Up to this point we have been concentrating on the overall logic of an argument. The emphasis has been on developing a clear logical framework for the argument, in the form of a detailed outline, so that you know from the start the central claim of the essay and the way in which each paragraph will contribute to that argument.

If you can now formulate a clear focus, thesis, and sequence of topic sentences, then your essay will have a firm logical framework. It will be clear what you are trying to achieve and how you are proposing to achieve the argumentative point of the essay or speech. No matter what you write further, if you stick to the outline you have proposed and if it is a good one, the reader will be clear about the purpose and direction of the argument. Now, we must turn to the matter of the specific details of the argument which will turn that framework and intention into a convincing complete argument.

The next two sections focus on the paragraphs which you construct on the basis of the topic sentences you have established for the main body of the argument. That is, they discuss various ways in which the particular details of the argument, which flesh out the outline you have drawn up, can be constructed.

This section deals primarily with those paragraphs which will make up the main body of the argument in a short essay. In a later section we will discuss further some paragraphs that you may need to write as part of the definition of the argument or as ways to supplement the argument in a longer research paper.

Once you have defined an argument and settled on an outline for the main body, you then need to construct the details of that argument, paragraph by paragraph. If you have thought carefully about the series of topic sentences and have written them down in sequence, then you should know how you intend to proceed. These topic sentences in the outline will form the opening sentences for each paragraph of the argument.

The key principle to bear in mind, as you set out on the argument, is that any single paragraph can deal with only one item: the argumentative point established in the topic sentence. Hence, the major purpose of the paragraph is to provide the argumentative details which will make that topic sentence persuasive to the reader. That means, in effect, that each paragraph forms a sub-argument related to the main thesis; it advances a point in support of that thesis and argues it.

The argument in the paragraph will be either a deductive argument, an inductive argument, or, less commonly, a combination. What that means is that in each paragraph you will either establish a common and agreed upon general principle and apply it to a specific case, to produce a deductive conclusion, or you will provide facts, research data, quotations from the text and produce an inductive conclusion.

Here are two examples of paragraphs taken from the main body of an argument against capital punishment. Each has a clear topic sentence, and each conducts the reader to a conclusion at the end which reinforces and repeats the topic sentence. Notice that the first has a deductive structure (no collected information is introduced; the argument comes entirely from principles), and the second has an inductive structure (note that the statistics and the references in the second are fictional; they are there only as examples of the style).

Both of these paragraphs are opposing capital punishment. The first is arguing deductively. It does not appeal to facts but to agreed principles which it applies to the example of capital punishment. The second is arguing inductively. It presents information, data, statistics gathered by research.

Notice that each paragraph begins with a clear topic sentence which announces the opinion being presented in the paragraph, and each finishes by bringing the reader back to that opinion. And each paragraph is substantial, more than 200 words. It deals with the point thoroughly.

Most of the argumentative paragraphs you write will resemble the second example above, that is, they will be presenting inductive arguments, based upon evidence. As we have already discussed, the strength of this argument is going to depend, in part, upon the nature of the evidence you present. No inductive argument which lacks reliable evidence will be persuasive.

Sources of Evidence

Evidence comes from many places, depending upon the nature of the argument you are making. Here are some of the principal sources for evidence in inductive arguments:

1. In essays on literature, the evidence comes almost entirely from the text of the work you are evaluating, that is, from the words on the page. Hence, an important principle in writing convincing arguments about literature is sticking closely to the text and anchoring what you have to argue on specific details which are really in the text, either with direct references to such details or with quotations.

2. Essays about films or the fine and performing arts get their evidence from what the work itself contains. For instance, a film or a CD review should base itself closely on what people actually see and hear. A review of a painting or an art exhibition bases itself what is in the art works.

3. Evidence can also come from your own research, that is, from data you yourself have collected as part of field work (e.g., questionnaire results) or experimental data you have collected in the laboratory.

