how to revise an argumentative essay

Revising an Argumentative Paper

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Introduction

You’ve written a full draft of an argumentative paper. You’ve figured out what you’re generally saying and have put together one way to say it. But you’re not done. The best writing is revised writing, and you want to re–view, re–see, re–consider your argument to make sure that it’s as strong as possible. You’ll come back to smaller issues later (e.g., Is your language compelling? Are your paragraphs clearly and seamlessly connected? Are any of your sentences confusing?). But before you get into the details of phrases and punctuation, you need to focus on making sure your argument is as strong and persuasive as it can be. This page provides you with eight specific strategies for how to take on the important challenge of revising an argument.

• Give yourself time.
• Outline your argumentative claims and evidence.
• Analyze your argument’s assumptions.
• Revise with your audience in mind.
• Be your own most critical reader.
• Look for dissonance.
• Try “provocative revision.”
• Ask others to look critically at your argument.

1. Give yourself time.

The best way to begin re–seeing your argument is first to stop seeing it. Set your paper aside for a weekend, a day, or even a couple of hours. Of course, this will require you to have started your writing process well before your paper is due. But giving yourself this time allows you to refresh your perspective and separate yourself from your initial ideas and organization. When you return to your paper, try to approach your argument as a tough, critical reader. Reread it carefully. Maybe even read it out loud to hear it in a fresh way. Let the distance you created inform how you now see the paper differently.

2. Outline your argumentative claims and evidence.

This strategy combines the structure of a reverse outline with elements of argument that philosopher Stephen Toulmin detailed in his influential book The Uses of Argument . As you’re rereading your work, have a blank piece of paper or a new document next to you and write out:

• Your main claim (your thesis statement).
• Your sub–claims (the smaller claims that contribute to the larger claim).
• All the evidence you use to back up each of your claims.

Detailing these core elements of your argument helps you see its basic structure and assess whether or not your argument is convincing. This will also help you consider whether the most crucial elements of the argument are supported by the evidence and if they are logically sequenced to build upon each other.

In what follows we’ve provided a full example of what this kind of outline can look like. In this example, we’ve broken down the key argumentative claims and kinds of supporting evidence that Derek Thompson develops in his July/August 2015 Atlantic feature “ A World Without Work. ” This is a provocative and fascinating article, and we highly recommend it.

Charted Argumentative Claims and Evidence “ A World Without Work ” by Derek Thompson ( The Atlantic , July/August 2015) Main claim : Machines are making workers obsolete, and while this has the potential to disrupt and seriously damage American society, if handled strategically through governmental guidance, it also has the potential of helping us to live more communal, creative, and empathetic lives. Sub–claim : The disappearance of work would radically change the United States. Evidence: personal experience and observation Sub–claim : This is because work functions as something of an unofficial religion to Americans. Sub–claim : Technology has always guided the U.S. labor force. Evidence: historical examples Sub–claim: But now technology may be taking over our jobs. Sub–claim : However, the possibility that technology will take over our jobs isn’t anything new, nor is the fear that this possibility generates. Evidence: historical examples Sub–claim : So far, that fear hasn’t been justified, but it may now be because: 1. Businesses don’t require people to work like they used to. Evidence: statistics 2. More and more men and youths are unemployed. Evidence: statistics 3. Computer technology is advancing in majorly sophisticated ways. Evidence: historical examples and expert opinions Counter–argument: But technology has been radically advancing for 300 years and people aren’t out of work yet. Refutation: The same was once said about the horse. It was a key economic player; technology was built around it until technology began to surpass it. This parallels what will happen with retail workers, cashiers, food service employees, and office clerks. Evidence:: an academic study Counter–argument: But technology creates jobs too. Refutation: Yes, but not as quickly as it takes them away. Evidence: statistics Sub–claim : There are three overlapping visions of what the world might look like without work: 1. Consumption —People will not work and instead devote their freedom to leisure. Sub–claim : People don’t like their jobs. Evidence: polling data Sub–claim : But they need them. Evidence: expert insight Sub–claim : People might be happier if they didn’t have to work. Evidence: expert insight Counter–argument: But unemployed people don’t tend to be socially productive. Evidence: survey data Sub–claim : Americans feel guilty if they aren’t working. Evidence: statistics and academic studies Sub–claim : Future leisure activities may be nourishing enough to stave off this guilt. 2. Communal creativity —People will not work and will build productive, artistic, engaging communities outside the workplace. Sub–claim: This could be a good alternative to work. Evidence: personal experience and observation 3. Contingency —People will not work one big job like they used to and so will fight to regain their sense of productivity by piecing together small jobs. Evidence: personal experience and observation. Sub–claim : The internet facilitates gig work culture. Evidence: examples of internet-facilitated gig employment Sub–claim : No matter the form the labor force decline takes, it would require government support/intervention in regards to the issues of taxes and income distribution. Sub–claim : Productive things governments could do: • Local governments should create more and more ambitious community centers to respond to unemployment’s loneliness and its diminishment of community pride. • Government should create more small business incubators. Evidence: This worked in Youngstown. • Governments should encourage job sharing. Evidence: This worked for Germany. Counter–argument: Some jobs can’t be shared, and job sharing doesn’t fix the problem in the long term. Given this counter argument: • Governments should heavily tax the owners of capital and cut checks to all adults. Counter–argument: The capital owners would push against this, and this wouldn’t provide an alternative to the social function work plays. Refutation: Government should pay people to do something instead of nothing via an online job–posting board open up to governments, NGOs, and the like. • Governments should incentivize school by paying people to study. Sub–claim : There is a difference between jobs, careers, and calling, and a fulfilled life is lived in pursuit of a calling. Evidence: personal experience and observations

