Chapter 12 Summary

Chapter 12 discusses developing your argument. This chapter is broken into two sections, the first section discusses how to support your thesis statement and the second section shows you how to check the integrity of your argument. When writing a paper like this you need to be able to support what you are saying, being able to back up your thesis statement is key to success. This chapter breaks it down into 3 steps on how to support your thesis statement. The first step is to choose reasons why your thesis statement should be supported. This is your opportunity to build a strong case for your side of the argument. When doing this you want to keep in mind what your audience may or may not know about your topic already, how they respond and the counterarguments that will come up. The second step is to choose evidence that supports your reasons. A simple formula you can follow is that every reason you offer to support your thesis statement you need to back it up with evidence. Now, this evidence can come in an array of forms, from facts to personal observations. The last step is to decide how you are going to appeal to your audience. This is one of the most important steps because if you don't appeal to your audience your paper isn't doing what it was meant to do. Some ways to appeal to your audience is by appealing to authority, emotion, values, character and logic. By appealing to those examples you will be able to link with a audience member. The second part of this chapter discusses the integrity of your argument. You can do this by checking for fallacies that are used as distracters. They may distract the audience from actual information/proof. Also look for fallacies that are based on assumptions, misrepresentations and careless reasoning. These will do the opposite of what you are trying to do as a writer, it will bring your argument down.