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How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

  • Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
  • Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
  • Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
  • Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
  • Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
  • Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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essay of arguments

An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

  • Make a claim
  • Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
  • Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
  • Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

  • Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
  • Cite data to support your claim
  • Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
  • Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

  • Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
  • Highlight the problems with this position
  • Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
  • Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

  • Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
  • Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
  • Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
  • Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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50 Argumentative Essay Topics

Illustration by Catherine Song. ThoughtCo. 

  • M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
  • B.A., History, Armstrong State University

An argumentative essay requires you to decide on a topic and take a position on it. You'll need to back up your viewpoint with well-researched facts and information as well. One of the hardest parts is deciding which topic to write about, but there are plenty of ideas available to get you started.

Choosing a Great Argumentative Essay Topic

Students often find that most of their work on these essays is done before they even start writing. This means that it's best if you have a general interest in your subject, otherwise you might get bored or frustrated while trying to gather information. (You don't need to know everything, though.) Part of what makes this experience rewarding is learning something new.

It's best if you have a general interest in your subject, but the argument you choose doesn't have to be one that you agree with.

The subject you choose may not necessarily be one that you are in full agreement with, either. You may even be asked to write a paper from the opposing point of view. Researching a different viewpoint helps students broaden their perspectives. 

Ideas for Argument Essays

Sometimes, the best ideas are sparked by looking at many different options. Explore this list of possible topics and see if a few pique your interest. Write those down as you come across them, then think about each for a few minutes.

Which would you enjoy researching? Do you have a firm position on a particular subject? Is there a point you would like to make sure to get across? Did the topic give you something new to think about? Can you see why someone else may feel differently?

50 Possible Topics

A number of these topics are rather controversial—that's the point. In an argumentative essay, opinions matter and controversy is based on opinions, which are, hopefully, backed up by facts.   If these topics are a little too controversial or you don't find the right one for you, try browsing through persuasive essay and speech topics  as well.

  • Is global climate change  caused by humans?
  • Is the death penalty effective?
  • Is our election process fair?
  • Is torture ever acceptable?
  • Should men get paternity leave from work?
  • Are school uniforms beneficial?
  • Do we have a fair tax system?
  • Do curfews keep teens out of trouble?
  • Is cheating out of control?
  • Are we too dependent on computers?
  • Should animals be used for research?
  • Should cigarette smoking be banned?
  • Are cell phones dangerous?
  • Are law enforcement cameras an invasion of privacy?
  • Do we have a throwaway society?
  • Is child behavior better or worse than it was years ago?
  • Should companies market to children?
  • Should the government have a say in our diets?
  • Does access to condoms prevent teen pregnancy?
  • Should members of Congress have term limits?
  • Are actors and professional athletes paid too much?
  • Are CEOs paid too much?
  • Should athletes be held to high moral standards?
  • Do violent video games cause behavior problems?
  • Should creationism be taught in public schools?
  • Are beauty pageants exploitative ?
  • Should English be the official language of the United States?
  • Should the racing industry be forced to use biofuels?
  • Should the alcohol drinking age be increased or decreased?
  • Should everyone be required to recycle?
  • Is it okay for prisoners to vote (as they are in some states)?
  • Is it good that same-sex couples are able to marry?
  • Are there benefits to attending a single-sex school ?
  • Does boredom lead to trouble?
  • Should schools be in session year-round ?
  • Does religion cause war?
  • Should the government provide health care?
  • Should abortion be illegal?
  • Are girls too mean to each other?
  • Is homework harmful or helpful?
  • Is the cost of college too high?
  • Is college admission too competitive?
  • Should euthanasia be illegal?
  • Should the federal government legalize marijuana use nationally ?
  • Should rich people be required to pay more taxes?
  • Should schools require foreign language or physical education?
  • Is affirmative action fair?
  • Is public prayer okay in schools?
  • Are schools and teachers responsible for low test scores?
  • Is greater gun control a good idea?
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What is an Argumentative Essay? How to Write It (With Examples)

Argumentative Essay

We define an argumentative essay as a type of essay that presents arguments about both sides of an issue. The purpose is to convince the reader to accept a particular viewpoint or action. In an argumentative essay, the writer takes a stance on a controversial or debatable topic and supports their position with evidence, reasoning, and examples. The essay should also address counterarguments, demonstrating a thorough understanding of the topic.

Table of Contents

  • What is an argumentative essay?  
  • Argumentative essay structure 
  • Argumentative essay outline 
  • Types of argument claims 

How to write an argumentative essay?

  • Argumentative essay writing tips 
  • Good argumentative essay example 

How to write a good thesis

Frequently asked questions, what is an argumentative essay.

An argumentative essay is a type of writing that presents a coherent and logical analysis of a specific topic. 1 The goal is to convince the reader to accept the writer’s point of view or opinion on a particular issue. Here are the key elements of an argumentative essay: 

  • Thesis Statement : The central claim or argument that the essay aims to prove. 
  • Introduction : Provides background information and introduces the thesis statement. 
  • Body Paragraphs : Each paragraph addresses a specific aspect of the argument, presents evidence, and may include counterarguments. 
  • Evidence : Supports the main argument with relevant facts, examples, statistics, or expert opinions. 
  • Counterarguments : Anticipates and addresses opposing viewpoints to strengthen the overall argument. 
  • Conclusion : Summarizes the main points, reinforces the thesis, and may suggest implications or actions. 

essay of arguments

Argumentative essay structure

Aristotelian, Rogerian, and Toulmin are three distinct approaches to argumentative essay structures, each with its principles and methods. 2 The choice depends on the purpose and nature of the topic. Here’s an overview of each type of argumentative essay format.

Argumentative essay outline

An argumentative essay presents a specific claim or argument and supports it with evidence and reasoning. Here’s an outline for an argumentative essay, along with examples for each section: 3  

1.  Introduction : 

  • Hook : Start with a compelling statement, question, or anecdote to grab the reader’s attention. 

Example: “Did you know that plastic pollution is threatening marine life at an alarming rate?” 

  • Background information : Provide brief context about the issue. 

Example: “Plastic pollution has become a global environmental concern, with millions of tons of plastic waste entering our oceans yearly.” 

  • Thesis statement : Clearly state your main argument or position. 

Example: “We must take immediate action to reduce plastic usage and implement more sustainable alternatives to protect our marine ecosystem.” 

2.  Body Paragraphs : 

  • Topic sentence : Introduce the main idea of each paragraph. 

Example: “The first step towards addressing the plastic pollution crisis is reducing single-use plastic consumption.” 

  • Evidence/Support : Provide evidence, facts, statistics, or examples that support your argument. 

Example: “Research shows that plastic straws alone contribute to millions of tons of plastic waste annually, and many marine animals suffer from ingestion or entanglement.” 

  • Counterargument/Refutation : Acknowledge and refute opposing viewpoints. 

Example: “Some argue that banning plastic straws is inconvenient for consumers, but the long-term environmental benefits far outweigh the temporary inconvenience.” 

  • Transition : Connect each paragraph to the next. 

Example: “Having addressed the issue of single-use plastics, the focus must now shift to promoting sustainable alternatives.” 

3.  Counterargument Paragraph : 

  • Acknowledgement of opposing views : Recognize alternative perspectives on the issue. 

Example: “While some may argue that individual actions cannot significantly impact global plastic pollution, the cumulative effect of collective efforts must be considered.” 

  • Counterargument and rebuttal : Present and refute the main counterargument. 

Example: “However, individual actions, when multiplied across millions of people, can substantially reduce plastic waste. Small changes in behavior, such as using reusable bags and containers, can have a significant positive impact.” 

4.  Conclusion : 

  • Restatement of thesis : Summarize your main argument. 

Example: “In conclusion, adopting sustainable practices and reducing single-use plastic is crucial for preserving our oceans and marine life.” 

  • Call to action : Encourage the reader to take specific steps or consider the argument’s implications. 

Example: “It is our responsibility to make environmentally conscious choices and advocate for policies that prioritize the health of our planet. By collectively embracing sustainable alternatives, we can contribute to a cleaner and healthier future.” 

essay of arguments

Types of argument claims

A claim is a statement or proposition a writer puts forward with evidence to persuade the reader. 4 Here are some common types of argument claims, along with examples: 

  • Fact Claims : These claims assert that something is true or false and can often be verified through evidence.  Example: “Water boils at 100°C at sea level.”
  • Value Claims : Value claims express judgments about the worth or morality of something, often based on personal beliefs or societal values. Example: “Organic farming is more ethical than conventional farming.” 
  • Policy Claims : Policy claims propose a course of action or argue for a specific policy, law, or regulation change.  Example: “Schools should adopt a year-round education system to improve student learning outcomes.” 
  • Cause and Effect Claims : These claims argue that one event or condition leads to another, establishing a cause-and-effect relationship.  Example: “Excessive use of social media is a leading cause of increased feelings of loneliness among young adults.” 
  • Definition Claims : Definition claims assert the meaning or classification of a concept or term.  Example: “Artificial intelligence can be defined as machines exhibiting human-like cognitive functions.” 
  • Comparative Claims : Comparative claims assert that one thing is better or worse than another in certain respects.  Example: “Online education is more cost-effective than traditional classroom learning.” 
  • Evaluation Claims : Evaluation claims assess the quality, significance, or effectiveness of something based on specific criteria.  Example: “The new healthcare policy is more effective in providing affordable healthcare to all citizens.” 

Understanding these argument claims can help writers construct more persuasive and well-supported arguments tailored to the specific nature of the claim.  

If you’re wondering how to start an argumentative essay, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you with the argumentative essay format and writing process.

  • Choose a Topic: Select a topic that you are passionate about or interested in. Ensure that the topic is debatable and has two or more sides.
  • Define Your Position: Clearly state your stance on the issue. Consider opposing viewpoints and be ready to counter them.
  • Conduct Research: Gather relevant information from credible sources, such as books, articles, and academic journals. Take notes on key points and supporting evidence.
  • Create a Thesis Statement: Develop a concise and clear thesis statement that outlines your main argument. Convey your position on the issue and provide a roadmap for the essay.
  • Outline Your Argumentative Essay: Organize your ideas logically by creating an outline. Include an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Each body paragraph should focus on a single point that supports your thesis.
  • Write the Introduction: Start with a hook to grab the reader’s attention (a quote, a question, a surprising fact). Provide background information on the topic. Present your thesis statement at the end of the introduction.
  • Develop Body Paragraphs: Begin each paragraph with a clear topic sentence that relates to the thesis. Support your points with evidence and examples. Address counterarguments and refute them to strengthen your position. Ensure smooth transitions between paragraphs.
  • Address Counterarguments: Acknowledge and respond to opposing viewpoints. Anticipate objections and provide evidence to counter them.
  • Write the Conclusion: Summarize the main points of your argumentative essay. Reinforce the significance of your argument. End with a call to action, a prediction, or a thought-provoking statement.
  • Revise, Edit, and Share: Review your essay for clarity, coherence, and consistency. Check for grammatical and spelling errors. Share your essay with peers, friends, or instructors for constructive feedback.
  • Finalize Your Argumentative Essay: Make final edits based on feedback received. Ensure that your essay follows the required formatting and citation style.

Argumentative essay writing tips

Here are eight strategies to craft a compelling argumentative essay: 

  • Choose a Clear and Controversial Topic : Select a topic that sparks debate and has opposing viewpoints. A clear and controversial issue provides a solid foundation for a strong argument. 
  • Conduct Thorough Research : Gather relevant information from reputable sources to support your argument. Use a variety of sources, such as academic journals, books, reputable websites, and expert opinions, to strengthen your position. 
  • Create a Strong Thesis Statement : Clearly articulate your main argument in a concise thesis statement. Your thesis should convey your stance on the issue and provide a roadmap for the reader to follow your argument. 
  • Develop a Logical Structure : Organize your essay with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each paragraph should focus on a specific point of evidence that contributes to your overall argument. Ensure a logical flow from one point to the next. 
  • Provide Strong Evidence : Support your claims with solid evidence. Use facts, statistics, examples, and expert opinions to support your arguments. Be sure to cite your sources appropriately to maintain credibility. 
  • Address Counterarguments : Acknowledge opposing viewpoints and counterarguments. Addressing and refuting alternative perspectives strengthens your essay and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the issue. Be mindful of maintaining a respectful tone even when discussing opposing views. 
  • Use Persuasive Language : Employ persuasive language to make your points effectively. Avoid emotional appeals without supporting evidence and strive for a respectful and professional tone. 
  • Craft a Compelling Conclusion : Summarize your main points, restate your thesis, and leave a lasting impression in your conclusion. Encourage readers to consider the implications of your argument and potentially take action. 

essay of arguments

Good argumentative essay example

Let’s consider a sample of argumentative essay on how social media enhances connectivity:

In the digital age, social media has emerged as a powerful tool that transcends geographical boundaries, connecting individuals from diverse backgrounds and providing a platform for an array of voices to be heard. While critics argue that social media fosters division and amplifies negativity, it is essential to recognize the positive aspects of this digital revolution and how it enhances connectivity by providing a platform for diverse voices to flourish. One of the primary benefits of social media is its ability to facilitate instant communication and connection across the globe. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram break down geographical barriers, enabling people to establish and maintain relationships regardless of physical location and fostering a sense of global community. Furthermore, social media has transformed how people stay connected with friends and family. Whether separated by miles or time zones, social media ensures that relationships remain dynamic and relevant, contributing to a more interconnected world. Moreover, social media has played a pivotal role in giving voice to social justice movements and marginalized communities. Movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #ClimateStrike have gained momentum through social media, allowing individuals to share their stories and advocate for change on a global scale. This digital activism can shape public opinion and hold institutions accountable. Social media platforms provide a dynamic space for open dialogue and discourse. Users can engage in discussions, share information, and challenge each other’s perspectives, fostering a culture of critical thinking. This open exchange of ideas contributes to a more informed and enlightened society where individuals can broaden their horizons and develop a nuanced understanding of complex issues. While criticisms of social media abound, it is crucial to recognize its positive impact on connectivity and the amplification of diverse voices. Social media transcends physical and cultural barriers, connecting people across the globe and providing a platform for marginalized voices to be heard. By fostering open dialogue and facilitating the exchange of ideas, social media contributes to a more interconnected and empowered society. Embracing the positive aspects of social media allows us to harness its potential for positive change and collective growth.
  • Clearly Define Your Thesis Statement:   Your thesis statement is the core of your argumentative essay. Clearly articulate your main argument or position on the issue. Avoid vague or general statements.  
  • Provide Strong Supporting Evidence:   Back up your thesis with solid evidence from reliable sources and examples. This can include facts, statistics, expert opinions, anecdotes, or real-life examples. Make sure your evidence is relevant to your argument, as it impacts the overall persuasiveness of your thesis.  
  • Anticipate Counterarguments and Address Them:   Acknowledge and address opposing viewpoints to strengthen credibility. This also shows that you engage critically with the topic rather than presenting a one-sided argument. 

The length of an argumentative essay can vary, but it typically falls within the range of 1,000 to 2,500 words. However, the specific requirements may depend on the guidelines provided.

You might write an argumentative essay when:  1. You want to convince others of the validity of your position.  2. There is a controversial or debatable issue that requires discussion.  3. You need to present evidence and logical reasoning to support your claims.  4. You want to explore and critically analyze different perspectives on a topic. 

Argumentative Essay:  Purpose : An argumentative essay aims to persuade the reader to accept or agree with a specific point of view or argument.  Structure : It follows a clear structure with an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs presenting arguments and evidence, counterarguments and refutations, and a conclusion.  Tone : The tone is formal and relies on logical reasoning, evidence, and critical analysis.    Narrative/Descriptive Essay:  Purpose : These aim to tell a story or describe an experience, while a descriptive essay focuses on creating a vivid picture of a person, place, or thing.  Structure : They may have a more flexible structure. They often include an engaging introduction, a well-developed body that builds the story or description, and a conclusion.  Tone : The tone is more personal and expressive to evoke emotions or provide sensory details. 

  • Gladd, J. (2020). Tips for Writing Academic Persuasive Essays.  Write What Matters . 
  • Nimehchisalem, V. (2018). Pyramid of argumentation: Towards an integrated model for teaching and assessing ESL writing.  Language & Communication ,  5 (2), 185-200. 
  • Press, B. (2022).  Argumentative Essays: A Step-by-Step Guide . Broadview Press. 
  • Rieke, R. D., Sillars, M. O., & Peterson, T. R. (2005).  Argumentation and critical decision making . Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. 

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Argumentative Essays

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The Modes of Discourse—Exposition, Description, Narration, Argumentation (EDNA)—are common paper assignments you may encounter in your writing classes. Although these genres have been criticized by some composition scholars, the Purdue OWL recognizes the wide spread use of these approaches and students’ need to understand and produce them.

What is an argumentative essay?

The argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in a concise manner.

Please note : Some confusion may occur between the argumentative essay and the expository essay. These two genres are similar, but the argumentative essay differs from the expository essay in the amount of pre-writing (invention) and research involved. The argumentative essay is commonly assigned as a capstone or final project in first year writing or advanced composition courses and involves lengthy, detailed research. Expository essays involve less research and are shorter in length. Expository essays are often used for in-class writing exercises or tests, such as the GED or GRE.

Argumentative essay assignments generally call for extensive research of literature or previously published material. Argumentative assignments may also require empirical research where the student collects data through interviews, surveys, observations, or experiments. Detailed research allows the student to learn about the topic and to understand different points of view regarding the topic so that she/he may choose a position and support it with the evidence collected during research. Regardless of the amount or type of research involved, argumentative essays must establish a clear thesis and follow sound reasoning.

The structure of the argumentative essay is held together by the following.

  • A clear, concise, and defined thesis statement that occurs in the first paragraph of the essay.

In the first paragraph of an argument essay, students should set the context by reviewing the topic in a general way. Next the author should explain why the topic is important ( exigence ) or why readers should care about the issue. Lastly, students should present the thesis statement. It is essential that this thesis statement be appropriately narrowed to follow the guidelines set forth in the assignment. If the student does not master this portion of the essay, it will be quite difficult to compose an effective or persuasive essay.

  • Clear and logical transitions between the introduction, body, and conclusion.

Transitions are the mortar that holds the foundation of the essay together. Without logical progression of thought, the reader is unable to follow the essay’s argument, and the structure will collapse. Transitions should wrap up the idea from the previous section and introduce the idea that is to follow in the next section.

  • Body paragraphs that include evidential support.

Each paragraph should be limited to the discussion of one general idea. This will allow for clarity and direction throughout the essay. In addition, such conciseness creates an ease of readability for one’s audience. It is important to note that each paragraph in the body of the essay must have some logical connection to the thesis statement in the opening paragraph. Some paragraphs will directly support the thesis statement with evidence collected during research. It is also important to explain how and why the evidence supports the thesis ( warrant ).