Some of the possible, revision-informing questions that this kind of outline can raise are:

• Are all the claims thoroughly supported by evidence?
• What kinds of evidence are used across the whole argument? Is the nature of the evidence appropriate given your context, purpose, and audience?
• How are the sub–claims related to each other? How do they build off of each other and work together to logically further the larger claim?
• Do any of your claims need to be qualified in order to be made more precise?
• Where and how are counter–arguments raised? Are they fully and fairly addressed?

For more information about the Toulmin Method, we recommend John Ramage, John Bean, and June Johnson’s book Written Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings.

3. Analyze your argument’s assumptions.

In building arguments we make assumptions either explicitly or implicitly that connect our evidence to our claims. For example, in “A World Without Work,” as Thompson makes claims about the way technology will change the future of work, he is assuming that computer technology will keep advancing in major and surprising ways. This assumption helps him connect the evidence he provides about technology’s historical precedents to his claims about the future of work. Many of us would agree that it is reasonable to assume that technological advancement will continue, but it’s still important to recognize this as an assumption underlying his argument.

To identify your assumptions, return to the claims and evidence that you outlined in response to recommendation #2. Ask yourself, “What assumptions am I making about this piece of evidence in order to connect this evidence to this claim?” Write down those assumptions, and then ask yourself, “Are these assumptions reasonable? Are they acknowledged in my argument? If not, do they need to be?”

Often you will not overtly acknowledge your assumptions, and that can be fine. But especially if your readers don’t share certain beliefs, values, or knowledge, you can’t guarantee that they will just go along with the assumptions you make. In these situations, it can be valuable to clearly account for some of your assumptions within your paper and maybe even rationalize them by providing additional evidence. For example, if Thompson were writing his article for an audience skeptical that technology will continue advancing, he might choose to identify openly why he is convinced that humanity’s progression towards more complex innovation won’t stop.

4. Revise with your audience in mind.

We touched on this in the previous recommendation, but it’s important enough to expand on it further. Just as you should think about what your readers know, believe, and value as you consider the kinds of assumptions you make in your argument, you should also think about your audience in relationship to the kind of evidence you use. Given who will read your paper, what kind of argumentative support will they find to be the most persuasive? Are these readers who are compelled by numbers and data? Would they be interested by a personal narrative? Would they expect you to draw from certain key scholars in their field or avoid popular press sources or only look to scholarship that has been published in the past ten years? Return to your argument and think about how your readers might respond to it and its supporting evidence.

5. Be your own most critical reader.

Sometimes writing handbooks call this being the devil’s advocate. It is about intentionally pushing against your own ideas. Reread your draft while embracing a skeptical attitude. Ask questions like, “Is that really true?” and, “Where’s the proof?” Be as hard on your argument as you can be, and then let your criticisms inform what you need to expand on, clarify, and eliminate.

This kind of reading can also help you think about how you might incorporate or strengthen a counter–argument. By focusing on possible criticisms to your argument, you might encounter some that are particularly compelling that you’ll need to include in your paper. Sometimes the best way to revise with criticism in mind is to face that criticism head on, fairly explain what it is and why it’s important to consider, and then rationalize why your argument still holds even in light of this other perspective.

