument
classified according to the emotional, ethical, and logical appeals
we’ve discussed earlier (see Chapters 2, 3, and 4).

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Fallacies of Emotional
Argument
Emotional arguments can be powerful and suitable in many
circumstances, and most writers use them frequently. However, writers
who pull on their readers’ heartstrings or raise their blood pressure too
often—or who oversentimentalize—can violate the good faith on
which legitimate argument depends.

Scare Tactics
Politicians, advertisers, and public figures sometimes peddle their ideas
by frightening people and exaggerating possible dangers well beyond
their statistical likelihood. Such ploys work because it’s easier to
imagine something terrible happening than to appreciate its rarity.

Scare tactics can also be used to stampede legitimate fears into panic
or prejudice. Laborers who genuinely worry about losing their jobs can
be persuaded to fear immigrants who might work for less money.
Seniors living on fixed incomes can be convinced that minor changes
to entitlement programs represent dire threats to their well-being. Such
tactics have the effect of closing off thinking because people who are
scared often act irrationally. Even well-intended fear campaigns—like
those directed against smoking, unprotected sex, or the use of illegal
drugs—can misfire if their warnings prove too shrill or seem
hysterical. People just stop listening.

Either/Or Choices
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Either/or choices can be well-intentioned strategies to get something
accomplished. Parents use them all the time (“Eat your broccoli, or you
won’t get dessert”). But they become fallacious arguments when they
reduce a complicated issue to excessively simple terms (e.g., “You’re
either for me or against me”) or when they’re designed to obscure
legitimate alternatives. Here, for example, is Riyad Mansour, the
Palestinian representative to the United Nations, offering the nation of
Israel just such a choice in an interview on PBS in January 2014:

It is up to them [the Israelis] to decide what kind of a state
they want to be. Do they want to be a democratic state where
Israel will be the state for all of its citizens? Or do they want
to be a state for the Jewish people, therefore excluding 1.6
million Palestinian Arabs who are Israelis from their society?
That debate is not our debate. That debate is their debate.

But Joel B. Pollak, writing for Breitbart News Network, describes
Mansour’s claim as a “false choice” since Israel already is a Jewish
state that nonetheless allows Muslims to be full citizens. The either/or
argument Mansour presents, according to Pollack, does not describe
the realities of this complex political situation.

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A false choice?

Slippery Slope
The slippery slope fallacy portrays today’s tiny misstep as tomorrow’s
slide into disaster. Some arguments that aim at preventing dire
consequences do not take the slippery slope approach (for example, the
parent who corrects a child for misbehavior now is acting sensibly to
prevent more serious problems as the child grows older). A slippery
slope argument becomes wrongheaded when a writer exaggerates the
likely consequences of an action, usually to frighten readers. As such,
slippery slope arguments are also scare tactics. In recent years, the
issue of gun ownership in America has evoked many slippery slope

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arguments. Here are two examples:

“Universal background checks will inevitably be followed by a
national registry of gun-owners which will inevitably be
followed by confiscation of all their guns.” Or, “A ban on
assault-style weapons and thirty+ round magazines will
inevitably be followed by a ban on hand guns with ten-round
magazines….”

—Michael Wolkowitz, “Slippery Slopes, Imagined and Real”

Social and political ideas and proposals do have consequences, but
they aren’t always as dire as writers fond of slippery slope tactics
would have you believe.

Overly Sentimental Appeals
Overly sentimental appeals use tender emotions excessively to
distract readers from facts. Often, such appeals are highly personal and
individual and focus attention on heartwarming or heartrending
situations that make readers feel guilty if they challenge an idea, a
policy, or a proposal. Emotions can become an impediment to civil
discourse when they keep people from thinking clearly.

Such sentimental appeals are a major vehicle of television news, where
tugging at viewers’ heartstrings can mean high ratings. For example,
when a camera documents the day-to-day sacrifices of a single parent
trying to meet mortgage payments and keep her kids in college, the
woman’s on-screen struggles can seem to represent the plight of an
entire class of people threatened by callous bankers and college

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administrators. But while such human interest stories stir genuine
emotions, they seldom give a complete picture of complex social or
economic issues.

The first image, taken from a gun control protest, is designed to elicit sympathy
by causing the viewer to think about the dangers guns pose to innocent children
and, thus, support the cause. The second image supports the other side of the
debate.

Bandwagon Appeals
Bandwagon appeals urge people to follow the same path everyone
else is taking. Such arguments can be relatively benign and seem
harmless. But they do push people to take the easier path rather than
think independently about what choices to make or where to go.

Many American parents seem to have an innate ability to refute

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bandwagon appeals. When their kids whine, Everyone else is going
camping without chaperones, the parents reply, And if everyone else
jumps off a cliff (or a railroad bridge or the Empire State Building),
you will too? The children groan—and then try a different line of
argument.

Advertisers use bandwagon appeals frequently, as this example of a
cellphone ad demonstrates:

Unfortunately, not all bandwagon approaches are so transparent. In
recent decades, bandwagon issues have included a war on drugs, the
nuclear freeze movement, campaigns against drunk driving—and for
freedom of speech, campaigns for immigration reform, bailouts for
banks and businesses, and many fads in education. All these issues are

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too complex to permit the suspension of judgment that bandwagon
tactics require.

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Fallacies of Ethical
Argument
Because readers give their closest attention to authors they respect or
trust, writers usually want to present themselves as honest, well-
informed, likable, or sympathetic. But not all the devices that writers
use to gain the attention and confidence of readers are admirable. (For
more on appeals based on character, see Chapter 3.)

Appeals to False Authority
Many academic research papers find and reflect on the work of
reputable authorities and introduce these authorities through direct
quotations or citations as credible evidence. (For more on assessing the
reliability of sources, see Chapter 19.) False authority, however,
occurs when writers offer themselves or other authorities as sufficient
warrant for believing a claim:

Claim X is true because I say so.

Warrant What I say must be true.

Claim X is true because Y says so.

Warrant What Y says must be true.

Though they are seldom stated so baldly, claims of authority drive
many political campaigns. American pundits and politicians are fond of
citing the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights (Canadians have their
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Britain has had its Bill of Rights
since the seventeenth century) as ultimate authorities, a reasonable

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practice when the documents are interpreted respectfully. However, the
rights claimed sometimes aren’t in the texts themselves or don’t mean
what the speakers think they do. And most constitutional matters are
debatable—as volumes of court records prove. Likewise, religious
believers often base arguments on books or traditions that wield great
authority in a particular religious community. But the power of such
texts is often limited to that group and less capable of persuading
others solely on the grounds of authority.

In short, you should pay serious attention to claims supported by
respected authorities, such as the Centers for Disease Control, the
National Science Foundation, or the Globe and Mail. But don’t accept
information simply because it is put forth by such offices and agencies.
To quote a Russian proverb made famous by Ronald Reagan, “Trust,
but verify.”

Dogmatism
A writer who asserts or assumes that a particular position is the only
one that is conceivably acceptable is expressing dogmatism, a fallacy
of character that undermines the trust that must exist between those
who make and listen to arguments. When people or organizations write
dogmatically, they imply that no arguments are necessary: the truth is
self-evident and needs no support. Here is an extreme example of such
an appeal, quoted in an Atlantic story by Tracy Brown Hamilton and
describing an anti-smoking appeal made by the Third Reich:

“Brother national socialist, do you know that your Fuhrer is
against smoking and thinks that every German is responsible

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to the whole people for all his deeds and omissions, and does
not have the right to damage his body with drugs?”

—Tracy Brown Hamilton, “The Nazis’ Forgotten Anti-
Smoking Campaign”

Subjects or ideas that can be defended with facts, testimony, and good
reasons ought not to be off the table in a free society. In general,
whenever someone suggests that even raising an issue for debate is
totally unacceptable—whether on the grounds that it’s racist, sexist,
unpatriotic, blasphemous, insensitive, or offensive in some other way
—you should be suspicious.

Ad Hominem Arguments
Ad hominem (Latin for “to the man”) arguments attack the character
of a person rather than the claims he or she makes: when you destroy
the credibility of your opponents, you either destroy their ability to
present reasonable appeals or distract from the successful arguments
they may be offering. During the 2016 presidential primary, Marco
Rubio criticized rival candidate Ted Cruz for not speaking Spanish:
was that a valid argument for why Cruz would not make a good
president? Such attacks, of course, aren’t aimed at men only, as
columnist Jamie Stiehm proved when she criticized Supreme Court
Justice Sonia Sotomayor for delaying an Affordable Care Act mandate
objected to by the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order.
Stiehm directly targets Sotomayor’s religious beliefs:

Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can’t trust you on

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women’s health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx
just dropped the ball on American women and girls as surely
as she did the sparkling ball at midnight on New Year’s Eve in
Times Square. Or maybe she’s just a good Catholic girl.

—Jamie Stiehm, “The Catholic Supreme Court’s War on
Women”

Stiehm then widens her ad hominem assault to include Catholics in
general:

Sotomayor’s blow brings us to confront an uncomfortable
reality. More than WASPs, Methodists, Jews, Quakers or
Baptists, Catholics often try to impose their beliefs on you, me,
public discourse and institutions. Especially if “you” are
female.

Arguably, ad hominem tactics like this turn arguments into two-sided
affairs with good guys and bad guys (or gals), and that’s unfortunate,
since character often really does matter in argument. Even though the
norms of civic discourse were strained to the limit during and after the
2016 presidential election, most people still expect the proponent of
peace to be civil, a secretary of the treasury to pay his or her taxes, the
champion of family values to be a faithful spouse, and the head of the
Environmental Protection Agency to advocate for protecting the
environment. But it’s fallacious to attack any of these people for their
traits, backgrounds, looks, or other irrelevant information.

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Stacking the Deck
Just as gamblers try to stack the deck by arranging cards so they are
sure to win, writers stack the deck when they show only one side of
the story—the one in their favor. In a 2016 New Yorker article, writer
Kathryn Schulz discusses the Netflix series Making a Murderer.
Schulz notes that the filmmakers have been accused of limiting their
evidence in order to convince viewers that the accused, Steven Avery,
had been framed for the crime:

Ricciardi and Demos have dismissed the idea, claiming that
they simply set out to investigate Avery’s case and didn’t have
a position on his guilt or innocence. Yet . . . the filmmakers
minimize or leave out many aspects of Avery’s less than
savory past, including multiple alleged incidents of physical
and sexual violence. They also omit important evidence
against him, . . . evidence that would be nearly impossible to
plant. . . . Ricciardi and Demos instead stack the deck to
support their case for Avery, and, as a result, wind up
mirroring the entity that they are trying to discredit.

—Kathryn Schulz, “Dead Certainty: How Making a
Murderer Goes Wrong”

In the same way, reviewers have been critical of documentaries by
Michael Moore and Dinesh D’Souza that resolutely show only one side
of a story or prove highly selective in their coverage. When you stack
the deck, you take a big chance that your readers will react like Schulz
and decide not to trust you: that’s one reason it’s so important to show

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that you have considered alternatives in making any argument.

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Look closely at Alexandra Dal’s and the Turner Consulting Group’s
visual arguments showing how damaging microaggressions can
be. Then compare them to Scott O. Lilienfeld’s argument against
the use of microaggressions. Do you see any fallacies in the trio of
selections?

LINK TO Turner Consulting Group, “Racial Microaggressions”; Dal,
“Questions”; and Lilienfeld, “Why a Moratorium on
Microaggressions Is Needed,” in Chapter 27

Fallacies of Logical
Argument

You’ll encounter a problem in any argument when the claims,
warrants, or proofs in it are invalid, insufficient, or disconnected. In
theory, such problems seem easy enough to spot, but in practice, they
can be camouflaged by a skillful use of words or images. Indeed,
logical fallacies pose a challenge to civil argument because they often
seem reasonable and natural, especially when they appeal to people’s
self-interests.

Hasty Generalization
A hasty generalization is an inference drawn from insufficient
evidence: because my Fiat broke down, then all Fiats must be junk. It
also forms the basis for most stereotypes about people or institutions:
because a few people in a large group are observed to act in a certain

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way, all members of that group are inferred to behave similarly. The
resulting conclusions are usually sweeping claims of little merit:
women are bad drivers; men are slobs; English teachers are nitpicky;
computer jocks are . . . ; and on and on.

To draw valid inferences, you must always have sufficient evidence
(see Chapter 18) and you must qualify your claims appropriately. After
all, people do need generalizations to make reasonable decisions in life.
Such claims can be offered legitimately if placed in context and tagged
with sensible qualifiers—some, a few, many, most, occasionally,
rarely, possibly, in some cases, under certain circumstances, in my
limited experience.

Faulty Causality
In Latin, faulty causality is known as post hoc, ergo propter hoc,
which translates as “after this, therefore because of this”—the faulty
assumption that because one event or action follows another, the first
causes the second. Consider a lawsuit commented on in the Wall Street
Journal in which a writer sued Coors (unsuccessfully), claiming that
drinking copious amounts of the company’s beer had kept him from
writing a novel. This argument is sometimes referred to as the
“Twinkie defense,” referring to a claim that the person who shot and
killed San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk had eaten so many
Twinkies and other sugary foods that his reasoning had been impaired.
The phrase is now sometimes used to label the claims of criminals that
their acts were caused by something beyond their control.

Of course, some actions do produce reactions. Step on the brake pedal

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in your car, and you move hydraulic fluid that pushes calipers against
disks to create friction that stops the vehicle. In other cases, however, a
supposed connection between cause and effect turns out to be
completely wrong. For example, doctors now believe that when an
elderly person falls and breaks a hip or leg, the injury usually caused
the fall rather than the other way around.

That’s why overly simple causal claims should always be subject to
scrutiny. In summer 2008, writer Nicholas Carr posed a simple causal
question in a cover story for the Atlantic: “Is Google Making Us
Stupid?” Carr essentially answered yes, arguing that “as we come to
rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our
own intelligence that flattens” and that the more one is online the less
he or she is able to concentrate or read deeply.

But others, like Jamais Cascio (senior fellow at the Institute for Ethics
and Emerging Technologies), soon challenged that causal connection:
rather than making us stupid, Cascio argues, Internet tools like Google
will lead to the development of “‘fluid intelligence’—the ability to find
meaning in confusion and to solve new problems, independent of
acquired knowledge.” The final word on this contentious causal
relationship—the effects on the human brain caused by new
technology—has yet to be written, and will probably be available only
after decades of complicated research.

Begging the Question
Most teachers have heard some version of the following argument: You
can’t give me a C in this course; I’m an A student. A member of

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Congress accused of taking kickbacks can make much the same
argument: I can’t be guilty of accepting such bribes; I’m an honest
person. In both cases, the claim is made on grounds that can’t be
accepted as true because those grounds themselves are in question.
How can the accused bribe-taker defend herself on grounds of honesty
when that honesty is in doubt? Looking at the arguments in Toulmin
terms helps to see the fallacy:

Claim You can’t give me a C in this course . . .

Reason . . . because I’m an A student.

Warrant An A student is someone who can’t receive Cs.

Claim Representative X can’t be guilty of accepting bribes . . .

Reason . . . because she’s an honest person.

Warrant An honest person cannot be guilty of accepting bribes.

With the warrants stated, you can see why begging the question—
assuming as true the very claim that’s disputed—is a form of circular
argument that goes nowhere. (For more on Toulmin argument, see
Chapter 7.)

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Equivocation
Equivocations—half truths or arguments that give lies an honest
appearance—are usually based on tricks of language. Consider the
plagiarist who copies a paper word for word from a source and then
declares that “I wrote the entire paper myself”—meaning that she
physically copied the piece on her own. But the plagiarist is using
wrote equivocally and knows that most people understand the word to
mean composing and not merely copying words.

Parsing words carefully can sometimes look like equivocation or be the
thing itself. For example, during the 2016 presidential campaign,
Hillary Clinton was asked regularly (some would say she was
hounded) about her use of a private email server and about whether any
of the emails contained classified information. Here’s what she said on
February 1, 2016:

The emails that I was received were not marked classified.
Now, there are disagreements among agencies on what should
have been perhaps classified retroactively, but at the time that
doesn’t change the fact that they were not marked classified.

—NPR Morning Edition, February 1, 2016

Many commentators at the time felt that this statement was a clear
equivocation, and this controversy continued to haunt Clinton
throughout her campaign.

Non Sequitur
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A non sequitur is an argument whose claims, reasons, or warrants
don’t connect logically. You’ve probably detected a non sequitur when
you react to an argument with a puzzled, “Wait, that doesn’t follow.”
Children are adept at framing non sequiturs like this one: You don’t
love me or you’d buy me a new bike. It doesn’t take a parental genius to
realize that love has little connection with buying children toys.

Non sequiturs often occur when writers omit steps in an otherwise
logical chain of reasoning. For example, it might be a non sequitur to
argue that since postsecondary education now costs so much, it’s time
to move colleges and university instruction online. Such a suggestion
may have merit, but a leap from brick-and-mortar schools to virtual
ones is extreme. Numerous issues and questions must be addressed
step-by-step before the proposal can be taken seriously.