However, argumentative essays should also consider and explain differing points of view regarding the topic. Depending on the length of the assignment, students should dedicate one or two paragraphs of an argumentative essay to discussing conflicting opinions on the topic. Rather than explaining how these differing opinions are wrong outright, students should note how opinions that do not align with their thesis might not be well informed or how they might be out of date.

  • Evidential support (whether factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal).

The argumentative essay requires well-researched, accurate, detailed, and current information to support the thesis statement and consider other points of view. Some factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal evidence should support the thesis. However, students must consider multiple points of view when collecting evidence. As noted in the paragraph above, a successful and well-rounded argumentative essay will also discuss opinions not aligning with the thesis. It is unethical to exclude evidence that may not support the thesis. It is not the student’s job to point out how other positions are wrong outright, but rather to explain how other positions may not be well informed or up to date on the topic.

  • A conclusion that does not simply restate the thesis, but readdresses it in light of the evidence provided.

It is at this point of the essay that students may begin to struggle. This is the portion of the essay that will leave the most immediate impression on the mind of the reader. Therefore, it must be effective and logical. Do not introduce any new information into the conclusion; rather, synthesize the information presented in the body of the essay. Restate why the topic is important, review the main points, and review your thesis. You may also want to include a short discussion of more research that should be completed in light of your work.

A complete argument

Perhaps it is helpful to think of an essay in terms of a conversation or debate with a classmate. If I were to discuss the cause of World War II and its current effect on those who lived through the tumultuous time, there would be a beginning, middle, and end to the conversation. In fact, if I were to end the argument in the middle of my second point, questions would arise concerning the current effects on those who lived through the conflict. Therefore, the argumentative essay must be complete, and logically so, leaving no doubt as to its intent or argument.

The five-paragraph essay

A common method for writing an argumentative essay is the five-paragraph approach. This is, however, by no means the only formula for writing such essays. If it sounds straightforward, that is because it is; in fact, the method consists of (a) an introductory paragraph (b) three evidentiary body paragraphs that may include discussion of opposing views and (c) a conclusion.

Longer argumentative essays

Complex issues and detailed research call for complex and detailed essays. Argumentative essays discussing a number of research sources or empirical research will most certainly be longer than five paragraphs. Authors may have to discuss the context surrounding the topic, sources of information and their credibility, as well as a number of different opinions on the issue before concluding the essay. Many of these factors will be determined by the assignment.

The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

What this handout is about

This handout will define what an argument is and explain why you need one in most of your academic essays.

Arguments are everywhere

You may be surprised to hear that the word “argument” does not have to be written anywhere in your assignment for it to be an important part of your task. In fact, making an argument—expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence—is often the aim of academic writing. Your instructors may assume that you know this and thus may not explain the importance of arguments in class.

Most material you learn in college is or has been debated by someone, somewhere, at some time. Even when the material you read or hear is presented as a simple fact, it may actually be one person’s interpretation of a set of information. Instructors may call on you to examine that interpretation and defend it, refute it, or offer some new view of your own. In writing assignments, you will almost always need to do more than just summarize information that you have gathered or regurgitate facts that have been discussed in class. You will need to develop a point of view on or interpretation of that material and provide evidence for your position.

Consider an example. For nearly 2000 years, educated people in many Western cultures believed that bloodletting—deliberately causing a sick person to lose blood—was the most effective treatment for a variety of illnesses. The claim that bloodletting is beneficial to human health was not widely questioned until the 1800s, and some physicians continued to recommend bloodletting as late as the 1920s. Medical practices have now changed because some people began to doubt the effectiveness of bloodletting; these people argued against it and provided convincing evidence. Human knowledge grows out of such differences of opinion, and scholars like your instructors spend their lives engaged in debate over what claims may be counted as accurate in their fields. In their courses, they want you to engage in similar kinds of critical thinking and debate.

Argumentation is not just what your instructors do. We all use argumentation on a daily basis, and you probably already have some skill at crafting an argument. The more you improve your skills in this area, the better you will be at thinking critically, reasoning, making choices, and weighing evidence.

Making a claim

What is an argument? In academic writing, an argument is usually a main idea, often called a “claim” or “thesis statement,” backed up with evidence that supports the idea. In the majority of college papers, you will need to make some sort of claim and use evidence to support it, and your ability to do this well will separate your papers from those of students who see assignments as mere accumulations of fact and detail. In other words, gone are the happy days of being given a “topic” about which you can write anything. It is time to stake out a position and prove why it is a good position for a thinking person to hold. See our handout on thesis statements .

Claims can be as simple as “Protons are positively charged and electrons are negatively charged,” with evidence such as, “In this experiment, protons and electrons acted in such and such a way.” Claims can also be as complex as “Genre is the most important element to the contract of expectations between filmmaker and audience,” using reasoning and evidence such as, “defying genre expectations can create a complete apocalypse of story form and content, leaving us stranded in a sort of genre-less abyss.” In either case, the rest of your paper will detail the reasoning and evidence that have led you to believe that your position is best.

When beginning to write a paper, ask yourself, “What is my point?” For example, the point of this handout is to help you become a better writer, and we are arguing that an important step in the process of writing effective arguments is understanding the concept of argumentation. If your papers do not have a main point, they cannot be arguing for anything. Asking yourself what your point is can help you avoid a mere “information dump.” Consider this: your instructors probably know a lot more than you do about your subject matter. Why, then, would you want to provide them with material they already know? Instructors are usually looking for two things:

  • Proof that you understand the material
  • A demonstration of your ability to use or apply the material in ways that go beyond what you have read or heard.

This second part can be done in many ways: you can critique the material, apply it to something else, or even just explain it in a different way. In order to succeed at this second step, though, you must have a particular point to argue.

Arguments in academic writing are usually complex and take time to develop. Your argument will need to be more than a simple or obvious statement such as “Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect.” Such a statement might capture your initial impressions of Wright as you have studied him in class; however, you need to look deeper and express specifically what caused that “greatness.” Your instructor will probably expect something more complicated, such as “Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture combines elements of European modernism, Asian aesthetic form, and locally found materials to create a unique new style,” or “There are many strong similarities between Wright’s building designs and those of his mother, which suggests that he may have borrowed some of her ideas.” To develop your argument, you would then define your terms and prove your claim with evidence from Wright’s drawings and buildings and those of the other architects you mentioned.

Do not stop with having a point. You have to back up your point with evidence. The strength of your evidence, and your use of it, can make or break your argument. See our handout on evidence . You already have the natural inclination for this type of thinking, if not in an academic setting. Think about how you talked your parents into letting you borrow the family car. Did you present them with lots of instances of your past trustworthiness? Did you make them feel guilty because your friends’ parents all let them drive? Did you whine until they just wanted you to shut up? Did you look up statistics on teen driving and use them to show how you didn’t fit the dangerous-driver profile? These are all types of argumentation, and they exist in academia in similar forms.

Every field has slightly different requirements for acceptable evidence, so familiarize yourself with some arguments from within that field instead of just applying whatever evidence you like best. Pay attention to your textbooks and your instructor’s lectures. What types of argument and evidence are they using? The type of evidence that sways an English instructor may not work to convince a sociology instructor. Find out what counts as proof that something is true in that field. Is it statistics, a logical development of points, something from the object being discussed (art work, text, culture, or atom), the way something works, or some combination of more than one of these things?

Be consistent with your evidence. Unlike negotiating for the use of your parents’ car, a college paper is not the place for an all-out blitz of every type of argument. You can often use more than one type of evidence within a paper, but make sure that within each section you are providing the reader with evidence appropriate to each claim. So, if you start a paragraph or section with a statement like “Putting the student seating area closer to the basketball court will raise player performance,” do not follow with your evidence on how much more money the university could raise by letting more students go to games for free. Information about how fan support raises player morale, which then results in better play, would be a better follow-up. Your next section could offer clear reasons why undergraduates have as much or more right to attend an undergraduate event as wealthy alumni—but this information would not go in the same section as the fan support stuff. You cannot convince a confused person, so keep things tidy and ordered.

Counterargument

One way to strengthen your argument and show that you have a deep understanding of the issue you are discussing is to anticipate and address counterarguments or objections. By considering what someone who disagrees with your position might have to say about your argument, you show that you have thought things through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument. Recall our discussion of student seating in the Dean Dome. To make the most effective argument possible, you should consider not only what students would say about seating but also what alumni who have paid a lot to get good seats might say.

You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself how someone who disagrees with you might respond to each of the points you’ve made or your position as a whole. If you can’t immediately imagine another position, here are some strategies to try:

  • Do some research. It may seem to you that no one could possibly disagree with the position you are arguing, but someone probably has. For example, some people argue that a hotdog is a sandwich. If you are making an argument concerning, for example, the characteristics of an exceptional sandwich, you might want to see what some of these people have to say.
  • Talk with a friend or with your teacher. Another person may be able to imagine counterarguments that haven’t occurred to you.
  • Consider your conclusion or claim and the premises of your argument and imagine someone who denies each of them. For example, if you argued, “Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent,” you might imagine someone saying, “Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and needy.”

Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them—will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.

When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have considered the many sides of the issue. If you simply attack or caricature your opponent (also referred to as presenting a “straw man”), you suggest that your argument is only capable of defeating an extremely weak adversary, which may undermine your argument rather than enhance it.

It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies.

Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to go back and revise your original argument accordingly.

Audience is a very important consideration in argument. Take a look at our handout on audience . A lifetime of dealing with your family members has helped you figure out which arguments work best to persuade each of them. Maybe whining works with one parent, but the other will only accept cold, hard statistics. Your kid brother may listen only to the sound of money in his palm. It’s usually wise to think of your audience in an academic setting as someone who is perfectly smart but who doesn’t necessarily agree with you. You are not just expressing your opinion in an argument (“It’s true because I said so”), and in most cases your audience will know something about the subject at hand—so you will need sturdy proof. At the same time, do not think of your audience as capable of reading your mind. You have to come out and state both your claim and your evidence clearly. Do not assume that because the instructor knows the material, he or she understands what part of it you are using, what you think about it, and why you have taken the position you’ve chosen.

Critical reading

Critical reading is a big part of understanding argument. Although some of the material you read will be very persuasive, do not fall under the spell of the printed word as authority. Very few of your instructors think of the texts they assign as the last word on the subject. Remember that the author of every text has an agenda, something that he or she wants you to believe. This is OK—everything is written from someone’s perspective—but it’s a good thing to be aware of. For more information on objectivity and bias and on reading sources carefully, read our handouts on evaluating print sources and reading to write .

Take notes either in the margins of your source (if you are using a photocopy or your own book) or on a separate sheet as you read. Put away that highlighter! Simply highlighting a text is good for memorizing the main ideas in that text—it does not encourage critical reading. Part of your goal as a reader should be to put the author’s ideas in your own words. Then you can stop thinking of these ideas as facts and start thinking of them as arguments.

When you read, ask yourself questions like “What is the author trying to prove?” and “What is the author assuming I will agree with?” Do you agree with the author? Does the author adequately defend her argument? What kind of proof does she use? Is there something she leaves out that you would put in? Does putting it in hurt her argument? As you get used to reading critically, you will start to see the sometimes hidden agendas of other writers, and you can use this skill to improve your own ability to craft effective arguments.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ede, Lisa. 2004. Work in Progress: A Guide to Academic Writing and Revising , 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Gage, John T. 2005. The Shape of Reason: Argumentative Writing in College , 4th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A., and John J. Ruszkiewicz. 2016. Everything’s an Argument , 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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At some point, you’re going to be asked to write an argumentative essay. An argumentative essay is exactly what it sounds like—an essay in which you’ll be making an argument, using examples and research to back up your point.

But not all argumentative essay topics are created equal. Not only do you have to structure your essay right to have a good impact on the reader, but even your choice of subject can impact how readers feel about your work.

In this article, we’ll cover the basics of writing argumentative essays, including what argumentative essays are, how to write a good one, and how to pick a topic that works for you. Then check out a list of argumentative essay ideas to help you get started.

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is one that makes an argument through research. These essays take a position and support it through evidence, but, unlike many other kinds of essays, they are interested in expressing a specific argument supported by research and evidence.

A good argumentative essay will be based on established or new research rather than only on your thoughts and feelings. Imagine that you’re trying to get your parents to raise your allowance, and you can offer one of two arguments in your favor:

You should raise my allowance because I want you to.

You should raise my allowance because I’ve been taking on more chores without complaining.

The first argument is based entirely in feelings without any factual backup, whereas the second is based on evidence that can be proven. Your parents are more likely to respond positively to the second argument because it demonstrates that you have done something to earn the increased allowance. Similarly, a well-researched and reasoned argument will show readers that your point has a basis in fact, not just feelings.

The standard five-paragraph essay is common in writing argumentative essays, but it’s not the only way to write one. An argumentative essay is typically written in one of two formats, the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model.

The Toulmin model is the most common, comprised of an introduction with a claim (otherwise known as a thesis), with data to support it. This style of essay will also include rebuttals, helping to strengthen your argument by anticipating counterarguments.

The Rogerian model analyzes two sides of an argument and reaches a conclusion after weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Both essay styles rely on well-reasoned logic and supporting evidence to prove a point, just in two different ways.

The important thing to note about argumentative essays as opposed to other kinds of essays is that they aim to argue a specific point rather than to explain something or to tell a story. While they may have some things in common with analytical essays, the primary difference is in their objective—an argumentative essay aims to convince someone of something, whereas an analytical essay contextualizes a topic with research.

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What Makes a Good Argumentative Essay?

To write an effective argumentative essay, you need to know what a good one looks like. In addition to a solid structure, you’ll need an argument, a strong thesis, and solid research.

An Argument

Unlike other forms of essays, you are trying to convince your reader of something. You’re not just teaching them a concept or demonstrating an idea—you’re constructing an argument to change the readers’ thinking.

You’ll need to develop a good argument, which encompasses not just your main point, but also all the pieces that make it up.

Think beyond what you are saying and include how you’re saying it. How will you take an idea and turn it into a complex and well thought out argument that is capable of changing somebody’s mind?

A Strong Thesis

The thesis is the core of your argument. What specific message are you trying to get across? State that message in one sentence, and that will be your thesis.

This is the foundation on which your essay is built, so it needs to be strong and well-reasoned. You need to be able to expand on it with facts and sources, not just feelings.

A good argumentative essay isn’t just based on your individual thoughts, but research. That can be citing sources and other arguments or it can mean direct research in the field, depending on what your argument is and the context in which you are arguing it.

Be prepared to back your thesis up with reporting from scientific journals, newspapers, or other forms of research. Having well-researched sources will help support your argument better than hearsay or assumptions. If you can’t find enough research to back up your point, it’s worth reconsidering your thesis or conducting original research, if possible.

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How to Come Up With an Argumentative Essay Topic

Sometimes you may find yourself arguing things you don’t necessarily believe. That’s totally fine—you don’t actually have to wholeheartedly believe in what you’re arguing in order to construct a compelling argument.

However, if you have free choice of topic, it’s a good idea to pick something you feel strongly about. There are two key components to a good argumentative essay: a strong stance, and an assortment of evidence. If you’re interested and feel passionate about the topic you choose, you'll have an easier time finding evidence to support it, but it's the evidence that's most important. 

So, to choose a topic, think about things you feel strongly about, whether positively or negatively. You can make a list of ideas and narrow those down to a handful of things, then expand on those ideas with a few potential points you want to hit on.

For example, say you’re trying to decide whether you should write about how your neighborhood should ban weed killer, that your school’s lunch should be free for all students, or that the school day should be cut by one hour. To decide between these ideas, you can make a list of three to five points for each that cover the different evidence you could use to support each point.

For the weed killer ban, you could say that weed killer has been proven to have adverse impacts on bees, that there are simple, natural alternatives, and that weeds aren’t actually bad to have around. For the free lunch idea, you could suggest that some students have to go hungry because they can’t afford lunch, that funds could be diverted from other places to support free lunch, and that other items, like chips or pizza, could be sold to help make up lost revenue. And for the school day length example, you could argue that teenagers generally don’t get enough sleep, that you have too much homework and not enough time to do it, and that teenagers don’t spend enough time with their families.

You might find as you make these lists that some of them are stronger than others. The more evidence you have and the stronger you feel that that evidence is, the better the topic.  Of course, if you feel that one topic may have more evidence but you’d rather not write about it, it’s okay to pick another topic instead. When you’re making arguments, it can be much easier to find strong points and evidence if you feel passionate about our topic than if you don't.

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50 Argumentative Essay Topic Ideas

If you’re struggling to come up with topics on your own, read through this list of argumentative essay topics to help get you started!

  • Should fracking be legal?
  • Should parents be able to modify their unborn children?
  • Do GMOs help or harm people?
  • Should vaccinations be required for students to attend public school?
  • Should world governments get involved in addressing climate change?
  • Should Facebook be allowed to collect data from its users?
  • Should self-driving cars be legal?
  • Is it ethical to replace human workers with automation?
  • Should there be laws against using cell phones while driving?
  • Has the internet positively or negatively impacted human society?

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  • Should college athletes be paid for being on sports teams?
  • Should coaches and players make the same amount of money?
  • Should sports be segregated by gender?
  • Should the concept of designated hitters in baseball be abolished?
  • Should US sports take soccer more seriously?
  • Should religious organizations have to pay taxes?
  • Should religious clubs be allowed in schools?
  • Should “one nation under God” be in the pledge of allegiance?
  • Should religion be taught in schools?
  • Should clergy be allowed to marry?
  • Should minors be able to purchase birth control without parental consent?
  • Should the US switch to single-payer healthcare?
  • Should assisted suicide be legal?
  • Should dietary supplements and weight loss items like teas be allowed to advertise through influencers?
  • Should doctors be allowed to promote medicines?

Government/Politics

  • Is the electoral college an effective system for modern America?
  • Should Puerto Rico become a state?
  • Should voter registration be automatic?
  • Should people in prison be allowed to vote?
  • Should Supreme Court justices be elected?
  • Should sex work be legalized?
  • Should Columbus Day be replaced with Indigenous Peoples’ Day?
  • Should the death penalty be legal?
  • Should animal testing be allowed?
  • Should drug possession be decriminalized?

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  • Should unpaid internships be legal?
  • Should minimum wage be increased?
  • Should monopolies be allowed?
  • Is universal basic income a good idea?
  • Should corporations have a higher or lower tax rate?
  • Are school uniforms a good idea?
  • Should PE affect a student’s grades?
  • Should college be free?
  • Should Greek life in colleges be abolished?
  • Should students be taught comprehensive sex ed?

Arts/Culture

  • Should graffiti be considered art or vandalism?
  • Should books with objectionable words be banned?
  • Should content on YouTube be better regulated?
  • Is art education important?
  • Should art and music sharing online be allowed?

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How to Argue Effectively

A strong argument isn’t just about having a good point. If you can’t support that point well, your argument falls apart.

One of the most important things you can do in writing a strong argumentative essay is organizing well. Your essay should have a distinct beginning, middle, and end, better known as the introduction, body and opposition, and conclusion.