6. Look for dissonance.

In her influential 1980 article about how expert and novice writers revise differently, writing studies scholar Nancy Sommers claims that “at the heart of revision is the process by which writers recognize and resolve the dissonance they sense in their writing” (385). In this case, dissonance can be understood as the tension that exists between what you want your text to be, do, or sound like and what is actually on the page. One strategy for re–seeing your argument is to seek out the places where you feel dissonance within your argument—that is, substantive differences between what, in your mind, you want to be arguing, and what is actually in your draft.

A key to strengthening a paper through considering dissonance is to look critically—really critically—at your draft. Read through your paper with an eye towards content, assertions, or logical leaps that you feel uncertain about, that make you squirm a little bit, or that just don’t line up as nicely as you’d like. Some possible sources of dissonance might include:

• logical steps that are missing
• questions a skeptical reader might raise that are left unanswered
• examples that don’t actually connect to what you’re arguing
• pieces of evidence that contradict each other
• sources you read but aren’t mentioning because they disagree with you

Once you’ve identified dissonance within your paper, you have to decide what to do with it. Sometimes it’s tempting to take the easy way out and just delete the idea, claim, or section that is generating this sense of dissonance—to remove what seems to be causing the trouble. But don’t limit yourself to what is easy. Perhaps you need to add material or qualify something to make your argumentative claim more nuanced or more contextualized.

Even if the dissonance isn’t easily resolved, it’s still important to recognize. In fact, sometimes you can factor that recognition into how you revise; maybe your revision can involve considering how certain concepts or ideas don’t easily fit but are still important in some way. Maybe your revision can involve openly acknowledging and justifying the dissonance.

Sommers claims that whether expert writers are substituting, adding, deleting, or reordering material in response to dissonance, what they are really doing is locating and creating new meaning. Let your recognition of dissonance within your argument lead you through a process of discovery.

7. Try “provocative revision.”

Composition and writing center scholar Toby Fulwiler wrote in 1992 about the benefits of what he calls “provocative revision.” He says this kind of revision can take four forms. As you think about revising your argument, consider adopting one of these four strategies.

a. Limiting

As Fulwiler writes, “Generalization is death to good writing. Limiting is the cure for generality” (191). Generalization often takes the form of sweeping introduction statements (e.g., “Since the beginning of time, development has struggled against destruction.”), but arguments can be too general as well. Look back at your paper and ask yourself, “Is my argument ever not grounded in specifics? Is my evidence connected to a particular time, place, community, and circumstance?” If your claims are too broad, you may need to limit your scope and zoom in to the particular.

Inserting new content is a particularly common revision strategy. But when your focus is on revising an argument, make sure your addition of another source, another example, a more detailed description, or a closer analysis is in direct service to strengthening the argument. Adding material may be one way to respond to dissonance. It also can be useful for offering clarifications or for making previously implicit assumptions explicit. But adding isn’t just a matter of dropping new content into a paragraph. Adding something new in one place will probably influence other parts of the paper, so be prepared to make other additions to seamlessly weave together your new ideas.

c. Switching

For Fulwiler, switching is about radically altering the voice or tone of a text—changing from the first–person perspective to a third–person perspective or switching from an earnest appeal to a sarcastic critique. When it comes to revising your argument, it might not make sense to make any of these switches, but imaging what your argument might sound like coming from a very different voice might be generative. For example, how would Thompson’s “A World Without Work,” be altered if it was written from the voice and perspective of an unemployed steel mill worker or someone running for public office in Ohio or a mechanical robotics engineer? Re–visioning how your argument might come across if the primary voice, tone, and perspective was switched might help you think about how someone disinclined to agree with your ideas might approach your text and open additional avenues for revision.

d. Transforming

According to Fulwiler, transformation is about altering the genre and/or modality of a text—revising an expository essay into a letter to the editor, turning a persuasive research paper into a ballad. If you’re writing in response to a specific assignment, you may not have the chance to transform your argument in this way. But, as with switching, even reflecting on the possibilities of a genre or modality transformation can be useful in helping you think differently about your argument. If Thompson has been writing a commencement address instead of an article, how would “A World Without Work” need to change? How would he need to alter his focus and approach if it was a policy paper or a short documentary? Imagining your argument in a completely different context can help you to rethink how you are presenting your argument and engaging with your audience.

