Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014: Discussion of Persuasive Essay Writing
Posted by Chris M.
We began class by discussing proper citation formatting. Professor Bergren walked us through an introduction to citation formatting, using the website “Purdue Owl” as a reference. She offered advice on how to properly use parenthetical citations in MLA format from a grammatical perspective, as well as guidance on how to maintain cohesion. During this discussion we covered the use of passive voice, citing internet articles, during which she mentioned to put a “n.p” in the parenthetical citation when there is no page number, and the differences between independent and dependant clauses. She did put emphasis on the topic of avoiding run on sentences when integrating quotations.
From here we continued our discussion from the previous class, on Ruth Graham’s article, “Against YA,” which is a criticism on adults and their choice to read young adult literature, specifically The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Professor Bergren asked the class, who agreed with Graham’s claims, and who disagreed. Almost nobody agreed with her. She then separated us into groups, asked us to perform perform an exercise, in which we were challenged create a thesis that would argue the opposite standpoint of our own, and argue why Graham is right. Professor Bergren said that doing this activity was important to “familiarize yourself with the enemy,” and to consider possible counter arguments when creating a strong thesis in persuasive writing.
The difficulty with this exercise was that most of us felt so strongly about our stance on the topic, that our biases made it challenging to look for evidence that we were wrong. However, eventually after a little bit of focused thinking, all of the groups were able to come up with, semi-coherent, arguable sentences.
Following this activity, we began to review two of our own theses as a class, discussing what to include, what to exclude, and how to improve a good thesis. We discussed the importance of many positive factors in a thesis. Good balance in a thesis is important, because the structure should present the argument that you are either agreeing or disagreeing with, while also distinguishing your own unique perspective. Professor Bergren describes this balance as “here is what somebody thinks, and here is what I think.” In addition, something that is a typical topic when discussing a thesis, but is still difficult to accomplish, is creating a solid and clear argument. Since thesis is generally an opinion based in fact, the arguable aspect of it is easy to come by. However, it can be difficult to express thought when putting it into words, making clarity in an argument difficult. The solidity in an argument depends on the evidence that one is using to argue their standpoint. Something that Professor Bergren discussed with us the task of introducing variation by adding a new side to the argument that may validate the initial argument. Something that the class agreed on was to omit the use of “I think,” simply because it is not assertive enough. When writing a persuasive essay, it is essential to leave out uncertainty, which can be found when using “i think.” Instead, it is suggested that you go about arguing your points in a more assertive way, saying something along the lines of “this is how it is” rather than “it may be this way.”
We discussed ways to improve our theses as well. These included taking multiple steps to create depth in your argument. In order to do this, we agreed that more specificity in presentation of evidence is important, in order to give the reader a better understanding of what you are trying to say in relation to your argument. In addition it is important to distinguish yourself from the initial argument in order to show volume in your claims. To do this, it was suggested we show say something similar to “I agree, however…” in order to show that our thinking is similar to the initial argument, however there are variations that make our argument unique.