This example follows the Toulmin model—if your essay follows the Rogerian model, the same basic premise is true, but your thesis will instead propose two conflicting viewpoints that will be resolved through evidence in the body, with your conclusion choosing the stronger of the two arguments.

Introduction

Your hook should draw the reader’s interest immediately. Questions are a common way of getting interest, as well as evocative language or a strong statistic

Don’t assume that your audience is already familiar with your topic. Give them some background information, such as a brief history of the issue or some additional context.

Your thesis is the crux of your argument. In an argumentative essay, your thesis should be clearly outlined so that readers know exactly what point you’ll be making. Don’t explain all your evidence in the opening, but do take a strong stance and make it clear what you’ll be discussing.

Your claims are the ideas you’ll use to support your thesis. For example, if you’re writing about how your neighborhood shouldn’t use weed killer, your claim might be that it’s bad for the environment. But you can’t just say that on its own—you need evidence to support it.

Evidence is the backbone of your argument. This can be things you glean from scientific studies, newspaper articles, or your own research. You might cite a study that says that weed killer has an adverse effect on bees, or a newspaper article that discusses how one town eliminated weed killer and saw an increase in water quality. These kinds of hard evidence support your point with demonstrable facts, strengthening your argument.

In your essay, you want to think about how the opposition would respond to your claims and respond to them. Don’t pick the weakest arguments, either— figure out what other people are saying and respond to those arguments with clearly reasoned arguments.

Demonstrating that you not only understand the opposition’s point, but that your argument is strong enough to withstand it, is one of the key pieces to a successful argumentative essay.

Conclusions are a place to clearly restate your original point, because doing so will remind readers exactly what you’re arguing and show them how well you’ve argued that point.

Summarize your main claims by restating them, though you don’t need to bring up the evidence again. This helps remind readers of everything you’ve said throughout the essay.

End by suggesting a picture of a world in which your argument and action are ignored. This increases the impact of your argument and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

A strong argumentative essay is one with good structure and a strong argument , but there are a few other things you can keep in mind to further strengthen your point.

When you’re crafting an argument, it can be easy to get distracted by all the information and complications in your argument. It’s important to stay focused—be clear in your thesis and home in on claims that directly support that thesis.

Be Rational

It’s important that your claims and evidence be based in facts, not just opinion. That’s why it’s important to use reliable sources based in science and reporting—otherwise, it’s easy for people to debunk your arguments.

Don’t rely solely on your feelings about the topic. If you can’t back a claim up with real evidence, it leaves room for counterarguments you may not anticipate. Make sure that you can support everything you say with clear and concrete evidence, and your claims will be a lot stronger!

What’s Next?

No matter what kind of essay you're writing, a strong plan will help you have a bigger impact. This guide to writing a college essay is a great way to get started on your essay organizing journey!

Brushing up on your essay format knowledge to prep for the SAT? Check out this list of SAT essay prompts to help you kickstart your studying!

A bunch of great essay examples can help you aspire to greatness, but bad essays can also be a warning for what not to do. This guide to bad college essays will help you better understand common mistakes to avoid in essay writing!

Need more help with this topic? Check out Tutorbase!

Our vetted tutor database includes a range of experienced educators who can help you polish an essay for English or explain how derivatives work for Calculus. You can use dozens of filters and search criteria to find the perfect person for your needs.

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Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to help them prepare for their college education.

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  • ACADEMIC ADVICE

How to Write an Argumentative Essay

  • November 27, 2022

Table of Contents

What is an argumentative essay, introduction, thesis statement, body paragraphs, outline and research, wrapping up.

We’ve all dreaded writing an intimidating essay at some point or other. Argumentative essays are extra intimidating as you’ll have to do justice to the topic and make a strong argument in its favor.

Read on if you want to master writing clear and concise argumentative essays and have common questions answered, such as:

  • How to write an argumentative essay
  • What are the types of arguments
  • How to write a thesis statement for an argumentative essay and others

An argumentative essay is designed to convince the reader why your stance is correct by expanding on the topic and offering fact-based evidence against counter-claims. It requires thorough research of the topic, a clear thesis statement, and follow sound reasoning.

An exceptionally written argumentative essay will:

  • Engage the reader with a compelling and exciting topic.
  • Give a fair explanation of all points of view.
  • Address the potential counter-claims.
  • Make the reader ponder and convince them to adopt and consider a new perspective.

Structure of an Argumentative Essay

When writing an argumentative essay, you’ll want to present your stance in the best way possible, which is where a structure is essential. A strong structure consists of:

  • A clear and defined thesis statement
  • Organic transitions between paragraphs
  • Evidential support (factual, logical, or statistical)

Because argumentative essays usually follow a five-paragraph structure, your structure should be as follows:

  • First paragraph: introduction and thesis statement.
  • Second to the fourth paragraph: body paragraphs , each one detailing your claims.
  • Fifth paragraph: conclusion.

However, depending on the complexity of the topic, argumentative essays can be longer than five paragraphs. So, keep in mind to follow the assignment specifications when outlining your essay.

You’ll want to grab the reader’s attention and retain it until the last sentence, which is why the introduction paragraph should be entertaining while still following academic writing rules. For example, you can open up an interesting statistic not well-known in the field.

Your introduction paragraph should serve to outline the topic and the evidence you will present, provide background information, and your statement thesis.

The thesis statement should be the last sentence of the introduction paragraph, and while it’s only a sentence long, it’s the most important part of your essay. A well-constructed thesis will summarize what your argumentative essay is about and what the reader can expect. You can write a thesis statement by following these three steps:

  • Turning the topic into a question and then answering it: ask a big question in the title or the first few sentences and then answer it in your thesis statement.
  • Stating an argument and then refuting it: introduce an idea you don’t align with and then explain why you disagree with it.
  • Briefly outlining your points: introduce your main point and explain how you’ll back it with evidence.

In the body paragraphs, you should include evidential support to your statement thesis. When writing them, keep the following in mind:

  • Explain how the evidence supports the thesis statement,
  • Present differing points of view on the topic and why these points don’t support the thesis,
  • Connect logically to the thesis statement,
  • Try to limit a paragraph to one point.

Lastly, in the conclusion paragraph, you restate the thesis statement, but in the light of the evidence you provided. You can use the conclusion to showcase why the topic is important and what future research should focus on. Note that you should refrain from introducing new information in this section.

Types of Arguments

An argumentative essay can use one of the three arguments to approach a topic. Following an approach or combining them can help you structure your essay more easily and be more evident in your claims.

The classical or Aristotelian argument is a classic for a reason, as it is the most common strategy for making a straightforward argument. It relies on five parts:

  • Introduction: it introduces the topic and how you’re going to prove your stance.
  • Thesis: it explains your point of view.
  • Refutation: it includes counter-arguments and refutes them.
  • Confirmation: it presents your evidence.
  • Conclusion: it summarizes your argument powerfully with evidential support.

The Toulmin argument approach is better used for complex topics or when refuting an opposing point of view. This method is founded on logic and deep analysis, and it relies on six areas:

  • Claim: stating the argument clearly.
  • Reasons: presenting the evidence.
  • Warrant: connecting the argument with evidence.
  • Backing: providing additional evidence.
  • Qualifier: explaining the limits of the argument.
  • Rebuttal: finding opposing views and refuting them.

The Rogerian argument is best used in essays where you have to show the validity of both sides of an argument. When using this approach, you should take a wider-scope view of the topic. While it is more structure-free than the other approaches, you can still follow a structure by:

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  • introducing the argument,
  • explaining and validating the opposite point of view,
  • explaining your point of view and why you hold that stance,
  • finding the middle ground between the opposing points of view, and
  • concluding the argument and recognizing where there’s still work to be done.

Steps in the Writing Process

Although the writing process is unique to each person, following some steps can help you be more productive.

If your argument or point of view isn’t provided as an assignment, you can try brainstorming to come up with the perfect topic for your project. When looking for topics or arguments, you should:

  • be coherent and relevant to the course,
  • pick an important topic, and
  • pick a topic with potential for further research.

Outlining and researching are crucial, as they set the foundation for an excellent argumentative essay.

When outlining, you should decide whether to follow the five-paragraph outline or the longer essay outline, depending on the complexity of your topic.

On the other hand, when researching, you’ll have to follow a few steps:

  • Picking a point of view and argument,
  • researching who else supports your argument,
  • exploring the potential counter-arguments, and
  • organizing your evidence.

You should also keep in mind to check the validity of your evidence.

After outlining your essay and gathering all the material you need, you can start writing. It’s important to write a rough draft with all your ideas and opinions. You should also remember that in this step, it is more important to write and fill in the gaps than to have a perfect version immediately.

Following the rough draft is the revision part, in which you polish it and transform it into the perfect version. When revising, you should ensure your language is clear, optimize word choice, and strengthen any weak argument. This step will help you retain your essay’s credibility and intellectual integrity.

Naturally, when writing, we can all make grammatical and technical mistakes, which is why you should always proofread your essay before submitting it. While you can proofread it yourself, you can also use online resources such as Grammarly to ease the proofreading process. A handy trick is to proofread your essay after taking a break, as it will help you find tiny mistakes you might otherwise have overlooked.

Writing can be a challenging process, especially when you have to prove your point clearly and concisely. However, by sticking to a bulletproof structure and utilizing our tips for writing a stellar argumentative essay, we’re sure you can take on any topic without any difficulty.

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essay of arguments

Argumentative Essay Examples (3 College Samples to Use)

argumentative essay examples

When writing an argumentative essay, it can be helpful to look at examples and samples that provide the structure of the outline for the essay form. Here are argumentative essay examples to use when writing your university-level essay.

Argumentative essay

What is an argumentative essay?

An argumentative essay backs up its claims with facts and evidence. Its ultimate goal is to persuade the reader to concur with the thesis. Instead of only the author’s thoughts and feelings, a strong argumentative essay will incorporate facts and evidence to back up its claims.

This article will find three different argumentative essay examples to help you understand how to frame a good argument.

Argumentative essay outline:

Argumentative essays typically follow the conventional five-paragraph pattern. However, this is not necessary. The two common frameworks for these articles are the Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

  • The most popular model is the Toulmin one. It starts with an introduction, moves on to a thesis or claim, and then provides information and proof to support that argument. Rebuttals of opposing points are also included in this type of essay.
  • The Rogerian paradigm examines both sides of an argument, weighs their advantages and disadvantages, and then draws a decision.

Argumentative essay examples

Below are three examples of argumentative essays.

Essay Example 1:

Some people have proposed closing public libraries and replacing them with iPads with e-reader subscriptions as online learning becomes more widespread and more resources are transformed into digital form.

The idea’s proponents claim that it will result in financial savings for nearby cities and villages because libraries are expensive. They think more people will read since they won’t have to go to the library to borrow a book. Instead, they can just click on the book they want to read and read it from wherever they are. Additionally, since libraries won’t need to purchase physical copies of books because they can simply rent as many digital ones, they’ll have access to more resources.

But using tablets to replace libraries would be a grave error. First, compared to print resources, digital books and resources are more problematic and are connected with less learning. According to research comparing tablet and book reading, tablet users read 20–30% slower, remember 20–20% less information, and comprehend 10–15% less of what they read than those who read the same material in print. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that gazing at a computer for an extended period is significantly more likely than reading print to result in several health issues. Such as blurred vision, faintness, dry eyes, headaches, and eye strain.

A higher incidence of more significant health conditions like fibromyalgia, shoulder and back discomfort, and carpal tunnel syndrome. And muscle strain is also observed in individuals who use tablets and mobile devices extensively.

Second, assuming that libraries provide book lending is limited-minded. There are many advantages to libraries, many of which can only be accessed if the library is physically there. These advantages include serving as a peaceful study area, offering a forum for neighborhood interaction, hosting classes on various subjects, creating employment opportunities, responding to client inquiries, and maintaining a sense of community. Over a third of residents in one neighborhood said they felt more connected to their community when a local library started hosting community events like play dates for young children and their parents .

Similarly, a 2015 Pew survey revealed that nearly two-thirds of American respondents believed eliminating their neighborhood library would significantly negatively impact their neighborhood.

Tablets can’t provide these advantages nearly as well as libraries do for those looking to connect with others and find answers to their queries.

Despite the numerous problems with digital screens, replacing libraries with tablets may seem straightforward, but it would inspire people to spend even more time staring at screens. Additionally, many of the advantages of libraries on which people have come to rely would no longer be accessible. A simple object in many communities could never replace libraries since they are such a vital element of the social fabric.

Essay Example 2:

Malaria is a contagious illness brought on by parasites that are spread to humans by female Anopheles mosquitoes. Over 500 million people contract malaria each year, with about 80% of those individuals residing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every year, malaria claims the lives of close to 500,000 people, the majority of them being young children under the age of five. Malaria has a higher death rate than many other infectious disorders.

Rather than treating the illness once the person is already infected, even though there have been numerous programs created to increase access to malaria treatment.

Numerous medications are available to treat malaria; many are effective and life-saving. Nonetheless, malaria eradication projects in Sub-Saharan Africa that place an excessive emphasis on treatment and insufficient emphasis on prevention have not been successful over the long run . The WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme was a significant initiative to eradicate malaria. It was founded in 1955 to eradicate malaria in Africa during the following ten years . The program largely focused on vector control and was based on earlier successful initiatives in Brazil and the US. Chloroquine was widely dispersed, while DDT was sprayed in massive quantities.

The effort to eradicate malaria cost more than one billion dollars. However, the initiative was plagued by numerous issues, and in 1969, WHO had to acknowledge that the program had failed to eradicate malaria. During the period the initiative was in place, the number of malaria cases and malaria-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa had increased by more than 10%.

The project’s failure was largely due to the consistent strategies and procedures it imposed. The program was not nearly as effective as it could have been since it did not consider differences in governments, geography, and infrastructure. Sub-Saharan Africa lacks the resources and infrastructure necessary to sustain such a complex program, making it impossible to carry out in an intended manner.

Most African nations lack the funds to adequately treat and immunize all of their citizens, let alone afford to clean marshes or other malaria-prone areas. Only 25% of what Brazil spent on malaria eradication was spent per person on the continent. Africa’s Sub-Saharan region cannot rely on a strategy that calls for increased funding, infrastructure, or further expertise.

The widespread use of chloroquine has also led to developing parasites that are now a problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. Because chloroquine was used frequently but ineffectively, mosquitoes became resistant, and as a result, over 95% of mosquitoes in Sub-Saharan Africa are now resistant to it. To prevent and treat malaria, newer, more expensive treatments must be utilized, which raises the price of malaria treatment for a region that can’t afford it.

Programs should concentrate on preventing infection from arising in the first place rather than creating plans to treat malaria after the infection has already occurred. This strategy is more affordable and effective and also decreases the number of days lost to missed work or school, which can further impair the region’s output.

Insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the easiest and most cost-efficient ways to prevent malaria (ITNs). These nets offer a secure perimeter around whoever is utilizing them. Bed nets treated with insecticides are far more useful than those that haven’t since they prevent mosquitoes from biting people through the netting. And help lower mosquito populations in a neighborhood, aiding those who don’t even possess bed nets. Because most mosquito bites occur when a person is asleep, bed nets can significantly lessen the number of transmissions at night. Where ITNs are widely used, malaria transmission can be decreased by as much as 90%.

Households suffering from malaria can usually only gather 40% of the yields that healthy families can. A household with malaria sufferers also spends about a fifth of its income on medical expenses, not accounting for the time lost from work due to the sickness. According to estimates, malaria causes Africa to lose 12 billion USD in revenue annually. Sub-Saharan Africa needs a strong economy made possible by a large working population.

Essay Example 3:

People are once again debating whether college athletes should be paid due to the continued popularity of college athletics and the significant financial success of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

There are numerous possible payment structures. Student-athletes might receive compensation through sponsorships, autographs, and the right to use their likeness, just like professional Olympians do. These payments could take a free-market approach in which players can earn whatever the market offers.

The idea’s proponents contend that college athletes need to be paid in some way for their labor since they are the ones who practice, compete in games, along with drawing spectators. Without college athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist, coaches wouldn’t be paid their (sometimes very high) salaries, and companies like Nike wouldn’t be able to make money off college sports. College athletes don’t receive any of the $1 billion in annual revenue that the NCAA generates in the form of a paycheck.

People who support paying college athletes assert that doing so will encourage them to stay in school longer and delay turning pro.

The Duke basketball sensation Zion Williamson, who suffered a catastrophic knee injury during his freshman year, is cited by the idea’s proponents as evidence. Many others claimed that even he adored representing Duke, risking another injury and prematurely terminating his professional career for an organization that wasn’t paying him wasn’t worth it. Later that year, Williamson declared his eligibility for the NCAA draught, showing that he agreed with them. He might have remained at Duke for more time had he been paid.

Paying athletes might also end the NCAA’s ongoing recruitment issues. Because it was determined that coaches were utilizing sex workers to attract recruits to join the team, which was completely wrong. The NCAA stripped the University of Louisville men’s basketball team of its national championship trophy in 2018. Numerous additional recruiting scandals have occurred, in which college athletes and recruiters were bought off with anything from free automobiles to having their grades modified to outright bribery.

The NCAA might end the dishonest and unlawful methods certain schools and coaches use to recruit athletes by paying college athletes and disclosing their earnings.

Even though both sides have valid arguments, it is evident that the drawbacks of compensating collegiate athletes exceed their advantages. College athletes dedicate much time and effort to representing their institution but are rewarded with scholarships and benefits. This can result in a bidding war only for the top athletes.

In contrast, most student athletics and college athletic programs would suffer or shut down due to a lack of funding. It is possible for many people if benefits for student-athletes are maintained at the current level.

A successful argumentative essay incorporates the author’s thoughts and opinions and uses facts and evidence to support its claims. For instance, you might have wished to write an argumentative essay arguing that your friends would like to travel to New York.

The majority of individuals concur that eating fast food is unhealthy. It is arguable whether the federal government should regulate the size of sodas sold at fast-food restaurants because junk food is detrimental to your health. The statement is open to reasonable agreement or disagreement.

Start with a sentence that will grab your attention. Describe the texts in detail. Declare your position. Verify that you have rephrased the prompt. Add a topic sentence that restates your assertion and justification.

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essay of arguments

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About the author

Dalia Y.: Dalia is an English Major and linguistics expert with an additional degree in Psychology. Dalia has featured articles on Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, Grammarly, and many more. She covers English, ESL, and all things grammar on GrammarBrain.

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Argumentative Essay Examples to Inspire You (+ Free Formula)

Argumentative Essay Examples to Inspire You (+ Free Formula)

Table of contents

essay of arguments

Meredith Sell

Have you ever been asked to explain your opinion on a controversial issue? 

  • Maybe your family got into a discussion about chemical pesticides
  • Someone at work argues against investing resources into your project
  • Your partner thinks intermittent fasting is the best way to lose weight and you disagree

Proving your point in an argumentative essay can be challenging, unless you are using a proven formula.