Politicians sometimes resort to non sequiturs to evade thorny issues or
questions. Here, for example, is Donald Trump replying to questions in
a 2017 interview with Michael Scherer of Time Magazine:

Scherer: Mitch McConnell has said he’d rather you stop
tweeting, that he sees it as a distraction.

Trump: Mitch will speak for himself. Mitch is a wonderful
man. Mitch should speak for himself.

Here Trump does not respond to the claim the interviewer says Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made, but instead abruptly
changes the subject, commenting instead on McConnell, saying he is a
“wonderful man.”

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Straw Man
Those who resort to the straw man fallacy attack arguments that no
one is really making or portray opponents’ positions as more extreme
or far less coherent than they actually are. The speaker or writer thus
sets up an argument that is conveniently easy to knock down (like a
man of straw), proceeds to do so, and then claims victory over an
opponent who may not even exist.

Straw men are especially convenient devices for politicians who want
to characterize the positions of their opponents as more extreme than
they actually are: consider obvious memes such as “war on women”
and “war on Christmas.” But straw man arguments are often more
subtle. For instance, Steven Novella of Yale University argues that
political commentator Charles Krauthammer slips into the fallacy when
he misconstrues the meaning of “settled science” in a column on
climate change. Novella rebuts Krauthammer’s assertion that “There is
nothing more anti-scientific than the very idea that science is settled,
static, impervious to challenge” by explaining why such a claim is
deceptive:

Calling something an established scientific fact means that it is
reasonable to proceed with that fact as a premise, for further
research or for policy. It does not mean “static, impervious to
challenge.” That is the straw man. Both evolution deniers and
climate change deniers use this tactic to misinterpret scientific
confidence as an anti-scientific resistance to new evidence or
arguments. It isn’t.

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—Steven Novella, NeuroLogica Blog, February 25, 2014

In other words, Krauthammer’s definition of science is not one that
most scientists use.

Red Herring
This fallacy gets its name from the old British hunting practice of
dragging a dried herring across the path of the fox in order to throw the
hounds off the trail. A red herring fallacy does just that: it changes the
subject abruptly or introduces an irrelevant claim or fact to throw
readers or listeners off the trail. For example, people skeptical about
climate change will routinely note that weather is always changing and
point to the fact that Vikings settled in Greenland one thousand years
ago before harsher conditions drove them away. True, scientists will
say, but the point is irrelevant to arguments about worldwide global
warming caused by human activity.

The red herring is not only a device writers and speakers use in the
arguments they create, but it’s also a charge used frequently to
undermine someone else’s arguments. Couple the term “red herring” in
a Web search to just about any political or social cause and you’ll
come up with numerous articles complaining of someone’s use of the
device.

climate change + red herring

white supremacy + red herring

immigration reform + red herring

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“Red herring” has become a convenient way of saying “I disagree with
your argument” or “your point is irrelevant.” And perhaps making a
too-easy rebuttal like that can itself be a fallacy?

Faulty Analogy
Comparisons can help to clarify one concept by measuring it against
another that is more familiar. Consider the power and humor of this
comparison attributed to Mark Twain, an implicit argument for term
limits in politics:

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the
same reason.

When comparisons such as this one are extended, they become
analogies—ways of understanding unfamiliar ideas by comparing
them with something that’s better known (see Analogies in Chapter 4).
But useful as such comparisons are, they may prove false if either
taken on their own and pushed too far, or taken too seriously. At this
point, they turn into faulty analogies—inaccurate or inconsequential
comparisons between objects or concepts. Secretary of Education
Betsy DeVos found herself in a national controversy following a
statement she made after meeting with Historically Black Colleges and
Universities presidents in Washington, when she made an analogy
between HCBUs and her advocacy of “school choice” today:

They [African Americans] saw that the system wasn’t
working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they
took it upon themselves to provide the solution. HBCUs are

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real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living
proof that when more options are provided to students, they
are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success
has shown that more options help students flourish.

What commentators immediately pointed out was that this statement
included a false analogy. HBCUs were not created to provide more
choice for African American students (and thus be analogous to
DeVos’s push for charter schools and school “choice”) but rather
because these students had little to no choice; after the Civil War,
African American students were barred from most white public
institutions.

Paralipsis
This fallacy (sometimes spelled paralepsis and often compared with
occultatio) has been so predominant in the last two years that we think
it’s worthy of inclusion here. Basically, this fallacy occurs when
speakers or writers say they will NOT talk about something, thus doing
the very thing they say they’re not going to do. It’s a way of getting a
point into an argument obliquely, of sneaking it in while saying that
you are not doing so. Although paralipsis is rampant today, it is not
new: Socrates famously used it in his trial when he said he would not
mention his grieving wife and children who would suffer so mightily at
his death. In the 2016 presidential campaign and in the first years of his
presidency, Donald Trump used paralipsis repeatedly. Here, for
instance, he is at a campaign rally in Fort Dodge, Iowa, speaking about
rival candidate Marco Rubio:

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I will not call him a lightweight, because I think that’s a
derogatory term, so I will not call him a lightweight. Is that
OK with you people? I refuse to say that he’s a lightweight.

Although he is the most conspicuous user of paralipsis today, Trump is
by no means the only politician to use this fallacy. Here’s a
commentator reporting on presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at a
2016 town hall meeting in Iowa:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday called Bill Clinton’s
sexual scandals “totally disgraceful and unacceptable” but

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said he would not use the former president’s infidelities
against Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton.
What Bill Clinton did, I think we can all acknowledge was
totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable.”

—Reporter Lisa Hagen, The Hill

In saying he would not use the former president’s scandalous behavior
against Hillary Clinton, he in fact does just the opposite.

Finally, you may run across the use of paralipsis anywhere, even at the
movies, as spoken here by Robert Downey Jr.’s character Tony Stark:

I’m not saying I’m responsible for this country’s longest run
of uninterrupted peace in 35 years! I’m not saying that from
the ashes of captivity, never has a phoenix metaphor been
more personified! I’m not saying Uncle Sam can kick back on
a lawn chair, sipping on an iced tea, because I haven’t come
across anyone man enough to go toe to toe with me on my best
day. It’s not about me!

—Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man 2 (2010)

You may be tempted to use this fallacy in your own writing, but
beware: it is pretty transparent and may well backfire on you. Better to
say what you believe to be the truth—and stick to it.

RESPOND●

1. Examine each of the following political slogans or phrases for

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logical fallacies.

“Resistance is futile.” (Borg message on Star Trek: The Next
Generation)

“It’s the economy, stupid.” (sign on the wall at Bill Clinton’s
campaign headquarters)

“Make love, not war.” (antiwar slogan popularized during the
Vietnam War)

“Build bridges, not walls.” (attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.)

“Stronger Together” (campaign slogan)

“Guns don’t kill, people do.” (NRA slogan)

“Dog Fighters Are Cowardly Scum.” (PETA T-shirt)

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” (attributed
to Harry S Truman)

2. Hone your critical reading skills by choosing a paper you’ve
written for a college class and analyze it for signs of fallacious
reasoning. Then find an editorial, a syndicated column, and a
news report on the same topic and look for fallacies in them.
Which has the most fallacies—and what kind? What may be the
role of the audience in determining when a statement is
fallacious? How effective do you think the fallacies were in
speaking to their intended audience?

3. Find a Web site that is sponsored by an organization (the
Future of Music Coalition, perhaps), a business (Coca-Cola,
Pepsi), or another group (the Democratic or Republican
National Committee), and analyze the site for fallacious
reasoning. Among other considerations, look at the

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relationship between text and graphics and between individual
pages and the pages that surround or are linked to them.

4. Political blogs such as Mother Jones and InstaPundit typically
provide quick responses to daily events and detailed critiques
of material in other media sites, including national
newspapers. Study one such blog for a few days to see whether
and how the site critiques the articles, political commentary, or
writers it links to. Does the blog ever point out fallacies of
argument? If so, does it explain the problems with such
reasoning or just assume readers will understand the fallacies?
Summarize your findings in a brief oral report to your class.

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CHAPTER 6 Rhetorical Analysis

If you watched the 2016 Super Bowl between the Carolina Panthers
and the Denver Broncos, you may remember the commercial in which
the images above appeared. For a full 60 seconds, “Portraits” — which
celebrates the seventy-fifth birthday of Jeep — shows still photographs
of the faces of a wide range of people, all of whom have had some
connection with the iconic Jeep. B. B. King, one of the most influential
blues musicians of all time, recorded a cover of the famous Duke
Ellington song, “Jeep’s Blues,” and Marilyn Monroe rode in a Jeep
when she visited troops in 1954. One of the noncelebrities in the
commercial is a young woman holding her hands in front of her face;
who knows what her connection might be? This advertisement, which
won the Super Clio for the best ad of the 2016 Super Bowl, plays in
black and white, flashing from one memorable face to another, as a
voice speaks to viewers:

I’ve seen things no man should bear and those that every man
should dare, from the beaches of Normandy to the farthest
reaches of the earth. In my life, I’ve lived millions of lives. I’ve
outrun robots and danced with dinosaurs. I’ve faced the faces

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of fear, and of fortitude, and witnessed great beauty in the
making. I’ve kept the company of kings — and queens. But
I’m no royalty or saint. I’ve traveled, trekked, wandered, and
roamed only to find myself right where I belong.

As the portraits are shown, they are occasionally joined by an image of
a Jeep, and the ad closes with these lines:

Within seconds of its showing, the ad had been viewed on YouTube
over 15,000 times. So how do we account for the power of such
advertisements? That would be the work of a rhetorical analysis, the
close, critical reading of a text or, in this case, a video commercial, to
figure out exactly how it functions. Certainly, Iris, the ad agency that
created “Portraits,” counted on the strong emotional appeal of the
photographs, assuming that the faces represented would stir strong
sentiments, along with the lyrical words of the voiceover.

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The ad’s creators pushed the envelope of convention, too, by rejecting
the over-the-top, schmaltzy, or super-cute techniques of other
advertisements and by the muted product connection. As Super Clio
commissioner Rob Reilly put it, “I liked the restraint it showed for the
Super Bowl, to not use the typical tricks. Jeep could have easily shown
driving footage . . . but they chose to show very little product and tell a
great story.” Another Clio juror found that the ad “credits people with
intelligence and asks you to decode it.” (For more information on
analyzing images, see Chapter 14.)

Rhetorical analysis and critical reading also probe the contexts that
surround any argument or text — its impact on a society, its deeper
implications, or even what it lacks or whom it excludes. Predictably,
the widely admired Jeep commercial found its share of critics. In a
review of the ad for Wired, Jenna Garrett helps viewers understand
some of the choices made by the advertisers, such as the decision to
show the ad in portrait format (and thus using only a third of the TV
screen) in recognition that many would be watching on cell phones and
tablets (indeed, she reports, the ad looks very fine on those devices).
But she then turns to faults she finds with the ad:

Some of the photos are legitimately great, taken by the likes of
celebrity photographer Martin Schoeller. But others look like
vacation snapshots, and many of the Jeep images were “fan
photos” taken by people doing, well, whatever. Although the
photos make the point that Jeep has been everywhere and
loved by everyone, the ad doesn’t feel cohesive. The pictures of
Terminator and T-rex, for example, were jarring, particularly

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the Terminator’s red eyes (the only splash of color in the
entire ad). And speaking from a strictly technical perspective,
the photos are all over the map in terms of contrast, and some
of the crops are entirely too tight.

— Jenna Garrett, “Why Jeep’s $10M Super Bowl Ad Only
Used a Third of the Screen”

Other reviewers found the advertisement over-sentimental, even
saccharine; still others noted some lack of diversity.

Whenever you undertake a rhetorical analysis, do what these reviewers
did: read (and view) critically, noting every detail and asking yourself
how those details affect the audience, how they build agreement or
adherence to the argument — or how they do not do so. And ask plenty
of questions: Why does an ad for a cell phone or breakfast sandwich
make people want one immediately? How does an op-ed piece in the
Washington Post suddenly change your long-held position on
immigration? Critical reading and rhetorical analysis can help you
understand and answer these questions. Dig as deep as you can into the
context of the item you are analyzing, especially when you encounter
puzzling, troubling, or unusually successful appeals — ethical,
emotional, or logical. Ask yourself what strategies a speech, editorial,
opinion column, film, or ad uses to move your heart, win your trust,
and change your mind — or why, maybe, it fails to do so.

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Composing a Rhetorical
Analysis: Reading and
Viewing Critically
You perform a rhetorical analysis by analyzing how well the
components of an argument work together to persuade or move an
audience. You can study arguments of any kind — advertisements (as
we’ve seen), Web sites, editorials, political cartoons, and even songs,
movies, photographs, buildings, or shopping malls. In every case,
you’ll need to focus your rhetorical analysis on elements that stand out
or make the piece intriguing or problematic. You could begin by
exploring some of the following issues:

What is the purpose of this argument? What does it hope to
achieve?
Who is the audience for this argument? Who is ignored or
excluded?
What appeals or techniques does the argument use — emotional,
logical, ethical?
What type of argument is it, and how does the genre affect the
argument? (You might challenge the lack of evidence in editorials,
but you wouldn’t make the same complaint about bumper
stickers.)
Who is making the argument? What ethos does it create, and how
does it do so? What values does the ethos evoke? How does it
make the writer or creator seem trustworthy?
What authorities does the argument rely on or appeal to?

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What facts, reasoning, and evidence are used in the argument?
How are they presented?
Can you detect the use of misinformation, disinformation, “fake”
news, or outright lies?
What claims does the argument make? What issues are raised —
or ignored or evaded?
What are the contexts — social, political, historical, cultural — for
this argument? Whose interests does it serve? Who gains or loses
by it?
Can you identify fallacies in the argument — emotional, ethical,
or logical? (See Chapter 5.)
How is the argument organized or arranged? What media does the
argument use and how effectively?
How does the language and style of the argument work to
persuade an audience?

In answering questions like these, try to show how the key devices in
an argument actually make it succeed or fail. Quote freely from a
written piece, or describe the elements in a visual argument.
(Annotating a visual text is one option.) Let readers know where and
why an argument makes sense and where it falls apart. If you believe
that an argument startles, challenges, insults, or lulls audiences, explain
why that is the case and provide evidence. Don’t be surprised when
your rhetorical analysis itself becomes an argument. That’s what it
should be.

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Understanding the
Purpose of Arguments
You Are Analyzing
To understand how well any argument works, begin with its purpose:
Is it to sell running shoes? To advocate for limits to college tuition? To
push a political agenda? In many cases, that purpose may be obvious.
A conservative blog will likely advance right-wing causes; ads from a
baby food company will likely show happy infants delighted with
stewed prunes.

But some projects may hide their persuasive intentions. Perhaps you’ve
responded to a mail survey or telephone poll only to discover that the
questions are leading you to switch your cable service or buy
apartment insurance. Do such stealthy arguments succeed? Do
consumers resent the intrusion? Answering questions like these
provides material for useful rhetorical analyses that assess the
strengths, risks, and ethics of such strategies.

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Understanding Who
Makes an Argument
Knowing who is claiming what is key to any rhetorical analysis. That’s
why persuasive appeals usually have a name attached to them.
Remember the statements included in TV ads during the last federal
election: “Hello, I’m X — and I approve this ad”? Federal law requires
such statements so we can tell the difference between ads a candidate
endorses and ones sponsored by groups not even affiliated with the
campaigns. Their interests and motives might be very different.

Senator Elizabeth Warren endorsing Kamala Harris, who won the 2016 race to
replace long-time California senator Barbara Boxer

But knowing a name is just a starting place for analysis. You need to
dig deeper, and you could do worse than to Google such people or
groups to discover more about them. What else have they produced?
Who publishes them: the Wall Street Journal, the blog The Daily Kos,
or even a Live-Journal celebrity gossip site such as Oh No They
Didn’t? Check out related Web sites for information about goals,

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policies, contributors, and funding.

RESPOND●
Describe a persuasive moment that you can recall from a speech, an

editorial, an advertisement, a YouTube clip, or a blog posting. Or

research one of the following famous persuasive moments and

describe the circumstances—the historical situation, the issues at

stake, the purpose of the argument—that make it so memorable.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments at the

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

Chief Tecumseh’s address to General William Henry Harrison

(1810)

Winston Churchill’s radio addresses to the British people during

World War II (1940)

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963)

Ronald Reagan’s tribute to the Challenger astronauts (1986)

Toni Morrison’s speech accepting the Nobel Prize (1993)

Former President Obama’s eulogy in memory of the

worshippers killed at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston

(2015)

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Sara Morrison’s report “Covering the Transgender Community”
has a clear audience: journalists and others interested in how
transgender individuals are represented in the media.

LINK TO Morrison, “Covering the Transgender Community,” in
Chapter 23

Identifying and Appealing
to Audiences

Most arguments are composed with specific audiences in mind, and
their success depends, in part, on how well their strategies, content,
tone, and language meet the expectations of that audience. So your
rhetorical analysis of an argumentative piece should identify its target
readers or viewers (see Appealing to Audiences in Chapter 1) if
possible, or make an educated guess about the audience, since most
arguments suggest whom they intend to reach and in what ways.