8. Ask others to look critically at your argument.

Sometimes the best thing you can do to figure out how your argument could improve is to get a second opinion. Of course, if you are a currently enrolled student at UW–Madison, you are welcome to make an appointment to talk with a tutor at our main center or stop by one of our satellite locations. But you have other ways to access quality feedback from other readers. You may want to ask someone else in your class, a roommate, or a friend to read through your paper with an eye towards how the argument could be improved. Be sure to provide your reader with specific questions to guide his or her attention towards specific parts of your argument (e.g., “How convincing do you find the connection I make between the claims on page 3 and the evidence on page 4?” “What would clarify further the causal relationship I’m suggesting between the first and second sub-argument?”). Be ready to listen graciously and critically to any recommendations these readers provide.

Works Cited

Fulwiler, Toby. “Provocative Revision.” Writing Center Journal, vol. 12, no. 2, 1992, pp. 190-204.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings, 8th ed., Longman, 2010.

Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 31, no. 4, 1980, pp. 378-88.

Thompson, Derek. “A World Without Work.” The Atlantic, July/August 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/. Accessed 11 July 2017.

Toulmin, Stephen. The Uses of Argument. Updated ed., Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Developing a Thesis Statement

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

Reviewing and Revising an Argument

Finishing a draft of your argument is an important milestone, but it's not the last step. Most arguments, especially research-based arguments, require careful revision to be fully effective. As you review and revise your draft, you might discover yourself reconsidering your audience, and then revising your focus. You might then reconsider your evidence and revising your claim. Reviewing and revising almost never occurs in the same manner twice. Be prepared to circle back several times through the choices below as you prepare your final argument.

Reviewing Your Position

One of the most common student remarks in argument drafting workshops is: "Now that I've written the whole paper, my position, or claim has changed." Be sure to take the time to review and revise your position statement so that it reflects the exact claim you support in your argument.

The Structure of Your Claim

After you've drafted your argument, you'll know if you're relying on cause/effect, "because" statements, or pro/con strategy. Make sure that the structure of your claim reflects the overall structure of your argument. For example, a first draft claim--"Fraternity hazing has serious negative effects on everyone involved"--can be revised to reflect the cause/effect reasoning in the rest of the argument-="because hazing causes psychological trauma to victims and perpetrators, fraternity hazing is much more serious than an initiation prank."

Word Choice in Your Claim

Quite often an early draft of a claim makes a broader or more general point than an argument can actually support or prove. As you revise, consider where you might limit your claim. Narrow the cases your claim applies to or state more precisely who is affected by a problem or how a solution can be implemented. Challenging each word in a claim is a good way to be sure that you've stated your claim as narrowly and as precisely as possible. Look also for loaded words that might carry negative connotations. Be sure to consider their effect on your target audience.

Your Claim as a Roadmap

An audience uses the claim to help anticipate what will appear in the rest of the argument. You want to revise your claim so that it makes the most sense in light of the argument that follows. Note obvious exceptions to your position right in the claim itself so that the audience understands exactly to what the claim applies. Continue revising your claim as you continue revising your argument so that it continues to function as a clear roadmap for the benefit of your audience.

Reviewing Your Audience Analysis

Once you've got a working draft, literally re-view your argument through the eyes of the audience. Here are several strategies that can help:

Role Playing: Become the Audience

Put the argument aside and make up a list of questions your audience might ask about the issue. Try to role play the way you assume they might think. Enlist other people's help with this list. Then, return to the paper and see if these questions have been answered.

Profile the Audience

Write a quick audience profile:

• What does your audience believe to be true?
• What kinds of proof will they find most persuasive?
• What do they already think about the issue?

Then, look back at your draft to see if you've supplied the kind of evidence likely to persuade your audience and whether you've addressed what they already think. If not, consider replacing or adding further evidence and refuting positions you have not included.

Play Devil's Advocate

Read through your argument as if you don't believe a single word. Look at each reason and the pieces of evidence you present and list any objections that could be made. Then, look at your objections and judge which of these your audience might hold. Revise to counter those objections.

Peer Review

Ask a friend (or several) to read through your argument. Ideally, get at least one who does not hold the same views as you on the issue. Ask them to write down any questions they didn't get answered and any counter-arguments they might make.