4. Evidence also comes from secondary sources, that is, from books, articles, reports about the subject you are discussing. This is particularly the case in social science and science arguments (like the second example in Section 8.1 above) and in research papers generally. In using such evidence, as we have mentioned before, it is important that you select an up-to-date and reliable source (and one that is recognized as reliable).

Evidence does not come from sources which cannot be checked (for example, imagined details of a fictional story or unacknowledged secondary sources or subjective recesses of the writer's memories) or vague appeals to unspecified authorities or named celebrities.

Interpreting Evidence

A really important principle of inductive arguments is the following: Evidence by itself is rarely persuasive, unless the writer interprets the significance of that evidence. In other words, once you have placed some facts into the argument, you must discuss those facts to show how they establish the point you are arguing in the paragraph.

This is a crucial point, especially in arguments about literature. It is never enough in a paragraph arguing about a point in literature simply to offer a quotation from the text or a series of such quotations. While such evidence is essential, it is unpersuasive unless the writer then interprets that evidence, that is, offers a discussion about what the quotation contains which suggests that the point of view advanced in the paragraph is valid.

The same point holds for statistical evidence. Simply presenting a table of data, for example, in support of an argumentative point is not very persuasive, unless, immediately after the table, the writer then directs the reader's attention at those details in the table which are relevant and explains how they support the argumentative point which the paragraph is trying to make.

Here is an example of a paragraph from an essay on Hamlet in which the writer is presenting an inductive argument, using details from the text to support a claim about the play. Notice that the argument does not just offer evidence; it interprets that evidence to show how it helps to endorse the claim made in the topic sentence:

Notice that in the above paragraph the writer has selected a few details from a particular part of the text and drawn the attention of the reader to them. But she has not simply left the evidence there for the reader to figure out. She takes almost all the second half of the paragraph to comment on the evidence she has introduced, explaining to the reader how it brings out the point which she has announced as the topic for the paragraph (i.e., interpreting the evidence).

Make quite sure you understand this point. Evidence requires interpretation which links the facts to the point being made in the topic sentence of the paragraph. It will not satisfactorily carry the argument unless the writer makes this connection for the reader. Thus, if your inductive arguments merely present evidence, with no interpretation, they will not be very persuasive, no matter how much evidence you introduce, because the reader will fail to understand the ways in the which the evidence substantiates the points you are trying to establish. Do not think that the quantity of evidence (smothering the reader with quotations, statistics, and other data) will carry the argument without your interpretative explanations.

Now, interpretation is something students tend at first to find difficult (hence they tend to supply far too much evidence without discussion). Interpretation requires an educated response to data (an eye for significant detail) and a suitable vocabulary to express that response. Hence, much of the work in undergraduate courses involves educating students in ways of interpreting the data most relevant to the field of study. And if your arguments are going to be at all persuasive in the details you present, you have to learn how to carry out such interpretation.

Once you begin to grasp and to practice this principle of interpreting the evidence you introduce, you should be using up most of the paragraph for this purpose (as in the above example). And your argumentative style will begin to change, so that you introduce less evidence but discuss in greater detail the evidence you do introduce.

When students complain, as they often do, of not having enough to say about a particular topic, of having said all they have to say and still having many hundreds of words to complete the requirements of the argument, the reason is always the same: there is insufficient interpretation. The essay may be establishing good topic sentences and putting useful evidence on the table. But a main part of the argument, the interpretation of evidence, is missing. By contrast, students who learn to interpret properly then often face a problem of not having enough space, since thorough interpretation takes up much of the essay.

In general, the best essays tend to be those with a relatively narrow focus, in which the evidence presented is good evidence but not overwhelming in volume, and in which the interpretation of the evidence presented is first-rate and thorough. The quality of the interpretation, in fact, is one of the key features characterizing an A essay.

Given the points mentioned above, you can often recognize quite easily by some characteristic symptoms whether your essay is fulfilling the requirements of a good inductive argument.

