4/12: Structures and Conventions of Essay-Sized Arguments

Okay, last Thursday we covered the basics of the assignment and of writing good paragraphs. Now we’re going to zoom out a bit, and talk about organizing groups of paragraphs into chunks or steps and then organizing those chunks into sections and eventually a whole paper.

Also, optiona conference sign-up sheets will be emailed to you at 2pm this Thursday (the same time as the next lesson post). These one-on-one Zoom appointments (from 4/19 to 4/22) are highly optional, and coincide with the required "turn in a partial draft of P3" assignment. You should submit a partial draft or outline + intro (at least) on Canvas prior to your appointment time (if you want an appointment) or by 4/22 (if you don't need a meeting). If you're really stuck or have lots of questions, those meetings are for you. If you're doing fine and just need to write, the week of those meetings is just bonus "no class content" time to keep writing.

Basics: Paragraphs and Chunks

Different genres of writing have different jobs, different relationships to audience, and therefore, different organizational needs and features. P3 is an argumentative research paper, meaning it exists to advocate for some action, change, or investigation, and it uses research and rhetoric to accomplish this task. Even if what you’re advocating for is just “people should know this to make better decisions,” it’s still technically an argument (against making worse decisions and not knowing stuff.)

Western Civilization (a made-up category based mostly on common myths and international politics, a little bit of racism, the weirdness of history, and American military/economic/cultural hegemony*) has a favorite method for doing a researched argument: the American-style researched argument essay. It’s a very efficient model, and you’ve probably been internalizing it your whole life (or at least since you decided to go to school in the US). Here’s what it looks like:

1. Introduction and Thesis: where you state the thing you will be arguing about.

2. Background: where you slow down for a second and make sure your audience knows essential stuff about the thing being discussed.

3. Argument: the big middle part where you lay out claims, evidence, counterclaims, rebuttals and discussions in an organized, step-by-step manner. You teach your audience your point. Usually as big as all the other sections combined.

4. Call to Action: the part after the argument where, having convinced your audience, you tell them what they can or should do.

5. Conclusions: the part where you re-state the thesis, but in a smarter and more action-oriented way so that your audience is motivated to accept your point and act on it in their lives. If argument is teaching, conclusions are homework.

In dumb standardized test-style essays, each of these moves would be one paragraph, but in real life, these are each a section--a team of paragraphs working together to perform a specific role in your argument. There's no rule, for example, that intros need to be one paragraph. IRL nobody cares as long as the introduction paragraph-team does a good job introducing.

Chunks will be the term used in class to refer to a paragraph or group of paragraphs that try to accomplish a goal within sections. Some sections may contain multiple chunks--for example, if your argument has three basic steps, your argument section has three chunks, and each chunk is composed of several paragraphs accomplishing one of the steps as a team. These terms are not technical, so other professors might use different terms.

Essays have sections, the sections have "chunks," and the chunks contain one or more paragraphs working together.

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*While this formula for arguments is very efficient, it is not universally accepted: different cultures, regions, ideologies and languages have their own models of argument. This one just seems to work best for us in our context, and is broadly similar to several other cultures’ approaches to argument (because Western Civilization, like English, is a mashup of stuff we borrowed/stole/inherited from other cultures).

If you want to know more about how this model emerged, go take some philosophy or history or rhetoric electives, or watch a crash course on YouTube. I have recommendations, but it’s all beyond the scope of our class.

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Choices: Modifying Conventions to Suit Your Needs

While we have a standard formula, how each section in that formula looks and how it acts is open to improvisation and change based on your needs. This is especially true of Part #3: Argument--which is very likely to have a complex structure of chunks of its own, since a lot of work happens there--though all the parts have customizable features. Like a recipe or a Mod Pizza, you can make changes and substitutions. Watch the video below for details:

Definitely watch the whole video--today's written class is short because a lot of the content is simply easier to explain with a visual component:

The main take-away here is that you have at least two different models for how your thesis can work, with strengths and weaknesses, and at least three models (or six, with permutations) for how you can shape your argument. You can mix, match, and choose your methods based on your style, your way of thinking, and what kind of evidence and audience you have.

Note that the reason you can mix argument models is because the argument section, being the main section, is often two or more chunks. For example, if I were writing an essay about how the nursing home I work at should buy therapy animals, because studies show therapy animals help improve memory retention and quality of life in senior homes, my argument section might have 3 chunks, each composed of multiple paragraphs:

1. A chunk detailing how the studies show how therapy animals or pets improve memory retention and quality of life in seniors generally, with lots of sources and stuff. (1 paragraph per study if the study is important, maybe 4 paragraphs total.)

2. A chunk containing a case study of a nearby or comparable nursing home, showing how they implemented their animal program. (2-3 paragraphs for the details and narrative of the specific case and how it's similar to our case.)

3. A third chunk detailing how our specific senior home might benefit from, house, and pay for these animals. (4 paragraphs, tackling the benefits from a financial, marketing, and patient health perspective, while confronting some basic reservations my supervisor might have.)

Then, the next section of the paper beyond the argument, the #4 Call to Action, might detail how we can work it into the budget and what would happen if we don’t get service animals. That one, like most other sections, would probably be one chunk, or team of related paragraphs.

(Sidenote: this fake-paper outline uses a hybrid case study/logical organizational scheme, in case you're looking for an example.)

Real-Life Example: YouTube Nerdy Content

YouTube content is often subtly argumentative or informative, and takes advantage not only of the essay format, but the section>chunk>paragraph organization scheme too. Because it's a visual medium, instead of paragraphs, we have visuals, but the rules are the same: the YouTuber introduces their topic in the first section, gives background in the next section, makes a case for something (in multiple steps/chunks with different visual examples in each chunk) in an argument section, and then links you up with something to think about or do in real life before ending with a like-and-subscribe type thing.

Here's a series of examples you can watch on your own (I recommend you watch one, but your choice is optional and none of these videos are on the quiz) in order to get a feel for how the same moves you might use in this essay translate to presentations, videos, etc. The model is even true for cooking-related videos, as the third example shows.

Watch this one if you want to be an English class prodigy:

Watch this one if you like games and psych/sociology:

Watch this one if you like cake and chemistry:

Watch this one for the most straightforward essay-style structure and if you think language and childhood games are neat:

Homework

On Thursday, we'll talk about integrating sources and organizing your workload. In addition, remember that the conference sign-up sheet will be emailed to you at 2pm on Thursday.

Slack this week is open questions time--any questions you have about your paper or any other class stuff, post it in the "questions" channel and I (or one of your classmates) will try to answer it.

Don't forget the participation quiz!