Both a flyer stapled to a bulletin board in a college dorm (“Why you
shouldn’t drink and drive”) and a forty-foot billboard for Bud Light
might be aimed at the same general population — college students. But
each will adjust its appeals for the different moods of that group in
different moments. For starters, the flyer will appeal to students in a
serious vein, while the beer ad will probably be visually stunning and
virtually text-free.

You might also examine how a writer or an argument establishes

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credibility with an audience. One effective means of building
credibility is to show respect for your readers or viewers, especially if
they may not agree with you. In introducing an article on problems
facing African American women in the workplace, editor-in-chief of
Essence Diane Weathers considers the problems that she faced with
respecting all her potential readers:

We spent more than a minute agonizing over the provocative
cover line for our feature “White Women at Work.” The
countless stories we had heard from women across the
country told us that this was a workplace issue we had to
address. From my own experience at several major
magazines, it was painfully obvious to me that Black and
White women are not on the same track. Sure, we might all
start out in the same place. But early in the game, most sisters
I know become stuck — and the reasons have little to do with
intelligence or drive. At some point we bump our heads
against that ceiling. And while White women may complain of
a glass ceiling, for us, the ceiling is concrete.

So how do we tell this story without sounding whiny and
paranoid, or turning off our White-female readers, staff
members, advertisers and girlfriends? Our solution: Bring
together real women (several of them highly successful senior
corporate executives), put them in a room, promise them
anonymity and let them speak their truth.

— Diane Weathers, “Speaking Our Truth”

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Retailers like Walmart build their credibility by simple “straight talk” to
shoppers: we always have low prices. Here the use of red, white, and blue says
“we’re all-American,” while the simple layout and direct statement (a promise,
really) say they are talking the talk as well as walking the walk.

Both paragraphs affirm Weathers’s determination to treat audiences
fairly and to deal honestly with a difficult subject. The strategy would
merit attention in any rhetorical analysis.

Look, too, for signals that writers share values with readers or at least
understand an audience. In the following passage, writer Jack Solomon
is clear about one value that he hopes readers have in common — a
preference for “straight talk”:

There are some signs in the advertising world that Americans
are getting fed up with fantasy advertisements and want to
hear some straight talk. Weary of extravagant product claims
. . . , consumers trained by years of advertising to distrust
what they hear seem to be developing an immunity to
commercials.

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— Jack Solomon, “Masters of Desire: The Culture of
American Advertising”

But straight talk still requires common sense. If ever a major television
ad seriously misread its audience, it may have been a spot that ran
during the 2014 Winter Olympics for Cadillac’s pricey new plug-in
hybrid, the ELR. The company seemed to go out of its way to offend a
great many people, foreign and domestic. As is typical strategy in
rhetorical analyses, Huffington Post’s Carolyn Gregoire takes care to
describe in detail the item she finds offensive — a shot of a man
overlooking the pool in his backyard and asking why we work so hard,
“For this? For stuff?”:

[I]t becomes clear that the answer to this rhetorical question is
actually a big fat YES. And it gets worse. “Other countries,
they work,” he says. “They stroll home. They stop by the cafe.
They take August off. Off.”

Then he reveals just what it is that makes Americans better
than all those lazy, espresso-sipping foreigners.

“Why aren’t you like that?” he says. “Why aren’t we like
that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hard-working believers,
that’s why.”

— Carolyn Gregoire, “Cadillac Made a Commercial about
the American Dream, and It’s a Nightmare”

Her conclusion then is blistering, showing how readily a rhetorical

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analysis becomes an argument — and subject to criticism itself:

Cadillacs have long been a quintessentially American symbol
of wealth and status. But as this commercial proves, no
amount of wealth or status is a guarantee of good taste. Now,
the luxury car company is selling a vision of the American
Dream at its worst: Work yourself into the ground, take as
little time off as possible, and buy expensive sh*t (specifically,
a 2014 Cadillac ELR).

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Examining Arguments
Based on Emotion: Pathos
Some emotional appeals are just ploys to win over readers with a pretty
face, figurative or real. You’ve seen ads promising an exciting life and
attractive friends if only you drink the right soda or wear a particular
brand of clothes. Are you fooled by such claims? Probably not, if you
pause to think about them. But that’s the strategy — to distract you
from thought just long enough to make a bad choice. It’s a move worth
commenting on in a rhetorical analysis.

Yet emotions can add real muscle to arguments, too, and that’s worth
noting. For example, persuading people not to drink and drive by
making them fear death, injury, or arrest seems like a fair use of an
emotional appeal. Public service announcements often use emotion-
laden images to remind drivers to think of the consequences.

In analyzing emotional appeals, judge whether the emotions raised —
anger, sympathy, fear, envy, joy, love, lust — advance the claims
offered. Look, for example, at these photographs of protests in
Charlottesville, Virginia, over the possible removal of a statue of
General Robert E. Lee.

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This photo shows proud members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, some carrying Confederate flags. What emotions do you think these
protesters wanted to appeal to? What emotions does the photo stir in you?

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Or how about this photo, from the same rally, showing counterprotesters: again,
what emotions are being appealed to? How effective do you find either of these
photos in appealing to your emotions?

The August 2017 rally in Charlottesville stirred emotions across the
country, as ordinary people, commentators, and politicians weighed in
on issues of white supremacy, neo-Nazism, fascism, race-based hatred,
and bigotry. President Trump at first suggested that there was plenty of
blame on “all sides,” but later adjusted that statement when many
accused him of drawing a false equivalency between those advocating
for Nazism and those who were protesting against it.

But arguments that appeal to emotions don’t have to be as highly
charged — and dangerous — as the Charlottesville event was.
Consider, for example, how columnist Ron Rosenbaum makes the
reasonable argument he offers for fatty foods all the more attractive by
loading it with emotional language:

The foods that best hit that sweet spot and “overwhelm the
brain” with pleasure are high-quality fatty foods. They
discourage us from overeating. A modest serving of short ribs
or Peking duck will be both deeply pleasurable and self-
limiting. As the brain swoons into insensate delight, you won’t
have to gorge a still-craving cortex with mediocre sensations.
“Sensory-specific satiety” makes a slam-dunk case (it’s
science!) for eating reasonable servings of superbly satisfying
fatty foods.

— Ron Rosenbaum, “Let Them Eat Fat”

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Does the use of evocative language (“swoons,” “insensate delight,”
“superbly satisfying,” “slam-dunk”) convince you, or does it distract
from considering the scientific case for “sensory-specific satiety”?
Your task in a rhetorical analysis is to study an author’s words, the
emotions they evoke, and the claims they support and then to make this
kind of judgment.

Short ribs: health food? Who does this photo appeal to — and who might it turn
off?

RESPOND●
Browse YouTube or another Web site to find an example of a

powerful emotional argument that’s made visually, either alone or

using words as well. In a paragraph, defend a claim about how the

argument works. For example, does an image itself make a claim, or

does it draw you in to consider a verbal claim? What emotion does

the argument generate? How does that emotion work to persuade

you?

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Examining Arguments
Based on Character: Ethos
It should come as no surprise: readers believe writers who seem honest,
wise, and trustworthy. So in analyzing the effectiveness of an
argument, look for evidence of these traits. Does the writer have the
experience or authority to write on this subject? Are all claims
qualified reasonably? Is evidence presented in full, not tailored to the
writer’s agenda? Are important objections to the author’s position
acknowledged and addressed? Are sources documented? Above all,
does the writer sound trustworthy?

When a Norwegian anti-immigration extremist killed seventy-six
innocent people in July 2011, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg
addressed the citizens of Norway (and the world), and in doing so
evoked the character or ethos of the entire nation:

We will not let fear break us! The warmth of response from
people in Norway and from the whole world makes me sure of
this one thing: evil can kill a single person, but never defeat a
whole people. The strongest weapon in the world — that is
freedom of expression and democracy.

In analyzing this speech, you would do well to look at the way this
passage deploys the deepest values of Norway — freedom of
expression and democracy — to serve as a response to fear of
terrorism. In doing so, Stoltenberg evokes ethical ideals to hold onto in
a time of tragedy.

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Or take a look at the following paragraph from a blog posting by
Timothy Burke, a teacher at Swarthmore College and parent of a
preschool child who is trying to think through the issue of homework
for elementary school kids:

In considering the role of ethos in rhetorical analyses, pay attention to
the details right down to the choice of words or, in an image, the
shapes and colors. The modest, tentative tone that Burke uses in his

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blog is an example of the kind of choice that can shape an audience’s
perception of ethos. But these details need your interpretation.
Language that’s hot and extreme can mark a writer as either passionate
or loony. Work that’s sober and carefully organized can paint an
institution as competent or overly cautious. Technical terms and
abstract phrases can make a writer seem either knowledgeable or
pompous.

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Examining Arguments
Based on Facts and
Reason: Logos
In analyzing most arguments, you’ll have to decide whether an
argument makes a plausible claim and offers good reasons for you to
believe it. Not all arguments will package such claims in a single neat
sentence, or thesis — nor should they. A writer may tell a story from
which you have to infer the claim. Visual arguments may work the
same way: viewers have to assemble the parts and draw inferences in
order to get the point. Take a look, for instance, at this advertisement
for GEICO insurance:

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This ad draws attention with a snappy photo of a large silver watch and
a headline: “That watch won’t pay for itself.” The smaller text below
mentions other luxury items consumers may covet: designer aviators,
for example, that don’t “come cheap.” Then the logical shift: if you
want luxury things you would do well to save money. And how to save
money? “So switch to GEICO and save money for the things you
love.” There’s an implied syllogism here:

You need to save money so you can afford the things you love.

GEICO will help you save money.

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GEICO will help you afford the things you love.

But a little critical thinking can lead you to question each of these
implied premises. Is the reason to save money really to buy luxury
items? Just exactly how will GEICO help you save money? How much
is your current insurance and how does that compare to the cost of
GEICO? Maybe GEICO does offer a very good deal on insurance, but
you’ll need to do some more research to assure yourself of that fact.
(For more on analyzing visual images, see Chapter 14.)

Some print arguments (like those on an editorial page) may be
perfectly obvious: writers stake out a claim and then present reasons
that you should consider, or they may first present reasons and lay out
a case that leads you to accept a claim in the conclusion. Consider the
following example. In a tough opinion piece in Time, political
commentator John McWhorter argues that filmmaker Spike Lee is
being racist when he rails against hipsters moving into Fort Greene, a
formerly all-black neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Lee fears
that the whites are raising housing prices, pushing out old-time
residents and diminishing the African American character of Fort
Greene. McWhorter, an African American like Lee, sees matters
differently:

Basically, black people are getting paid more money than
they’ve ever seen in their lives for their houses, and a once
sketchy neighborhood is now quiet and pleasant. And this is a
bad thing . . . why?

Lee seems to think it’s somehow an injustice whenever black

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See another argument on race by John McWhorter, this time on
what it means when we say someone “sounds black” or “sounds
white.”

LINK TO McWhorter, “Thick of Tongue,” in Chapter 25

people pick up stakes. But I doubt many of the blacks now set
to pass fat inheritances on to their kids feel that way. This is
not the old story of poor blacks being pushed out of
neighborhoods razed down for highway construction. Lee
isn’t making sense.

— John McWhorter, “Spike Lee’s Racism Isn’t Cute”

When you encounter explicit charges like these, you analyze whether
and how the claims are supported by good reasons and reliable
evidence. A lengthy essay may, in fact, contain a series of claims, each
developed to support an even larger point. Here’s McWhorter, for
instance, expanding his argument by suggesting that Lee’s attitudes
toward whites are irreconcilable.

“Respect the culture” when you move in, Lee growls. But
again, he isn’t making sense. We can be quite sure that if
whites “respected” the culture by trying to participate in it,
Lee would be one of the first in line to call it “appropriation.”
So, no whites better open up barbecue joints or spoken word
cafes or try to be rappers. Yet if whites walk on by the culture
in “respectful” silence, then the word on the street becomes

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that they want to keep blacks at a distance.

An anti-fur protestor in London makes a rather specific claim.

Indeed, every paragraph in an argument may develop a specific and
related idea. In a rhetorical analysis, you need to identify all these
separate propositions and examine the relationships among them: Are
they solidly linked? Are there inconsistencies that the writer should
acknowledge? Does the end of the piece support what the writer said
(and promised) at the beginning?

You’ll also need to examine the quality of the information presented in
an argument, assessing how accurately such information is reported,
how conveniently it’s displayed (in charts or graphs, for example), and

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Historian Catherine Nolan-Ferrell asks us to confront the value of
logos when she asks, “How do we navigate a world where many in
society have lost trust in shared data?”

LINK TO Nolan-Ferrell, “Balancing Classroom Civility and Free
Speech,” in Chapter 27

how well the sources cited represent a range of respected opinions on a
topic. (For more information on the use of evidence, see Chapter 4.)

Knowing how to judge the quality of sources is more important now
than ever before because the digital universe is full of junk. In some
ways, the computer terminal has become the equivalent of a library
reference room, but the sources available online vary widely in quality
and have not been evaluated by a library professional. As a
consequence, you must know the difference between reliable,
firsthand, or fully documented sources and those that don’t meet such
standards. (For using and documenting sources, see Chapters 19, 20,
and 22.)

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Examining the
Arrangement and Media
of Arguments
Aristotle carved the structure of logical argument to its bare bones
when he observed that it had only two parts:

statement
proof

You could do worse, in examining an argument, than to make sure that
every claim a writer makes is backed by sufficient evidence. Some
arguments are written on the fly in the heat of the moment. Most
arguments that you read and write, however, will be more than mere
statements followed by proofs. Some writers will lay their cards on the
table immediately; others may lead you carefully through a chain of
claims toward a conclusion. Writers may even interrupt their
arguments to offer background information or cultural contexts for
readers. Sometimes they’ll tell stories or provide anecdotes that make
an argumentative point. They’ll qualify the arguments they make, too,
and often pause to admit that other points of view are plausible.

In other words, there are no set formulas or acceptable patterns that fit
all successful arguments. In writing a rhetorical analysis, you’ll have to
assess the organization of a persuasive text on its own merits.

It’s fair, however, to complain about what may be absent from an

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argument. Most arguments of proposal (see Chapter 12), for example,
include a section that defends the feasibility of a new idea, explaining
how it might be funded or managed. In a rhetorical analysis, you might
fault an editorial that supports a new stadium for a city without
addressing feasibility issues. Similarly, analyzing a movie review that
reads like an off-the-top-of-the-head opinion, you might legitimately
ask what criteria of evaluation are in play (see Chapter 10).

Rhetorical analysis also calls for you to look carefully at an argument’s
transitions, headings and subheadings, documentation of sources, and
overall tone or voice. Don’t take such details for granted, since all of
them contribute to the strength — or weakness — of an argument.

Nor should you ignore the way a writer or an institution uses media.
Would an argument originally made in a print editorial, for instance,
work better as a digital presentation (or vice versa)? Would a lengthy
essay have more power if it included more illustrations — graphs,
maps, photographs, and so on? Or do these images distract from a
written argument’s substance?

Finally, be open to the possibility of new or nontraditional structures of
arguments. The visual arguments that you analyze may defy
conventional principles of logic or arrangement — for example,
making juxtapositions rather than logical transitions between elements
or using quick cuts, fades, or other devices to link ideas. Quite often,
these nontraditional structures will also resist the neatness of a thesis,
leaving readers to construct at least a part of the argument in their
heads. As we saw with the “Portraits” Jeep spot at the beginning of this

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chapter, advertisers are growing fond of soft-sell multimedia
productions that can seem like something other than what they really
are — product pitches. We may be asked not just to buy a product but
also to live its lifestyle or embrace its ethos. Is that a reasonable or
workable strategy for an argument? Your analysis might entertain such
possibilities.

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Looking at Style
Even a coherent argument full of sound evidence may not connect with
readers if it’s dull, off-key, or offensive. Readers naturally judge the
credibility of arguments in part by how stylishly the case is made —
even when they don’t know exactly what style is (for more on style,
see Chapter 13). In fact, today rhetoricians and media critics alike point
out the crucial importance of style in getting and holding attention in a
time when readers are drowning in an overload of information.

Consider how these simple, blunt sentences from the opening of an
argument for gun control shape your image of the author and probably
determine whether you’re willing to continue to read the whole piece:

Six minutes and about twenty seconds. In a little over six
minutes, seventeen of our friends were taken from us. Fifteen
were injured, and everyone — absolutely everyone — in [our]
community was forever altered. Everyone who was there
understands. Everyone who has been touched by the cold grip
of gun violence understands.

— Emma Gonzalez, speech delivered at March for Our Lives
on March 24, 2018

The strong, straightforward tone, the drum-beat use of repetition, and
the stark evocation of just how little time it took to take the lives of
seventeen high school students and staff set the style for this speech,
which led to six minutes of silence and then to prolonged, and loud,
applause and cheers.

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Now consider the brutally sarcastic tone of Nathaniel Stein’s hilarious
parody of the Harvard grading policy, a piece he wrote following up on
a professor’s complaint of out-of-control grade inflation at the school.
Stein borrows the formal language of a typical “grading standards”
sheet to mock the decline in rigor that the professor has lamented:

The A+ grade is used only in very rare instances for the
recognition of truly exceptional achievement.