Argumentative essay formula & example

In the image below, you can see a recommended structure for argumentative essays. It starts with the topic sentence, which establishes the main idea of the essay. Next, this hypothesis is developed in the development stage. Then, the rebuttal, or the refutal of the main counter argument or arguments. Then, again, development of the rebuttal. This is followed by an example, and ends with a summary. This is a very basic structure, but it gives you a bird-eye-view of how a proper argumentative essay can be built.

Structure of an argumentative essay

Writing an argumentative essay (for a class, a news outlet, or just for fun) can help you improve your understanding of an issue and sharpen your thinking on the matter. Using researched facts and data, you can explain why you or others think the way you do, even while other reasonable people disagree.

Free AI argumentative essay generator > Free AI argumentative essay generator >

argumentative essay

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is an explanatory essay that takes a side.

Instead of appealing to emotion and personal experience to change the reader’s mind, an argumentative essay uses logic and well-researched factual information to explain why the thesis in question is the most reasonable opinion on the matter.  

Over several paragraphs or pages, the author systematically walks through:

  • The opposition (and supporting evidence)
  • The chosen thesis (and its supporting evidence)

At the end, the author leaves the decision up to the reader, trusting that the case they’ve made will do the work of changing the reader’s mind. Even if the reader’s opinion doesn’t change, they come away from the essay with a greater understanding of the perspective presented — and perhaps a better understanding of their original opinion.

All of that might make it seem like writing an argumentative essay is way harder than an emotionally-driven persuasive essay — but if you’re like me and much more comfortable spouting facts and figures than making impassioned pleas, you may find that an argumentative essay is easier to write. 

Plus, the process of researching an argumentative essay means you can check your assumptions and develop an opinion that’s more based in reality than what you originally thought. I know for sure that my opinions need to be fact checked — don’t yours?

So how exactly do we write the argumentative essay?

How do you start an argumentative essay

First, gain a clear understanding of what exactly an argumentative essay is. To formulate a proper topic sentence, you have to be clear on your topic, and to explore it through research.

Students have difficulty starting an essay because the whole task seems intimidating, and they are afraid of spending too much time on the topic sentence. Experienced writers, however, know that there is no set time to spend on figuring out your topic. It's a real exploration that is based to a large extent on intuition.

6 Steps to Write an Argumentative Essay (Persuasion Formula)

Use this checklist to tackle your essay one step at a time:

Argumentative Essay Checklist

1. Research an issue with an arguable question

To start, you need to identify an issue that well-informed people have varying opinions on. Here, it’s helpful to think of one core topic and how it intersects with another (or several other) issues. That intersection is where hot takes and reasonable (or unreasonable) opinions abound. 

I find it helpful to stage the issue as a question.

For example: 

Is it better to legislate the minimum size of chicken enclosures or to outlaw the sale of eggs from chickens who don’t have enough space?

Should snow removal policies focus more on effectively keeping roads clear for traffic or the environmental impacts of snow removal methods?

Once you have your arguable question ready, start researching the basic facts and specific opinions and arguments on the issue. Do your best to stay focused on gathering information that is directly relevant to your topic. Depending on what your essay is for, you may reference academic studies, government reports, or newspaper articles.

‍ Research your opposition and the facts that support their viewpoint as much as you research your own position . You’ll need to address your opposition in your essay, so you’ll want to know their argument from the inside out.

2. Choose a side based on your research

You likely started with an inclination toward one side or the other, but your research should ultimately shape your perspective. So once you’ve completed the research, nail down your opinion and start articulating the what and why of your take. 

What: I think it’s better to outlaw selling eggs from chickens whose enclosures are too small.

Why: Because if you regulate the enclosure size directly, egg producers outside of the government’s jurisdiction could ship eggs into your territory and put nearby egg producers out of business by offering better prices because they don’t have the added cost of larger enclosures.

This is an early form of your thesis and the basic logic of your argument. You’ll want to iterate on this a few times and develop a one-sentence statement that sums up the thesis of your essay.

Thesis: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with cramped living spaces is better for business than regulating the size of chicken enclosures.

Now that you’ve articulated your thesis , spell out the counterargument(s) as well. Putting your opposition’s take into words will help you throughout the rest of the essay-writing process. (You can start by choosing the counter argument option with Wordtune Spices .)

essay of arguments

Counterargument: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with too small enclosures will immediately drive up egg prices for consumers, making the low-cost protein source harder to afford — especially for low-income consumers.

There may be one main counterargument to articulate, or several. Write them all out and start thinking about how you’ll use evidence to address each of them or show why your argument is still the best option.

3. Organize the evidence — for your side and the opposition

You did all of that research for a reason. Now’s the time to use it. 

Hopefully, you kept detailed notes in a document, complete with links and titles of all your source material. Go through your research document and copy the evidence for your argument and your opposition’s into another document.

List the main points of your argument. Then, below each point, paste the evidence that backs them up.

If you’re writing about chicken enclosures, maybe you found evidence that shows the spread of disease among birds kept in close quarters is worse than among birds who have more space. Or maybe you found information that says eggs from free-range chickens are more flavorful or nutritious. Put that information next to the appropriate part of your argument. 

Repeat the process with your opposition’s argument: What information did you find that supports your opposition? Paste it beside your opposition’s argument.

You could also put information here that refutes your opposition, but organize it in a way that clearly tells you — at a glance — that the information disproves their point.

Counterargument: Outlawing the sale of eggs from chickens with too small enclosures will immediately drive up egg prices for consumers.

BUT: Sicknesses like avian flu spread more easily through small enclosures and could cause a shortage that would drive up egg prices naturally, so ensuring larger enclosures is still a better policy for consumers over the long term.

As you organize your research and see the evidence all together, start thinking through the best way to order your points.  

Will it be better to present your argument all at once or to break it up with opposition claims you can quickly refute? Would some points set up other points well? Does a more complicated point require that the reader understands a simpler point first?

Play around and rearrange your notes to see how your essay might flow one way or another.

4. Freewrite or outline to think through your argument

Is your brain buzzing yet? At this point in the process, it can be helpful to take out a notebook or open a fresh document and dump whatever you’re thinking on the page.

Where should your essay start? What ground-level information do you need to provide your readers before you can dive into the issue?

Use your organized evidence document from step 3 to think through your argument from beginning to end, and determine the structure of your essay.

There are three typical structures for argumentative essays:

  • Make your argument and tackle opposition claims one by one, as they come up in relation to the points of your argument - In this approach, the whole essay — from beginning to end — focuses on your argument, but as you make each point, you address the relevant opposition claims individually. This approach works well if your opposition’s views can be quickly explained and refuted and if they directly relate to specific points in your argument.
  • Make the bulk of your argument, and then address the opposition all at once in a paragraph (or a few) - This approach puts the opposition in its own section, separate from your main argument. After you’ve made your case, with ample evidence to convince your readers, you write about the opposition, explaining their viewpoint and supporting evidence — and showing readers why the opposition’s argument is unconvincing. Once you’ve addressed the opposition, you write a conclusion that sums up why your argument is the better one.
  • Open your essay by talking about the opposition and where it falls short. Build your entire argument to show how it is superior to that opposition - With this structure, you’re showing your readers “a better way” to address the issue. After opening your piece by showing how your opposition’s approaches fail, you launch into your argument, providing readers with ample evidence that backs you up.

As you think through your argument and examine your evidence document, consider which structure will serve your argument best. Sketch out an outline to give yourself a map to follow in the writing process. You could also rearrange your evidence document again to match your outline, so it will be easy to find what you need when you start writing.

5. Write your first draft

You have an outline and an organized document with all your points and evidence lined up and ready. Now you just have to write your essay.

In your first draft, focus on getting your ideas on the page. Your wording may not be perfect (whose is?), but you know what you’re trying to say — so even if you’re overly wordy and taking too much space to say what you need to say, put those words on the page.

Follow your outline, and draw from that evidence document to flesh out each point of your argument. Explain what the evidence means for your argument and your opposition. Connect the dots for your readers so they can follow you, point by point, and understand what you’re trying to say.

As you write, be sure to include:

1. Any background information your reader needs in order to understand the issue in question.

2. Evidence for both your argument and the counterargument(s). This shows that you’ve done your homework and builds trust with your reader, while also setting you up to make a more convincing argument. (If you find gaps in your research while you’re writing, Wordtune Spices can source statistics or historical facts on the fly!)

essay of arguments

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3. A conclusion that sums up your overall argument and evidence — and leaves the reader with an understanding of the issue and its significance. This sort of conclusion brings your essay to a strong ending that doesn’t waste readers’ time, but actually adds value to your case.

6. Revise (with Wordtune)

The hard work is done: you have a first draft. Now, let’s fine tune your writing.

I like to step away from what I’ve written for a day (or at least a night of sleep) before attempting to revise. It helps me approach clunky phrases and rough transitions with fresh eyes. If you don’t have that luxury, just get away from your computer for a few minutes — use the bathroom, do some jumping jacks, eat an apple — and then come back and read through your piece.

As you revise, make sure you …

  • Get the facts right. An argument with false evidence falls apart pretty quickly, so check your facts to make yours rock solid.
  • Don’t misrepresent the opposition or their evidence. If someone who holds the opposing view reads your essay, they should affirm how you explain their side — even if they disagree with your rebuttal.
  • Present a case that builds over the course of your essay, makes sense, and ends on a strong note. One point should naturally lead to the next. Your readers shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly changing subjects. You’re making a variety of points, but your argument should feel like a cohesive whole.
  • Paraphrase sources and cite them appropriately. Did you skip citations when writing your first draft? No worries — you can add them now. And check that you don’t overly rely on quotations. (Need help paraphrasing? Wordtune can help. Simply highlight the sentence or phrase you want to adjust and sort through Wordtune’s suggestions.)
  • Tighten up overly wordy explanations and sharpen any convoluted ideas. Wordtune makes a great sidekick for this too 😉

essay of arguments

Words to start an argumentative essay

The best way to introduce a convincing argument is to provide a strong thesis statement . These are the words I usually use to start an argumentative essay:

  • It is indisputable that the world today is facing a multitude of issues
  • With the rise of ____, the potential to make a positive difference has never been more accessible
  • It is essential that we take action now and tackle these issues head-on
  • it is critical to understand the underlying causes of the problems standing before us
  • Opponents of this idea claim
  • Those who are against these ideas may say
  • Some people may disagree with this idea
  • Some people may say that ____, however

When refuting an opposing concept, use:

  • These researchers have a point in thinking
  • To a certain extent they are right
  • After seeing this evidence, there is no way one can agree with this idea
  • This argument is irrelevant to the topic

Are you convinced by your own argument yet? Ready to brave the next get-together where everyone’s talking like they know something about intermittent fasting , chicken enclosures , or snow removal policies? 

Now if someone asks you to explain your evidence-based but controversial opinion, you can hand them your essay and ask them to report back after they’ve read it.

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Humanities LibreTexts

3.4: What are the Different Types of Argument in Writing?

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  • Kirsten DeVries

Throughout this chapter, you have studied the definition of argument, parts of argument, and how to use logic in argument. This section brings all of the previous material together and tackles arguments in writing. Foremost on most students’ minds when taking college composition courses is this question: “How do I write an argument paper?” The answer is not a simple one because, as mentioned previously, arguments come in a variety of packages. This means that written arguments–whether in essay or some other form–also come in many different types.

Arguments of the Rhetorical Modes

Most arguments involve one or more of the rhetorical modes . Once again, rhetoric is the study and application of effective writing techniques. There are a number of standard rhetorical modes of writing—structural and analytical models that can be used effectively to suit different writing situations. The rhetorical modes include, but are not limited to, narrative, description, process analysis, illustration and exemplification, cause and effect, comparison, definition, persuasion, and classification. These modes will be covered in detail in Chapter 5, “Rhetorical Modes.” They are mentioned here, however, to make clear that any and all rhetorical modes can be used to pursue an argument. In fact, most professors will insist upon it.

Remember that when writing arguments, always be mindful of the point of view you should use. Most academic arguments should be pursued using third person. For more on this issue, see Chapter 4, “The Writing Process.”

Arguments of Persuasion

One of the most common forms of argument is that of persuasion , and often standardized tests, like the SOL, will provide writing prompts for persuasive arguments. On some level, all arguments have a persuasive element because the goal of the argument is to persuade the reader to take the writer’s claim seriously. Many arguments, however, exist primarily to introduce new research and interpretation whereas persuasive arguments expressly operate to change someone’s mind about an issue or a person.

A common type of persuasive essay is an Op-Ed article . Included in the opinion section of a newspaper, these articles are more appropriately called argument essays because most authors strive not only to make explicit claims but also to support their claims, sometimes even with researched evidence. These articles are often well-designed persuasive essays, written to convince readers of the writer’s way of thinking.

In addition to essays, other forms of persuasive writing exist. One common and important example is the job letter , where you must persuade others to believe in your merits as a worker and performer so that you might be hired.

In a persuasive essay, you should be sure to do the following:

  • Clearly articulate your claim and the main reasons for it. Avoid forming a thesis based on a negative claim. For example, “The hourly minimum wage is not high enough for the average worker to live on.” This is probably a true statement, but persuasive arguments should make a positive case because a negative is hard to prove. That is, the thesis statement should focus on how the hourly minimum wage is too low or insufficient.
  • Anticipate and address counterarguments. Think about your audience and the counterarguments they would mostly likely have. Acknowledging points of view different from your own also has the effect of fostering more credibility between you and the audience. They know from the outset that you are aware of opposing ideas and that you are not afraid to give them space.
  • Make sure your support comes in many different forms. Use logical reasoning and the rhetorical appeals, but also strive for concrete examples from your own experience and from society.
  • Keep your tone courteous, but avoid being obsequious. In other words, shamelessly appealing to your readers’ vanity will likely ring false. Aim for respectful honesty.
  • Avoid the urge to win the argument. On some level, we all want to be right, and we want others to see the error of their ways. More times than not, however, arguments in which both sides try to win end up producing losers all around. The more productive approach is to persuade your audience to consider your claim as a sound one, not simply the right one.

Because argument writing is designed to convince readers of an idea they may not have known before or a side of an issue they may not agree with, you must think carefully about the attitude you wish to convey as you advance your argument. The overall attitude of a piece of writing is its tone , and it comes from the words you choose (for more on the importance of word choice, see Chapter 10, “Working with Words”) In argument writing, strive for the following:

  • Confidence —The reader needs to know that you believe in what you say, so be confident. Avoid hedgy and apologetic language. However, be careful not to cross the line from confidence to overconfidence. Arrogance can rebuff your readers, even if they agree with you.
  • Neutrality —While you may advocate for one side or way of thinking, you still must demonstrate that you are being as objective as you can in your analysis and assessment. Avoid loaded terms, buzzwords, and overly emotional language.
  • Courtesy and fairn ess—Particularly when dealing with any counterarguments, you want your tone to reveal that you have given other points of view due consideration. Avoid being smug, snide, or harshly dismissive of other ideas.

Sample Writing Assignment 1

Find an Op-Ed article from one of the major US newspapers: The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , The Boston Globe , or the LA Times . Then, do the following:

  • Prewriting Work: Read the article carefully, taking notes or annotating it. Be sure to find the main argument and map the support used by the author, i.e., how the author is trying to persuade you. Note any use of rhetorical appeals, expert testimony, and research. (For tips about note-taking and annotating reading material, see Chapter 1for a review of the rhetorical appeals, seeChapter 2.
  • Write a paragraph summary of the article. Include the main argument and its support. Explain the different types of support used by the author (rhetorical appeals, expert testimony, and research).
  • In a paragraph, devise and explain your own counterargument(s) to the author’s thesis.
  • In a paragraph, explain what kind of support you would use for your counterargument. What rhetorical appeals would you use? What experts might you call on? Do you think you would need to do research and if so, on what?

Sample Writing Assignment 2

Write a job letter. As you design it, be sure to do the following:

  • Use formal letter format. Be sure to include these elements: your address, the address of the job you’re applying to (or the department you are applying to), the date you send the letter, a greeting, the letter content in coherent paragraphs (single-spaced paragraphs with a double space in between paragraphs), a sign off, any additional information (your phone and/or email address). For some visual examples of what this would look like, do a Google image search for “job letter format.”
  • Prewriting Work 1: Imagine a job you would like to apply for. Ask yourself the following questions and brainstorm answers to them: “What skills would I need to have for this job, and which of those skills do I have?” “What educational background would be required, and can I show that I fulfill the requirements?” “What experience might the hiring committee want to me to have, and do I have any experience that would be relevant?”
  • Prewriting Work 2: Take the notes you have come up with and add as many specific details as you can. If you believe you do have relevant skills, what are they, specifically? Where did you get those skills, specifically? How long have you had those skills, specifically? Do you have examples where you have shown excellence with those skills, specifically?
  • Drafting: Shape your details into three paragraphs organized by issue: skills, education, and experience. Be specific, include a couple examples per paragraph, and be succinct in your delivery.
  • Proofread carefully. First of all, excellent sentence composition, punctuation, and spelling communicate your seriousness to those who might hire you. Mistakes make you look sloppy and make it easy for them to toss your letter on the rejection pile. Second, watch word choice. Choose specific over general words as much as possible (you say you are a hard worker, but what does that mean, practically speaking?). Make sure you avoid clichés and overly gushy sentiment (“I’m passionate about people!”). Finally, proofread for tone. Strive for courteousness and objectivity. Make it seem like you are being objective about your own abilities.

Arguments of Evaluation

If you have ever answered a question about your personal take on a book or movie or television show or piece of music, you have given a review . Most times, these reviews are somewhat hasty and based on initial or shallow impressions. However, if you give thought to your review, if you explain more carefully what you liked or didn’t like and why, if you bring in specific examples to back up your points, then you have moved on to an argument of evaluation. Reviews of film, books, music, food, and other aspects of taste and culture represent the most familiar type of argument of evaluation. The main objective of an argument of evaluation is to render a critical judgment on the merits of something.

Another common argument of evaluation is the performance review . If you have ever held a job, you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such a review; your timeliness and productivity and attitude are scrutinized to determine if you have been a good worker or need to worry about looking for another job. If you are in any sort of supervisory position, you will be the one writing and delivering those reviews, and your own supervisor will want to know that you have logical justification and evidence for your judgements.