1. If your paragraphs are quite short (i.e., less than, say, 150 words), then they are almost certainly not carrying out a thorough argument. As should be clear from the various examples given above, introducing the topic sentence, presenting evidence, and interpreting the evidence in detail should take up a substantial amount of space. So if, when you look at the visual appearance of your essay, you notice that the paragraphs are changing very five or six lines, then something is wrong. It most cases, the problem will be that you are not doing enough interpretation.

2. As you review your essay, look carefully at those places where you have quoted some material, either from the text which is the subject of the argument or from a secondary source. Ask yourself this question: What is going on in the essay immediately after the quotation? If you are not at that point discussing the significance of the quotation for the argument the paragraph is making (i.e., interpreting the quotation), then you are probably neglecting an essential part of the argument.

3. Finally, how much of each paragraph is taken up with quotations from the text or from secondary sources? If these make up the major part of the paragraph, then you are probably overloading the argument with evidence and not providing sufficient interpretation of the evidence. As a general rule, select the best evidence available, and interpret it thoroughly, rather than trying to stuff the essay with quotations.

A key characteristic of good paragraphs is that they exhibit unity, that is, everything in the paragraph is linked directly to the main point announced in the topic sentence. There are no digressions into other subjects or additional points brought into the middle of the paragraph. Everything is relevant to the single argumentative point of that paragraph.

Notice in the following paragraph how the logic of the argument announced in the topic sentence begins to go astray as soon as the writer introduces another point, not directly linked to the topic:

This paragraph begins by announcing a very specific topic, the relationship between the description of Elisa's clothing and our sense of her uncertainty about her femininity. And the first few details focus on that well, with evidence and useful interpretation. But then the writer switches to something else (the setting) and then, a bit later, to something else (the arrival of the stranger). Hence, by the end the reader has lost contact with the specific point announced at the start. Thus, the unity of this paragraph has disappeared.

It is important to concentrate on paragraph unity and to keep out of a paragraph things not immediately relevant to what the topic sentence announces. If you suddenly decide that there is an important point you must include in the argument, make it in a separate paragraph.

One way in which inexperienced writers commonly interrupt the unity of the paragraph (and the argument) is suddenly to stray into large questions far outside the scope of the focus you have defined. Once you start the argument, you should stay specifically on that, without invoking huge generalizations which lie outside the specific area you have defined. If you want to link the argument to bigger questions, then do that in the conclusion.

For example, if you are writing an argumentative essay about the significance of Hamlet's abusive treatment of women in Hamlet, then stay on that particular subject. Do not stray into generalizations about men and women or about the history of Denmark or gender-based violence or the treatment of the same theme in other plays. If you find yourself writing about something in general, something not directly pertinent to the specific details of the argument as you have defined it, then you are almost certainly weakening the unity of the argument.

A second important characteristic of argumentative paragraphs is that they must be coherent, that is, the argument going on in them must flow logically from sentence to sentence, so that the reader moves from the opening declaration of the topic (in the topic sentence), through the evidence and interpretation, to the conclusion of the paragraph in a clear linear fashion, with no erratic jumps or confusing interruptions.

A Useful Blueprint for Achieving Paragraph Coherence

The most logically coherent form for a paragraph presenting an inductive argument is as follows:

This is by no means the only possible coherent structure for an argumentative paragraph, but, if you follow it closely, the resulting argument will be coherent, since this follows the standard logic of an inductive argument: This is what I am claiming; here is my evidence; this is what the evidence indicates; here are any reservations I have about the evidence; and thus I have established the claim I began with.

Notice how this format works in the following paragraph, moving from topic sentence(s) to evidence, to interpretation, to qualification, and finally to a restatement of the original point. Here again, the references are imaginary, included simply to show an example of the style.