For example: A term paper receiving the A+ is virtually
indistinguishable from the work of a professional, both in its
choice of paper stock and its font. The student’s command of
the topic is expert, or at the very least intermediate, or
beginner. Nearly every single word in the paper is spelled
correctly; those that are not can be reasoned out phonetically
within minutes. Content from Wikipedia is integrated with
precision. The paper contains few, if any, death threats. . . .

An overall course grade of A+ is reserved for those students
who have not only demonstrated outstanding achievement in
coursework but have also asked very nicely.

Finally, the A+ grade is awarded to all collages, dioramas and
other art projects.

— Nathaniel Stein, “Leaked! Harvard’s Grading Rubric”

Both styles probably work, but they signal that the writers are about to
make very different kinds of cases. Here, style alone tells readers what

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to expect.

Manipulating style also enables writers to shape readers’ responses to
their ideas. Devices as simple as repetition, parallelism, or even
paragraph length can give sentences remarkable power. Consider this
brief announcement by Jason Collins, who played for the Washington
Wizards:

I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.

I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a
major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to
start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom
raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way,
someone else would have already done this. Nobody has,
which is why I’m raising my hand.

— Jason Collins, Sports Illustrated, May 6, 2013

In this passage, Collins opens with three very short, very direct, and
roughly parallel sentences. He also uses repetition of first-person
pronouns to hammer home that he is claiming his own identity with
this statement. Doing so invites readers and listeners to listen to his
experience and to walk in his shoes, even for a brief time.

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Jason Collins

In a rhetorical analysis, you can explore such stylistic choices. Why
does a formal style work for discussing one type of subject matter but
not another? How does a writer use humor or irony to underscore an
important point or to manage a difficult concession? Do stylistic
choices, even something as simple as the use of contractions or
personal pronouns, bring readers close to a writer, or do technical
words and an impersonal voice signal that an argument is for experts
only?

To describe the stylistic effects of visual arguments, you may use a
different vocabulary and talk about colors, camera angles, editing,
balance, proportion, fonts, perspective, and so on. But the basic
principle is this: the look of an item — whether a poster, an editorial
cartoon, or a film documentary — can support the message that it

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carries, undermine it, or muddle it. In some cases, the look will be the
message. In a rhetorical analysis, you can’t ignore style.

Here’s an award-winning poster for Beauty and the Beast, praised by critics for
its stylistic elegance. As a commentator for DigitalSpy put it, “So chic. So stylish.
So yellow.”

A rhetorical analysis would note that the bright yellow dress and title
evoke the sun as the image of Beauty dominates the middle of the
image, while the beast’s profile is superimposed on a full moon. Here
the simplicity, vivid color, and careful juxtaposition suggest that these
two are made for each other. (For more on analyzing visual images, see
Chapter 14.)

RESPOND●
Find a recent example of a visual argument, either in print or on the

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Internet. Even though you may have a copy of the image, describe it

carefully in your paper on the assumption that your description is all

readers may have to go on. Then make a judgment about its

effectiveness, supporting your claim with clear evidence from the

“text.”

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Examining a Rhetorical
Analysis
On the following pages, well-known New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof reports on his family’s annual vacation, when they
“run away to the mountains.” He argues that we are plagued by “nature
deficit disorder,” that we have lost our connection with the wilderness,
with the land that supports us, and that we must do our best to preserve
and protect the “natural splendor that no billionaire is allowed to fence
off.” Responding to Kristof’s argument with a careful critical reading
and detailed rhetorical analysis is Cameron Hauer, a student at Portland
State University.

Fleeing to the Mountains

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL, NORTHWEST
OF TRUCKEE, Calif. —

This will make me sound grouchy and misanthropic,
but I sometimes wonder if what makes America great
isn’t so much its people as its trees and mountains.

In contrast to many advanced countries, we have a vast
and spectacular publicly owned wilderness, mostly free and available
to all. In an age of inequality, the affluent have gated neighborhoods,
private schools, backup generators and greater influence on elected
officials. But our most awe-inspiring wild places have remained largely

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a public good to be shared by all, a bastion of equality.

My family and I have been backpacking on the Pacific Crest Trail
through the Sierras north of Donner Pass, enjoying magnificent
splendor that no billionaire is allowed to fence off. We all have equal
access, at no charge: If you can hold your own against mosquitoes and
bears, the spot is yours for the night.

Yet these public lands are at risk today. More on that in a moment, but
first let me tell you about the Kristofs’ grand vacation. As we do each
summer, we ran away from home to the mountains. We escaped the
tether of email and cellphones, the tyranny of the inbox, and fled with
everything we needed on our backs.

We’re yanked back to a simple life. We sleep under the stars rather
than in a tent; if it rains we pull out a tarp to keep dry. Dawn wakes us
up, we roll up our sleeping bags and plastic ground sheet, wolf down
trail mix or granola bars and start down the path. We fill our water
bottles at passing streams, stop for rest and meals wherever we fancy,
chat as we walk, and when dusk comes we look for a flat spot, kick
aside any rocks and branches and unroll our ground sheet and sleeping
bags again.

Granted, we also moan about blisters. And marauding mosquitoes. And
the heat — or, sometimes, the cold. We whine a lot, but that builds
family solidarity.

This is also a spiritual experience: It’s a chance to share a reverence for
the ethereal scenery of America’s wild places. The wilderness is

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nature’s cathedral, and it’s a thrill to worship here.

The march of civilization has been about distancing ourselves from the
raw power of nature. At home, we move the thermostat up or down by
a degree, and we absorb the idea that we are lords of the universe. On
the trail, we are either sweating or freezing, and it always feels as if the
path is mainly uphill. Nature mocks us, usefully reminding us who’s
boss.

If your kids are suffering from what the writer Richard Louv calls
nature-deficit disorder, I recommend that you all run away from home
together. Flee to the mountains. It’s heaven with blisters.

There are often charges to enter much-trafficked spots like
Yellowstone or Yosemite, but the wilderness is mostly free to hikers.

This is our collective patrimony, a tribute to the wisdom of Theodore

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Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and other visionaries who preserved our
wild places for the future. Thank God for them. Otherwise, these lands
might have been carved up and sold off as ranches for the rich.

Because of the foresight of past generations, the federal government
owns one million square miles, an area three times the size of
California, Oregon and Washington combined. Much of this is
unspoiled, our inheritance and our shared playground.

Yet today, President Trump sees this heritage as an opportunity for
development. More aggressively than past administrations, Trump’s is
systematically handing over America’s public lands for private
exploitation in ways that will scar the land forever.

The Trump administration lifted a moratorium on new coal mining
leases on public land, it is drawing up plans to reduce wilderness
protected as national monuments and it is rapidly opening up additional
public lands to coal mining and oil and gas drilling.

A second challenge comes from our paralysis in the face of climate
change, compounded by the Trump administration, and the risks this
creates to our wilderness. A warmer climate has led to droughts and to
the 20-year spread of the mountain pine beetle, and a result is the death
of vast swaths of Western forests. Last year, 62 million trees died in
California alone, the Forest Service says, and in Oregon and
Washington I’ve watched forests turn brown and sickly. In parts of
Wyoming and Colorado, the pine beetle has killed almost all the
mature lodgepole pine trees, and it’s arguably even worse in British
Columbia.

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The third risk is from gradual degradation and chronic underfunding.
Even before Trump took office, wilderness trails and campgrounds
were in embarrassing disrepair. How is it that we could afford to
construct these trails 80 years ago in the Great Depression but cannot
manage even to maintain them today?

When public lands are lost — or mined in ways that scar the landscape
— something has been lost forever on our watch. A public good has
been privatized, and our descendants have been robbed.

To promote an understanding of what is being lost, I encourage
everyone to run away from home as well. Flee to the mountains,
deserts and babbling brooks to get in touch with wild spaces, to find
perspective and humility. The wilderness nourishes our souls, if we let
it.

Appeal, Audience, and Narrative in Kristof’s Wilderness

CAMERON HAUER

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Cameron Hauer is a student at Portland State University, where he is majoring in
Applied Linguistics, having returned to school after a decade spent cooking in fine
dining establishments in the Pacific Northwest.

GUIDE to writing a rhetorical analysis

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Finding a Topic

A rhetorical analysis is usually assigned: you’re asked to show how an
argument works and to assess its effectiveness. When you can choose
your own subject for analysis, look for one or more of the following
qualities:

a complex verbal or visual argument that challenges you — or
disturbs or pleases you
a text that raises current or enduring issues of substance
a text that you believe should be taken more seriously

Look for arguments to analyze in the editorial and op-ed pages of any
newspaper, political magazines such as the Nation or National Review,
Web sites of organizations and interest groups, political blogs such as
Huffington Post or Power Line, corporate Web sites that post their TV ad
spots, videos and statements posted to YouTube, and so on.

Researching Your Topic

Once you’ve got a text to analyze, find out all you can about it. Use
library or Web resources to explore:

who the author is and what his or her credentials are
if the author is an institution, what it does, what its sources of
funding are, who its members are, and so on
who is publishing or sponsoring the piece and what the
organization typically publishes
what the leanings or biases of the author and publisher might be,
where they are coming from in the argument, and what influences
may have led them to make the argument
what the context of the argument is — what preceded or provoked
it and how others have responded to it

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Formulating a Claim

Begin with a hypothesis. A full thesis might not become evident until
you’re well into your analysis, but your final thesis should reflect the
complexity of the piece that you’re studying. In developing a thesis,
consider questions such as the following:

What is the major claim of the argument? What evidence is
presented in support of it?
How can I describe what this argument achieves?
What is the purpose, and is it accomplished?
What audiences does the argument address and what audiences
does it ignore, and why?
Which rhetorical appeals does the argument make use of and
which will likely influence readers most: ethos of the author?
emotional appeals? logical progression? style, use of images or
other illustrations? What aspects of the argument work better
than others?
How do the rhetorical elements of ethos, pathos, and logos
interact?

Here’s the hardest part for most writers of rhetorical analyses: whether
you agree or disagree with an argument should not keep you from
careful, meticulous analysis: you need to stay out of the fray and pay
attention only to how — and to how well — the argument works.

Examples of Possible Claims for a Rhetorical Analysis

Some people admire the directness and plain talking of Donald
Trump; others are put off by his lack of information, his tendency
to stretch or ignore the truth, and his noisy bluster. A close look at
several of his tweets and public appearances will illuminate both
sides of this debate.

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Today’s editorial in the Daily Collegian about campus crimes may
scare first-year students, but its anecdotal reporting doesn’t get
down to hard numbers — and for a good reason. Those statistics
don’t back the position taken by the editors.
The imageboard 4chan has been called an “Internet hate
machine,” yet others claim it as a great boon to creativity. A close
analysis of its home-page can help to settle this debate.
The original design of New York’s Freedom Tower, with its torqued
surfaces and evocative spire, made a stronger argument about
American values than its replacement, a fortress-like skyscraper
stripped of imagination and unable to make any statement except
“I’m 1,776 feet tall.”
The controversy over speech on campuses has reached a fever
pitch, with some arguing that those who spout hate and bigotry
and prejudice should be barred from speaking.

Preparing a Proposal

If your instructor asks you to prepare a proposal for your rhetorical
analysis, here’s a format you might use:

Provide a copy of the work you’re analyzing, whether it’s a print
text, a photograph, a digital image, or a URL, for instance.
Offer a working hypothesis or tentative thesis.
Indicate which rhetorical components seem especially compelling
and worthy of detailed study and any connections between
elements. For example, does the piece seem to emphasize facts
and logic so much that it becomes disconnected from potential
audiences? If so, hint at that possibility in your proposal.
Indicate background information you intend to research about
the author, institution, and contexts (political, economic, social,
and religious) of the argument.
Define the audience you’d like to reach. If you’re responding to an

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assignment, you may be writing primarily for a teacher and
classmates. But they make up a complex audience in themselves.
If you can do so within the spirit of the assignment, imagine that
your analysis will be published in a local newspaper, Web site, or
blog.
Conclude by briefly discussing the key challenges you anticipate
in preparing a rhetorical analysis.

Considering Genre and Media

Your instructor may specify that you use a particular genre and/or
medium. If not, ask yourself these questions to help you make a good
choice:

What genre is most appropriate for your rhetorical analysis? Does
it call for an academic essay, a report, an infographic, a poster,
brochure, or something else?
What medium is most appropriate for your analysis? Would it be
best delivered orally to a live audience? Presented as an audio
essay or podcast? Presented in print only or in print with
illustrations?
Will you need visuals, such as moving or still images, maps,
graphs, charts — and what function will they play in your analysis?
Make sure they are not just “added on” but are necessary
components of the analysis.

Thinking about Organization

Your rhetorical analysis is likely to include the following:

Facts about the text you’re analyzing: provide the author’s name;
the title or name of the work; its place of publication or its

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location; the date it was published or viewed.
Evidence that you have read the argument carefully and critically,
that you have listened closely to and understand the points it is
making, and that you have been open and fair in your assessment.
Contexts for the argument: readers need to know where the text is
coming from, to what it may be responding, in what controversies
it might be embroiled, and so on. Don’t assume that they can infer
the important contextual elements.
A synopsis of the text that you’re analyzing: if you can’t attach the
original argument, you must summarize it in enough detail so that
a reader can imagine it. Even if you attach a copy of the piece, the
analysis should include a summary.
Some claim about the work’s rhetorical effectiveness: it might be
a simple evaluative claim or something more complex. The claim
can come early in the paper, or you might build up to it, providing
the evidence that leads toward the conclusion you’ve reached.
A detailed analysis of how the argument works: although you’ll
probably analyze rhetorical components separately, don’t let your
analysis become a dull roster of emotional, ethical, and logical
appeals. Your rhetorical analysis should be an argument itself that
supports a claim; a simple list of rhetorical appeals won’t make
much of a point.
Evidence for every point made in your analysis.
An assessment of alternative views and counterarguments to your
own analysis.

Getting and Giving Response: Questions for Peer Response

If you have access to a writing center, discuss the text that you intend
to analyze with a writing consultant before you write the analysis. Try
to find people who agree with the argument and others who disagree,
and take notes on their observations. Your instructor may assign you to

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a peer group for the purpose of reading and responding to one
another’s drafts; if not, share your draft with someone on your own.
You can use the following questions to evaluate a draft. If you’re
evaluating someone else’s draft, be sure to illustrate your points with
examples. Specific comments are always more helpful than general
observations.

The Claim

Does the claim address the rhetorical effectiveness of the
argument itself rather than the opinion or position that it takes?
Is the claim significant enough to interest readers?
Does the claim indicate important relationships between various
rhetorical components?
Would the claim be one that the creator of the piece would regard
as serious criticism?

Evidence for the Claim

Is enough evidence given to support all your claims? What
evidence do you still need?
Is the evidence in support of the claim simply announced, or are
its significance and appropriateness analyzed? Is a more detailed
discussion needed?
Do you use appropriate evidence, drawn from the argument itself
or from other materials?
Do you address objections readers might have to the claim,
criteria, or evidence?
What kinds of sources might you use to explain the context of the
argument? Do you need to use sources to check factual claims
made in the argument?
Are all quotations introduced with appropriate signal phrases (for

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instance, “As Áida Álvarez points out”), and do they merge
smoothly into your sentences?

Organization and Style

How are the parts of the argument organized? How effective is this
organization? Would some other structure work better?
Will readers understand the relationships among the original text,
your claims, your supporting reasons, and the evidence you’ve
gathered (from the original text and any other sources you’ve
used)? If not, what could be done to make those connections
clearer? Are more transitional words and phrases needed? Would
headings or graphic devices help?
Are the transitions or links from point to point, sentence to
sentence, and paragraph to paragraph clear and effective? If not,
how could they be improved?
Is the style suited to the subject and appropriate to your
audience? Is it too formal? Too casual? Too technical? Too bland
or boring?
Which sentences seem particularly effective? Which ones seem
weakest, and how could they be improved? Should some short
sentences be combined, or should any long ones be separated
into two or more sentences?
How effective are the paragraphs? Do any seem too skimpy or too
long? Do they break the analysis at strategic points?
Which words or phrases seem particularly effective, accurate, and
powerful? Do any seem dull, vague, unclear, or inappropriate for
the audience or your purpose? Are definitions provided for
technical or other terms that readers might not know?

Spelling, Punctuation, Mechanics, Documentation, and Format

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Check the spelling of the author’s name, and make sure that the
name of any institution involved with the work is correct. Note
that the names of many corporations and institutions use
distinctive spelling and punctuation.
Check the title of the text you’re analyzing so you’re sure to get it
right.
Look for any errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and
the like.
Check the format of your assignment and make sure it matches
instructions given on your original assignment.

RESPOND●

Find an argument on the editorial page or op-ed page in a recent

newspaper. Read it carefully and critically, taking time to make sure

you understand the claims it is making and the evidence that backs

up the claim. Then analyze it rhetorically, using principles discussed

in this chapter. Show how it succeeds, fails, or does something else

entirely. Perhaps you can show that the author is unusually

successful in connecting with readers but then has nothing to say.

Or perhaps you discover that the strong logical appeal is undercut

by a contradictory emotional argument. Be sure that the analysis

includes a summary of the original essay and basic publication

information about it (its author, place of publication, and

publisher).

