• Audience. Who are you trying to persuade?• Tone. Are you respectful and engaging?• Thesis. Is your purpose clear early on?• Organization. Does the body of your essay follow

through from your thesis? Do you accomplish what you declare in an orderly fashion?

• Sources. Appropriate? Authoritative? Support your position?

Avoid Absolutes

• You need to qualify your claim.Jon Stewart is the most important entertainer of

this decade.Jon Stewart is the funniest man on television.Jon Stewart is one of the three or four most

important TV entertainers of the decade.Jon Stewart may come to be regarded as one of the

most influential television comedians of the decade.

Criteria.

• Your selection of criteria serves as the evidence or support for your argument.

• The criteria answers the question “why?”• Your criteria cannot be wholly specific to your

topic.Star Wars is the best science fiction film

franchise because of Darth Vader, the ewoks and light saber fight scenes.

• In order to select criteria, start with the general brainstorming question:

What makes a superior___________?Film, work of art, musical group, vocalist,

television series, book, story, pet, etc.

Avoid Best/Worst arguments

• Avoid vague or dull criteria as well as hyperbolic statements.

• Keep in mind that you’re attempting to make an argument that demonstrates a degree of investment and controversy.

• James Cameron’s “Titanic” is the best film ever because it’s a timeless love story, it has thrilling special effects, and it’s based on a true story.

• In the art of argumentation, our goal should be to present a strong and thoughtful position which seeks to further inquiry and discussion.

• Argumentation is not about winning or besting another writer.

• Although many arguments are subjective, writers should still strive for and objective even tone based on concrete evidence.

Student Sample• Rock bands are as popular today as they were in the 1950’s,

when rock ‘n’ roll was born. The fans get wild when they see their favourite group. The girls scream and faint at concerts and record sales explode. The decade of the 90’s produced many popular bands. One band in particular is The Backstreet Boys. The group is made up of five young men: Kevin, Brian, Howie, A. J., and, the youngest, Nick. The listeners range in age, but the largest group is teenagers. The Backstreet Boys are popular primarily because of their image, but they also have the ability to manipulate the media successfully and to write engaging lyrics to upbeat music.

Student Sample

• The dance genre in film has been popular since the Great Depression. Stars like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers continue to awe audiences many years after they first twirled onscreen. More recently on the big screen, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey made the best film about dancing because of the choreography, the plot, and the lead performances.

Student Sample• With the increasing economic domination of large corporations in this

postmodem age, it is only practical that Americans should question the benefits and drawbacks of such a mass-produced society. Such questioning is bound to produce a wide variety of different opinions, many of them ill conceived. In his article, “Don’t Blame Wal-Mart,” Robert B. Reich attempts to confront one of these possibly misinformed ideas by arguing that consumers, not big companies like Wal-Mart, are at fault for our problems with struggling small businesses and the declining salaries of the working class. Unfortunately, Reich undermines what could have been a successful argument with his poor organization, his lack of relevant and verifiable sources, and his vague, uncertain focus, all of which create confusion instead of making this important issue more clear for his readers.

Student Sample

• Horror films are more than an excuse to cop a feel from your terrified date, they can be a telling window into the human subconscious. Stephen King’s work has been the source of many scary films, but the most successful to tap into the psychological complexities of the genre is Carrie, because of the struggle with religious and parental authority, the cruelties of adolescence laid bare, and a protagonist who needs to discover her power.

Toulmin Model (281)

• Claim: Coldplay is the most insufferable band of the decade

• Criteria (reasons): Their song writing engages in too much self-pity, their sound obsesses over musical grandeur in style and their lyrics get lost in exploring male sensitivity.

• Warrant: Superior bands develop a range of topics and musical sounds.

• Evidence: performance, songs, redundancy, imitations.

Important!!!!

• You are required to include a photo copy of your source material so that we can check your citations, just as it says on the assignment sheets.

• Your paper will not be graded unless your sources are included.

• If you are citing an online source and include the URL on your works cited page, there’s no need to print up a copy.

Evidence and Sources

• The outside source material bolsters your credibility and enhances your ability to persuade your audience.

• Source material reflects your command of the topic at hand and emphasizes your judgment and position.

• Sources are a supplementary or supportive tool; they should not take over or eclipse your own prose.

• You won’t be turning to “hard” evidence or source material such as scientific studies, experiments, data, questionnaires, surveys or even interviews.

• Look for experts or persons with experience and credibility already established in the media for your source material.

• Wikipedia entries do not count.

• Who are the some of the leading figures who write about your topic area?

• Do they have the accepted credentials and authority? Do they have an established readership or circulation?