The key to sustaining the coherence of a paragraph is often the appropriate use of transition words. These are words or phrases, usually right at the start of a sentence, which indicate the logical direction of the new sentence in relation to what has just been said. They link what has just been written to what is now being offered.

Here are a few examples (the transition elements are in bold).

Look carefully at these words in bold. Most of them could be removed from the sentences, without damage to the sense. What would be lost, however, is the constant presence of words and phrases linking elements in the argument and providing the reader a sense of the logical relationship of the element coming up to what has gone before.

An intelligent use of transition words really helps to create and sustain the coherence of a paragraph, enabling the reader easily to follow the logical connections from one sentence to the next.

A Catalogue of Transition Words

The list below indicates some of the common transition words indicating logical connections between sentences and paragraphs. The words are grouped according to the logical function they carry out (this list is not meant to be comprehensive).

In the spaces provided in the following paragraph, provide from the list above (or from other similar phrases) transition words or phrases which will help the logical coherence of the following paragraph. Read the paragraph once or twice before starting to fill in the blank spaces. Then, when you have finished, read the passage over again, making sure the words are helping to clarify the logic of the sequence of sentences.

An argumentative essay should normally finish with a conclusion and sometimes, depending on the subject, with conclusions and recommendations. The conclusions and recommendations (if there are any) should be placed in the last paragraph(s).

Good conclusions are often difficult to write. It is best to leave them until you have finished the first draft of the paper, so that you have a complete sense of the argument as you have presented it. Now you are ready to leave the reader with some final concluding thoughts.

In thinking about how to write a conclusion, you might benefit from onsidering the following ideas:

1. The conclusion should not continue the argument by introducing new material. It is a place to sum up the argument which has come to an end in the final paragraph of the main body of the argument. Hence, you should never introduce new points in the conclusion.

2. The main purpose of the conclusion is to sum up the argument, to re-emphasize the thesis, and to leave the reader thinking about the importance of the argument, perhaps in a wider context. In a sense, its purpose is the reverse of the introduction: the conclusion moves the reader from the particular emphasis of the argument and takes it out into a wider context (if this seems confusing, check some of the examples below).

3. There are a number of things a writer should be careful not to do in the concluding paragraph. You should not, as mentioned, suddenly introduce a new point, nor should you disqualify the argument you have just presented with a comment like "But all this is just my opinion," or "But I really don't know that much about the subject." Make sure the conclusion is a confident reassertion of the main point of the argument.

4. Here are some things you might do in a conclusion: you can sum up the argument you have conducted and re-emphasize the thesis you set down at the beginning, you can move back from the specific focus and place the argument in a larger context (see example below), you can leave the reader with some specific recommendations or questions to think about, or you can point to the future and invite the reader to consider what you have said in that context.

Here are some sample conclusions. Notice how the writer does not continue the argument (which is over) but tends to draw back to place the issue in a wider perspective and, at the same time, to reinforce for the reader the central argument which the essay has been presenting.

Notice carefully what each writer does in the above samples.

Conclusion A (about Hamlet) opens by summarizing the main thrust of the argument throughout the paper, reminding the reader one more time of what each paragraph has been presenting. Then the writer moves back to consider the topic in the context of the entire play, adding a qualification to indicate that she realizes there is more to the topic than one short essay can deal with. Finally, the concluding sentences answer the qualification by stressing the main point: the unhealthy aspects of Hamlet's character are a significant part of the play. This strategy of using the conclusion to place the specific issue of the essay in the wider context of the entire work is often useful in conclusions to essays on literary subjects.

Conclusion B (about Meech Lake), now that the argument is over, speculates about the future. What is going to happen next? In offering a couple of general answers to that question, the writer calls attention to the main points in the essay, the incompetent handling of the issue by the federal government. There is no call here for future action, because the writer is not recommending anything. He is making a tentative prediction (or mentioning a future hope). This enables him to reinforce the main point of the essay. Such a conclusion is often helpful in an essay discussing a modern political or historical issue.