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PART 2 WRITING arguments

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CHAPTER 7 Structuring Arguments

These two sets of statements illustrate the most basic ways in which
Western culture structures logical arguments. The first piles up specific
examples and draws a conclusion from them: that’s inductive
reasoning and structure. The second sets out a general principle (the
major premise of a syllogism) and applies it to a specific case (the
minor premise) in order to reach a conclusion: that’s deductive
reasoning and structure. In everyday reasoning, we often omit the
middle statement, resulting in what Aristotle called an enthymeme:
“Since dairy products make me sick, I better leave that ice cream
alone.” (See Using Reason and Common Sense in Chapter 4 for more
on enthymemes.)

But the arguments you will write in college call for more than just the
careful critical thinking offered within inductive and deductive
reasoning. You will also need to make claims, explain the contexts in
which you are offering them, defend the assumptions on which they are
based, offer convincing evidence, appeal to specific audiences,
consider counterarguments fairly and carefully, and more. And you
will have to do so using a coherent structure that moves your argument

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forward. This chapter introduces you to three helpful ways to structure
arguments. Feel free to borrow from all of them!

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The Classical Oration
The authors of this book once examined a series of engineering reports
and found that — to their great surprise — these reports were generally
structured in ways similar to those used by Greek and Roman rhetors
two thousand years ago. Thus, this ancient structuring system is alive
and well in twenty-first-century culture. The classical oration has six
parts, most of which will be familiar to you, despite their Latin names:

Exordium: You try to win the attention and goodwill of an
audience while introducing a topic or problem.

Narratio: You present the facts of the case, explaining what
happened when, who is involved, and so on. The narratio puts
an argument in context.

Partitio: You divide up the topic, explaining what the claim is,
what the key issues are, and in what order they will be
treated.

Confirmatio: You offer detailed support for the claim, using
both logical reasoning and factual evidence.

Refutatio: You carefully consider and respond to opposing
claims or evidence.

Peroratio: You summarize the case and move the audience to
action.

This structure is powerful because it covers all the bases: readers or

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listeners want to know what your topic is, how you intend to cover it,
and what evidence you have to offer. And you probably need a
reminder to present a pleasing ethos when beginning a presentation and
to conclude with enough pathos to win an audience over completely.
Here, in outline form, is a five-part updated version of the classical
pattern, which you may find useful on many occasions:

Introduction

gains readers’ interest and willingness to listen
indicates your qualifications to write about your topic
establishes some common ground with your audience
demonstrates that you’re fair and even-handed
states your claim

Background

presents information, including personal stories or anecdotes
relevant to your argument

Lines of Argument

present good reasons, including logical and emotional appeals, in
support of your claim

Alternative Arguments

carefully consider different points of view and opposing
arguments
note the advantages and disadvantages of these views
explain why your view is preferable to others

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Conclusion

summarizes the argument
elaborates on the implications of your claim
makes clear what you want the audience to think or do
reinforces your credibility and perhaps offers an emotional appeal

Not every piece of rhetoric, past or present, follows the structure of the
oration or includes all its components. But you can identify some of its
elements in successful arguments if you pay attention to their design.
Here are the words of the 1776 Declaration of Independence:

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The authors might have structured this argument by beginning with the

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last two sentences of the excerpt and then listing the facts intended to
prove the king’s abuse and tyranny. But by choosing first to explain the
purpose and “self-evident” assumptions behind their argument and
only then moving on to demonstrate how these “truths” have been
denied by the British, the authors forge an immediate connection with
readers and build up to the memorable conclusion. The structure is
both familiar and inventive — as your own use of key elements of the
oration should be in the arguments you compose.

Notice that John Hancock’s defiant signature on the Declaration of
Independence is still readable in this much reduced image of the original
document.

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Rogerian and Invitational
Arguments
In trying to find an alternative to confrontational and angry arguments
like those that so often erupt in legislative bodies around the world,
scholars and teachers of rhetoric have adapted the nonconfrontational
principles employed by psychologist Carl Rogers in personal therapy
sessions. In simple terms, Rogers argued that people involved in
disputes should not respond to each other until they could fully, fairly,
and even sympathetically state the other person’s position. Scholars of
rhetoric Richard E. Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike
developed a four-part structure that is now known as Rogerian
argument:

1. Introduction: You describe an issue, a problem, or a conflict in
terms rich enough to show that you fully understand and respect
any alternative position or positions.

2. Contexts: You describe the contexts in which alternative positions
may be valid.

3. Writer’s position: You state your position on the issue and
present the circumstances in which that opinion would be valid.

4. Benefits to opponent: You explain to opponents how they would
benefit from adopting your position.

The key to Rogerian argumentation is a willingness to think about
opposing positions and to describe them fairly. In a Rogerian structure,
you have to acknowledge that alternatives to your claims exist and that
they might be reasonable under certain circumstances. In tone,

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Rogerian arguments steer clear of heated and stereotypical language,
emphasizing instead how all parties in a dispute might gain from
working together.

In the same vein, feminist scholars Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin have
outlined a form of argument they label “invitational,” one that begins
with careful attention to and respect for the person or the audience you
are in conversation with. Foss and Griffin show that such listening —
in effect, walking in the other person’s shoes — helps you see that
person’s points of view more clearly and thoroughly and thus offers a
basis for moving together toward new understandings. The kind of
argument they describe is what rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe calls
“rhetorical listening,” as we saw in Chapter 1 — listening that helps to
establish productive connections between people and thus helps enable
effective cross-cultural communications.

Invitational rhetoric has as its goal not winning over opponents but
getting people and groups to work together and identify with each
other; it strives for connection, collaboration, and the mutually
informed creation of knowledge. As feminist scholar Sally Miller
Gearhart puts it, invitational argument offers a way to disagree without
hurting one another, to disagree with respect. This kind of argument is
especially important in a society that increasingly depends on
successful collaboration to get things done. In college, you may have
opportunities to practice invitational rhetoric in peer-review sessions,
when each member of a group listens carefully in order to work
through problems and issues. You may also practice invitational
rhetoric looking at any contested issue from other people’s points of

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view, taking them into account, and engaging them fairly and
respectfully in your own argument. Students we know who are
working in high-tech industries also tell us how much such arguments
are valued, since they fuel innovation and “out of the box” thinking.

Invitational arguments, then, call up structures that more resemble
good two-way conversations or free-ranging dialogues than straight-
line marches from thesis to conclusion. Even conventional arguments
benefit from invitational strategies by giving space early on to a full
range of perspectives, making sure to present them thoroughly and
clearly. Remember that in such arguments your goal is enhanced
understanding so that you can open up a space for new perceptions and
fresh ideas.

Consider how Frederick Douglass tried to broaden the outlook of his
audiences when he delivered a Fourth of July oration in 1852. Most
nineteenth-century Fourth of July speeches followed a pattern of
praising the Revolutionary War heroes and emphasizing freedom,
democracy, and justice. Douglass, a former slave, had that tradition in
mind as he delivered his address, acknowledging the “great principles”
that the “glorious anniversary” celebrates. But he also asked his (white)
listeners to see the occasion from another point of view:

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called
upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent,
to do with your national independence? Are the great
principles of political freedom and natural justice, embodied
in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I,

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Frederick Douglass

therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the
national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout
gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence
to us? . . . I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us.
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!
Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable
distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day,
rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of
justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by

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your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that
brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death
to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may
rejoice, I must mourn.

— Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of
July?”

Although his speech is in some ways confrontational, Douglass is also
inviting his audience to see a version of reality that they could have
discovered on their own had they dared to imagine the lives of African
Americans living in the shadows of American liberty. Issuing that
invitation, and highlighting its consequences, points a way forward in
the conflict between slavery and freedom, black and white, oppression
and justice, although response to Douglass’s invitation was a long time
in coming.

More recently, in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s unexpected
victory in the 2016 presidential election, pundits on the political left
reconsidered strategies that may have distanced many working-class
voters from any appeal Hillary Clinton might have made. Kevin Drum
in Mother Jones offers what amounts to a Rogerian analysis of how
liberal Democrats (like himself) might recapture middle-American
voters who swung to Trump by accepting, not denigrating, their
political values, such as being pro-life or owning a gun for self-
defense:

In the same way that right-wing Republicans need to learn
how to talk about women’s issues, Democrats need to learn

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how to talk about middle America. No more deplorables. No
more clinging to guns and religion. Less swarming over every
tin-eared comment on race.

—Kevin Drum, “Less Liberal Contempt, Please,” May 31,
2017

In finding validity in views held by some of middle America’s
working-class voters, Drum urges his fellow liberals to take the high
road of respect and learn to talk with those with whom they might
share common interests.

The use of invitational argument like this in contemporary political life
may seem rare, but in spite of much evidence to the contrary (think of
brutal clashes on Twitter and cable news shows), the public claims to
prefer nonpartisan and invitational rhetoric to one-on-one, winner-take-
all battles. The lesson to take from Rogerian or invitational argument
may be that it makes good sense to learn opposing positions well
enough to state them accurately and honestly, to strive to understand
the points of view of your opponents, to acknowledge those views
fairly in your own work, and to look for solutions that benefit as many
people as possible.

RESPOND●
Dividing into groups, choose a controversial topic that is frequently

in the news, and decide how you might structure an argument on

the subject, using the general principles of the classical oration.

Then look at the same subject from a Rogerian or invitational

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perspective. How might your argument differ? Which approach

would work better for your topic? For the audiences you might want

to address?

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Toulmin Argument
In The Uses of Argument (1958), British philosopher Stephen Toulmin
presented structures to describe the way that ordinary people make
reasonable arguments. Because Toulmin’s system acknowledges the
complications of life — situations when we qualify our thoughts with
words such as sometimes, often, presumably, unless, and almost — his
method isn’t as airtight as formal logic that uses syllogisms (see
introduction to Chapter 7 and Using Reason and Common Sense in
Chapter 4). But for that reason, Toulmin logic has become a powerful
and, for the most part, practical tool for understanding and shaping
arguments in the real world.

Toulmin argument will help you come up with and test ideas and also
figure out what goes where in many kinds of arguments. Let’s take a
look at the basic elements of Toulmin’s structure:

Claim the argument you wish to prove

Qualifiers any limits you place on your claim

Reason(s)/Evidence support for your claim

Warrants underlying assumptions that support your claim

Backing evidence for warrant

If you wanted to state the relationship among them in a sentence, you
might say:

My claim is true, to a qualified degree, because of the
following reasons, which make sense if you consider the

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warrant, backed by these additional reasons.

These terms — claim, evidence, warrants, backing, and qualifiers —
are the building blocks of the Toulmin argument structure. Let’s take
them one at a time.

Making Claims
Toulmin arguments begin with claims, debatable and controversial
statements or assertions you hope to prove.

A claim answers the question So what’s your point? or Where do you
stand on that? Some writers might like to ignore these questions and
avoid stating a position. But when you make a claim worth writing
about, then it’s worth standing up and owning it.

Is there a danger that you might oversimplify an issue by making too
bold a claim? Of course. But making that sweeping claim is a logical
first step toward eventually saying something more reasonable and
subtle. Here are some fairly simple, undeveloped claims:

Congress should enact legislation that establishes a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

It’s time to treat the opioid addiction in the United States as a
medical crisis.

NASA should affirm its commitment to a human expedition to
Mars.

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Veganism is the most responsible choice of diet.

Military insurance should not cover the cost of sex
reassignment surgery for service men and women.

Good claims often spring from personal experiences. You may have
relevant work or military or athletic experience — or you may know a
lot about music, film, sustainable agriculture, social networking,
inequities in government services — all fertile ground for authoritative,
debatable, and personally relevant claims.

RESPOND●

Claims aren’t always easy to find. Sometimes they’re buried deep

within an argument, and sometimes they’re not present at all. An

important skill in reading and writing arguments is the ability to

identify claims, even when they aren’t obvious.

In class and working in a group, collect a sample of four to six brief

argumentative postings from political blogs or editorial postings

(from news sites). Read each item, and then try to identify every

claim that the writer makes. When you’ve compiled a list of claims,

look carefully at the words that the writer or writers use when

stating their positions. Is there a common vocabulary? Can you find

terms or phrases that signal an impending claim? Which of these

seem most effective? Which ones seem least effective? Why?

Offering Evidence and Good

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Academic arguments such as “Playing with Prejudice: The
Prevalence and Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Video
Games” by Melinda C. R. Burgess et al. often closely follow the
Toulmin structure, making sure that all their claims are well
supported.

LINK TO Burgess et al., “Playing with Prejudice,” in Chapter 23

Reasons
You can begin developing a claim by drawing up a list of reasons to
support it or finding evidence that backs up the point.

One student writer wanted to gather good reasons in support of an
assertion that his college campus needed more official spaces for
parking bicycles. He did some research, gathering statistics about
parking-space allocation, numbers of people using particular
designated slots, and numbers of bicycles registered on campus. Before
he went any further, however, he listed his primary reasons for wanting
to increase bicycle parking:

Personal experience: At least twice a week for two terms, he was
unable to find a designated parking space for his bike.
Anecdotes: Several of his friends told similar stories. One even
sold her bike as a result.
Facts: He found out that the ratio of car to bike parking spaces

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was 100 to 1, whereas the ratio of cars to bikes registered on
campus was 25 to 1.
Authorities: The campus police chief told the college newspaper
that she believed a problem existed for students who tried to park
bicycles legally.

On the basis of his preliminary listing of possible reasons in support of
the claim, this student decided that his subject was worth more
research. He was on the way to amassing a set of good reasons and
evidence that were sufficient to support his claim.

In shaping your own arguments, try putting claims and reasons
together early in the writing process to create enthymemes. Think of
these enthymemes as test cases or even as topic sentences:

Bicycle parking spaces should be expanded because the
number of bikes on campus far exceeds the available spots.

It’s time to lower the driving age because I’ve been driving
since I was fourteen and it hasn’t hurt me.

National legalization of marijuana is long overdue since it is
already legal in many states, has proven to be less harmful
than alcohol, and provides effective relief from pain associated
with cancer.

Violent video games should be carefully evaluated and their
use monitored by the industry, the government, and parents
because such games cause addiction and even psychological
harm to players.

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As you can see, attaching a reason to a claim often spells out the major
terms of an argument.

But your work is just beginning when you’ve put a claim together with
its supporting reasons and evidence — because readers are certain to
begin questioning your statement. They might ask whether the reasons
and evidence that you’re offering actually do support the claim: should
the driving age really be changed just because you’ve managed to drive
since you were fourteen? They might ask pointed questions about your
evidence: exactly how do you know that the number of bikes on
campus far exceeds the number of spaces available? Eventually,
you’ve got to address potential questions about the quality of your
assumptions and the reliability of your evidence. The connection
between claim and reason(s) is a concern at the next level in Toulmin
argument.

Anticipate challenges to your claims.

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Briahna Joy Gray argues that charges of cultural appropriation
imply ownership of culture, as represented by music, costume,
food, etc. What warrants lie behind this claim?

LINK TO Gray, “The Question of Cultural Appropriation,” in
Chapter 24

Determining Warrants

Crucial to Toulmin argument is appreciating that there must be a
logical and persuasive connection between a claim and the reasons and
data supporting it. Toulmin calls this connection the warrant. It
answers the question How exactly do I get from the data to the claim?
Like the warrant in legal situations (a search warrant, for example), a
sound warrant in an argument gives you authority to proceed with your
case.

The warrant tells readers what your (often unstated) assumptions are —
for example, that any major medical problem should be a concern of
the government. If readers accept your warrant, you can then present
specific evidence to develop your claim. But if readers dispute your
warrant, you’ll have to defend it before you can move on to the claim

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itself.

Stating warrants can be tricky because they can be phrased in various
ways. What you’re looking for is the general principle that enables you
to justify the move from a reason to a specific claim — the bridge
connecting them. The warrant is the assumption that makes the claim
seem believable. It’s often a value or principle that you share with your
readers. Here’s an easy example:

Don’t eat that mushroom: it’s poisonous.

The warrant supporting this enthymeme can be stated in several ways,
always moving from the reason (it’s poisonous) to the claim (Don’t eat
that mushroom):

Anything that is poisonous shouldn’t be eaten.

If something is poisonous, it’s dangerous to eat.

Here’s the relationship, diagrammed:

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Perfectly obvious, you say? Exactly — and that’s why the statement is
so convincing. If the mushroom in question is a death cap or destroying
angel (and you might still need expert testimony to prove that it is), the
warrant does the rest of the work, making the claim that it supports
seem logical and persuasive.

Let’s look at a similar example, beginning with the argument in its
basic form:

We’d better stop for gas because the gauge has been reading
empty for more than thirty miles.

In this case, you have evidence that is so clear (a gas gauge reading
empty) that the reason for getting gas doesn’t even have to be stated:
the tank is almost empty. The warrant connecting the evidence to the
claim is also obvious:

If the fuel gauge of a car has been reading empty for more
than thirty miles, then that car is about to run out of gas.

Since most readers would accept this warrant as reasonable, they
would also likely accept the statement the warrant supports.