For all types of reviews or evaluation arguments, make sure to plan for the following:

  • Declare your overall judgment of the subject under review—good, bad, or somewhere in between. This is your conclusion or thesis.
  • Lay out the criteria for your judgment. In other words, your review must be based on logical criteria—i.e., the standards by which you evaluate something. For example, if you are reviewing a film, reasonable criteria would include acting, writing, storytelling, directing, cinematography, music, and special effects. If you are evaluating an employee, that criteria will change and more likely involve punctuality, aspects of job performance, and overall attitude on the job.
  • Make sure to evaluate each criteria and provide evidence. Draw your evidence from what you are reviewing, and use as many specific examples as you can. In a movie review in which you think the acting quality was top notch, give examples of a particular style that worked well or lines delivered effectively or emotions realistically conveyed.
  • Use concrete language. A review is only an argument if we can reasonably see—from examples and your explanations—how you arrived at your judgment. Vague or circular language (“I liked it because it was just really good!”) will keep your evaluation at the opinion level only, preventing it from being taken seriously as an argument.
  • Keep the tone respectful—even if you ultimately did not like the subject of your review. Be as objective as you can when giving your reasons. Insulting language detracts from the seriousness of your analysis and makes your points look like personal attacks.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert (1942-2013), a movie reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times , was once one of the most famous movie critics in America. His reviews provide excellent examples of the argument of evaluation.

Consider his review( https://tinyurl.com/y82ylaav ) of the 2009 film Avatar and note how clearly he declares his judgments, how he makes his reader aware of just what standards he uses for judgement (his criteria), and how he uses a wealth of examples and reasons to back his critiques (although he is careful to avoid spoilers, the review went to print as the movie was coming out).

Sample Writing Assignment 3

Write a brief review of your first job. How would you rate that experience, and what would your rating be based on?

  • Declare your overall judgment of your job experience. This is your main claim.
  • Come up with at least four criteria for evaluation. Give your judgment for each criteria. Include at least two specific examples to support each evaluation, and explain the logic of your support.
  • Proofread for tone, making sure to look for any words that would cause a reader to think your critique was unfair or hostile. For example, even if you loathed your first job, treat it dispassionately, like you are a social scientist putting that work experience under a microscope. (This might allow you to say, for example, that although the job was dull and repetitive, it gave you some useful experience.)

Sample Writing Assignment 4

Evaluate a source that you plan to use for a research project. Explain what type of source you have (website? journal article? book? newspaper article?), and declare your source to be credible or not, using the following criteria:

  • Author’s credentials. First of all, are the authors named? Can you find out anything about them, like degrees and professional information? If you cannot find anything, how does that affect credibility? If you can find information, how does that information show credibility or lack of it?
  • Publication information and process. Was the article or book peer reviewed? Was it online or in print? Did you find it through a database or a Google search? Who funded publication? Explain what the results of these questions tell you about the source’s credibility.
  • The use of support. Does the source have footnotes or endnotes? A bibliography? Links to different articles? In other words, how carefully is the author trying to back up his or her claims?

Arguments of Fact and Explanation

In the beginning of this chapter, arguments were shown to be distinct from facts. Facts are not arguable, they do not have “two sides,” and they are not up for debate. However, as we well know, people disagree with facts all the time. We wouldn’t have a nonsense term like “alternative facts” otherwise. We do, however, have arguments that deal with this scenario: arguments of fact and explanation . Arguments of fact seek to establish, often in the face of doubters, that a fact is indeed true. Arguments of explanation establish why that fact is true. Not surprisingly, these arguments often go hand in hand, and they lie primarily in the domain of the research paper. For more detail on the research process, refer to Chapter 6, “Research ” ; this section will clarify these two types of argument.

Arguments of Fact : Many times, the goal of giving an argument is simply to establish that the conclusion is true. For example, to convince someone that obesity rates are rising in the US, the writer should cite evidence such as studies from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The studies cited would function as premises for the conclusion that obesity rates are rising:

Obesity is on the rise in the US because multiple studies carried out by the CDC and NIH have consistently shown a rise in obesity over the last four decades.

Putting this simple argument into standard form would look like this:

  • Multiple studies by the CDC and NIH have consistently shown a rise in obesity over the last four decades. ( premises )
  • Therefore, obesity is on the rise in the US. ( conclusion )

The standard form argument clearly distinguishes the premise from the conclusion and shows how the conclusion is supposed to be supported by the evidence offered in the premise. Again, the goal of this simple argument would be to convince someone that the conclusion is true . However, sometimes we already know that a statement or claim is true, and we are trying to establish why it is true rather than that it is true.

Arguments of Explanation : An argument that attempts to show why its conclusion is true is an explanation. Contrast the previous example with the following:

The reason that the rate of obesity is on the rise in the US is that the foods we most often consume over the past four decades have increasingly contained high levels of sugar and low levels of dietary fiber. Because eating foods high in sugar and low in fiber triggers the insulin system to start storing those calories as fat, it follows that people who consume foods high in sugar and low in fiber will tend to store more of the calories consumed as fat.

This passage gives an explanation for why obesity is on the rise in the US. Unlike the earlier example, here it is taken for granted that obesity is on the rise in the US. That is the claim whose truth the author must explain. The obesity explanation can also be put into standard form just like any other argument:

  • Over the past four decades, Americans have increasingly consumed foods high in sugar and low in fiber. ( premise )
  • Consuming foods high in sugar and low in fat triggers the insulin system to start storing those calories as fat. ( premise )
  • When people store more calories as fat, they tend to become obese. ( premise )
  • Therefore, the rate of obesity is on the rise in the US. ( conclusion )

Notice that in this explanation, the premises (1-3) attempt to explain why the conclusion is true, rather than a reason for thinking that the conclusion is true. That is, in an argument of explanation, we assume that what we are trying to explain (i.e., the conclusion) is true. In this case, the premises are supposed to show why we should expect or predict that the conclusion is true. Explanations often give us an understanding of why the conclusion is true.

Arguments of Interpretation

Arguments of interpretation come mainly in the form of critical analysis writing. Scholars and students use critical analysis to understand a text more deeply; therefore, it is common in disciplines in which texts are the main objects of study—literature, philosophy, and history. However, we can also think of critical analysis as any analysis where someone takes raw data—from texts, from objects and images, from laboratory experiments, from surveys of people—and analyzes that data to come up with what they mean. The “what it all means” is an interpretation . The argument in critical analysis writing is the interpretation of the data. This must be a logical interpretation with the data also used to support the interpretation through reasoning and examples.

The guidelines for analyzing data are determined by the experts in those areas. Scholars of the life, earth, and physical sciences; the social sciences; and the humanities gather all sorts of different data. When writing up an interpretation of that data, writers and researchers should follow the models and standards provided by experts in those fields of study. In college, professors are important sources of these models and standards.

In the humanities, particularly in literature, there are generally four ways (or perspectives) for analyzing a text: writing from the perspective of a reader , writing as if the text were an object of study , writing about or from the perspective of an author , and writing about where a text fits into a particular context .

From Analysis to Argument part 1

Rogerian Argument

The Rogerian argument, inspired by the influential psychologist Carl Rogers, aims to find compromise or common ground about an issue. If, as stated in the beginning of the chapter, academic or rhetorical argument is not merely a two-sided debate that seeks a winner and a loser, the Rogerian argument model provides a structured way to move beyond the win-lose mindset. Indeed, the Rogerian model can be employed to deal effectively with controversial arguments that have been reduced to two opposing points of view by forcing the writer to confront opposing ideas and then work towards a common understanding with those who might disagree.

Carl Ransom Rogers

The following are the basic parts of a Rogerian Argument:

1. Introduction : Introduce the issue under scrutiny in a non-confrontational way. Be sure to outline the main sides in the debate. Though there are always more than two sides to a debate, Rogerian arguments put two in stark opposition to one another. Crucially, be sure to indicate the overall purpose of the essay: to come to a compromise about the issue at hand. If this intent is not stated up front, the reader may be confused or even suspect manipulation on the part of the writer, i.e., that the writer is massaging the audience just to win a fight. Be advised that the Rogerian essay uses an inductive reasoning structure, so do not include your thesis in your introduction. You will build toward the thesis and then include it in your conclusion. Once again, state the intent to compromise, but do not yet state what the compromise is.

2. Side A : Carefully map out the main claim and reasoning for the opposing side of the argument first. The writer’s view should never really come first because that would defeat the purpose of what Rogers called empathetic listening , which guides the overall approach to this type of argument. By allowing the opposing argument to come first, you communicate to the reader that you are willing to respectfully consider another’s view on the issue. Furthermore, you invite the reader to then give you the same respect and consideration when presenting your own view. Finally, presenting the opposition first can help those readers who would side against you to ease into the essay, keeping them invested in the project. If you present your own ideas first, you risk polarizing those readers from the start, which would then make them less amenable to considering a compromise by the end of the essay. You can listen to Carl Rogers himself discuss the importance of empathy onYouTube( https://youtu.be/2dLsgpHw5x0 , transcript here ).

3. Side B : Carefully go over your side of the argument. When mapping out this side’s claim and support, be sure that it parallels that of Side A. In other words, make sure not to raise entirely new categories of support, or there can be no way to come to a compromise. Make sure to maintain a non-confrontational tone; for example, avoid appearing arrogant, sarcastic, or smug.

4. The Bridge : A solid Rogerian argument acknowledges the desires of each side and tries to accommodate both. In this part, point out the ways in which you agree or can find common ground between the two sides. There should be at least one point of agreement. This can be an acknowledgement of the one part of the opposition’s agreement that you also support or an admittance to a shared set of values even if the two sides come to different ideas when employing those values. This phase of the essay is crucial for two reasons: finding common ground (1) shows the audience the two views are not necessarily at complete odds, that they share more than they seem, and (2) sets up the compromise to come, making it easier to digest for all parties. Thus, this section builds a bridge from the two initial isolated and opposite views to a compromise that both sides can reasonably support.

5. The Compromise : Now is the time to finally announce your compromise, which is your thesis. The compromise is what the essay has been building towards all along, so explain it carefully and demonstrate the logic of it. For example, if debating about whether to use racial profiling, a compromise might be based on both sides’ desire for a safer society. That shared value can then lead to a new claim, one that disarms the original dispute or set of disputes. For the racial profiling example, perhaps a better solution would focus on more objective measures than race that would then promote safety in a less problematic way.

Rogerian Argument

Sample Writing Assignment 5

Find a controversial topic, and begin building a Rogerian argument. Write up your responses to the following:

  • The topic or dilemma I will write about is…
  • My opposing audience is…
  • My audience’s view on the topic is…
  • My view on the topic is…
  • Our common ground–shared values or something that we both already agree on about the topic–is…
  • My compromise (the main claim or potential thesis) is…

The Toulmin Argument Model

Stephen Edelston Toulmin (born March 25, 1922) was a British philosopher, author, and educator. Toulmin devoted his works to analyzing moral reasoning. He sought to develop practical ways to evaluate ethical arguments effectively. The Toulmin Model of Argumentation, a diagram containing six interrelated components, was considered Toulmin’s most influential work, particularly in the fields of rhetoric, communication, and computer science. His components continue to provide useful means for analyzing arguments, and the terms involved can be added to those defined in earlier sections of this chapter.

Toulmin Argument Model

The following are the parts of a Toulmin argument:

1. Claim : The claim is a statement that you are asking the other person to accept as true (i.e., a conclusion) and forms the nexus of the Toulmin argument because all the other parts relate back to the claim. The claim can include information and ideas you are asking readers to accept as true or actions you want them to accept and enact. One example of a claim:

My grandfather should wear a hearing aid.

This claim both asks the reader to believe an idea and suggests an action to enact. However, like all claims, it can be challenged. Thus, a Toulmin argument does not end with a claim but also includes grounds and warrant to give support and reasoning to the claim.

2. Grounds : The grounds form the basis of real persuasion and includes the reasoning behind the claim, data, and proof of expertise. Think of grounds as a combination of premises and support . The truth of the claim rests upon the grounds, so those grounds should be tested for strength, credibility, relevance, and reliability. The following are examples of grounds:

Over 70% of all people over 65 years have a hearing difficulty.

Hearing aids raise hearing quality.

Information is usually a powerful element of persuasion, although it does affect people differently. Those who are dogmatic, logical, or rational will more likely be persuaded by factual data. Those who argue emotionally and who are highly invested in their own position will challenge it or otherwise try to ignore it. Thus, grounds can also include appeals to emotion, provided they aren’t misused. The best arguments, however, use a variety of support and rhetorical appeals.

3. Warrant : A warrant links data and other grounds to a claim, legitimizing the claim by showing the grounds to be relevant . The warrant may be carefully explained and explicit or unspoken and implicit. The warrant answers the question, “Why does that data mean your claim is true?” For example,

A hearing aid helps most people hear better.

The warrant may be simple, and it may also be a longer argument with additional sub-elements including those described below. Warrants may be based on logos , ethos or pathos , or values that are assumed to be shared with the listener. In many arguments, warrants are often implicit and, hence, unstated. This gives space for the other person to question and expose the warrant, perhaps to show it is weak or unfounded.

4. Backing : The backing for an argument gives additional support to the warrant. Backing can be confused with grounds, but the main difference is this: Grounds should directly support the premises of the main argument itself, while backing exists to help the warrants make more sense. For example,

Hearing aids are available locally.

This statement works as backing because it gives credence to the warrant stated above, that a hearing aid will help most people hear better. The fact that hearing aids are readily available makes the warrant even more reasonable.

5. Qualifier : The qualifier indicates how the data justifies the warrant and may limit how universally the claim applies. The necessity of qualifying words comes from the plain fact that most absolute claims are ultimately false (all women want to be mothers, e.g.) because one counterexample sinks them immediately. Thus, most arguments need some sort of qualifier, words that temper an absolute claim and make it more reasonable. Common qualifiers include “most,” “usually,” “always,” or “sometimes.” For example,

Hearing aids help most people.

The qualifier “most” here allows for the reasonable understanding that rarely does one thing (a hearing aid) universally benefit all people. Another variant is the reservation, which may give the possibility of the claim being incorrect:

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, hearing aids do no harm to ears.

Qualifiers and reservations can be used to bolster weak arguments, so it is important to recognize them. They are often used by advertisers who are constrained not to lie. Thus, they slip “usually,” “virtually,” “unless,” and so on into their claims to protect against liability. While this may seem like sneaky practice, and it can be for some advertisers, it is important to note that the use of qualifiers and reservations can be a useful and legitimate part of an argument.

6. Rebuttal : Despite the careful construction of the argument, there may still be counterarguments that can be used. These may be rebutted either through a continued dialogue, or by pre-empting the counter-argument by giving the rebuttal during the initial presentation of the argument. For example, if you anticipated a counterargument that hearing aids, as a technology, may be fraught with technical difficulties, you would include a rebuttal to deal with that counterargument:

There is a support desk that deals with technical problems.

Any rebuttal is an argument in itself, and thus may include a claim, warrant, backing, and the other parts of the Toulmin structure.

Even if you do not wish to write an essay using strict Toulmin structure, using the Toulmin checklist can make an argument stronger. When first proposed, Toulmin based his layout on legal arguments, intending it to be used analyzing arguments typically found in the courtroom; in fact, Toulmin did not realize that this layout would be applicable to other fields until later. The first three elements–“claim,” “grounds,” and “warrant”–are considered the essential components of practical arguments, while the last three—“qualifier,” “backing,” and “rebuttal”—may not be necessary for all arguments.

Find an argument in essay form and diagram it using the Toulmin model. The argument can come from an Op-Ed article in a newspaper or a magazine think piece or a scholarly journal. See if you can find all six elements of the Toulmin argument. Use the structure above to diagram your article’s argument.

Key Takeaways: Types of Argument

  • Arguments in the Rhetorical Modes —models of writing that can be used for an argument, including the rhetorical modes: narration, comparison, causal analysis, process, description, definition, classification, and exemplification.
  • Arguments of Persuasion —used to change someone’s thinking on a topic or person.
  • Arguments of Evaluation —critical reviews based on logical evaluation of criteria and evidence for that evaluation.
  • Arguments of Fact and Explanation —establishes that a fact is true (the former) or why it is true (the latter).
  • Arguments of Interpretation —critical analysis writing in which one makes an argument about what data mean. Data can come from texts, objects, surveys, and scientific experiments.
  • The Rogerian Argument Model —an argument model designed to bring about consensus and mutual understanding rather than conflict.
  • Toulmin’s Argument Model —six interrelated components used to diagram an argument, drawn from both rhetorical and academic argument.

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Can Ukraine Still Win?

By Keith Gessen

Soldiers from the Aidar Battalion fire a D30 Howitzer from a position in Donbas Ukraine on February 3 2024.

Long before it was reported, at the end of January, that Volodymyr Zelensky had decided to replace his popular Army chief, Valery Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian counter-offensive of 2023 had devolved from attempted maneuvers to mutual recriminations. The arrows pointed in multiple directions: Zelensky seemed to think that his commander-in-chief was being defeatist; Zaluzhny, that his President was refusing to face facts. And there were arguments, too, between Ukraine and its allies. In a two-part investigation in the Washington Post , in early December, U.S. officials complained that Ukrainian generals did not follow their advice. They tried to attack in too many places; they were too cautious; and they waited too long to launch the operation. The Ukrainians, in turn, blamed the Americans. They delivered too few weapons and did so too late; they insisted on their tactics even when it was clear these were unsuitable for the terrain and the opponent; and they did all this from the comfort of Washington and Wiesbaden, rather than from the trenches, tree lines, and open fields where Ukrainian soldiers gave their lives.

The arguments were painful and significant. Was Zelensky right that, given the wobbliness of Western support, Ukraine had to keep up a brave face and the so-called military momentum, no matter the cost? Or was Zaluzhny right that a change of strategy and more troops were needed, no matter how unpopular these choices might be? The argument with the U.S. was significant, too. Was the failure of the counter-offensive, as the Americans argued, one of strategy or, as the Ukrainians counter-argued, one of equipment?

There was a third option: neither. The dominant factor was the Russian military. It was better than people had given it credit for, after its disastrous performance in the first year of the war. It was not demoralized, incompetent, or ill-equipped. Russian soldiers and their officers were fighting to the death. They had executed a brutal and effective defense and, despite all the losses they had incurred, they still had attack helicopters, drones, and mines. “People came to very strong conclusions based off the first month of the war,” Rob Lee, a former marine and an analyst of the Russian military at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said. “And I think a lot of those conclusions were wrong.”

Being wrong about war can be disastrous, yet it is extremely common. The political scientist Stephen Biddle’s influential book, “ Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle ,” begins by listing a century of analytical mistakes. “In 1914,” he writes, “Europeans expected a short, decisive war of movement. None foresaw a nearly four-year trench stalemate—if they had, the war might never have happened. In 1940 Allied leaders were astonished by the Germans’ lightning victory over France. They had expected something closer to the trench warfare of 1914-18; even the victors were surprised.” Biddle goes on to describe the debate over the tank, deemed obsolete after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and then resurrected by its awesome performance in the Gulf War, in 1990 and 1991. Biddle’s book came out in 2004; since then, two major American wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, have not gone as anyone had planned.

“It’s impossible, basically, to predict a future war,” Bettina Renz, an international-security professor at the University of Nottingham and an expert on the Russian military, said. “Most people who start a war think it will be over quickly. And, of course, nobody starts a war that they think they can’t win.”