Conclusion C (about narcotics) opens with a quick but very specific summary (almost in the form of a list) of the main points of the essay (each of which has been discussed in detail during the main argument), and finishes with a specific recommendation for future action. Such a structure is quite common in the concluding paragraph of an essay exploring a modern social issue and demanding action.

Sometimes the argument you are conducting will require recommendations, in fact, your thesis may well be in the form of one or more recommendations. Such a requirement is quite common in arguments which are urging the need for particular social or political responses to problems.

The first thing to note is that a recommendation is not the same thing as a conclusion. A conclusion arises, as we have seen, out of a deductive or inductive argument. It is the logical result of a process of reasoning, and it indicates the completion of a thought process. A recommendation is, as the name suggests, a statement urging action. Alternatively put, a conclusion says, in effect, "This is the case" or "This is very probably the case"; a recommendation says "This is what we must (or should) do about the case."

Logically speaking, recommendations should normally follow conclusions. That is, the thought process and argument which result in our understanding a problem better should come before the proposals for how we should address the problem. This, I take it, is generally obvious enough. We cannot review options and recommend a course of action, until we have drawn conclusions about what the problem is.

None of this is something you need worry about, unless the argument is leading up to a series of recommendations, unless, that is, the major purpose of the argument is to urge the readers to think about a series of practical measures which should be implemented. Such a requirement is not uncommon in papers exploring social problems or policy analysis, but it is rare in arguments about literature or philosophy. If you are leading up to a series of recommendations as a major purpose of the argument, then separate the conclusions from the recommendations, present the conclusions first, and then in a separate paragraph present the recommendations, usually in the form of a numbered list.

Notice the following example of the end of an argument in which the conclusions precede the recommendations and the latter are presented in the form of a list:

As this argument has pointed out repeatedly, there is no reliable evidence that the quality of teaching in universities and colleges is linked at all with quantity or quality of conventional research and publishing activities. Simply put, the frequent claim that conventional research is essential to good teaching has no basis in fact. It may be true, of course, but there is as yet no evidence to support the claim. Indeed the consistent result of studies into this question, as we have shown, confirm the lack of a relationship. Given this well known point, it is indeed curious that university and college faculty, whose major task is educating undergraduates in correct reasoning, should continue to insist upon such an unsubstantiated assertion in such an illogical fashion, to the point where it has become an article of faith in faculty culture, a myth. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore why that might be the case; suffice it to say that we should keep this conclusion in mind when we evaluate how to spend the money we allocate for undergraduate instruction.

On the basis of this well established conclusion, however, we should insist upon some important reforms in undergraduate education, especially in the university-colleges, which, unlike most large universities, have no mandate to conduct research:

1. The instructional budget should provide no release time for instructors to conduct research (i.e., we should not cut classes and courses to fund independent faculty research), unless there is some exceptional need for a particular project to deal with a problem of immediate importance to the institution.

2. Instructors should, under no circumstances, be ranked or evaluated according to their research output.

3. The processes of hiring new faculty should cease to consider research qualifications and performance and concentrate exclusively upon the teaching experience and qualifications of the candidates as the major criteria.

4. The curriculum should be much more closely designed to meet the learning needs of the students rather than the research interests of the faculty.

5. If prevailing faculty culture insists that research time is essential to maintain the quality of instruction, then we should inform them firmly and repeatedly that, in the interests of reason, we will listen to any arguments they wish to present, provided only there is some reliable evidence to support their claim. Until such time, however, we are going to proceed with the reforms listed above.

Notice how in this example, the conclusions come first. They sum up the argument which has already concluded. The final paragraph lists some specific recommendations and finishes by urging that we implement these.

Such a structure is, as mentioned, of particular importance only in those arguments whose main purpose is to analyze a problem, reach some conclusions about the source of the problem, and make recommendations about how we might deal with it.

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