Naturally, factual information might undermine the whole argument:
the fuel gauge might be broken, or the driver might know from
experience that the car will go another fifty miles even though the fuel
gauge reads empty. But in most cases, readers would accept the
warrant.

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A simple icon — a skull and crossbones — can make a visual argument that
implies a claim, a reason, and a warrant.

Now let’s consider how stating and then examining a warrant can help
you determine the grounds on which you want to make a case. Here’s a
political enthymeme of a familiar sort:

Flat taxes are fairer than progressive taxes because they treat
all taxpayers in the same way.

Warrants that follow from this enthymeme have power because they
appeal to a core American value — equal treatment under the law:

Treating people equitably is the American way.

All people should be treated in the same way.

You certainly could make an argument on these grounds. But stating
the warrant should also raise a flag if you know anything about tax
policy. If the principle is obvious and universal, then why do federal

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and some state income taxes require people at higher levels of income
to pay at higher tax rates than people at lower income levels? Could the
warrant not be as universally popular as it seems at first glance? To
explore the argument further, try stating the contrary claim and
warrants:

Progressive taxes are fairer than flat taxes because people
with more income can afford to pay more, benefit more from
government, and shelter more of their income from taxes.

People should be taxed according to their ability to pay.

People who benefit more from government and can shelter
more of their income from taxes should be taxed at higher
rates.

Now you see how different the assumptions behind opposing positions
really are. If you decided to argue in favor of flat taxes, you’d be smart
to recognize that some members of your audience might have
fundamental reservations about your position. Or you might even
decide to shift your entire argument to an alternative rationale for flat
taxes:

Flat taxes are preferable to progressive taxes because they
simplify the tax code and reduce the likelihood of fraud.

Here, you have two stated reasons that are supported by two new
warrants:

Taxes that simplify the tax code are desirable.

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Taxes that reduce the likelihood of fraud are preferable.

Whenever possible, you’ll choose your warrant knowing your
audience, the context of your argument, and your own feelings.

Be careful, though, not to suggest that you’ll appeal to any old warrant
that works to your advantage. If readers suspect that your argument for
progressive taxes really amounts to I want to stick it to people who
work harder than I, your credibility may suffer a fatal blow.

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RESPOND●

At their simplest, warrants can be stated as “X is good” or “X is bad.”

Return to the editorials or blog posts that you analyzed in the

exercise on p. 144, this time looking for the warrant that is behind

each claim. As a way to start, ask yourself these questions:

If I find myself agreeing with the letter writer, what

assumptions about the subject matter do I share with him/her?

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If I disagree, what assumptions are at the heart of that

disagreement?

The list of warrants you generate will likely come from these

assumptions.

Offering Evidence: Backing
The richest, most interesting part of a writer’s work — backing —
remains to be done after the argument has been outlined. Clearly stated
claims and warrants show you how much evidence you will need. Take
a look at this brief argument, which is both debatable and
controversial, especially in tough economic times:

NASA should affirm its commitment to a human expedition to
Mars because Americans need a unifying national goal.

Here’s one version of the warrant that supports the enthymeme:

What unifies the nation ought to be a national priority.

To run with this claim and warrant, you’d first need to place both in
context. Human space exploration has been debated with varying
intensity following the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik
satellite, after the losses of the U.S. space shuttles Challenger (1986)
and Columbia (2003), and after the retirement of the Space Shuttle
program in 2011. Acquiring such background knowledge through
reading, conversation, and inquiry of all kinds will be necessary for
making your case. (See Chapter 3 for more on gaining authority.)

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Sticker honoring the retirement of the Space Shuttle program

There’s no point in defending any claim until you’ve satisfied readers
that questionable warrants on which the claim is based are defensible.
In Toulmin argument, evidence you offer to support a warrant is called
backing.

Warrant
What unifies the nation ought to be a national priority.

Backing
Americans want to be part of something bigger than
themselves. (Emotional appeal as evidence)

In a country as diverse as the United States, common purposes
and values help make the nation stronger. (Ethical appeal as
evidence)

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In the past, government investments such as the Hoover Dam
and the Apollo moon program enhanced economic progress
for many — though not all — Americans. (Logical appeal as
evidence)

In addition to evidence to support your warrant (backing), you’ll need
evidence to support your claim:

Argument in Brief (Enthymeme/Claim)
NASA should launch a human expedition to Mars because
Americans now need a unifying national goal.

Evidence
The American people are politically divided along lines of
race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and class. (Fact as evidence)

A common challenge or problem often unites people to
accomplish great things. (Emotional appeal as evidence)

A successful Mars mission would require the cooperation of
the entire nation — and generate tens of thousands of jobs.
(Logical appeal as evidence)

A human expedition to Mars would be an admirable scientific
project for the nation to pursue. (Appeal to values as
evidence)

As these examples show, appeals to values and emotions can be just as
appropriate as appeals to logic and facts, and all such claims will be
stronger if a writer presents a convincing ethos. In most arguments,

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appeals work together rather than separately, reinforcing each other.
(See Chapter 3 for more on ethos.)

Using Qualifiers
Experienced writers know that qualifying expressions make writing
more precise and honest. Toulmin logic encourages you to
acknowledge limitations to your argument through the effective use of
qualifiers. You can save time if you qualify a claim early in the
writing process. But you might not figure out how to limit a claim
effectively until after you’ve explored your subject or discussed it with
others.

Qualifiers

few

it is possible

rarely

it seems

some

it may be

sometimes

more or less

in some cases

many

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typically

routinely

most

one might argue

often

perhaps

under these conditions

possibly

for the most part

if it were so

in general

Never assume that readers understand the limits you have in mind.
Rather, spell them out as precisely as possible, as in the following
examples:

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Unqualified
Claim

People who don’t go to college earn less than those who do.

Qualified
Claim

Statistics show that in most cases, people who don’t go to
college earn less than those who do.

Understanding Conditions of
Rebuttal
In the Toulmin system, potential objections to an argument are called
conditions of rebuttal. Understanding and reacting to these conditions
are essential to support your own claims where they’re weak and also
to recognize and understand the reasonable objections of people who
see the world differently. For example, you may be a big fan of the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA) and prefer that federal tax dollars be spent on these
programs. So you offer the following claim:

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Claim The federal government should support the arts.

You need reasons to support this thesis, so you decide to present the
issue as a matter of values:

Argument
in Brief

The federal government should support the arts because it
also supports the military.

Now you’ve got an enthymeme and can test the warrant, or the
premises of your claim:

Warrant If the federal government can support the military, then it can
also support other programs.

But the warrant seems frail: you can hear a voice over your shoulder
saying, “In essence, you’re saying that Because we pay for a military,
we should pay for everything!” So you decide to revise your claim:

Revised
Argument

If the federal government can spend huge amounts of money on
the military, then it can afford to spend moderate amounts on
arts programs.

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Now you’ve got a new warrant, too:

Revised
Warrant

A country that can fund expensive programs can also afford
less expensive programs.

This is a premise that you can defend, since you believe strongly that
the arts are just as essential as a strong military is to the well-being of
the country. Although the warrant now seems solid, you still have to
offer strong grounds to support your specific and controversial claim.
So you cite statistics from reputable sources, this time comparing the
federal budgets for the military and the arts. You break them down in
ways that readers can visualize, demonstrating that much less than a
penny of every tax dollar goes to support the arts.

But then you hear those voices again, saying that the “common
defense” is a federal mandate; the government is constitutionally
obligated to support a military, and support for the arts is hardly in the
same league! Looks like you need to add a paragraph explaining all the
benefits the arts provide for very few dollars spent, and maybe you
should suggest that such funding falls under the constitutional mandate
to “promote the general welfare.” Though not all readers will accept
these grounds, they’ll appreciate that you haven’t ignored their point of
view: you’ve gained credibility by anticipating a reasonable objection.

Dealing with conditions of rebuttal is an essential part of argument. But
it’s important to understand rebuttal as more than mere opposition.
Anticipating objections broadens your horizons, makes you more open
to alternative viewpoints, and helps you understand what you need to

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do to support your claim.

Within Toulmin argument, conditions of rebuttal remind us that we’re
part of global conversations: Internet newsgroups and blogs provide
potent responses to positions offered by participants in discussions;
instant messaging and social networking let you respond to and
challenge others; links on Web sites form networks that are infinitely
variable and open. In cyberspace, conditions of rebuttal are as close as
your screen.

RESPOND●
Using an essay or a project you are composing, do a Toulmin

analysis of the argument. When you’re done, see which elements of

the Toulmin scheme are represented. Are you short of evidence to

support the warrant? Have you considered the conditions of

rebuttal? Have you qualified your claim adequately? Next, write a

brief revision plan: How will you buttress the argument in the places

where it is weakest? What additional evidence will you offer for the

warrant? How can you qualify your claim to meet the conditions of

rebuttal? Then show your paper to a classmate and have him/her do

a Toulmin analysis: a new reader will probably see your argument in

different ways and suggest revisions that may not have occurred to

you.

Outline of a Toulmin Argument
Consider the claim that was mentioned on p. 150:

The federal government should ban e-cigarettes.

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Claim

Qualifier The ban would be limited to public spaces.

Good
Reasons

E-cigarettes have not been proven to be harmless.

E-cigarettes legitimize smoking and also are aimed at recruiting
teens and children with flavors like bubblegum and cotton
candy.

Warrants The Constitution promises to “promote the general welfare.”

Citizens are entitled to protection from harmful actions by
others.

Backing The United States is based on a political system that is supposed
to serve the basic needs of its people, including their health.

Evidence Analysis of advertising campaigns that reveal direct appeals to
children

Lawsuits recently won against e-cigarette companies, citing the
link between e-cigarettes and a return to regular smoking

Examples of bans on e-cigarettes already imposed in many
public places

Authority Cite the FDA and medical groups on effect of e-cigarette
smoking.

Conditions
of
Rebuttal

E-cigarette smokers have rights, too.

Smoking laws should be left to the states.

Such a ban could not be enforced.

Responses The ban applies to public places; smokers can smoke in private.

A Toulmin Analysis
You might wonder how Toulmin’s method holds up when applied to

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an argument that is longer than a few sentences. Do such arguments
really work the way that Toulmin predicts? In the following column
from Bloomberg Opinion (June 19, 2017), Stephen L. Carter explains
why he supports a unanimous Supreme Court decision protecting
offensive speech. Carter, a professor of law at Yale, novelist, and
essayist, begins by offering background information on a trademark
case brought before the Supreme Court by a band called The Slants.
Carter signals quite clearly (in what amounts to his core claim) that the
Court was right to strike down restrictions on potentially offensive
trademarks set in place during World War II. To justify his support for
the new ruling, Carter helps readers understand the Constitutional
rationale for defending forms of speech that some people might regard
as offensive, derogatory, or racist. Carter even draws upon the remarks
of two Supreme Court justices who reach the same conclusion about
the unconstitutionality of the so-called “disparagement clause” through
very different approaches. As you will see below, many elements of
Toulmin argument are in play throughout Carter’s essay, even if they
don’t follow a predictable sequence from claim to reason to evidence
to conditions of rebuttal to response pattern.

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The Slants chose their band’s name to reappropriate the offensive slur. Anthony
Pidgeon/Getty Images

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305

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What Toulmin Teaches
As Carter’s essay demonstrates, few arguments you read have perfectly
sequenced claims or clear warrants, so you might not think of
Toulmin’s terms in building your own arguments. Once you’re into
your subject, it’s easy to forget about qualifying a claim or finessing a
warrant. But remembering what Toulmin teaches will always help you
strengthen your arguments:

Claims should be clear, reasonable, and carefully qualified.
Claims should be supported with good reasons and evidence.
Remember that a Toulmin structure provides the framework of an
argument, which you fill out with all kinds of data, including facts,
statistics, precedents, photographs, and even stories.
Claims and reasons should be based on assumptions your audience
will likely accept. Toulmin’s focus on warrants can be confusing
because it asks us to state the values that underlie our arguments
— something many would rather not do. Toulmin also prompts us
to consider how our assumptions relate to particular audiences.

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Effective arguments respectfully anticipate objections readers
might offer. Toulmin argument acknowledges that any claim can
crumble under certain conditions, so it encourages complex views
that don’t insist on absolute or unqualified positions.

It takes considerable experience to write arguments that meet all these
conditions. Using Toulmin’s framework brings them into play
automatically. If you learn it well enough, constructing good
arguments can become a habit.

CULTURAL CONTEXTS FOR ARGUMENT

Organization
As you think about organizing your argument, remember that cultural
factors are at work: patterns that you find persuasive are probably ones
that are deeply embedded in your culture. In the United States, many
people expect a writer to “get to the point” as directly as possible and
to articulate that point efficiently and unambiguously. The
organizational patterns favored by many in business hold similarities
to the classical oration — a highly explicit pattern that leaves little or
nothing unexplained — introduction and thesis, background, overview
of the parts that follow, evidence, other viewpoints, and conclusion. If a
piece of writing follows this pattern, American readers ordinarily find it
“well organized.”

So it’s no surprise that student writers in the United States are
expected to make their structures direct and their claims explicit,
leaving little unspoken. Their claims usually appear early in an
argument, often in the first paragraph.

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But not all cultures take such an approach. Some expect any claim or
thesis to be introduced subtly, indirectly, and perhaps at the end of a
work, assuming that audiences will “read between the lines” to
understand what’s being said. Consequently, the preferred structure of
arguments (and face-to-face negotiations, as well) may be elaborate,
repetitive, and full of digressions. Those accustomed to such writing
may find more direct Western styles naive, childish, or even rude.

When arguing across cultures, look for cues to determine how to
structure your presentations effectively. Here are several points to
consider:

Do members of your audience tend to be very direct, saying
explicitly what they mean? Or are they more restrained? Consider
adjusting your work to the expectations of the audience.
Do members of your audience tend to respect authority and the
opinions of groups? They may find blunt approaches disrespectful
or contrary to their expectations.
Consider when to state your thesis: At the beginning? At the end?
Somewhere else? Not at all?
Consider whether digressions are a good idea, a requirement, or
an element to avoid.

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CHAPTER 8 Arguments of Fact

Some people believe that extensive use of smartphones and

social media is especially harmful to children and young adults,

and recent research provides disturbing evidence that they may

be right.

In the past, female screen stars like Marilyn Monroe could be

buxom and curvy, less concerned about their weight than

actresses today. Or so the legend goes. But measuring the

costumes worn by Monroe and other actresses reveals a

different story.

When an instructor announces a tough new attendance policy

for her course, a student objects that there is no evidence that

students who regularly attend classes perform any better than

those who do not. The instructor begs to differ.

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Understanding Arguments
of Fact
Factual arguments come in many varieties, but they all try to

establish whether something is or is not so, answering

questions such as Is a historical legend true? Has a crime

occurred? or Are the claims of a scientific study replicable? At

first glance, you might object that these aren’t arguments at all

but just a matter of looking things up and then writing reports.

And you’d be correct to an extent: people don’t usually argue

factual matters that are settled or undisputed (The earth

revolves around the sun), that might be decided with simple

research (The Mendenhall Glacier has receded 1.75 miles since

1958), or that are the equivalent of a rule (One mile measures

5,280 feet). Reporting facts, you might think, should be free of

the friction of argument.

But the authority of “facts” has been routinely challenged. With

a full generation of contemporary philosophers insisting that

reality is just a creation of language, perhaps it’s not surprising

that politicians and pundits now find themselves arguing over

“fake news,” “known facts,” and “alternative facts.”

Yet facts do still become arguments whenever they’re

controversial on their own or challenge people’s conventional

beliefs and lifestyles. Disagreements about childhood obesity,

endangered species, or energy production ought to have a kind

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of clean, scientific logic to them. But that’s rarely the case

because the facts surrounding them must be interpreted. Those

interpretations then determine what we feed children, where

we can build a dam, or how we heat our homes. In other words,

serious factual arguments almost always have consequences.

Can we rely on wind and solar power to solve our energy needs?

Will the Social Security trust fund really go broke? Is it healthy

to eat fatty foods? People need well-reasoned factual arguments

on subjects of this kind to make informed decisions. Such

arguments educate the public.

For the same reason, we need arguments to challenge beliefs

that are common in a society but held on the basis of

inadequate or faulty information. We sometimes need help, too,

noticing change that is occurring all around us. So corrective

arguments appear daily in the media, often based on studies

written by scientists or researchers that the public would not

encounter on their own. Many people, for example, still believe

that talking on a cell phone while driving is just like listening to

the radio. But their intuition is not based on hard data: scientific

studies show that using a cell phone in a car is comparable to

driving under the influence of alcohol. That’s a fact. As a result,

fifteen states (and counting) have banned the use of handheld

phones while driving—and almost all now ban texting while

driving.

Factual arguments also routinely address broad questions about

how we understand the past. For example, are the accounts that

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we have of the American founding—or the Civil War,

Reconstruction, or the heroics of the “Greatest Generation” in

World War II—accurate? Or do the “facts” that we teach today

sometimes reflect the perspectives and prejudices of earlier

times or ideologies? The telling of history is almost always

controversial and rarely settled: the British and Americans will

always tell different versions of what happened in North

America in 1776.