Reviewing Your Evidence

Once you've got a working draft of your argument, you want to make sure that you have adequate support for all your claims. The best way to do this is to go through your argument, sentence by sentence, circling all the claims you have made. List them on a sheet of paper and ask whether it is a claim with which any member of your audience might disagree.

Under each claim, list what evidence you offer in its support. If none is offered, perhaps further research is in order: If only one piece is offered, judge whether it is authoritative enough to support the claim and whether it should be included at all.

Familiar Sources

When relying on sources with which the audience is familiar--an article, book, or study, for instance--providing a lot of detail in the content isn't always necessary. It's fair enough to make a simple generalization place a proper citation in parentheses or a footnote.

Similarly, if you are relying on multiple studies that make the same point, a single sentence might be used to summarize the point all the works share, followed by a citation listing numerous studies and articles. For example:

As numerous studies have shown, students tend to revise more when writing on a computer (Selfe; Hawisher and Selfe; Kiefer; Palmquist).

Note: This advice may not apply to course assignments. Many times teachers want to assess your understanding of the content. As a result, they will expect details. Check with your instructor about how much knowledge you are allowed to assume on the part of your audience.

Key Piece of Evidence

When relying on one key piece of evidence to make a point, you will want to provide a detailed summary placing it in the context of its source. The more the audience knows about this context, the more they are likely to be convinced of its validity and that it does indeed support the specific point you are trying to make.

Evidence from Original Field Research

When relying on evidence from original field research to support your point you should provide as much information as possible. Describe your methods, the data collected and finally, the findings and conclusions you draw from the study. Here's a sample outline:

• Introduction: presents either the issue to be examined or the position you are taking.
• Literature Review (optional): discusses previous work done on an issue and the reasons why it is insufficient to answer a question.
• Methods: describes research design and the methods involved.
• Findings: describes research results, even that which isn't relevant or conclusive.
• Conclusions: advocates for the position or claim using relevant portions of the data.

Original Field Research as One of Many Forms of Evidence

When original field research is only one of many forms of evidence, a brief description of the method and data relevant to the argument is sufficient. For instance, here's a sample paragraph:

Rather than learning for the sake of becoming a better person, grades encourage performance for the sake of a better GPA. The focus grading puts on performance undercuts learning opportunities when students choose courses according to what might be easiest rather than what they'd like to know more about. [Sub-point in a paper arguing that grades should be abolished in non-major courses.]

For example, [Summary of Published Study.] students polled at CSU in a College of Liberal Arts study cite the following reasons for choosing non-major courses:

Easy grading (80%) Low quantity of work (60%) What was available (40%) Personality of teacher (30%) Interested in the class (10%)

Similarly, in an interview I conducted with graduating seniors, only two of the 20 people I spoke with found their non-major courses valuable. [A description of field research methods and findings.] The other 18 reported that non-major courses were a waste of time for a variety of reasons:

I'm never going to do anything with them. I just took whatever wouldn't distract me from my major so I didn't work very hard in them, just studying enough to get an A on the test. Non-major courses are a joke. Everyone I know took the simplest, stupidest, 100-level courses needed to fulfill the requirements. I can't even remember the ones I took now. [Other relevant details from field research; note answers about taking courses with friends and other non-relevant answers are not summarized.]

Only a Small Part of Work is Relevant

When only a small part of someone else's work is relevant, such as a statistic or quote, it need only be summarized or quoted. However, it is important to inform your audience when that work, as a whole, does not support your point or isn't relevant. The best way to work with data or information from an outside source is to provide a short, context-setting summary of the entire piece and only the detail of what is relevant to your argument.

This summary can be as little as a phrase or clause. For instance:

Although Smythe is against multicultural education in general...

It can also be an entire sentence as:

In Back to the Basics Smythe argues for a common curriculum for all students. Some of his examples, however, can also support the exact opposite conclusion.

After such a context-setting phrase or sentence, you are free to summarize only those points you intend to use. For example:

Although a discussion of recycling forms only a small part of Harrison's argument about global warming, his statistics on recycling are directly relevant here. As Harrison reports, although 60% of American families recycle in some way, only 2% of that 60% recycle all of their recyclable waste.

Multiple Sources

When multiple sources support a single point in your argument, even though each differs contextually somewhat from the other, try synthesizing them into a single unit supportive of your common theme. Coming from a variety of sources the audience will be more likely to find the combined evidence more compelling and persuasive. Your argument will be stronger in the long run.

