argumentative essay help student

argumentative essay help student

The Importance of Developing Argumentative Writing Skills for Student Success

1. Introduction to Argumentative Writing

In this first section, I argue that argumentative writing is a skill that can help students succeed because it intersects with many of the 21st century skills identified as crucial. That is, honing students’ argumentative writing is likely to facilitate or reflect successful learning more generally. Just to note, this section largely uses the words “argument” and “argument construction,” but either could be replaced with “explanation” and “explanation construction.” I focus on argument as it is a form of explanation but for which there is clear criteria for parts of the argument.

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” This saying illustrates the value of gaining knowledge and skills over short-term solutions. Just as the ability to fish supplies a person with food for a lifetime, the ability to make compelling, evidence-based written arguments across a multitude of topics is invaluable in multiple contexts: from seeking justice or a law change in human rights and social sciences to increasing scientific knowledge in the natural science fields, to securing funding for a business startup or cause in applied contexts. Often celebrated as a necessary skill for success in university and the workplace, argumentative writing can play a key role in deserving students’ success. Boosting student argumentative writing ability is thus a worthwhile challenge, but one often relegated to English teachers or others duplicate dissertation task-specific help like academic writing tutors.

2. Benefits of Developing Argumentative Writing Skills

Developing argumentative skills necessary for creating complex, convincing prose relies on the ability to debate coherently. Engaging in formal debates trains a student in helpfully presenting ideas and themes, sensitive to a critical audience (including attacking ideas). This is a core component of developing ‘meta-cognition’ (being aware of your own thought processes). The power of this approach involves the student engaging in synthesizing and evaluating the subject not just through factual recall or restatement of themes, but questioning the validity and strength of the arguments put forward. This means students begin engaging with a ‘bigger picture’ of evaluation; critically looking at knowledge. Addressing weaknesses in their own and others’ arguments can help shift thinking from ‘accepting’ ideas to ‘owning’ ideas; an important step in developing students’ active participation. In terms of enhancing skills in reading, writing, and speaking, argument evaluation is crucial. Students are expanding their argument ‘toolkit’ in OP and Persuasive Writing by ‘hijacking’ or integrating themes within the topic with the soft skill argumentative style of written and spoken debate.

Developing argumentative writing skills can provide students with a range of potential benefits. These skills can improve students’ performance in several areas. One such area is academic writing, where experience in argumentative writing can significantly enhance students’ report and essay writing skills and outcomes. More generally, proficiency in argumentative writing can have an impact on other aspects of academic performance. It has been suggested that critical thinking is a key skill in academic success, and the complexity and logical approach often taken in the production of argumentative writing can play a significant role in developing this. Argumentative writing also has the potential to improve students’ ability in other subject areas. As an integrated skill, the complexity of executing an argument in written form requires the utilization of higher order cognitive skills, such as analysis of potential evidence, the ability to draw inferences, and usage of relevant information. As such, this higher level of thinking is required to draw dynamic links between different pieces of evidence, heavily encouraging a focus on synthesis rather than restating facts. Effectively then, students are utilizing critical thinking and analysis of evidence when attending to the production of argumentative writing.

3. Strategies for Improving Argumentative Writing

Developing logical reasoning: 1. Use Toulmin’s Logic—Developing argumentative writing takes considerable practice. To get started, start with a claim and then ask yourself: What are my reasons? If one of my reasons is rejected, could I defend it with a good response? 2. Use Syllogistic Logic—Use a syllogism: To begin, start with a pair of premises. Then, from those two premises, state a claim that follows directly. Then, test your syllogism: are the premises true? Does the conclusion follow logically from the premises?

Conclusion: • Be sure to comment on the importance and implication of the argument. • Maintain coherence by bringing the essay full circle—provide a sense of closure by referring back to the claims.

Refuting objections: • Anticipate and refute the most compelling counterarguments to the claim. • Do not straw-man—be sure to fairly represent opposing positions before explaining why they are not convincing.

Incorporating the evidence: • Make sure to use strong, persuasive language to evoke an emotional or ethical appeal in the reader. Make sure to also back up this claim ready to refute or engage in with counterarguments. • Integrate evidence, using proper in-text citations, to support each claim. • Good evidence includes relevant, credible sources, field-specific jargon, theories, and evidence.

Structuring the argument: • Begin with a clear and specific claim that takes a distinct stance. • Set up the context of the discussion with a clear explanation of why the topic is important. • Preview the main points that will be used to build the argument and establish a logical flow.

4. Practical Applications of Argumentative Writing in Academic and Professional Settings

Mobile phones are bank tellers, goalscorers, and personal assistants. My apartment is named Alexa, and she never gets annoyed when I shout profanities in her direction. It’s a crazy, confusing, bonkers world, and the biggest mistake we can make as teachers is to pretend that students are not regularly called upon to deploy multiple literacies in complex ways. Students are a part of a society that values argument-based learning. The skill to produce a logical, evidence-filled presentation is useful. When one must make decisions in an organization, dispute ideas on a team, advocate policies to an elected board, or push for an amendment at a town hall meeting, they must be able to understand their audience, know their opposition, and support their positions. It is, in fact, the art of argumentation that has allowed for the modern civilization we all enjoy today. Without the ability to communicate alternatives to a monarchy, we likely would not be an independent nation with representatives in Washington today.

Developing argumentative writing skills will make students successful in their academic pursuits, in their professional careers, and as citizens in our increasingly argument-oriented civic society. Academic success often depends on successful persuasive writing. For instance, all of our writing majors must complete a culminating research paper that makes and supports an original argument on a particular topic. Students in all majors must present their research in paper and/or poster sessions at either Undergraduate or Graduate Research Day. Also, students in many majors must present their research in sessions at state or national professional meetings. Moreover, all students must frequently write papers, design and give book/reading reports, film critiques, formal presentations, and essays on their exams. Finally, excellent interviewers are persuasive writers as well, since they must produce effective opinion, investigative, news, sports, feature, editorial, broadcast, visual, and/or layout copy, along with other multimedia projects that may require them to use a variety of platforms and/or seek different audiences.

5. Conclusion: Empowering Students Through Argumentative Writing

Once we have investigated the necessity, practically, to equip our students with these skills, there are yet more directions in which we can untangle these remaining strands concerning argumentative writing. We now have a concrete, renewable commodity in the form of the logic strands offered to us in Lesson #1: Making Claims, Lesson #2: Evidencing Your Claims and Lesson #3: Adding Interpretation. Inductively, armed with that knowledge and practice, our students may continue the practice outlined in Lesson #4: Making Effective Counterarguments. We have the ability to facilitate those paths and more, and we encourage all to spread our good word. Now, it is your turn to harness the powerful knowledge contained in the should feeling, ingested and discharged in these preceding pages and apply it, be it in your classroom, workshop, or elsewhere you see fit. In less than 30 minutes, you too can directly and positively unleash the full potential of your community members and students and continue to spread this knowledge to become an active and vital part of their lives, and succeed together in becoming a more brilliant, creative and innovative society in return.

Once we have established that we are completely capable of fostering our students’ argumentative writing abilities, we have indirectly created an untold sense of empowerment within them. We can now appreciate the true effectiveness of the strategy itself. The ability to form logical, effective, and compelling arguments through the written word is an incorrigibly essential skill. We can be completely confident in the fact that each of our students has the capacity to be successful. We use consensus assessments to gauge student receptivity to the argument strategy and the effectiveness of it via recorded outcomes or outputs, and the intimate student narratives presented permit the academic researcher to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the modifications we stimulate.