Argumentative Essay
(writing process)
Alice and Oshima (2018)
Behrens and Laurens (2018. pp.174-198)
Instructor: Nazrin Baghirova
Lesson Objective
• Understand the stages of the writing process to develop
your own thesis
• Understanding the purpose, scope and the audience
• Gathering data
• Narrowing down the subject – invention
• Drafting
• Revision and Editing
Stages of writing process (Behrens et al., 2018. pp.174-198)
How strong should be your argumentative thesis:
How to write a strong thesis
statement (claim)
1. A thesis statement for an argument can not be a fact
2. Thesis statement should not be a personal opinion that can not be proven
3. Thesis statement must state or imply a position which should be very clear
4. Signal words:
1. Signal an opinion: should, ought to, need to, have an obligation to,
must or had better;
2. General statements: for a number of reasons, for a number of
important reasons, in many ways
3. Some, some people, may, might , can seem, or appear, although,
while, or despite
Practice the writing process:
• Understand an assignment: Reread the instructions for a recent assignment from another
course.
• 1. Identify the key verb(s).
• 2. List the type of print, interview, or graphical data you need to gather to complete the assignment.
• 3. Reflect on your own experience to find some anecdote that might be appropriately included in a paper
(or, absent that, a related experience that would provide a personal motivation for writing the paper)
• Practice narrowing subject: In groups of three or four classmates, choose one of the
following subjects and collaborate on a paragraph or two that explores the questions we listed
for narrowing subjects (pre-drafting):
• 1. What is the assignment? 2. What do I know about the subject? 3. What do I need to know in order to
begin writing
• Who? Which aspects? Where? When? How? Why? See if you can narrow the subject.
• Cross-species genetic experiments • Addiction to technology • College sports • School violence or bullying
• America’s public school system
• Drafting: Work individually to brainstorm ideas about the subject your group chose. Use one of
the invention strategies listed above—preferably one that you haven’t used before. After
brainstorming on your own, meet with your group again to compare the ideas each of you
generated
• Writing a thesis: After completing the group exercise in narrowing a subject (Exercise 9.2)
and the individual invention exercise (Exercise 9.3), work individually or in small groups to draft
three theses based on your earlier ideas: one explanatory thesis, one mildly argumentative
thesis, and one strongly argumentative thesis
Assignment: Instructions for the homework
• Mass communications: Discuss how the use of
photography during the Civil War may have affected the
perceptions of the war by Northerners living in industrial
cities.
• Literature: Select two Southern writers of the twentieth
century whose work you believe was influenced by the
divisive effects of the Civil War. Discuss the ways this
influence is apparent in a novel or a group of short
stories written by each author. The works should not be
about the Civil War.
• Applied technology: Compare and contrast the
technology of warfare available in the 1860s with the
technology available a century earlier
Check for common errors
Summary
