argumentive essay examples

argumentive essay examples

The Value of Argumentative Essays in Academic Writing

1. Introduction to Argumentative Essays

Writing argumentative essays is one of the key skills that undergraduate students are required to develop in the academic world and even at pre-university level, often in preparation for the demands of writing this genre at degree level. Understanding how to form, develop and enhance an argumentative text is central to understanding and appreciating not only certain aspects of the target language, such as the use of modal verb forms of necessity, obligation and advice in expressing authority, but indeed, it is arguably vital to the process of engaging in any type of textual production. This is because, through forming, developing, defending and reflecting critically on argued points of view, learners can become better critical thinkers while exploring new, often conceptually complex, content, form and structure that they might not have been exposed to before. They can use their intellects, and express their thoughts and opinions, in a wholly individual manner.

Argumentation is and has been a central element in academic writing for a very long time. It is intrinsic to good writing and facilitates rational discourse. The act of trying to convince others about the validity of one’s opinions or the correctness of one’s ideas, that is the discourse and disputation that comes with forming and developing arguments, plays a central role in the development of learners’ intellectual thought processes and consequently it has been an integral part of educational processes for centuries. In fact, Grice (1998) points out that the origins of educational establishments, both in the Orient and Occident, lay in people’s discussions. Closely connected to this function of dispute and disputation, argumentation is also fundamentally important to the structure of academic discourse, with practically every academic text presenting and developing arguments, whether directly and explicitly, or through the assumption by the reader of the often unstated existence of warrants or leading principles that guide the author’s discourse.

2. Key Elements of an Argumentative Essay

Criteria refer to why you consider your position valid. For example, a writer might consider who gave the information, the importance of the information, and how reliable the information is in supporting an assertion. Warrants are the ways a writer uses sources to support the criteria. Warrants can sometimes be made explicit in a text, or they can be implied. They also can be hidden or hard to detect. Good warrants rely on concrete evidence, or data, such as facts or statistics from reliable sources, such as peer-reviewed books, articles, or web pages. When using data to support a claim, it is important to discuss it in a way that demonstrates its relevance and cannot be easily rebutted. Be wary of using information that is incomplete, outdated, taken out of context, or unclear. If the criteria or warrant is unacceptable, the guarantee becomes weak. Advertising slogans or quotes from famous people, for example, are weak support. In addition to being relevant, it is important to apply criteria and warrants fairly and honestly. Writers should reserve judgment about their conclusions until after they have carefully reviewed the sources.

Our topic is “The value of argumentative essays in academic writing”. We will begin with important concepts and skills that are essential to a successful argumentative essay. In an argumentative essay, an effective thesis is essential. A good thesis identifies the issue addressed and provides a clear claim or position. The claim should be narrow, specific, and arguable. To be sure your claim is specific and narrow enough for an essay assignment, ask yourself the question, “How does my claim solve or address the assigned question or problem?” As you write, keep the claim in mind. Each big idea or topic sentence in the body paragraphs of the essay should be related to the claim.

3. Examples of Effective Argumentative Essays

How do I write a good thesis statement? Your thesis should answer the question: “What point am I going to argue in this essay?” There are two components to a good final thesis. The first is the topic and the second is the point of the essay. The best way to make a good thesis statement is to prove that the topic is controversial. Readers will be interested in reading the rest of the essay to see how you support your point. Second, your thesis makes your purpose clear to the reader. Make sure you state your thesis, not just mention the topic. Don’t announce the thesis, e.g. “This paper will discuss…” The best thesis statements take a position and address BOTH sides of the issue. Remember, people get their information from your—the writer’s—point of view.

What is the purpose of your argument? Often professors will give you a writing assignment in the form of an argument—it can take different shapes. You will often be asked to write an essay with a thesis statement. For example, if I was arguing about the use of the death penalty in the U.S., my thesis statement would probably look like one of the following examples: “The death penalty is a proven ineffective form of punishment, very expensive, racially biased, and should be outlawed in the U.S.” or “The United States should outlaw the death penalty because it goes against human rights, is implemented in an unfair way, and is not doing its job. Since the United States is the only Western Democracy that still uses the death penalty, more people should know of its weaknesses.” Both forms are okay to use because the purpose of your essay is to argue a point. Keep in mind that for some writing assignments, you might need to analyze the audience and purpose before getting started.

4. The Impact of Argumentative Essays on Critical Thinking Skills

Argumentative essays are those essays that have a purpose of establishing an original opinion through logic, rhetoric, and other factors. These are the formal essays. Another name for argumentative essays is persuasive essays. An argumentative essay may have a thesis. To understand the writers’ evidence, the reader must examine the arguments. The time frame can be changed, which allows more work to be done. Argumentative assignments may also require empirical research where the student collects data through interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments. The author can possess numerous forms of conflicts with that theme of the question. To present justified opinions on the essay questions, the author should support their means of the author.

Writing is one of the basic skills needed for academic success, and students need to write more in the academic environment than they might outside of it. College and high school classes frequently require students to write one or more essays. Essays provide readers with information not only of the surface-level sort but also much deeper information expressing personal experience, argument, and so on.

5. Conclusion: The Importance of Incorporating Argumentative Essays in Academic Curricula

Not all students should become academic professionals who want to enhance the delay of their everyday after college lives; but students should undergo the processes of hearing different sides of important contemporary disputes and should accustom themselves to examining arguments, evidence, and counterargument. By writing argumentative essays, they can recognize specific disputes suggested by exemplary essay topics, learn to stay on target and to make incidentals evidential, and master being tough-minded or dogmatic, select simple topics for which they can assemble evidence and over which they can acquire considerable mastery; these topics can be pertinent to the conversation about issues at hand, enabling personal engagement and opportunities for students’ ownership comments.

Although preparing argumentative essays may seem irrelevant to academic composition, college freshmen’s fear and loathing of first-year composition sessions suggests that something is dreadfully wrong. One source of their unabated horror is that they are unprepared for the verbal controversies that occur during the long days of preparation for the Ultimate Answer. Students are reluctant to engage in what might be called argumentative essays, preferring to describe rather than to persuade. This situation is callai for professors of college English who wish to convince their students that writing essays in order to assert a thesis helps to sharpen intellectual acumen precisely because it provides a mechanism for setting forth evidence logically, for judging what kinds of evidence are relevant, and for appraising the relevance and truth of competitors’ evidence.