Argumentative Essay: Logic and Reasoning

• Argumentative essays result from an investigation where evidence is collected, generated, and evaluated.
• Tentative conclusions are drawn based on the collected evidence.
• The argumentative essay begins after investigation and evaluation.
• Writers state their position and marshal collected evidence, addressing common misunderstandings.
• Argument’s purpose is to convince the audience to agree with facts, share values, accept conclusions, undermine prejudices/preconceptions, and/or adopt a way of thinking.
• Arguments typically revolve around a debatable claim or thesis.

Logic

• Logic establishes what can/cannot be proved true.
• Logic provides basic rules for correct conclusions and correctives for faulty thinking.
• Classical logic contains three basic laws of reason: Law of Identity, Law of Non-Contradiction, and Law of Excluded Middle.
• Law of Identity (LI): A=A; everything has its own unique features.
• Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC): ​​Contradictory statements cannot both be true, "A is B" and "A is not B”.
• Law of Excluded Middle (LEM): "Either A or not-A"; either the claim or its opposite must be true.

Syllogistic Logic

• Syllogistic logic is deductive (top-down) logic.
• Deductive arguments go from general to particular, claiming impossible falsehood in the conclusion if premises are true.
• Cause-to-effect arguments lead from a general cause to a particular effect.
• Well-constructed deductive arguments create necessary conclusions, conclusions that inevitably follow from the general.
• Making/assessing arguments by cause requires questioning the certainty, simplicity/complexity, and alternative impact of the relationship between cause and effect.
• Arguments should acknowledge contradictory facts, explaining how they fit.
• Arguments should demonstrate how evidence leads to the conclusion.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Deductive Logic

• Deductive arguments have a high degree of certainty and are absolutely true.
• Deductive arguments have a limited, circular nature; no new information is acquired.
• Inductive logic (bottom-up logic) goes from particular to general.
• Human experience limitation makes even the best inductive arguments only probable.
• Deductive arguments are either valid or invalid.
• Inductive arguments are strong, weak, or in-between, based on relevant and numerous specifics that lead to the conclusion.
• Effect-to-cause arguments lead from a particular observation to a general cause.
• Scientific reasoning proceeds from observation to hypothesis and then looks for proof and is inherently inductive.
• Scientific discoveries must be reproducible for general conviction.
• Inductive arguments have probable conclusions, but they are not absolutely verifiable.
• Inductive logic can produce new ideas.
• Inductive arguments cannot be proved absolutely.

Types of Syllogisms

• Modus Ponens (MP): If P, then Q; P; therefore, Q
• Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent: If P, then Q; Q; therefore, P

Arguments

• Arguments require an arguable issue with at least two or more views.
• An arguer takes a position on an issue for the targeted audience, states and defends their claim, states and rebuts counter-claims, and then summarizes their conclusion and restates the claim.
• The audience should be open to the arguer’s claim and defense.

Conditional Statements

• Conditional statements are known as "if-then" clauses (if P, then Q).
• Affirming the "if" clause (affirming the antecedent/modus ponens): The "then" clause is always true when the "if" clause is, as long as the conditional is true (P, therefore, Q).
• Fallacy of affirming the consequent: It’s not valid to claim "I am in India (Q); therefore, I am in New Delhi (P)."
• Negating the "if" clause ("modus tollens"): As long as the conditional is true, negating the "then" clause also negates the "if" clause (not Q; therefore, not P).
• Fallacy of denying the antecedent: Claiming "I am not in New Delhi (P); therefore, I cannot be in India (Q)" is not valid.
• Sufficient condition: P ensures/is adequate for Q.
• Necessary condition: P is essential to Q (without P, Q can't happen).

Six Evidences of a Good Argument

• A good argument has strong foundation in correspondence and factual support.
• A good argument possesses a high degree of coherence/internal consistency; a logically contradictory system cannot be true.
• A good argument has explanatory power.
• A good argument avoids extremes; it is neither too simple nor too complex.
• Good arguments are established by the cumulative evidence of converging lines from various data sources.
• Good arguments are complete when they are implicitly or explicitly able to refute contrary arguments.

Types of Arguments

• Debate: Two sides argue an issue, with the best argument being judged the winner through oral delivery.
• Trial: Defense and prosecution present an argument to the judge and jury. The judge/jury decides who wins the argument with a verdict; primarily delivered orally.
• Dialectic: Two or more people consider opposing views on an issue and raise questions to test the strength of those opposing views to attempt to establish common/new ground; written or oral.
• Single Arguer: Single arguer attempts to convince an audience with a claim while confronting opposing views; prescriptive essays or lectures.
• One-on-One: Single arguer attempts to convince another person and looks for common ground with the person; formal, focused, follows pre-set rules which might be enforced by a mediator.
• Academic Investigation: Complex issues are examined in search for undiscovered knowledge and truth, primarily in universities narrow hypotheses as evidence is uncovered.
• Negotiation: Two or more people argue to reach a consensus.

What an Argument Requires

• Arguments require an arguable issue, potential for at least two or more views from informed experts.
• Arguments require an arguer who takes a position, states/defends their claim, notes audiences, rebuts them, summarizes conclusions, and restates the central claim.
• Arguments require the audience to be open to the arguer’s claim and defense.

Arguable Issues

• Issues should be compelling and susceptible to proof.