Once a war ends, or even earlier, military historians begin to describe what happened and who was right. Some debates remain unsettled, because the war they theorize never takes place. A famous instance is a debate many years ago, on the pages of the journal International Security , over whether NATO was adequately prepared for a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The political scientists John Mearsheimer and Barry Posen, having calculated the relative balance of forces, said that it was; the defense intellectual Eliot Cohen, who had worked in the Pentagon’s famous Office of Net Assessment, said that it was not. The debate stretched over several months, in 1988 and 1989. A short while later, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The war in Ukraine has led to more than its share of arguments. In the run-up, the U.S. spent months warning skeptical allies that an invasion was imminent. This argument was mirrored inside Ukraine: Zaluzhny became convinced that the Russians were coming, and spent the weeks before the war urging a mobilization; Zelensky remained uncertain, and resisted the advice, worried that it would panic the population and give Russia an excuse to invade. There was widespread consensus that, in the event of an invasion, Russia would quickly win. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told congressional leaders in early February of 2022 that the Russian military might take Kyiv in as little as seventy-two hours.

When this did not happen, in part because Zaluzhny repositioned some of his forces without authorization and moved or camouflaged the country’s military hardware, a new round of arguments broke out. Was Russia a paper tiger, or did it simply fight in the stupidest possible way? Was China also overrated? Was the tank dead (again)?

Some of the figures in the argument were familiar: Eliot Cohen was back, urging the West to take a harder line with Russia (and China); so were Mearsheimer and Posen, counselling caution. (Mearsheimer sometimes went further, blaming the West for provoking the Russian bear and for violating the tenets of his books, which posit that great-power conflict is inevitable.) Both sides invoked Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist. Cohen cited Clausewitz’s observation that intangible “moral factors,” like the will to fight, are the most important thing in war; Cohen’s opponents held up Clausewitz’s arguments that defense always has the advantage, and also that war is the realm of contingency and chance. (“Clausewitz is like the Bible,” the American University international-relations scholar Joshua Rovner told me. “You can pull out parts of it to suit basically any argument.”)

Among analysts who had studied the Russian military and thought it would do much better than it did, there was some soul-searching. Russian units turned out to be shorthanded, and neither their cyberattacks nor their Air Force were as dominant as expected. The Ukrainian military had better cyber defenses than people realized, and they fought tenaciously. Importantly, they also had the full support of U.S. intelligence, which was able to tell them when and where Russian forces would try to land, and to help them prepare for it. But the biggest surprise was Vladimir Putin’s terrible war plan, which assumed that Ukrainians would not resist, and which he kept secret from his own Army until the eve of the invasion. “No one would have done a Ukraine war game that was set with the political and strategic starting conditions of the Ukraine conflict,” Scott Boston, a defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who often “plays Russia” in the think tank’s war games, said. “You’d be kicked out of the room.”

So, was the Russian military as bad as it seemed, and would Russian lines collapse if subjected to a bit of pressure? Or was it a fundamentally competent military that had been given an impossible task? Boston said he kept thinking of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, between Somali militants and American special forces, in which two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and eighteen Americans were killed in a misbegotten snatch-and-grab mission inside the Somali capital: “You can take the best soldiers on the planet , and, if you throw them in a bad enough situation, it’s not going to go well.” Russian soldiers were not the best on the planet, but they were probably not as bad as they looked in that first month of the war, running out of gas for their tanks and asking locals for directions to Kyiv.

The very successful Ukrainian counter-offensive in the fall of 2022 presented evidence for both sides. In the Kharkiv region, thinly defended Russian lines collapsed when confronted with mobile Ukrainian units, allowing Ukraine to take back significant amounts of territory and cut off key Russian supply lines. But along the other axis of attack, in the city of Kherson, Russian forces held out for a long time and then made a large and orderly retreat, saving much manpower and matériel. The question became which army Ukraine would face in the summer and fall of 2023: the undermanned and demoralized one they saw in Kharkiv, or the organized and capable one they saw in Kherson?

Fresh graves of Soldiers who were killed during the so called Special Military Operations in Ukraine.

The answer, unfortunately, turned out to be the latter. “The Russian military adapted,” Lee said. “They often require some painful lessons, but then they do adapt.” Lee agrees with some of the criticisms lobbed by both sides in the aftermath of the offensive. Strategically, he thinks the defense of Bakhmut was carried out for too long by Ukrainian forces, for political reasons; materially, he agrees that the West should have got its act together a little sooner to provide more advanced weaponry to the front. But, for him, these are secondary matters: “Most of it came down to the Russian side.” A failure to appreciate this was a major problem in U.S. discussions of the war. Dara Massicot, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me that the emphasis on Russian incompetence in the first months of the war created unrealistic expectations and complacency. “The narratives that the Russian military is an incompetent clown car, incapable of learning, that they are about to collapse, and so on, are unhelpful and have done real damage,” Massicot said. “They have not collapsed. They’re still there. They have stood in the field and absorbed billions’ worth of Western weapons and aid over two years.”

In early November, the behind-the-scenes disagreements over Russian capabilities broke out into the open, in the form of an extraordinary essay by Zaluzhny and accompanying interview published in The Economist . Zaluzhny admitted that the counter-offensive had stalled and that the war was now in what he called a stalemate. He identified several factors—technological breakthroughs, achieving air superiority, improving electronic-warfare capabilities—that, he hoped, might move the war into a new phase. But Zaluzhny had lost faith in the idea that, by imposing devastating casualties on the invader, he would be able to take them out of the fight: “That was my mistake. Russia has lost at least 150,000 dead. In any other country such casualties would have stopped the war.” Zelensky, in turn, was frustrated that the commander-in-chief was making his views public—worsening an already tense relationship between the two.

Some analysts hope that the upcoming introduction of the American F-16 fighter to the Ukrainian side will change the course of the war. (Most predict that the F-16 will be helpful but not decisive.) Some believe that dropping a requirement that Western weaponry not be used to strike inside Russia could help. (Others, while agreeing, caution that deep strikes cannot be a substitute for conventional warfare; ultimately, Ukraine will have to take back territory in a ground offensive.) Many are concerned about the fact that Oleksandr Syrsky, Zelensky’s new choice for commander-in-chief, is the general who insisted on defending Bakhmut even after it became indefensible; they are even more concerned about the military-assistance package that is being held up in the U.S. Congress. But if, as Zaluzhny told The Economist , there will be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough,” what will happen instead?

The political-science literature on war duration (as opposed to war outcomes) is pretty clear: If a war is not over quickly, then it will last a long time. This is because incentives change. Blood and treasure have been expended. Society has been mobilized, the enemy vilified. People are angry. The war must go on.

There is a wrinkle to this story, however, when it comes to regime types. The standard work is “ Democracies at War ,” by Dan Reiter and Allan C. Stam, from 2002. Reiter and Stam argue, based on a slew of examples, that democracies have a better war-fighting record than autocracies. The reason is that they are better at fighting (the soldiers are more motivated) and that they start fewer dumb wars of choice. In a late chapter of the book, however, Reiter and Stam sound a cautionary note. For the same reason that democracies tend to start fewer wars, they tend to grow weary of them faster: “When the promised quick victory does not materialize . . . the people may reconsider their decision to consent to the war at hand and actively withdraw their support.” According to Reiter and Stam, this is the main reason that Harry Truman decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in the summer of 1945. When wars drag on, democracies’ chances of victory diminish. In fact, Reiter and Stam write, “ The longer a war continues, the more likely autocracies are to win .”

Putin has probably not read Chapter 7 of “Democracies at War,” but he has long been counting on the dynamics it describes. He has what he likes to think of as stability—he can decide on a policy and stick with it—whereas Western democracies are constantly changing their leaders and their minds. It was apparently his calculation, in the run-up to the war, that European voters would not long stand for the high energy prices that a war with Russia would entail; he believed, too, that the U.S. was preoccupied with its own difficulties and would not mount a sustained response. For nearly two years, he was wrong. Western democracies rallied to the side of Ukraine, and Russia seemed a lot less stable than Putin had supposed: a partial mobilization in the fall of 2022 was unpopular, and, in the summer of 2023, one of Putin’s longtime loyal oligarchs, Yevgeny Prigozhin, gathered a column of men and started marching toward Moscow. But Prigozhin was assassinated , and, in recent months, Putin’s expectations of Western disarray have finally begun to be met. Largely owing to Hungarian recalcitrance, the European Union took months to agree on a large aid package to Ukraine; more worrisome still, a group of Republicans has been able to stall a similarly large aid package in the U.S. Congress. And inside Ukraine, too, politics have reappeared. It is widely thought that Zelensky decided to remove Zaluzhny because he worried that Zaluzhny was becoming a political rival. (Zaluzhny’s public disagreements with his boss did not help.)

Hamas’s violent incursion into Israel on October 7th of last year, followed by Israel’s hugely disproportionate response , has scrambled the international map. It has also occupied the time of senior U.S. officials and weakened Joe Biden politically. Then there is this year’s U.S. Presidential election. The fact that, back in 2019, Donald Trump appeared to attempt to extort Zelensky —conditioning military aid on Ukraine’s willingness to investigate the Biden family—is not an encouraging sign for supporters of Ukraine. Neither is Trump’s long-standing skepticism of NATO , expressed most recently in his comment that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that did not “pay.”

Most military analysts believe that, in the coming year, even if U.S. aid finally comes through, Russia has the advantage. Russia has used continued revenues from the sale of oil and gas to pay for weapons manufacturing: it’s producing munitions, missiles, and tanks at rates double and triple what they were before the war. Though Ukrainian forces have driven drone innovation on the battlefield, Russia, over the past year, has produced more drones. And the state has managed, by hook and by crook, to continue recruiting men into the armed forces. “Let’s be honest,” Zaluzhny told The Economist , “it’s a feudal state where the cheapest resource is human life.”

Ukraine has some advantages. Western-supplied long-range missile systems possess precision and evasion capabilities that Russian missiles cannot match. These have allowed Ukraine to strike Russian airfields, barracks, and weapons depots well behind the front lines, including in Crimea; they have also helped Ukraine break the blockade of its Black Sea shipping lanes. Ukrainian soldiers have a better sense of what they’re fighting for, and the Army is the most respected institution in the country. Though Zaluzhny has been replaced, there is reason to believe that the reforms he’s been advocating, including a substantial increase in troop mobilization, will be carried out without him.

Military analysts are, however, a little hard-pressed to describe an actual military victory for Ukraine. Boston says he has not heard anyone discussing the equipment and firepower Ukraine would need. “Let’s say I want to have a breakthrough operation against Russian forces,” he said. “I need to have substantial artillery superiority at the point of the attack. I need to find a way to introduce land forces in sufficient numbers and have a way that they will not all get blown up by enemy artillery. The enemy artillery needs to be suppressed, needs to be destroyed, or needs to be blinded so that you can get enough of the land forces to punch the hole.” This needs to happen, furthermore, at multiple points, and Ukraine needs to have forces in reserve so that, if a breakthrough is achieved, those troops can take advantage of it. “That all, to me, sounds remarkably expensive,” Boston said. In a situation where a roughly base level of support is having trouble making it through a divided Congress, Boston found it hard to see a way toward an even greater level.

“Ukraine needs to prepare for a long war,” Olga Oliker, a former RAND analyst and Pentagon staffer who is now the head of the Europe and Central Asia program at the International Crisis Group, told me. Oliker believes that a long war could be won, but it may not look like the victory some maximalists have been promising. “You have to create the space for Ukraine to claim victory under less-than-ideal conditions,” she said. “Because, if you say the only thing that is victory is the Russians go home entirely from Crimea and Donbas, Ukraine is in NATO , and Moscow somehow disappears off the face of the earth—that’s an unrealistic goal. To me, Ukrainian victory is a situation in which Russia can’t do this again or at least is going to have a very hard time doing it again.”

One of the few remaining civilians walks through Vuhledar eastern Ukraine.

This could mean that the Russian military is constrained by some agreement that it’s been forced into, but it could also mean that Ukraine’s defenses are sufficiently bolstered, and its allies sufficiently clear in their resolve, that the cost to Russia of a renewed offensive would simply be too high. There is also the hope, not entirely illusory, that Russian vulnerabilities will eventually become too much for the Putin regime to handle. “There’s a certain amount of instability that’s built into the Russian system that the Russians worry about,” Oliker said. “At some point, if they’re worried enough, they might be willing to negotiate.”

A senior Biden Administration official who has helped develop sanctions against Russia expounded on this theory. He said that, for some time, the Administration’s view has been that Russia can continue its current level of war expenditures into the spring of 2025, at which point it will run into trouble. He pointed to the freezing of Russian assets abroad, the running down of its hard-currency reserves, and the increasingly complex supply lines that Russia needs to evade Western sanctions. “It’s like a top that’s slowing down,” the official said. “They’re going to have to start making harder and harder choices, faster and faster, as we get into 2025. That’s a far cry from whatever Putin’s aim was in this war—which was, you know, reinstating Catherine the Great’s empire or something.”

The Administration official was painting an optimistic picture—one that depends on continued Western support. When I asked whether there was a contingency plan if the aid did not come through, he said there wasn’t one: “The contingency plan, frankly, is that the Ukrainians will keep fighting with less and less.” Ukraine is already running short of artillery shells, and it could eventually run out of air-defense interceptors. “So it’s a very stark choice in terms of the security assistance,” the official said. He estimated that, with the help of Western air-defense systems, Ukrainian forces could shoot down as many as ninety per cent of Russian air-attack assets. “Without it, that number will be zero soon.”

There is a third option for how the war might develop, beyond a “mutually hurting stalemate,” as it’s known in the literature, and a measured Ukrainian victory. As Michael Kofman, a longtime analyst of the Russian military who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stressed to me, Ukraine could start to lose. That could mean a breakthrough by Russian forces, though they have so far been unable to achieve one, or just enough wearing down of Ukrainian and Western will that Ukraine is forced to negotiate concessions from a position of weakness. The question then becomes what, aside from the catastrophic humanitarian and political consequences in Ukraine, a Russian victory would mean for the world. If Putin wins, or feels like he has won, what will he do next?

Some argue that he would do nothing—that Ukraine is a special case, more central to Russia’s conception of itself as an imperial power than any other country. The counter-argument is that we don’t know. “In Moscow, they have all sorts of assessments of NATO power,” Massicot said. “I don’t think they can confront it directly. For one thing, the Russian Army is partially destroyed. The Russian Air Force has not exactly covered themselves in glory in this war. But they will downgrade their assessment of NATO as a cohesive alliance on the basis of our political will. From their point of view, they will feel that they have won a proxy war with NATO . And they’re going to be angry, they’re going to want revenge, and now they think we’re weaker than we are. That’s a dangerous situation.” Right now, the U.S. has about a hundred thousand troops in Europe; in 1989, there were three times that many. An ambiguous result in Ukraine, which leaves Russia capable of further offensive action, could mean a movement toward old troop levels. And Mearsheimer, Posen, and Cohen would have to dust off their essays on NATO preparedness.

It feels, in fact, like all the old Cold War arguments are back. Clearly, the Russian leadership is capable of brutal expansionist aggression. But just how far are they willing to go, and what exactly will they think of next? “The problem that I see is that the Russian economy has undergone a structural transition and is now on a militarized footing,” Kofman said. “So the Russian government is probably going to be focussed on regenerating military power for some time, both because it’s a matter of strategy but also because the militarized economy is going to be producing military goods and they will not have an easy way to transition it back.” This, Kofman concluded, means “that they could be in a position sooner than people think to actually contest the security and stability of Europe.”

Kofman, Lee, and Massicot recently published an article on the national-security Web site War on the Rocks in which they outlined a strategy for Ukrainian victory. “ Hold, Build, and Strike ,” they called it. In the essay, they urged Ukraine to hold the line of contact in the coming months, spend 2024 building up its forces, and then strike, in 2025, when they could see an advantage. These ideas were not far from what Zaluzhny had been advocating over the past several months. “You shouldn’t fight a war till your first failed offensive,” Kofman said. “That’s not how most conventional wars go. If that’s how they went, they’d all be over really fast.” He went on to give an example from the Second World War. “You know Stalin’s famous ten blows?” These were ten major offensives, several of them on Ukrainian territory, that the Soviets undertook against Germany in 1944. But there were, in fact, far more than ten offensives, Kofman said: “They just don’t include all the offensives that failed.” Last summer was a good opportunity for Ukraine to take back territory from the Russian Army, but it will not, Kofman believes, be the last such opportunity.

Oliker, whose job at the International Crisis Group is to seek ways to end conflicts, does not see how this one can end just yet. She admitted that, in the aftermath of the failed counter-offensive, in the midst of a long cold winter, and with Western support in doubt, Ukraine is facing a very difficult moment. “But it was not a good moment for Russia in spring and summer of 2022,” Oliker said. “That’s war. If it is, in fact, a long war, prepare for a few more back-and-forths.” ♦

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The Loss of Things I Took for Granted

Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively..

Recent years have seen successive waves of book bans in Republican-controlled states, aimed at pulling any text with “woke” themes from classrooms and library shelves. Though the results sometimes seem farcical, as with the banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus due to its inclusion of “cuss words” and explicit rodent nudity, the book-banning agenda is no laughing matter. Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more. But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies. That is already beginning to happen in many places, and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.

If and when that happens, however, we will not be able to declare victory quite yet. Defeating the open conspiracy to deprive students of physical access to books will do little to counteract the more diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving students of the skills needed to meaningfully engage with those books in the first place. As a college educator, I am confronted daily with the results of that conspiracy-without-conspirators. I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch. For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument—skills I used to be able to take for granted.

Since this development very directly affects my ability to do my job as I understand it, I talk about it a lot. And when I talk about it with nonacademics, certain predictable responses inevitably arise, all questioning the reality of the trend I describe. Hasn’t every generation felt that the younger cohort is going to hell in a handbasket? Haven’t professors always complained that educators at earlier levels are not adequately equipping their students? And haven’t students from time immemorial skipped the readings?

The response of my fellow academics, however, reassures me that I’m not simply indulging in intergenerational grousing. Anecdotally, I have literally never met a professor who did not share my experience. Professors are also discussing the issue in academic trade publications , from a variety of perspectives. What we almost all seem to agree on is that we are facing new obstacles in structuring and delivering our courses, requiring us to ratchet down expectations in the face of a ratcheting down of preparation. Yes, there were always students who skipped the readings, but we are in new territory when even highly motivated honors students struggle to grasp the basic argument of a 20-page article. Yes, professors never feel satisfied that high school teachers have done enough, but not every generation of professors has had to deal with the fallout of No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Finally, yes, every generation thinks the younger generation is failing to make the grade— except for the current cohort of professors, who are by and large more invested in their students’ success and mental health and more responsive to student needs than any group of educators in human history. We are not complaining about our students. We are complaining about what has been taken from them.

