3d. Analysis
of Argument: Timing
How
to write a 300-word essay in 30 minutes
Sample Essay:
The problem
of poorly trained police officers that has plagued New York City
should become less serious in the future. The City has initiated
comprehensive guidelines that oblige police officers in multiculturalism
and proper ways to deal with the city's ethnic groups.
Explain how logically
persuasive you find this argument. In discussing your viewpoint,
analyze the argument's line of reasoning and its use of evidence.
Also explain what, if anything, would make the argument more
valid and convincing or help you to better evaluate its conclusion.
Step 1: Dissect
the issue/argument (2 minutes)
What is the topic
and scope of the argument?
topic: the problem
of poorly trained police officers
scope: a given
solution, centering on mandatory classes
The argument's
conclusion?
The problem of
poorly trained police officers that has plagued New York City
should become a less serious in the future.
What's the
evidence?
The City has
initiated comprehensive guidelines that oblige police officers
in multiculturalism and proper ways to deal with the city's ethnic
groups.
Arguments typically
will be structured in one of two ways:
1) conclusion…
because…. evidence
2) evidence….
therefore…. conclusion
Summarize the
argument:
The problem of
poor police officers will become less serious…
(conclusion)
multiculturalism
training
(evidence)
How does the
argument use its evidence?
It uses evidence
of multiculturalism training as evidence to conclude that future
improvement is likely.
Step 2: Select
the points you will make (5 minutes)
Does the argument
make any assumptions? That is, are there gaps between evidence
and conclusion?
- Multiculturalism
training will improve the current situation
- The present
police force has poor training in multicultural issues
- The current
police officers in the field will go back for re-training.
Under what circumstances would these assumptions be valid?
- Evidence making
it clear that the present police officers have not already had
multicultural training.
- Evidence showing
that multicultural training makes better police officers.
- Evidence showing
that untrained police officers will not be teaching in the future.
Step 3: Organize
(1 minute)
Use the pages
Sketch in the outline.
a. State a clear
thesis for the essay.
b. Make each heading correspond to a paragraph.
c. Make sure that there are at least five paragraphs.
d. Make sure that each heading corresponds to a topic sentence.
e. Be sure that there is a beginning and ending paragraph, which
tie the essay together.
Step 4: Type
your essay (20 minutes)
Write your paragraphs
in the essay with great care.
a. Each paragraph
should have a topic sentence, which relates to the central idea
of the entire essay.
b. Everything in each paragraph should support the idea in the
topic sentence of the paragraph in (4a) above. For each paragraph,
state an idea then give examples to support the idea or explain
the idea completely.
Step 5: Proofread the essay (2 minutes)
>>continue to About
the E-rater (Chapter 4)