Media

Subject: Art

e of the best situations you can find yourself in for an argumentative paper is that your sources do not all agree. As we discussed in class, sometimes the disagreements are genuine, and sometimes the authors are too close to the material to realize that they may be saying the same thing using different terms, or one of them may be "down the rabbit hole" into an argument that may be valid but has little to do with moving discussion forward in a meaningful way.

When experts disagree, bring the disagreement to the readers’ attention and explain it carefully. Share the evidence and logic presented on each side, then tell us whom you side with or if there is an alternative that authors aren’t considering. Often, when one person presents an idea (thesis) and another argues against it (antithesis), the best solution brings out the best of both positions (synthesis).

You will notice that the links below to examples and checklists focus on the five-paragraph, five-hundred-word format. Keep in mind that for a long paper, what these sources often describe as the objective for a body paragraph will, in a longer paper, be the objective of an entire section. The chapters on long assignments and argument in the text associated with the course should also be helpful.