If we ask what has caused this change, there are some obvious culprits. The first is the same thing that has taken away almost everyone’s ability to focus—the ubiquitous smartphone. Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break. That’s because I was able to develop and practice those skills of extended concentration and attentive reading before the intervention of the smartphone. For children who were raised with smartphones, by contrast, that foundation is missing. It is probably no coincidence that the iPhone itself, originally released in 2007, is approaching college age, meaning that professors are increasingly dealing with students who would have become addicted to the dopamine hit of the omnipresent screen long before they were introduced to the more subtle pleasures of the page.

The second go-to explanation is the massive disruption of school closures during COVID-19. There is still some debate about the necessity of those measures, but what is not up for debate any longer is the very real learning loss that students suffered at every level. The impact will inevitably continue to be felt for the next decade or more, until the last cohort affected by the mass “pivot to online” finally graduates. I doubt that the pandemic closures were the decisive factor in themselves, however. Not only did the marked decline in reading resilience start before the pandemic, but the students I am seeing would have already been in high school during the school closures. Hence they would be better equipped to get something out of the online format and, more importantly, their basic reading competence would have already been established.

Less discussed than these broader cultural trends over which educators have little control are the major changes in reading pedagogy that have occurred in recent decades—some motivated by the ever-increasing demand to “teach to the test” and some by fads coming out of schools of education. In the latter category is the widely discussed decline in phonics education in favor of the “balanced literacy” approach advocated by education expert Lucy Calkins (who has more recently come to accept the need for more phonics instruction). I started to see the results of this ill-advised change several years ago, when students abruptly stopped attempting to sound out unfamiliar words and instead paused until they recognized the whole word as a unit. (In a recent class session, a smart, capable student was caught short by the word circumstances when reading a text out loud.) The result of this vibes-based literacy is that students never attain genuine fluency in reading. Even aside from the impact of smartphones, their experience of reading is constantly interrupted by their intentionally cultivated inability to process unfamiliar words.

For all the flaws of the balanced literacy method, it was presumably implemented by people who thought it would help. It is hard to see a similar motivation in the growing trend toward assigning students only the kind of short passages that can be included in a standardized test. Due in part to changes driven by the infamous Common Core standards , teachers now have to fight to assign their students longer readings, much less entire books, because those activities won’t feed directly into students getting higher test scores, which leads to schools getting more funding. The emphasis on standardized tests was always a distraction at best, but we have reached the point where it is actively cannibalizing students’ educational experience—an outcome no one intended or planned, and for which there is no possible justification.

We can’t go back in time and do the pandemic differently at this point, nor is there any realistic path to putting the smartphone genie back in the bottle. (Though I will note that we as a society do at least attempt to keep other addictive products out of the hands of children.) But I have to think that we can, at the very least, stop actively preventing young people from developing the ability to follow extended narratives and arguments in the classroom. Regardless of their profession or ultimate educational level, they will need those skills. The world is a complicated place. People—their histories and identities, their institutions and work processes, their fears and desires—are simply too complex to be captured in a worksheet with a paragraph and some reading comprehension questions. Large-scale prose writing is the best medium we have for capturing that complexity, and the education system should not be in the business of keeping students from learning how to engage effectively with it.

This is a matter not of snobbery, but of basic justice. I recognize that not everyone centers their lives on books as much as a humanities professor does. I think they’re missing out, but they’re adults and they can choose how to spend their time. What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit. We can and must stop perpetrating this crime on our young people.

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Trump’s Lawyer Walked Into a Trap

By the end of the argument, everyone knew it.

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Updated at 2:10 p.m. ET on January 11, 2024.

It was a cold and rainy morning in Washington, D.C., yesterday. Five years ago, Donald Trump said that was enough to deter him from visiting Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, to commemorate the fallen American soldiers—soldiers who died defending the nation whose Constitution he had sought to abrogate but now seeks to invoke. But yesterday, he showed up anyway. Appearing in court was more important to him, because this was about him.

And so at 9:25 a.m., the former president and his entourage strode into Courtroom 31 of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse on Constitution Avenue, just a few blocks away from the Capitol his supporters had ransacked three years ago Saturday, and took their seats. It took just a few short minutes for their case to come completely apart.

The wood-paneled walls of the courtroom display large official portraits of many of the renowned judges who have served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, known colloquially as the D.C. Circuit and long considered to be the second-most important appellate court in the land. The faces gazing down from the walls were mostly male, with a couple of exceptions. Near the front on the left side, Ruth Bader Ginsburg , wearing a trademark jabot, had one of the better views, directly overlooking the bench, counsel table, and podium. I envied her vantage point; from her perch, I could have seen the expressions of all the players, including the defendant. I found it hard not to wonder what she would have thought of these proceedings.

No doubt she would have approved of the panel of judges who heard the case: three women, of differing backgrounds and of fine reputations, each sworn to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and the rich.” The question these jurists faced in the appeal they heard yesterday—styled United States of America v. Donald J. Trump , No. 23–3228 —came down to whether justice could be administered to a former president of the United States.

Everyone rose, including Trump, as the women in black robes entered the courtroom. The court quickly got to work . D. John Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri (appointed by then–state Attorney General Josh Hawley), an advocate with an exceptionally gravelly voice that runs as fast as any New Yorker’s, stepped to the podium to speak for Trump.

From the October 2023 issue: The courtroom is a very unhappy place for Donald Trump

Before he could say anything, the presiding judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson , a George H. W. Bush appointee who nearly a quarter century ago had taken Ken Starr’s seat on the court, immediately asked Sauer whether the court had jurisdiction to hear the appeal. This wasn’t an issue the parties raised—it surfaced in a friend-of-the-court brief —but the judges understandably wanted to hear what the parties had to say about it.

In a nutshell, the jurisdictional question arose from the fact that the federal courts strongly disfavor “interlocutory” appeals—challenges to district-court rulings before the district court finally decides the whole case. That disfavor can be overcome, on occasion, for appeals of so-called collateral orders: orders deciding issues that are sufficiently divorced from the ultimate merits of the case and that might be effectively unreviewable in a later appeal after a final judgment. In a case called Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States , the Supreme Court made clear that the collateral-order exception must be narrowly construed, particularly in criminal cases. No court has ever addressed how Midland Asphalt applies to a criminal prosecution of a former president for acts he committed in office.

Sauer, as expected, argued that the exception does apply, and that the court could hear the appeal. I say “expected” because it could be no other way for his client: If this appeal were dismissed, Trump would not be able to pursue his claim of immunity from prosecution until after he is (as I admittedly hope he will be) convicted and sentenced.

The panel member seemingly most interested in the jurisdictional question was Judge J. Michelle Childs , a Biden appointee who, before joining the D.C. Circuit, had served for 12 years as a federal district judge in South Carolina. Midland Asphalt states that defendants can’t make interlocutory criminal appeals raising issues of immunity from prosecution unless there’s “an explicit statutory or constitutional guarantee that trial will not occur.” Childs’s questions focused on the fact that, whether or not Trump has immunity, the guarantee that he’s relying on isn’t “explicit”—he argues that it’s inherent in the separation of powers. Sauer didn’t have much of a response to this line of inquiry, other than to say, in effect, that presidential immunity claims are special, and that explicit didn’t really mean “explicit.” He did get a little help, though, from Judge Henderson, who made the suggestion that Midland Asphalt was itself only a suggestion from the Supreme Court.

But the jurisdictional back-and-forth was merely a sideshow; what everyone came to hear was the merits of Trump’s immunity argument, and the court’s reaction to it. Sauer and the judges soon obliged. Sauer warned, in effect, that the heavens would fall— ruat caelum , for fanciers of Latin legal axioms — were his client tried for his crimes. “To authorize the prosecution of a president for his official acts would open a Pandora’s box from which this nation may never recover.” He elaborated: “Could George W. Bush be prosecuted for obstruction of an official proceeding for allegedly giving false information to Congress to induce the nation to go to war in Iraq under false pretenses? Could President Obama be potentially charged with murder for allegedly authorizing drone strikes targeting U.S. citizens located abroad?”

Sauer never got the chance to answer his own rhetorical questions, because at this point, the panel’s most incisive and persistent questioner jumped in. “Can I explore the implications of what you are arguing?” inquired Judge Florence Y. Pan , a Biden appointee and longtime federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital who also served on the Superior Court as well as the United States District Court there. “I understand your position to be that a president is immune from criminal prosecution for any official act, even if that action is taken for an unlawful or unconstitutional purpose. Is that correct?”

Sauer’s answer: Yes, but with an exception. The exception being that, if a president is impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate, then and only then can he be prosecuted in a criminal court, after he leaves office, for the offenses for which the Senate had convicted him.

This was not a great answer. As I wrote a couple of days ago about Trump’s Supreme Court certiorari petition in his Colorado ballot-disqualification case, appellate courts usually don’t find convincing a litigant’s efforts to combine two weak points in order to make a stronger one. Usually, the weakness in one bad argument bleeds into the other, and vice versa—producing a sum that is even less than its parts. And that’s what happened here.

As Judge Pan’s question pointed out, Trump’s main argument on this appeal is that presidents can’t be prosecuted for their official acts. That argument is based on a line of civil cases establishing that presidents can’t be held liable via monetary damages for their official actions—more specifically, as the Supreme Court held in 1982 in Nixon v. Fitzgerald , there is “absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

I know a fair bit about this line of precedent, because (in what seems now to be another life ), I ghostwrote the Supreme Court brief for Paula Jones that defeated President Bill Clinton’s claim of immunity, 9–0, in Clinton v. Jones in 1997. Suffice it to say that the rationale behind Fitzgerald encompasses only civil liability because it is grounded in the fear that, if presidents could be hauled into civil court by the countless people affected by their official acts, then the leader of the free world might fear doing his or her job. And even if this protection from civil-damages liability could be extended into the criminal realm, it surely oughtn’t apply here, where Trump was not only acting beyond the “outer perimeter” of his official responsibility, but utterly abjuring that official responsibility.

Still, Trump’s immunity argument is at least an argument: Not a good one, not a winner, but not completely and totally ridiculous. I can’t say it wasn’t worth the old college try. The same cannot be said about the other major contention Trump has urged on this appeal, the argument that Sauer took to conflating with the immunity argument in response to Judge Pan’s questioning.

That second argument relies on what’s called the Constitution’s impeachment-judgment clause, in Article I, Section 3. That provision, in its entirety, says (with the relevant part italicized):

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

By its express terms, all this language does is make sure everyone understands that double-jeopardy protections don’t apply when a federal public official is impeached, convicted, and removed from office. The clause makes clear that the official may still go to jail—that he remains “subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment” even after he is removed from his job.

But Trump’s lawyers contend that this text says something it absolutely does not say: that, if a public official, namely the president, is not impeached and removed by Congress, then he cannot be prosecuted under criminal law. This is fallacious reasoning by “negative inference,” as Judge Childs dismissively put it, and it’s absurd for any number of reasons even apart from the plain meaning of the English language the clause uses. For one thing, a wealth of historical evidence contradicts the argument. As Justice Joseph Story explained in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States , even after an acquittal at an impeachment trial, the accused should still be liable to face a criminal trial, for “if no such second trial could be had, then the grossest official offenders might escape without any substantial punishment, even for crimes.”

David A. Graham: The cases against Trump: a guide

For another, a public official might be acquitted in the Senate for reasons other than the merits of the impeachment charges against him. In fact, that’s exactly what happened at Trump’s second impeachment trial. As Special Counsel Jack Smith noted in his D.C. Circuit brief , “At least 31 of the 43 Senators who voted to acquit the defendant”—Trump—“explained that their decision to do so rested in whole or in part on their agreement with the defendant’s argument that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to try him because he was no longer in office.” Worse yet, as Henderson and Pan later pointed out during the argument, Trump’s own lawyers conceded to the Senate in February 2021 that, even if Trump were not convicted on the impeachment charges, he could still be criminally charged. Oops.

I could go on about the impeachment-judgment clause, and the members of the panel certainly did, but the bottom line is that Trump’s argument about that clause was frivolous, and not worth making. In fact, Sauer, by extending that argument to make a limited concession to Pan’s questioning about whether he was arguing that presidents could never be criminally prosecuted—remember, he said that this could happen if the president is first convicted by the Senate—unwittingly set a nasty trap for himself.

A trap that Pan’s brilliant interrogation shut tight.

The judge wasted no time in drilling into the implications and inconsistencies in Sauer’s position. Pan asked, incredulously, “Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That’s an official act—an order to SEAL Team Six.”

To which Sauer replied, unresponsively, that a president would quickly be impeached and removed for that. This was followed by more unresponsive words from Sauer.

Pan wanted an answer—to the question she had asked.

Pan: I asked you a yes-or-no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival [and] who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution? Sauer: If he were impeached and convicted first— Pan: So your answer is no? Sauer: My answer is a qualified yes.

The filibustering then continued, with Sauer rambling on about Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memorandums, James Madison, the abuse of the criminal process. Many words.

Pan interrupted again: “I asked you a series of hypotheticals about criminal actions that could be taken by a president and could be considered official acts and have asked you: Would such a president be subject to criminal prosecution if he’s not impeached and convicted? And your answer, your yes-or-no answer, is no?”

Sauer, realizing he was being cornered somehow, tried to avoid the door closing behind him. But Pan was having none of it. Like the experienced prosecutor she is, she insisted on an answer, and wasn’t going to let go. (If this judging thing doesn’t work out for her, I’d love to see her host Meet the Press someday.)

She and Sauer went around and around on this a few more times. But the damage was done, and Pan’s point was devastatingly made—in essence, that Sauer was arguing out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, Sauer argued that the Constitution gave the president absolute immunity for his official acts, lest we have political prosecutions of former presidents. On the other hand, if the United States Congress—a political body if ever there was one—effectively gives permission (by impeaching and convicting), well, then, yes, a president can be prosecuted, and—wait for it—he’s not absolutely immune.

It’s hard to know whether the criminal defendant, sitting at the counsel table, could understand enough of the dialogue to know that his immunity argument had completely collapsed, right then and there. But it had.

Sometimes during appellate arguments, there’s a moment when you know exactly how the court will come out. And this was one. I once had such a moment, fortunately in my favor. My one and only argument before the U.S. Supreme Court was in a case about whether federal securities laws could impose liability for securities transactions occurring abroad. I was arguing in the negative, on behalf of an Australian bank. My opponent was up first, arguing in favor of applying American law. I figured I had the conservative justices, but I was a bit less sure about the more liberal justices.

After some preliminary questions to my adversary about jurisdiction, the Court got to the merits. I’ll never forget it. Justice Ginsburg asked a question that was more like a statement: “This case is Australian plaintiff, Australian defendant, shares purchased in Australia. It has ‘Australia’ written all over it.” I don’t know whether I heard the rest of her question, or my opponent’s answer. But I knew right then and there, before having uttered a word to the Court, that my client had won.

As for the special counsel on Tuesday morning, he, too—like everyone else in the courtroom—knew from Judge Pan’s withering questioning and Sauer’s evasive responses to her that Trump is going to lose. The only question is how quickly it will happen. I have little doubt it will be soon.

This article originally referred to January 6, 2024, as a Friday; it was a Saturday. It also said the Supreme Court decided Nixon v. Fitzgerald in 1981; the case was decided in 1982.

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A Legal Showdown on the Border Between the U.S. and Texas: What to Know

A court in Austin heard oral arguments in the federal government’s bid to block Texas from imposing a wide-ranging new immigration law.

Officers in Border Patrol uniforms talk to several people standing near a large border wall.

By J. David Goodman

Reporting from Austin

The Biden administration is suing the State of Texas over a new state law that would empower state and local police officers to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico without authorization.

On Thursday, a federal court in Austin heard three hours of arguments over whether to halt the implementation of the law, which is set to go into effect on March 5.

The case has far-reaching implications for the future of immigration law and border enforcement and has been closely watched across the country. It comes amid fierce political fighting between the parties — and within them — over how to handle illegal immigration and follows the impeachment by House Republicans of the secretary of homeland security , and the failure of a bipartisan Senate deal to bolster security at the border.

Texas has argued that its law is necessary to deter migrants from crossing illegally, as has happened in record numbers over the past year. The Biden administration argues that the law conflicts with federal law and violates the U.S. Constitution, which gives the federal government authority over immigration matters.

The judge hearing the case, David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas, was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan. He had frequent questions, particularly when the lawyer representing the Texas attorney general was speaking, and appeared skeptical of the law.

“Let’s say for the purpose of argument that I agree with you,” Judge Ezra told the state’s lawyer, Ryan Walters. California might then want to pass its own immigration and deportation law, he said. Maybe then Maine would follow, he added, and then other states.

“That turns us from the United States of America into a confederation of states,” Judge Ezra said. “What a nightmare.”

What does the Texas law say?

The law passed by the Texas Legislature, known as Senate Bill 4 , makes it a crime to cross into Texas from a foreign country anywhere other than a legal port of entry, usually the international bridges from Mexico.

Under the law, known as S.B. 4, any migrant seen by the police wading across the Rio Grande could be arrested and charged in state court with a misdemeanor on the first offense. A second offense would be a felony. After being arrested, migrants could be ordered during the court process to return to Mexico or face prosecution if they don’t agree to go.

Texas lawmakers said they had designed S.B. 4 to closely follow federal law, which already bars illegal entry. The new law effectively allows state law enforcement officers all over Texas to conduct what until now has been the U.S. Border Patrol’s work.

It allows for migrants to be prosecuted for the new offense up to two years after they cross into Texas.

How does it challenge federal immigration authority?

Lawyers for the Biden administration argue that the Texas law conflicts with numerous federal laws passed by Congress that provide for a process for handling immigration proceedings and deportations.

The administration says the law interferes with the federal government’s foreign diplomacy role, pointing to complaints already lodged against Texas’ border actions by the government of Mexico. The Mexican authorities said they “rejected” any legislation that would allow the state or local authorities to send migrants, most of whom are not Mexican, back over the border to Mexico.

The fight over the law is likely to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, legal experts have said . If so, it will give the 6-to-3 conservative majority a chance to revisit a 2012 case stemming from Arizona’s attempt to take on immigration enforcement responsibilities. That case, Arizona v United States, was narrowly decided in favor of the power of the federal government to set immigration policy.

Immigrant organizations, civil rights advocates and some Texas Democrats have criticized the law because it could make it more difficult for migrants being persecuted in their home countries to seek asylum, and it does not protect legitimate asylum seekers from prosecution in state courts.

Critics have also said that the law could lead to racial profiling because it allows law enforcement officers even far from the border to arrest anyone they suspect of having entered illegally in the previous two years. The result, they warn, could lead to improper traffic stops and arrests of anyone who looks Hispanic.

Wait, didn’t the Supreme Court already rule against Texas?

Not in this case.

Texas and the Biden administration have been battling for months over immigration enforcement on several legal fronts.