The Internet puts mountains of information at our fingertips,

but we need to be sure to confirm whether or not that

information is fact, using what Howard Rheingold calls “crap

detection,” the ability to distinguish between accurate

information and inaccurate information, misinformation, or

disinformation. (For more on “crap detection,” see Chapter 19,

“Evaluating Sources.”)

As you can see, arguments of fact do much of the heavy lifting

in our world. They report on what has been recently discovered

or explore the implications of that new information. They also

add interest and complexity to our lives, taking what might

seem simple and adding new dimensions to it. In many

situations, they’re the precursors to other forms of analysis,

especially causal and proposal arguments. Before we can

explore why things happen as they do or solve problems, we

need to do our best to determine the facts.

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RESPOND●
For each topic in the following list, decide whether the claim is

worth arguing to a college audience, and explain why or why not.

Earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park are increasing in

number and intensity.

Many people die annually of heart disease.

The planet would benefit enormously if more people learned to

eat insects.

Japan might have come to terms more readily in 1945 if the

Allies in World War II hadn’t demanded unconditional

surrender.

Boys would do better in school if there were more men

teaching in elementary and secondary classrooms.

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The benefits of increasing oil and natural gas production via

fracking more than outweigh the environmental downsides of

the process.

There aren’t enough high-paying jobs for college graduates

these days.

Hydrogen may never be a viable alternative to fossil fuels

because it takes too much energy to change hydrogen into a

usable form.

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Characterizing Factual
Arguments
Factual arguments are often motivated by simple human

curiosity or suspicion: Are people who earn college degrees

happier than those who don’t? If being fat is so unhealthy, why

aren’t mortality rates rising? Does it matter economically that so

many young people today think of themselves as foodies?

Researchers may notice a pattern that leads them to look more

closely at some phenomenon or behavior, exploring questions

such as What if? or How come? Or maybe a writer first notes

something new or different or unexpected and wants to draw

attention to that fact: Contrary to expectations, suicide rates are

much higher in rural areas than in urban ones.

Such observations can lead quickly to hypotheses—that is,

toward tentative and plausible statements of fact whose merits

need to be examined more closely. Perhaps people at different

educational levels define happiness differently? Maybe being a

little overweight isn’t as bad for people as we’ve been told?

Maybe self-identifying as a “foodie” is really a marker of class

and social aspirations? To support such hypotheses, writers

then have to uncover evidence that reaches well beyond the

casual observations that triggered an initial interest—like a

news reporter motivated to see whether there’s a verifiable

story behind a source’s tip.

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For instance, the authors of Freakonomics, Stephen J. Dubner

and Steven D. Levitt, were intrigued by the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration’s claim that car seats for children

were 54 percent effective in preventing deaths in auto crashes

for children below the age of four. In a New York Times op-ed

column entitled “The Seat-Belt Solution,” they posed an

important question about that factual claim:

But 54 percent effective compared with what? The

answer, it turns out, is this: Compared with a child’s

riding completely unrestrained.

Their initial question about that claim led them to a more

focused inquiry, then to a database on auto crashes, and then to

a surprising conclusion: for kids above age twenty-four months,

those in car seats were statistically safer than those without any

protection but weren’t safer than those confined by ordinary

seat belts (which are much simpler, cheaper, and more readily

available devices). Looking at the statistics every which way, the

authors wonder if children older than two years would be just

as well off physically—and their parents less stressed and better

off financially—if the government mandated seat belts rather

than car seats for them.

What kinds of evidence typically appear in sound factual

arguments? The simple answer might be “all sorts,” but a case

can be made that factual arguments try to rely more on “hard

evidence” than do “constructed” arguments based on logic and

reason (see Chapter 4). Even so, some pieces of evidence are

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harder than others!

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Developing a Factual
Argument
Entire Web sites are dedicated to finding and posting errors

from news and political sources. Some, like Media Matters for

America and Accuracy in Media, take overtly partisan stands.

Here’s a one-day sampling of headlines from Media Matters:

After NASA Announces It Found Water on Mars, Rush

Limbaugh Says It’s Part of a Climate Change Conspiracy

Trump administration met with a GOP donor and a Fox

contributor about a fake story meant to distract from

Russia probe

Fox hosts can’t keep their facts straight while praising

Trump’s immigration cuts

And here’s a listing from Accuracy in Media from the same day:

Major Newspapers Just Pretend to Have Conservative

Columnists Left Claims Hitler-Style “Indoctrination” in

Trump’s Boy Scouts Speech Washington Post Reluctantly

Admits Stock Market Gains Linked to Trump

It would be hard to miss the blatant political agendas at work on

these sites.

Other fact-checking organizations have better reputations when

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it comes to assessing the truths behind political claims and

media presentations. Although both are also routinely charged

with bias, Pulitzer Prize–winning PolitiFact.com and

FactCheck.org at least make an effort to seem fair-minded

across a broader political spectrum. FactCheck.org, for

example, provides a detailed analysis of the claims it

investigates in relatively neutral and denotative language, and

lists the sources its researchers used—just as if its writers were

doing a research paper. At its best, FactCheck.org demonstrates

what one valuable kind of factual argument can accomplish.

Any factual argument that you might compose—from how you

state your claim to how you present evidence and the language

you use—should be similarly shaped by the occasion for the

argument and a desire to serve the audiences that you hope to

reach. We can offer some general advice to help you get started.

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PolitiFact uses a meter to rate political claims from “True” to “Pants on Fire.”

RESPOND●
The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of

Pennsylvania hosts FactCheck.org, a Web site dedicated to

separating facts from opinion or falsehood in the area of politics. It

claims to be politically neutral. Find a case that interests you, either

a recent controversial item listed on its homepage or another from

its archives. Carefully study the item. Pay attention to the devices

that FactCheck.org uses to suggest or ensure objectivity and the

way that it handles facts and statistics. Then offer your own brief

factual argument about the site’s objectivity.

Identifying an Issue
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In their report about food insecurity on college campuses,
researchers James Dubick, Brandon Mathews, and Clare Cady
offer an argument of fact based on more than 3,700 surveys of
students on 34 college campuses.

LINK TO Dubick et al., “Hunger on Campus,” in Chapter 24

To offer a factual argument of your own, you need to identify an

issue or problem that will interest you and potential readers.

Look for situations or phenomena—local or national—that seem

novel or out of the ordinary in the expected order of things. For

instance, you might notice that many people you know are

deciding not to attend college. How widespread is this change,

and who are the people making this choice?

Or follow up claims that strike you as at odds with the facts as

you know them or believe them. Maybe you doubt explanations

being offered for your favorite sport team’s current slump or for

the declining number of male students majoring in the

humanities at your school. Or you might give a local spin to

factual questions that other people have already formulated on

a national level. Are more of your friends considering technical

apprenticeships (rather than expensive academic programs),

delaying any plans they might have for marriage or families, or

buying entirely online instead of at brick and mortar stores?

You will likely write a better paper if you take on a factual

question that genuinely interests you.

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In fact, whole books are written when authors decide to pursue

factual questions that intrigue them. But you want to be careful

not to argue matters that pose no challenge for you or your

audiences. You’re not offering anything new if you just try to

persuade readers that smoking is harmful to their well-being.

So how about something fresh in the area of health?

Quick preliminary research and reading might allow you to

move from an intuition to a hypothesis, that is, a tentative

statement of your claim: Having a dog is good for your health.

As noted earlier, factual arguments often provoke other types of

analysis. In developing this claim, you’d need to explain what

“good for your health” means, potentially an argument of

definition. You’d also likely find yourself researching causes of

the phenomenon if you can demonstrate that it is factual. As it

turns out, your canine hypothesis would have merit if you

defined “good for health” as “encouraging exercise.” Here’s the

lede to a 2011 New York Times story reporting recent research:

If you’re looking for the latest in home exercise

equipment, you may want to consider something with

four legs and a wagging tail.

Several studies now show that dogs can be powerful

motivators to get people moving. Not only are dog

owners more likely to take regular walks, but new

research shows that dog walkers are more active overall

than people who don’t have dogs.

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—Tara Parker-Pope, “Forget the Treadmill. Get a Dog,”

March 14, 2011

As always, there’s another side to the story: what if people likely

to get dogs are the very sort already inclined to be more

physically active? You could explore that possibility as well (and

researchers have) and then either modify your initial

hypothesis or offer a new one. That’s what hypotheses are for.

They are works in progress.

A Harvard source for your paper on dogs and health?

RESPOND●

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Read C. Richard King’s excerpt from Redskins: Insult and Brand in
Chapter 23. What kind of research does King use to support his
argument?

LINK TO King, “Redskins: Insult and Brand,” in Chapter 23

Working with a group of colleagues, generate a list of a dozen

“mysteries” regularly explored on TV shows, in blogs, or in tabloid

newspapers. Here are three to get you started—the alien crash

landing at Roswell, the existence of Atlantis, and the uses of Area 51

in Nevada. Then decide which—if any—of these puzzlers might be

resolved or explained in a reasonable factual argument and which

ones remain eternally mysterious and improbable. Why are people

attracted to such topics? Would any of these items provide material

for a noteworthy factual argument?

Researching Your Hypothesis

How and where you research your subject will depend,

naturally, on your subject. You’ll certainly want to review

Chapter 18, “Finding Evidence,” Chapter 19, “Evaluating

Sources,” and Chapter 20, “Using Sources,” before constructing

an argument of fact. Libraries and the Web will provide you

with deep resources on almost every subject. Your task will

typically be to separate the best sources from all the rest. The

word best here has many connotations: some reputable sources

may be too technical for your audiences; some accessible

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sources may be pitched too low or be too far removed from the

actual facts.

You’ll be making judgment calls like this routinely. But do use

primary sources whenever you can. For example, when

gathering a comment from a source on the Web, trace it

whenever possible to its original site, and read the comment in

its full context. When statistics are quoted, follow them back to

the source that offered them first to be sure that they’re recent

and reputable. Instructors and librarians can help you

appreciate the differences. Understand that even sources with

pronounced biases can furnish useful information, provided

that you know how to use them, take their limitations into

account, and then share what you know about the sources with

your readers.

Sometimes, you’ll be able to do primary research on your own,

especially when your subject is local and you have the resources

to do it. Consider conducting a competent survey of campus

opinions and attitudes, for example, or study budget documents

(often public) to determine trends in faculty salaries, tuition,

student fees, and so on. Primary research of this sort can be

challenging because even the simplest surveys or polls have to

be intelligently designed and executed in a way that samples a

representative population (see Chapter 4). But the work could

pay off in an argument that brings new information to readers.

Refining Your Claim
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As you learn more about your subject, you might revise your

hypothesis to reflect what you’ve discovered. In most cases,

these revised hypotheses will grow increasingly complex and

specific. Following are three versions of essentially the same

claim, with each version offering more information to help

readers judge its merit:

Americans really did land on the moon, despite what some
people think!
Since 1969, when the Eagle supposedly landed on the moon,
some people have been unjustifiably skeptical about the
success of the United States’ Apollo program.
Despite plentiful hard evidence to the contrary—from
Saturn V launches witnessed by thousands to actual moon
rocks tested by independent labs worldwide—some people
persist in believing falsely that NASA’s moon landings were
filmed on deserts in the American Southwest as part of a
massive propaganda fraud.

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The additional details about the subject might also suggest new

ways to develop and support it. For example, conspiracy

theorists claim that the absence of visible stars in photographs

of the moon landing is evidence that it was staged, but

photographers know that the camera exposure needed to

capture the foreground—astronauts in their bright space suits—

would have made the stars in the background too dim to see.

That’s a key bit of evidence for this argument.

As you advance in your research, your thesis will likely pick up

even more qualifying words and expressions, which help you to

make reasonable claims. Qualifiers—words and phrases such as

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some, most, few, for most people, for a few users, under

specific conditions, usually, occasionally, seldom, and so on—

will be among your most valuable tools in a factual argument.

(See p. 153 in Chapter 7 for more on qualifiers.)

Sometimes it will be important to contextualize a factual claim

for others who may find it hard to accept. Of course, you could

just present the hard numbers, but research suggests that many

people double down on their positions when offered contrary

facts. What to do? Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific

American, suggests these common sense strategies:

[W]hat can we do to convince people of the error of their

beliefs? From my experience, 1. keep emotions out of the

exchange, 2. discuss, don’t attack (no ad hominem and no

ad Hitlerum), 3. listen carefully and try to articulate the

other position accurately, 4. show respect, 5.

acknowledge that you understand why someone might

hold that opinion, and 6. try to show how changing facts

does not necessarily mean changing worldviews. These

strategies may not always work to change people’s

minds, but now that the nation has just been put through

a political fact-check wringer, they may help reduce

unnecessary divisiveness.

—Michael Shermer, “How to Convince Someone When

Facts Fail”

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Deciding Which Evidence to Use
In this chapter, we’ve blurred the distinction between factual

arguments for scientific and technical audiences and those for

the general public (in magazines, blogs, social media sites,

television documentaries, and so on). In the former kind of

arguments, readers will expect specific types of evidence

arranged in a formulaic way. Such reports may include a

hypothesis, a review of existing research on the subject, a

description of methods, a presentation of results, and finally a

formal discussion of the findings. If you are thinking “lab

report,” you are already familiar with an academic form of a

factual argument with precise standards for evidence.

Less scientific factual arguments—claims about our society,

institutions, behaviors, habits, and so on—are seldom so

systematic, and they may draw on evidence from a great many

different media. For instance, you might need to review old

newspapers, scan videos, study statistics on government Web

sites, read transcripts of congressional hearings, record the

words of eyewitnesses to an event, glean information by

following experts on Twitter, and so on. Very often, you will

assemble your arguments from material found in credible,

though not always concurring, authorities and resources—

drawing upon the factual findings of scientists and scholars, but

perhaps using their original insights in novel ways.

For example, you might be intrigued by a much cited article

from the Atlantic (August 5, 2017) in which author Jean M.

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Twenge reviews evidence that suggests that adolescents who

spend more and more time on their cellphones are increasingly

unhappy—to the detriment of their emotional health. Here’s an
important moment in her lengthy argument:

You might expect that teens spend so much time in these

new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data

suggest that it does not. The Monitoring the Future

survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse

and designed to be nationally representative, has asked

12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since

1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991.

The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how

much of their leisure time they spend on various

activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-

person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent

years, screen activities such as using social media,

texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be

clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on

screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those

who spend more time than average on nonscreen

activities are more likely to be happy.

There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are

linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are

linked to more happiness.

—Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a

Generation?”

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Reading such dire news (and the article reports even more

frightening increases in suicide), may raise new questions for

you: Are there contrary studies? Is it conceivable that time spent

online has benefits? Twenge herself notes, for example, that

teen pregnancies have dropped dramatically in recent years.

Perhaps, too, adolescents so inwardly directed by screen use

might develop into more sensitive and less violent adults? Such

considerations might lead you to look for research that

complicates the earlier work by bringing fresh facts or

perspectives to the table.

Often, though, you may have only a limited number of words or

pages in which to make an academic argument. What do you do

then? You present your best evidence as powerfully as possible:

you can make a persuasive factual case with just a few examples

—three or four often suffice to make a point. Indeed, going on

too long or presenting even good data in uninteresting ways can

undermine a claim.

Presenting Your Evidence
In Hard Times (1854), British author Charles Dickens poked fun

at a pedagogue he named Thomas Gradgrind, who preferred

hard facts before all things human or humane. When poor Sissy

Jupe (called “girl number twenty” in his awful classroom) is

unable at his command to define horse, Gradgrind turns to his

star pupil, Bitzer:

“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a

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horse.”

“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-

four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds

coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too.

Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age

known by marks in mouth.” Thus (and much more)

Bitzer.

“Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “You

know what a horse is.”

—Charles Dickens, Hard Times

But does Bitzer? Rattling off facts about a subject isn’t quite the

same thing as knowing it, especially when your goal is, as it is in

an argument of fact, to educate and persuade audiences. So you

must take care how you present your evidence.

Factual arguments, like any others, take many forms. They can

be as simple and pithy as a letter to the editor (or Bitzer’s

definition of a horse) or as comprehensive and formal as a

senior thesis or even a dissertation, meant for just two or three

readers evaluating the competence of your work. But to earn

the attention of readers in more public forums, you may need to

work harder, affirming your expertise by offering engaging and

authoritative sources, presenting your argument with grace and

clarity, including tables, graphs, photographs and other visual

evidence when appropriate, and documenting all your claims.

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For an example of how to use design effectively in a factual
argument, see “How Do Your Eating Habits Differ from Your
Grandparents’?” in Chapter 24. Compare the chart to the table
that accompanies it. How does design impact the success of the
factual argument?

LINK TO United States Department of Agriculture, “How Do Your
Eating Habits Differ from Your Grandparents’?” in Chapter 24

Such moves will establish the ethos of your work, making it

seem serious, credible, well-conceived, and worth reading.