Reading Argumentative Material

• Scan the title, first paragraph, and conclusion.
• Summarize the material in one paragraph and state your immediate opinion.
• Write the paper's claim and counter-claim.
• Read through the material twice, then and identify key words and phrases to identify common ground.

Writing Your Own Argument

• Get organized and create a timeline/schedule for writing.
• Determine your argument by exploring the material, analyzing the rhetorical situation, focusing, and freewriting.
• Brainstorm, list, and map ideas, and talk it through.
• Listen to arguer, offer feedback from, and share common ground with audience.

Types of Evidence

• Circumstantial evidence: Relies on inference to connect evidence to the conclusion.
• Direct evidence: By itself, is sufficient to convince someone beyond a reasonable doubt, and needs no corroboration. Evidence vs. proof: Direct and circumstantial evidence rarely approaches certainty of math proofs, or classical logic; direct evidence is only sufficient “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Argument from deduction: Draws a conclusion from a general principle. Argument from definition: Arguer proposes the meaning of a term to the audience and says the claim should be accepted. Argument from cause: Places the subject in a cause-effect relationship to show it is either the cause of an effect or the effect of the cause. Argument from sign: A specific, visible sign is sometimes the cause of a claim. Argument from induction: Provides a number of examples and draws a claim from them in the form of a conclusion. Argument from statistics: Describes relationships among data, people, occurrences, and events by comparing similarities. Argument from analogy: Perceived similarities are used to infer a similarity not yet observed. Argument from authority: Arguer relies on a widely accepted authority. Motivational evidence: Appeals to an audience’s needs, wants, desires, and better judgement.

Critical Thinking Prompts

• Associate the data by considering other related issues and associating your issue with a familiar object.
• Describe the data in detail and make the description visual.
• Compare the data with things you know well and compare what you once thought about the issue to what you think now; give reasons for changing your mind, and apply the data.
• Read more and take more notes. Then, read your outline, rearrange the parts, and add more information or freewrite before reading more.
• Show practical uses/applications by showing how data can be used in a specific setting.
• Divide your issue into a related issue or even parts of an issue.
• List other approaches and perspectives and consider why each position is plausible when agreeing and disagreeing with data.
• Think about issues in their nature, space, time, and characteristics.

Steps to Develop an Understanding

• Survey: Read titles/focus, intros/claims, last paragraphs/claims, headings and subheadings/ideas, first sentences/ideas, and visuals/captions before identifying key concepts.
• Divide: Draw lines across the page during subject changes.
• Ask why parts are in a particular order to determine the argument’s logical order and learn how you’ll organize parts of your own arguments.
• Analyze relationships with the parts to see if they all contribute to the central ideal by identifying the questions it answers.

Writing Strategies

• Write the first draft, get ideas on paper, use outlines and notes for guidance, and rewrite as you go or rewrite later.
• Read your draft multiple times and have someone else read it.

Postwriting Strategies

• Consider the data over time by understanding the impact on the day you write and consider the impact on the data.
• Decide what the components are by putting them in a larger category and analyzing them.
• Evaluate the components; discuss if they're good, bad, valuable, and moral.
• Give evidence and elaborate on the data and give examples to provide further descriptions before projecting, predicting, and questioning.

Types of Claims

• Claims of fact: Did it happen? Is it true?
• Claims of definition: What is it? How should we interpret it?
• Claims of cause: What caused it? Or, what are the effects?
• Claims of value: Is it good or bad? What criteria do we use to decide?
• Claims of policy: What should we do about it? What should be our future course of action?

Types of Fallacies:

• Fallacies of Ambiguity: Contain issues with equivocation, where a word is used in different ways. Look for problems with relationships where a word is unclear. Consider words with an accent placed to distort their meanign.
• Fallacies of relevance: Address arguments unrelated to causes with false or faulty dilemmas, arguments from ignorance, slippery slopes, and questions that are too complex. Look out for appeals to force from those who may be intimidated.
• False/Faulty analogy may be apparent when making generalizations or begging the question. Straw man arguments or fallacies of origin.

Understanding the audience:

• Who are they? What do you have in common with them? Demographics? Organizational affiliation? Their interests? Their position on the issue? Its significance? Any obstacles preventing them from accepting your claim? Their attitude? Shared beliefs and values? Motivations? Best argument style?

Research

• Arguments stand or fall by the quality of their research and should be carefully researched.
• Primary sources present direct evidence and first-hand accounts.
• Secondary sources analyze, interpret, evaluate and comment on them.
• Newspaper accounts and popular magazines may be either secondary or primary sources depending on their intent, but they are never peer-reviewed.
• Peer-reviewed articles are refereed by experts in the field, and only those deemed to have contributed to the body of knowledge are accepted for publication.
• Peer-reviewed sources are written for readers with more than common knowledge of a subject, and using them is important for higher education when the source is directed at informed readers.
• The standard of truth is sufficient when establishing general knowledge for uninformed readers or establishing knowledge regarding an argument that is widely accessible.
• Bibliographies and works cited pages are required whenever the author cites sources not in common knowledge.
• A bibliography is a list of all sources.

Argument Theory

• Analyze the rhetorical situation and your proof system. How can I write the claim? How should I construct the components of the information?
• Use logical proofs and proofs that effect emotional appeals.