• Does your source get cited by other writers?• Would you cite the source during a

professional presentation?

Anyone online can say anything

• Nick Denton’s empire: Gawker, Jezebel, etc.• Is your source only available online or is it also

available in print.• You don’t have to discount an online-only

source, but it will require additional scrutiny.

Evaluating Your Sources

• Relevance• Credentials• Author’s stance• Credentials of the publisher or website• Stance of publisher or website

Reputable authors who write about film

Anthony Lane David DenbyStephanie ZacharekLisa SchwarzbaumOwen GlibermanA.O. ScottManohla DargisJanet Maslin

Mark KermodePeter BradshawDerek MalcolmRick GroenPeter TraversPauline Kael

It’s Plagiarism!

• If you paraphrase too closely by not offering your own words and sentence structure.

• If you leave out quotation marks and parenthetical reference for a direct quote.

• If you do not clearly indicate the source of any borrowed material or ideas.

• Remember to use attributive tags to differentiate your prose from the source (your textbook calls them “signal words”).

Attributive Tags (Signal Verbs p 542)

Accept, add, admit, affirm, analyze, argue, assert, believe, cite, comment, conclude, confirm, contradict, criticize, declare, deduce, demonstrates, deny, differ, disagree, disprove, dispute, discuss, doubt, endorses, emphasizes, expresses, explains, examines, hypothesizes, illustrates, interprets, insists, lists, objects, offers, opposes, questions, reasons, replies, responds, reveals, selects, stresses, suggests, supports, surmises, validates, verifies, writes.

Williams & Nadel Style Lesson 6 “Emphasis”

• Structure your sentences so that you begin with a simple subject and move towards complexity.

• 2a. Trudeau’s claim that the federal government is responsible for the release of the 17 criminals appears in the middle of his speech.

• 2b. In the middle of his speech, Trudeau claims that only the federal government is responsible for the release of 17 criminals.

• Your readers want you to use the end of your sentences to communicate two kinds of difficulty:

Long and complex phrases and clausesNew information, especially technical termsReaders look to the beginning of a sentence for

clarity and to the end of sentence for emphasis or stress.

3 Tactical Revisions

• Trim the end.Borde and Chaumeton explain that sensations of

alienation and disorientation were the desired reaction for viewers who went to see film noir.

Borde and Chaumeton explain that film noir’s objective was to induce sensations of alienation and disorientation within the audience. (22 vs. 19)

• Trim the end.Mark Kermode argues that P.T. Anderson’s film

redefined the grammar of modern cinema making in the way that images are connected for the film as a whole and how audiences engage the story by connecting images.

Mark Kermode argues that Anderson’s film redefined the stylistic grammar of how audiences engage a story.

• Shift peripheral ideas to the beginning.Orson Welles challenged the traditional

limitations placed upon camera angles, from the inception of his career as director.

From the inception of his directorial career, Orson Welles challenged the traditional limitations placed upon camera angles.

• Shift peripheral ideas to the beginning.• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button bears a

strikingly similar plot structure to Forest Gump, according to several critics.

• According to several critics, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button bears a strikingly similar plot structure to Forest Gump.

• Shift new information to the end of the sentence.• Questions about how a feminist analysis might

problematize Tara’s DID diagnosis may be more difficult to address than the veracity of the depiction of the “alters.”

• More difficult to address than the veracity of the depiction of Tara’s “alters” may be the way in which a feminist analysis would problematize a DID diagnosis for the show’s protagonist.

• Shift new information to the end of the sentence.

• Questions about the ethics of withdrawing intravenous feeding are more difficult [than something just mentioned]

• More difficult [than something just mentioned] are the questions about the ethics of withdrawing intravenous feeding.

Not Only X, but Y (as well)

• The “but” emphasizes the last element of the pair.• We must clarify these issues and develop trust.• We must not only clarify these issues, but develop

trust.• Audiences should remember that not only has

Nicole Kidman failed to give another memorable performance, but she has also been unable to command the lead in box office returns since her Oscar win in 2002.

Peer Review Workshop

• What audience has the writer targeted? Is it clear?

• Is the thesis clearly stated? Does the writer identify three concisely stated criteria against which she/he evaluates the object? Is the thesis stated in absolute terms?

• Do the outside sources seem credible and appropriate? Does the author appropriately cite the source material?

• Does there seem to be some level of controversy at stake in the writer’s essay?

• Take a look at the essay’s organization. Does the writer have a clear organization, strong topic sentences, transitions between paragraphs?

• Does the writer vary diction and sentence structure?

• Give two suggestions to the writer to use in revision.