Tangential Evidence

When tangential evidence is relevant but not exactly on point, you must show its relation, or connection, to your claim. Either a logical appeal or arguing for a particular interpretation of the evidence might do the trick. On the other hand, it might be better to present an outright refutation.

In both cases, the best way to incorporate the evidence is to combine a summary with textual analysis. That is, provide a fair summary of the outside source and then present an analysis, interpretation, or refutation that makes your point.

Making a Logical Appeal Using Tangential Evidence

One of the primary reasons I am claiming the media mishandled the Ebonics issue is that they never asked the right language questions about bilingual education. [Author's point] That is, the media presented it as a dialect issue--teaching Non-Standard English--without examining the language implications of bilingual education. To propose a program of bilingual education, one must first demonstrate that there are two languages involved, Ebonics and English. The appropriateness of teaching both is a separate issue. Yet, the media failed to even consider whether Ebonics can be considered a viable language. [Logical extension of claim of mishandled media attention to the question of Ebonics as a language]

By linguistic definitions, a language can be said to exist when speakers of different dialects no longer understand one another. [Evidence is tangential to point about the media but now relevant through the logical appeal above] Long recognized as a dialect of English, Ebonics (or Black English Vernacular as it is more commonly called) has roots in African languages, Southern dialects, and has been shown to evolve with each new generation. Yet, no linguistic evidence has yet been presented that speakers of English cannot understand someone speaking Ebonics. Similarly, none has been presented to prove Ebonics is not a language. [Tangential evidence on media but relevant to reformed issue of language]

By referring to Ebonics as a language, the media assumed the Oakland School district's definition without any investigation. Further, they turned the issue into an argument about dialect-Standard English versus another form of English-even while discussing Ebonics as a language. Neither perspective is fair or objective: if the media wanted to present a bilingual education issue, they should have dealt with Ebonics as a language. If they wanted to present a dialect issue, they should have demonstrated why Ebonics should not be considered a language. [Logical appeal connects language issue back to point about media, i.e., why failure to look at language definition leads to unfair reporting on Ebonics issue.]

Favorably Interpreting Tangential Evidence

THESIS: Attention to multiculturalism in writing curricula is cursory and does not pay enough attention to linguistic diversity even though the research does give it lip service.

INTERPRETATION: [Part of a section on how seemingly multicultural pedagogies ignore linguistic diversity.] Many curricular proposals, admittedly, seem to pay attention to linguistic diversity. [Author's point] For example, in an article in College English, Tory Smith begins by arguing that current writing curriculums don't pay enough attention to linguistic diversity. To support his argument, he cites several studies showing that when a student's dialect or cultural perspective is not valued by school, the student tends to disassociate from school. Finally, he presents a proposal for making room for culturally diverse topics in the classroom through the use of newsletters, personal anecdotes, etc. [Summary of tangential evidence] Although the proposal seems to address his concerns, a closer examination reveals that Smith does not meet his own goals. That is, his specific proposals clearly allow for assignments with more cultural content but make no mention of the linguistic diversity he cites as central to a multicultural curriculum. For example... [Paper goes on to directly quote an assignment example and then discusses how linguistic diversity is ignored-analysis of textual evidence.]

Refuting Tangential Evidence

George Will's editorial in Newsweek states that the reason "Johnny Can't Write" is the misguided nature of English teachers who focus more on issues of multiculturalism, "political correctness," new theories of reading-such as deconstruction-and so on, than on the hard and fast rules for paragraph development, grammar, and sentence structure. [Summary of Will's main argument and the tangential evidence he used] Although Will interviews students and uses sample course descriptions to back up his opinion, he misses the main point: all the theories and approaches he decries as "fashionable" are actually proven to teach people to write more effectively than the traditional methods he favors. In short, he ignores the research that invalidates his position. [Textual analysis focused on flaws in Will's editorial]

Citation Information

Donna LeCourt, Kate Kiefer, and Peter Connor. (1994-2024). Reviewing and Revising an Argument. The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/writing/guides/.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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• Post hoc fallacy
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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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How to Revise an Argumentative Essay: The Complete Guide

by  Antony W

April 7, 2022

You’ve spent a lot of time working on your argumentative essay. Your  argument’s title  is on point, you have a strong  introduction for the argument , with a powerful  hook  that easily grabs the reader’s attention, and an  arguable thesis statement .