Considering Design and Visuals

When you prepare a factual argument, consider how you can

present your evidence most effectively. Precisely because

factual arguments often rely on evidence that can be measured,

computed, or illustrated, they benefit from thoughtful, even

artful presentation of data. If you have lots of examples, you

might arrange them in a list (bulleted or otherwise) and keep

the language in each item roughly parallel. If you have an

argument that can be translated into a table, chart, or graph

(see Chapter 14), try it. Below, for example, are three of the six

tables that accompanied Jean M. Twenge’s essay on

smartphones, all dramatically illustrating a decline in various

adolescent behaviors following the introduction of the iPhone

in 2007. And if there’s a more dramatic medium for your factual

argument—a Prezi slide show, a multimedia mashup, a

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documentary video posted via a social network—experiment

with it, checking to be sure it would satisfy the assignment.

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Jean M. Twenge uses graphs to support her claims about the impact of
smartphones on teenagers.

Images and photos—from technical illustrations to imaginative

re-creations—have the power to document what readers might

otherwise have to imagine, whether actual conditions of

drought, poverty, or a disaster like Hurricane Harvey that

dropped 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana in

2017, or the dimensions of the Roman forum as it existed in the

time of Julius Caesar. Readers today expect the arguments they

read to include visual elements, and there’s little reason not to

offer this assistance if you have the technical skills to create

them.

Consider also the rapid development of the genre known as

infographics—basically data presented in bold visual form.

These items can be humorous and creative, but many, such as

“Learning Out of Poverty” on the following page, make

powerful factual arguments even when they leave it to viewers

to draw their own conclusions. Just search “infographics” on

the Web to find many examples.

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“Learning Out of Poverty.” Infographics like this one turn facts and data into
arguments.

GUIDE to writing an argument of fact

Finding a Topic

You’re entering an argument of fact when you:

make a claim about fact or existence that’s controversial or
surprising: Climate change is threatening species in all regions by
extending the range of non-native plants and animals.
correct an error of fact: The overall abortion rate is not increasing
in the United States, though rates are increasing in some states.
challenge societal myths: Many Mexicans fought alongside Anglos
in battles that won Texas its independence from Mexico.
wish to discover the state of knowledge about a subject or
examine a range of perspectives and points of view: The rationales
of parents who homeschool their children reveal some surprising
differences.

Researching Your Topic

Use both a library and the Web to locate the information you need. A
research librarian is often a valuable resource, as are experts or
eyewitnesses. Begin research by consulting the following types of
sources:

scholarly books on your subject
newspapers, magazines, reviews, and journals (online and print)
online databases
government documents and reports
Web sites, blogs, social networking sites, and listservs or

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newsgroups
experts in the field, some of whom might be right on your campus

Do field research if appropriate—a survey, a poll, or systematic
observation. Or invite people with a stake in the subject to present
their interpretations of the facts. Evaluate all sources carefully, making
sure that each is authoritative and credible.

Formulating a Hypothesis

Don’t rush into a thesis. Instead, begin with a hypothesis that expresses
your beliefs at the beginning of the project but that may change as you
learn more. It’s okay to start with a question to which you don’t have
an answer or with a broad, general interest in a subject:

Question: Have higher admissions standards at BSU reduced the
numbers of entering first-year students from small, rural high
schools?
Hypothesis: Higher admissions standards at BSU are reducing the
number of students admitted from rural high schools, which tend
to be smaller and less well-funded than those in suburban and
urban areas.
Question: Have music sites like Pandora and Spotify reduced the
amount of illegal downloading of music?
Hypothesis: Services like Pandora and Spotify may have done
more than lawsuits by record companies to discourage illegal
downloads of music.
Question: How dangerous is nuclear energy, really?
Hypothesis: The danger posed by nuclear power plants is far less
than that attributable to other viable energy sources.
Question: Why can’t politicians and citizens agree about the
threat posed by the huge federal deficit?
Hypothesis: People with different points of view see different

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threats in the budget numbers and so react differently.

Examples of Arguable Factual Claims

A campus survey that shows that far more students have read
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban than Hamlet indicates
that our current core curriculum lacks depth.
Evidence suggests that the European conquest of the Americas
may have had more to do with infectious diseases than any
superiority in technology or weaponry.
In the long run, dieting may be more harmful than moderate
overeating.

Preparing a Proposal

If your instructor asks you to prepare a proposal for your project, here’s
a format that may help:

State your thesis or hypothesis completely. If you are having
trouble doing so, try outlining it in Toulmin terms:

Claim:

Reason(s):

Warrant(s):

Alternatively, you might describe the complications of a factual
issue you hope to explore in your project, with the thesis perhaps
coming later.

Explain why the issue you’re examining is important, and
provide the context for raising the issue. Are you introducing
new information, making available information better known,
correcting what has been reported incorrectly, or

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complicating what has been understood more simply?
Identify and describe those readers you most hope to reach
with your argument. Why is this group of readers most
appropriate for your project? What are their interests in the
subject? How might you involve them in the paper?
Discuss the kinds of evidence you expect to use in the project
and the research the paper will require.
Briefly discuss the key challenges you anticipate in preparing
your argument.

Considering Genre and Media

Your instructor may specify that you use a particular genre and/or
medium. If not, ask yourself these questions to help you make a good
choice:

What genre is most appropriate for your argument of fact? Does it
call for an academic essay, a report, an infographic, a brochure, or
something else?
What medium is most appropriate for your argument? Would it be
best delivered orally to a live audience? Presented as an audio
essay or podcast? Presented in print only or in print with
illustrations?
Will you need visuals, such as moving or still images, maps,
graphs, charts—and what function will they play in your
argument? Make sure they are not just “added on” but are
necessary components of the argument.

Thinking about Organization

The simplest structure for a factual argument is to make a claim and
then prove it. But even a basic approach needs an introductory section
that provides a context for the claim and a concluding section that
assesses the implications of the argument. A factual argument that

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corrects an error or provides an alternative view of some familiar
concept or historical event will also need a section early on explaining
what the error or the common belief is. Be sure your opening section
answers the who, what, where, when, how, and (maybe) why questions
that readers will bring to the case.

Factual arguments offered in some academic fields follow formulas
and templates. A format favored in the hard sciences and also in the
social and behavioral sciences is known by its acronym, IMRAD, which
stands for Introduction, Methods, Research, and Discussion. Another
typical format calls for an abstract, a review of literature, a discussion
of method, an analysis, and a references list. When you have flexibility
in the structure of your argument, it makes sense to lead with a striking
example to interest readers in your subject and then to conclude with
your strongest evidence. Pay particular attention to transitions
between key points.

If you are defending a specific claim, anticipate the ways people with
different points of view might respond to your argument. Consider how
to address such differences respectfully in the body of your argument.
But don’t let a factual argument with a persuasive thesis end with
concessions or refutations, especially in pieces for the general public.
Such a strategy leaves readers thinking about problems with your
claim at precisely the point when they should be impressed by its
strengths. On the other hand, if your factual argument becomes
exploratory, you may find yourself simply presenting a range of
positions.

Getting and Giving Response: Questions for Peer Response

Your instructor may assign you to a group for the purpose of reading
and responding to each other’s drafts. If not, ask for responses from

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serious readers or consultants at a writing center. Use the following
questions to evaluate a colleague’s draft. Since specific comments help
more than general observations, be sure to illustrate your comments
with examples. Some of the questions below assume a conventional,
thesis-driven project, but more exploratory or invitational arguments
of fact also need to be clearly phrased, organized, and supported with
evidence.

The Claim

Does the claim clearly raise a serious and arguable factual issue?
Is the claim as clear and specific as possible?
Is the claim qualified? If so, how?

Evidence for the Claim

Is the evidence provided enough to persuade readers to believe
your claim? If not, what additional evidence would help? Does any
of the evidence seem inappropriate or ineffective? Why?
Is the evidence in support of the claim simply announced, or do
you explain its significance and appropriateness? Is more
discussion needed?
Are readers’ potential objections to the claim or evidence
addressed adequately? Are alternative positions understood
thoroughly and presented fairly?
What kinds of sources are cited? How credible and persuasive will
they be to readers? What other kinds of sources might work
better?
Are all quotations introduced with appropriate signal phrases
(such as “As Tyson argues, . . .”) and blended smoothly into the
writer’s sentences?
Are all visuals titled and labeled appropriately? Have you
introduced them and commented on their significance?

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Organization and Style

How are the parts of the argument organized? Is this organization
effective?
Will readers understand the relationships among the claims,
supporting reasons, warrants, and evidence? If not, how might
those connections be clearer? Is the function of every visual clear?
Are more transitions needed? Would headings or graphic devices
help?
Are the transitions or links from point to point, sentence to
sentence, and paragraph to paragraph clear and effective? If not,
how could they be improved?
Are all visuals carefully integrated into the text? Is each visual
introduced and commented on to point out its significance? Is
each visual labeled as a figure or a table and given a caption as
well as a citation?
Is the style suited to the subject? Is it too formal, casual, or
technical? Can it be improved?
Which sentences seem effective? Which ones seem weaker, and
how could they be improved? Should short sentences be
combined, and any longer ones be broken up?
How effective are the paragraphs? Too short or too long? How can
they be improved?
Which words or phrases seem effective? Do any seem vague or
inappropriate for the audience or the writer’s purpose? Are
technical or unfamiliar terms defined?

Spelling, Punctuation, Mechanics, Documentation, and Format

Are there any errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and
the like?
Is an appropriate and consistent style of documentation used for
parenthetical citations and the list of works cited or references?
(See Chapter 22.)

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Does the paper or project follow an appropriate format? Is it
appropriately designed and attractively presented? How could it
be improved?

PROJECTS●

1. Turn a database of information you find in the library or online
into a traditional argument or, alternatively, into a multimodal
project such as an infographic that offers various ways to
present a claim. FedStats, a government Web site, provides
endless data, but so can the sports or financial sections of a
newspaper. Once you find a rich field of study, examine the
data and draw your ideas from it, perhaps amplifying these
ideas with material from other related sources of information.
If you decide to create an infographic, you’ll find good
examples online at VizWorld or Cool Infographics. Software
tools you can use to create infographics include Piktochart and
Google Public Data Explorer. Have fun.

2. Write an argument about a factual matter you are confident—
based on personal experience or your state of knowledge—that
most people get wrong, time and again. Use your expertise to
correct this false impression.

3. Tough economic and political times sometimes reinforce and
sometimes undermine cultural myths. With your classmates,
generate a list of common beliefs about education,
employment, family life, marriage, social progress, technology,
and so on that seem to be under unusual scrutiny today. Does it
still pay to invest in higher education? Do two-parent households
matter as much as they used to? Can children today expect to do
better than their parents? Is a home still a good investment? Pick

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one area to explore in depth, narrow the topic as much as you
can, and then gather facts that inform it by doing research,
perhaps working collaboratively to expand your findings. Turn
your investigation into a factual argument.

4. Since critic and writer Nicholas Carr first asked “Is Google
Making Us Stupid?” many have answered with a resounding
“yes,” arguing that extensive time online is reducing attention
spans and leaving readers less critical than ever. Others have
disagreed, saying that new technologies are doing just the
opposite—expanding our brain power. Do some research on
this controversy, on the Web or in the library, and consult with
a wide range of people interested in the subject, perhaps
gathering them together for a panel discussion. Then offer a
factual argument based on what you uncover, reflecting the
range of perspectives and opinions you have encountered.

Two Sample Factual Arguments

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Don’t Believe Facebook: The Demise of the Written Word Is Very Far
Off

MICHAEL HILTZIK

June 17, 2016

Facebook executive Nicola Mendelsohn shook up the online-o-

sphere earlier this week with one of those offhand declarations

that sound superficially profound for a moment or two but are

vacuous at their core. In five years, she told a Fortune

conference in London, her platform will probably be “all

video,” and the written word will be essentially dead.

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“I just think if we look already, we’re seeing a year-on-year

decline on text,” she said. “If I was having a bet, I would say:

video, video, video.” That’s because “the best way to tell stories

in this world, where so much information is coming at us,

actually is video. It conveys so much more information in a

much quicker period. So actually the trend helps us to digest

much more information.”

This is, of course, exactly wrong. We don’t mean her prediction

about Facebook; in that respect she’s talking her own book,

since Facebook has made a big commercial bet on video. It’s

her assertion that video conveys more information—and faster

—than text that’s upside-down.

We’ll outsource the initial pushback to Kevin Drum of Mother

Jones, who observes, “Video has many benefits, but

information density generally isn’t one of them. . . . I can read

the transcript of a one-hour speech in about five or 10 minutes

and easily pick out precisely what’s interesting and what’s not.

With video, I have to slog through the full hour.” That’s why his

policy is never to click a link that goes to video.

Drum’s most salient point applies to the definition of the

“information” people are seeking when they’re accessing video

or text. “I read/view stuff on the Web in order to gather actual

information that I can comment on,” he writes. Plainly, video is

hopelessly overmatched by text in conveying hard information

—facts, figures, data. A given video may arguably convey more

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“information” in bulk, but most of that is self-reinforcing

context—color, motion, sound. The underlying factual

information is relatively meager, in the same sense that the

energy capacity of an electric-car battery can’t match that of an

average gasoline fuel tank (the range of a fully charged Tesla

Model S is about 250 miles, while that of a typical gasoline-

fueled sedan can exceed 400).

Then there’s the challenge of extracting usable information

from video vs. text. Video is a linear medium: You have to allow

it to unspool frame by frame to glean what it’s saying. Text can

be absorbed in blocks; the eye searches for keywords or names

or other pointers such as quotation marks. Text is generally

searchable online. Some programs can convert some videos to

searchable form, but more often, the search is done via a

transcript keyed to points in the video. Here, for example, is the

full transcript of “Meet the Press” for May 29. Below is the video

of the entire show. If your task was to find the moment when

Chuck Todd first mentioned Trump University, which would

you use to find it? (We’re not even counting the five commercial

breaks.) [A video appears here in Hiltzik’s original text.]

Give up? It’s at about the 24:43 mark.

The demise of text is often predicted, but the horizon seems to

perpetually recede. Tech writer Tim Carmody puts his finger on

the reasons why “text is surprisingly resilient” in an essay at

Kottket.org: “It’s cheap, it’s flexible, it’s discreet. Human brains

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process it absurdly well considering there’s nothing really built-

in for it. Plenty of people can deal with text better than they can

spoken language, whether as a matter of preference or

necessity. And it’s endlessly computable—you can search it,

code it. . . . In short, all of the same technological advances that

enable more and more video, audio, and immersive VR

entertainment also enable more and more text. We will see

more of all of them as the technological bottlenecks open up.”

He concludes that “nothing has proved as invincible as writing

and literacy. Because text is just so malleable. Because it fits

into any container we put it in. Because our world is

supersaturated in it, indoors and out. Because we have so much

invested in it. . . . Unless our civilization fundamentally

collapses, we will never give up writing and reading.”

In predicting a world overtaken by video, Mendelsohn seems to

be making a category error; she’s conflating visual with video.

Facebook and other online platforms understand that their

users are accessing their sites for their visual offerings, but

that’s not the same as saying they’re doing nothing but watching

clips.

That notion is contradicted by the findings of Oxford

University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its

just-released Digital News Report for 2016.

The study found that most consumers of online news (59%) still

gravitate to news articles—that is, text; only 24% said they

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accessed news video in the week before they were polled. “One

surprise in this year’s data,” the report’s authors found, “is that

online news video appears to be growing more slowly than

might be expected.” The 24% figure “represents surprisingly

weak growth given the explosive growth and prominence on the

supply side.” In other words, there’s more video than ever

before, but it’s not attracting a commensurately large audience.

Why not? For the same reasons Drum mentioned:

They take too long to load and unspool, and extracting the

sought-after information is slower and more inconvenient than

reading the written word. The number-two complaint—“Pre-roll

ads put me off”—is another artifact of the linear nature of video,

compounded by the cleverness of video providers in forcing you

to watch through an entire ad, or three, before the clip even

starts.

The secret underlying Mendelsohn’s claim is that there is

something at which video is better than text: marketing.

The goal of advertising is not to impart information, but to keep

it from the audience—to distract viewers from thinking too hard

or asking questions. Video is ideal for that because that color,

movement, noise, and light is all distraction. Video is

entertainment, often of the empty-calorie variety. People love

circuses, but they don’t normally go there to study zoology.

Indeed, it seems that most of the articles (yes, articles) written

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about the coming dominance of video look at the phenomenon

from the marketer’s standpoint: “A recent campaign from

Volkswagen,” the Guardian reported last year, “saw a trio of its

videos viewed a combined 155 million times.” Here’s a safe bet:

those videos weren’t produced to explain why the car company

had been faking emissions data, but to entice viewers to buy

their cars. Mendelsohn, by the way, came to Facebook from the

advertising industry.

Certainly text and the written word will change to meet the

demands of the new technologies through which we do our

reading. That’s always been the case. Novels tended to be

structured as a series of cliffhangers when they were read in

monthly installments in a popular magazine; and in a different

narrative form when they began to be printed in books sized to

fit conveniently in a saddlebag, or valise, or before the

fireplace. The length of news articles began to shrink when the

reading audience began to migrate from newspapers that

arrived on the stoop in the morning and were kept around to be

perused at leisure, and toward smartphones and pads to be read

between elevator stops.

That’s a testament to the infinite malleability of text. Text can

conform to the relentless shrinkage of people’s attention spans;

video can’t. Who will have time in the future to watch even a