One case involves the placement by Texas of a 1,000-foot barrier of buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande, which Gov. Greg Abbott said would deter crossings. The federal government sued, arguing that the barrier violated a federal law over navigable rivers. In December, a federal appeals court sided with the Biden administration, ordering Texas to remove the barrier from the middle of the river while the case moved forward.

A second case involves Border Patrol agents’ cutting or removing of concertina wire — installed by the Texas authorities on the banks of the Rio Grande — in cases where agents need to assist migrants in the river or detain people who have crossed the border. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit claiming that Border Patrol agents who removed the wire were destroying state property.

It was a fight over an injunction in that case that reached the Supreme Court on an emergency application. The justices, without giving their reasons, sided with the Biden administration , allowing border agents to cut or remove the wire when they need to while further arguments are heard in the case at the lower court level.

Why the stakes are higher now

Unlike the other cases, the battle over S.B. 4 involves a direct challenge by Texas to what courts and legal experts have said has been the federal government’s unique role: arresting, detaining and possibly deporting migrants at the nation’s borders.

“This will be a momentous decision,” said Fatma E. Marouf, a law professor and director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the Texas A&M University School of Law. “If they uphold this law, it will be a whole new world. It’s hard to imagine what Texas couldn’t do, if this were allowed.”

The federal government is seeking an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect next month.

“S.B. 4 is clearly invalid under settled precedent,” said Brian Boynton, who presented the Justice Department’s case.

“There is nothing in S.B. 4 that affords people the rights they have under federal law,” he said, later adding that the law would interfere with foreign affairs and the actions of the Department of Homeland Security.

Lawyers for Texas argued that the new law would not conflict with existing federal law. “This is complementary legislation,” said Mr. Walters, a lawyer for the state.

But Judge Ezra expressed concern that the law did not allow a judge to pause a prosecution for illegally entering Texas in the case of someone applying for asylum, calling that provision of the Texas law “troublesome” and “very problematic.”

“It just slaps the federal immigration law in the face,” he said.

Texas argued that the record number of migrant arrivals at the Texas border constituted an “invasion” that Texas had the power to defend itself against under Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from engaging in war on their own “unless actually invaded.”

The state has cited the same constitutional provision in the other pending cases between Texas and the federal government. But legal experts said the argument was a novel one.

And Judge Ezra appeared unconvinced on Thursday, as he had been when the same argument was presented last year in the buoy barrier case, which he decided in favor of the federal government .

“I do not see any evidence that Texas is at war,” he said on Thursday.

Before adjourning, the judge turned to Mr. Walters, the Texas lawyer, and said that he would work quickly to issue his decision so that if the state wanted to appeal before March 5, “you can.” He then turned to the federal government’s lawyers and added: “Either of you.”

J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma. More about J. David Goodman

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NY’s highest court skeptical of Weinstein’s bid to overturn convictions. What judges said

N ew York state's top court on Wednesday expressed skepticism toward disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein's bid to overturn his criminal convictions.

The Court of Appeals weighed whether testimony admitted at trial may have tainted the jury against Weinstein without offering much insight into his behavior in return. If the court accepts this theory, it could overturn his convictions and order a new trial.

In 2020, Weinstein was convicted by a jury of committing a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third degree rape, with regard to two women, Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann.

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Haley, a production assistant for one of Weinstein's television shows, testified that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her at his SoHo apartment in 2006. Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress, said that in 2013 Weinstein blocked her exit from a Manhattan hotel room and raped her.

Three other women, Lauren Young, Dawn Dunning and Tarale Wulff, were also permitted to offer their testimony that Weinstein sexually assaulted each of them.

Weinstein was acquitted of two other legal charges that were predicated on the assaults of Haley and Mann. Justice James Burke sentenced him to 23 years in prison. He was also  convicted in 2022 of rape  and several other charges in relation to a 2013 incident in Los Angeles with a model-actress.

Weinstein appeal records sealed: Why is Harvey Weinstein's appeal of his criminal conviction hidden from public view?

What happened at the Court of Appeals?

Attorney Arthur Aidala, arguing on Weinstein's behalf, offered an unusually impassioned case at the high court, shouting and gesticulating wildly during oral arguments.

"They tried his character to the point where they stripped him naked," Aidala said, objecting to the testimony of the three other women who were allowed to take the stand pursuant to a legal precedent known as Molineux . Under Molineux , a judge may admit testimony about prior criminal conduct if it is used to clarify a defendant's intent, and not to imply that he has a general propensity for bad behavior.

Both sides wrestled over the use of this precedent during Wednesday’s hearing. Aidala argued that Burke, the trial court judge, let the Molineux testimony get out of hand, effectively muddling all of the women's complaints in the eyes of the jury.

Some judges appeared receptive to arguments that the trial judge may have unfairly prejudiced the jury against Weinstein. One of the court's most liberal judges, Jenny Rivera, twice asked if the Molineux case itself should be revisited, which would be a massive boon to criminal defendants and help Weinstein in his appeal.

On another critical issue — Burke's inclination to allow new, damning testimony if Weinstein were to take the witness stand — Justice Betsy Barros questioned whether Burke had been overzealous.

Barros, a lower-court judge who sat with the Court of Appeals due to two judicial recusals in the case, said that because of Burke's ruling, "I don't think anybody in their right mind would testify," noting her concern about Weinstein's right to testify in his own defense.

But the rest of the seven-judge bench didn’t make these points as aggressively, and some even rejected Aidala's arguments outright.

"The jury has a right to know" about Weinstein's conduct towards these three other women, Judge Madeline Singas, a conservative jurist and former Nassau District Attorney, told Aidala.

Could Weinstein’s conviction really be overturned?

Though the prospect of overturning Weinstein's conviction may seem remote, especially for a notorious figure who has been convicted of abusing women in multiple jurisdictions and is accused of abusing dozens more, it would not be unprecedented.

In 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out actor Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction, sending shock waves through the #MeToo movement. Cosby had been convicted on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and then sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. But the Pennsylvania court ruled that a prior official's promise not to prosecute Cosby for these acts was binding on the current prosecutorial team.

Weinstein's case rests on an entirely different legal theory, but it will test the same willingness from another state high court to scrutinize one of the #MeToo movement's most high-profile criminal cases.

The Court of Appeals could release its decision at any time, but the judges often decide cases the month after they are heard.

A political shift on NY’s top court

Working in Weinstein's favor is that the politics of the New York Court of Appeals have measurably shifted in recent years. After the ouster of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, facing his own allegations of sexual harassment, in 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul took the reins of New York's Executive Chamber. Under Cuomo, the court, led by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, ran a noted conservative streak.

Since taking office, Hochul made two new appointments to the court and elevated one of the court's liberal jurists, Rowan Wilson, to the chief judge's slot after DiFiore retired. And the court under Wilson has shown that it is particularly concerned with fairness in the administration of criminal cases.

An analysis by Albany Law School professor Vincent Bonventre shows that the number of criminal cases the Court of Appeals hears has increased substantially during Wilson's tenure. Some of the court's liberals have been explicit in their solicitude toward the rights of criminal defendants.

Weinstein’s appeal papers shielded from public

Heightening the stakes of Wednesday's arguments is the fact that all of the files and briefs in Weinstein's appeal before the high court have been sealed from public view. Court records are traditionally accessible to the press and public under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But the clerk of the Court of Appeals refused to provide the USA Today Network New York with copies of any of the briefs in the case, making it difficult to understand the full measure of Weinstein's argument that his convictions should be tossed out, or the DA's argument for keeping him in prison. The clerk said that the appellate record was exempt from disclosure under a state law that protects the privacy of victims of sexual abuse.

The USA Today Network’s legal counsel filed a motion seeking to unseal the files in Weinstein's appeal. In a prior decision, the Court of Appeals summarily rejected the motion on procedural grounds. The USA Today Network is asking the court to revisit its decision.

In many cases, the victims have themselves come forward to describe their encounters with Weinstein and have been identified repeatedly in the press.

"It sounds like the cat is already out of the bag," David Korzenik, a lawyer and First Amendment scholar, said in a previous interview . "I see no justification for the sealing the appellate records at all, particularly if all the stuff is already out there."

Asher Stockler is a reporter for The Journal News and the USA Today Network New York. You can send him an email at  [email protected] . Reach him securely:  [email protected] .

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY’s highest court skeptical of Weinstein’s bid to overturn convictions. What judges said

Harvey Weinstein arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court in New York on Feb. 7, 2020.

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Hearings on Trump's criminal cases in New York and Georgia

By Kara Scannell , Lauren del Valle , Jeremy Herb , Zachary Cohen , Jason Morris, Nick Valencia , Kristina Sgueglia, Dan Berman , Tori B. Powell and Matt Meyer , CNN

Here are key takeaways from Fani Willis' stunning testimony

From CNN's Marshall Cohen, Devan Cole, Holmes Lybrand and Katelyn Polantz

The Georgia election subversion case against  Donald Trump and 14 of his allies took a stunning turn Thursday when two top prosecutors testified under oath about their romantic relationship at a hearing triggered by allegations of self-dealing that have the potential to derail the entire effort.

The all-day hearing escalated steadily throughout the day, culminating with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis taking the witness stand for a combative brawl with defense attorneys that drew several rebukes from the judge.

These are key takeaways:

  • Willis' defiant afternoon: Things quickly went off the rails. Willis didn’t act much like a traditional witness on the stand and was more like a prosecutor, arguing with the defense attorneys, raising objections, making legal arguments and even having exchanges with Judge Scott McAfee . She even raised her voice at one point. This led to a few rebukes from McAfee. Willis repeatedly accused some of the defense attorneys of peddling lies – before and after the judge’s admonishment.
  • Willis says she's not on trial: Willis seized several opportunities to defend herself. “You think I’m on trial,” Willis said, in her sharpest pushback of the day. “These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” she added, pointing toward the table of attorneys representing defendants in the criminal case. “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.” She later slammed the defense attorneys, calling them “confused” and “intrusive.”
  • When did the relationship start? On the stand, prosecutor Nathan Wade stuck to his earlier claim – in a sworn affidavit submitted to the court – that his romantic relationship with Willis began in early 2022 and that they split travel and vacation expenses. But Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a former friend of Willis and Fulton County employee, contradicted that claim , testifying that she had “no doubt” that the Willis-Wade affair began in late 2019. Notably, that would be before Willis hired Wade to lead the Trump probe in late 2021.
  • Wade and Willis describe using cash for reimbursements: Wade and Willis have offered a simple explanation for why there’s essentially no paper trail to back up his claims they split expenses: Willis used cash .
  • When did the relationship end? There was also a dispute over when the relationship ended, and whether it had any impact on the decision to seek the massive RICO indictment against Trump and others last August. Both said the relationship ended in summer 2023. Willis implied that the physical component ended earlier in the summer, but that the two had a “tough conversation” that fully ended things afterward.
  • Huge distraction from Trump's charges: Nothing that happened Thursday undercut the factual allegations against Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, or the other GOP allies who are accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election. But the hearing shifted the conversation away from those allegation and away from Trump’s legal woes for now.

Trump reacts to Willis' testimony in Georgia

From CNN's Kate Sullivan

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday reacted to c and her lead prosecutor on the 2020 election case, Nathan Wade.

“FANI NEVER PAID CASH. SHE GOT FREE TRIPS AND OTHER THINGS FROM HER LOVER, WITH THE EXORBITANT AMOUNTS OF MONEY SHE AUTHORIZED TO BE PAID TO HIM. A GIANT SCAM. WITCH HUNT!!!”  Trump posted  on Truth Social. 

Wade and Willis pushed back against allegations from the defense that Willis was essentially getting kickbacks from Wade in the form of vacations. They said they split expenses and that Willis reimbursed Wade in cash for certain things.

Georgia judge says no ruling will be issued tomorrow in case over whether to dismiss Willis

From CNN’s Holmes Lybrand

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee looks on during a hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse on Thursday, February 15, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee said he would not issue any rulings Friday after the evidentiary hearing on efforts to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election subversion case. 

“I’m not ruling on any of this tomorrow,” McAfee said in closing the hearing Thursday. “This is something that’s going to be taken under advisement on all aspects.”  

McAfee also raised the possibility of scheduling final arguments from the parties at a later date. 

“My goal, my hope is perhaps we can just close the evidence tomorrow, and we can take it from there,” McAfee said.

Willis woke up "ready to testify," bishop who prayed with her before court says

From CNN's Nick Valencia and Devon Sayers

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis woke up Thursday morning "ready to testify," according to the African Methodist Episcopal bishop who says he prayed with her before today’s hearing.

Bishop Reginald Jackson told CNN he met with Willis earlier this morning before court began to "offer her words of encouragement," and they prayed together.

"She seemed comfortable. She seemed eager to address," Jackson said.  "I had the feeling this morning that she was ready for this. It's been going on for over a month, these efforts to destroy her reputation,” he added. “She wanted to meet it head on.” 

When the bishop spoke to Willis this morning before court, he said he told Willis "to keep praying and that the people have her back. I really believe they do."

Hearing ends for the day and Willis will continue testimony Friday 

From CNN's Holmes Lybrand and Dan Berman

The first day of an evidentiary hearing over whether to dismiss Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election subversion case has concluded after Willis and her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, testified over their relationships and payments they made during vacations together.

The district attorney's testimony will continue Friday at 9 a.m. ET, with Willis starting with under cross examination from District Attorney lawyer Anna Cross.

Defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who is leading the removal effort, said she plans to call two more witnesses after that.  

Cross also said she had three to four witnesses to call tomorrow, which she estimated would take four to five hours.

Willis: "I'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial"

From CNN's Devan Cole

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testifies during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case on Thursday in Atlanta.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pushed back forcefully on Thursday as she engaged in a tense back and forth with a defense attorney seeking to disqualify her from the 2020 election interference case she’s brought against Donald Trump and others.

“You've been intrusive into people's personal lives. You're confused,” she told Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for defendant Mike Roman.

“You think I'm on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” she added, pointing toward the table of attorneys representing defendants in the criminal case.

Willis says Wade made sexist remarks during relationship

From CNN’s Devan Cole and Marshall Cohen

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testifies during a hearing on the Georgia election interference case on Thursday in Atlanta.

In an extraordinary moment in court Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testified about sexist behavior from Nathan Wade, the top prosecutor on the election interference case with whom she once had a romantic relationship.

“It's interesting that we're here about this money. Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time: 'The only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich,'” she testified as she faced tough questioning from defense attorney Steve Sadow, who represents Donald Trump, about whether their romantic relationship ended last summer because of the forthcoming indictment against the former president and his allies. 

“We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal," she continued. "I don't need anything from a man — a man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don't need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who's ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.” 

The defense attorneys have zeroed in on the timing of when the Willis-Wade relationship ended because it's critical to their self-dealing allegations against Willis.

In court filings, defendant Mike Roman's team argued that Willis would be incentivized to bring an indictment because it would prolong the case, and keep the money flowing to Wade. And, according to their theory, back to her as well, through vacations and other gifts.

Willis said on the stand that their break-up had “absolutely nothing” to do with the indictment.

Fulton County judge admonishes parties to remain professional

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee looks on during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on February 15, in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee admonished parties in court on Thursday after heated exchanges between District Attorney Fani Willis and the defense attorney trying to get her removed from the Georgia election subversion case. 

“We all know what professionalism looks like,” McAfee said. “We won’t talk over each other. And from there, we’ll get through this.”

The judge took a brief break during Willis’ testimony after she raised her voice in court, holding up several motions filed by defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant and declaring: “It is a lie.” 

Merchant was asking if the top prosecutor she hired to investigate Trump had ever visited Willis “at the place you lay your head?”

“So let’s be clear because you’ve lied in this,” Willis said, pointing to copies she held of the filings. Willis, continuing to point at the copies, added, “right here, I think you lied right here.”

Willis details trips she took with top prosecutor in Trump case

District Attorney Fani Willis detailed vacations and trips she took with prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she hired to investigate Donald Trump and others for election interference in Georgia, saying she would pay cash for everything.

“When I travel I always pay cash,” Willis said of the trips with Wade, saying that she paid Wade back for certain travel and excursions during the trips.

Willis has been accused of financially benefitting from hiring Wade, who defense attorneys say paid for vacations for the two. The vacations, according to Willis, included trips to Aruba, the Bahamas Belize as well as Napa Valley where they attended wine tastings.

“He likes wine, I don’t really like wine to be honest with you,” Willis said. “I like Grey Goose.” 

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  1. How to Write an Argumentative Essay

    Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023. An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement. The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

  2. 50 Compelling Argumentative Essay Topics

    In an argumentative essay, opinions matter and controversy is based on opinions, which are, hopefully, backed up by facts. If these topics are a little too controversial or you don't find the right one for you, try browsing through persuasive essay and speech topics as well. Is global climate change caused by humans? Is the death penalty effective?

  3. 3 Strong Argumentative Essay Examples, Analyzed

    An argumentative essay is an essay that uses evidence and facts to support the claim it's making. Its purpose is to persuade the reader to agree with the argument being made. A good argumentative essay will use facts and evidence to support the argument, rather than just the author's thoughts and opinions.

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    An argumentative essay is a piece of writing that uses logical evidence and empirical data to convince readers of a particular position on a topic. Because of its reliance on structure and planning, the first step in writing one is often drafting a solid argumentative essay outline.

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    An argumentative essay is a type of writing that presents a coherent and logical analysis of a specific topic. 1 The goal is to convince the reader to accept the writer's point of view or opinion on a particular issue. Here are the key elements of an argumentative essay: Thesis Statement: The central claim or argument that the essay aims to prove.

  7. How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay: Easy Step-by-Step Guide

    Written by MasterClass Last updated: Sep 9, 2021 • 5 min read When you're writing a persuasive essay, you need more than just an opinion to make your voice heard. Even the strongest stance won't be compelling if it's not structured properly and reinforced with solid reasoning and evidence.

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    The argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in a concise manner. Please note: Some confusion may occur between the argumentative essay and the expository essay. These two genres are similar, but the argumentative ...

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    This handout will define what an argument is and explain why you need one in most of your academic essays. Arguments are everywhere You may be surprised to hear that the word "argument" does not have to be written anywhere in your assignment for it to be an important part of your task.

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  12. How to Write an Argumentative Essay

    It requires thorough research of the topic, a clear thesis statement, and follow sound reasoning. An exceptionally written argumentative essay will: Engage the reader with a compelling and exciting topic. Give a fair explanation of all points of view. Address the potential counter-claims.

  13. Argumentative Essay Examples (3 College Samples to Use)

    An argumentative essay backs up its claims with facts and evidence. Its ultimate goal is to persuade the reader to concur with the thesis. Instead of only the author's thoughts and feelings, a strong argumentative essay will incorporate facts and evidence to back up its claims.

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    An argument is a claim about a topic that is supported by reasons and evidence. Many academic assignments ask you to make an argument, even though the word "argument" never appears in the directions.

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