Throughout the body section, you’ve structured your assignment so that every paragraph addresses its own idea, beginning with a topic sentence and ending with a closing link that transition to the next consecutive paragraph.

Your essay even  addresses the opposing point of views  and ends with a very strong  conclusion . Your essay has addressed the issue in the prompt, and you now feel confident enough to submit it for review.

However, there’s one more thing you need to do before you can have your instructor look at your paper. You have to revise the essay thoroughly. So in this guide, you’ll learn  how to revise an argumentative essay  to give it a more refined touch than what it already has.

How to Revise An Argumentative Essay

Take a break from writing.

While you can do everything in one sitting, it’s not always the best thing to do if you want to earn full marks.

Take a break from the essay as soon as you finish writing the conclusion. A 24 hour break isn’t bad, although you can relax for a couple of hours if you have a strict deadline to beat.

Taking a break has a benefit: 

It gives you the opportunity to refresh your mind, which could yield some great ideas and arguments different from what you already have in your essay.

In the end, you come back to your paper as a critical thinker who’s ready to read the essay from the standpoint of a reader, not a writer.

When you come back to working on your paper, read the essay carefully word by word, this time from a reader’s perspective.

Use Revise Outline to Review Your Claims and Evidence

In reverse outlining, you take away all the supporting writing and leave your paper with the main ideas. The approach allows you to assess if your ideas features the logical sequence of points and it helps to determine the success of your paper.

Reverse  outlining your argumentative essay  allow you to:

• See if your paper meets its goals
• Find places to analyze or expand
• Look for gaps in your structure where readers may otherwise find your organization somehow weak

To reverse outline your argumentative essay, take a separate blank piece of paper and start organizing your thoughts.

• Write your main claim at the top, or simply the thesis statement, right at the top
• Follow this with all the sub claims that you made in your paper
• Write down all the evidences that you used to support each claim

Since reverse outlining allows you to detail the core elements of your arguments in the most basic form possible, it becomes easy to see whether your argument would be convincing without the supporting writing.

Again, you’re able to look at your evidence more critically to determine if they’re sufficient to support the most crucial elements in the essay.

This revision technique raises a few important questions that you can use to refine your argumentative essay:

• Does your argument provide sufficient evidence to support your claim?
• How well has the essay addressed the  counterarguments  presented?
• Do you need to qualify any of your claims to make it more precise?

Look Into the Assumptions of Your Arguments

As you  write your argumentative essay , you’ll find yourself making implicit and explicit assumptions to connect your audience to your claims. Should this the case, you should read your argumentative essay to identify the assumptions you make about a piece of evidence. Then, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are the assumptions that I have made on a claim in my argumentative essay reasonable?
• Can my readers acknowledge the assumptions that I make in my argumentative writing?
• Should I leave the assumptions in my argumentative essay if my target audience doesn’t acknowledge them?

It’s uncertain if readers will openly recognize and share your assumptions, and especially if they don’t accept certain knowledge, value or beliefs.

So if you’ve explicitly or implicitly made assumptions in your work, account for them and, if possible, provide more evidence to validate these assumptions.

Revise Your Argumentative Essay with Your Audience in Mind

It’s important to think about your audience when revising your paper, and especially in relation to the evidence you use in your argumentative essay.

Since  you already know who will be reading your paper anyway, you need to identify the kind of evidence that they’ll find more persuasive.

• Do they need numbers and statistics?
• Are they looking for evidence draw from certain scholars in the field you’re trying to explore?
• Or will the essay be more convincing if it included personal narratives?

It’s going to take some time to figure out how exactly your readers may respond to your arguments.

And that can go a long way to make it easy for you to include the right supporting evidence in your work.

Let Someone Else Read Your Argumentative Essay

Sometimes playing the  devil’s advocate  in an argumentative essay that you’ve written yourself can be somewhat hard.

Should that be the case, it’s best to find someone more objective to read your paper.

This kind of approach is helpful because it helps you think about how you may handle opposing point of views when they arise.

Quite too often, another objective reader will certainly embrace a more skeptical attitude and will help you identify gaps that can help you improve your writing.

In this situation, questions such as truth and the burden of proof will easily arise. Allowing them to be hard on your arguments can give you helpful criticism, which you can use to either expand, clarify, or remove an issue from your argument.

About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.