Analyzing an Argumentative Essay

Video Transcription

Hi, my name is Katie. And today, we'll discuss analyzing an argumentative essay. We'll begin today's lesson by describing some places where arguments can be found. And then, we'll identify and define some elements of a good argumentative analysis. Finally, we'll talk about where these elements show up in some sample texts and take a look at how they work to construct the argument.

Let's begin by describing some places where arguments are found, for example, academia. You're all students, so it's very likely that you've come in contact with some academic argumentative articles, like this example here, where this phrase, "findings suggest," signals to the reader that although this is a write-up of a research study, the researchers are going to use the data gleaned from this work to draw some conclusions and argue in support of them. The most likely place that you'll encounter argumentative writing outside of academia is probably politics. Here, we have a newspaper article that's very political. You can see the concluding sentence here clarifies that the premise of the argument for this article is that criticism shouldn't be aimed at religious freedom laws.

Another place that you'll find argumentative writing no matter what profession you're in is in your professional life. You can see here in this example, researchers have come up with a plan of action based on their data and construct arguments for their recommendations in order to support the development of digital media literacy for Americans. And of course, the most prevalent arguments in our life are interactions with the media. For example, we have this ad here by Occidental Life Insurance which tries to convince the reader that, whether veteran or not, they can provide good life insurance is an argument which is won when the reader buys their product.

Even though these arguments come from a broad spectrum of sources, they can all be analyzed using similar techniques. It's important to think of reading as a transactional relationship between you and the text, almost as if the text is talking to you, and you talk back to it using notes, critical thinking, engaged reading strategies, like SQ3R, which is Summarize, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Whichever strategy you choose, keep in mind that a good argument flows in a way that you might not notice what goes into it, so it's important to do something to deconstruct the argument in order to recognize its techniques and strategies.

All strategies have a few key elements in common. We can think of these in terms of what to look for and what techniques to use. For example, one of the first things that you want to look for when you're analyzing an argument is the primary claim that the author makes. A good way to find this is often to identify the thesis, but it's especially interesting when you really take a close look at the argument of the text and you identify disparities between the stated thesis and the actual argument itself. If you have a case like, this you've probably got a very subversive argument that's trying to lead your thinking, and you should read the text very suspiciously.

Part of reading the text suspiciously is looking for the author's purpose. I suggest that you stop periodically throughout the text to summarize the author's claims and generally outline the supporting evidence and push yourself to evaluate it. Try to either agree, disagree, or at least define where you lie in between.

Reading a text suspiciously also encompasses analyzing the author's credibility because if you stumble upon a text with weak credibility, you need to approach their argument very critically. There are a number of ways to think about credibility. The first and perhaps quickest way to analyze an author's credibility is to look at their source information. If an author has cited a lot of really solid, reliable sources, then you know that you can trust claims that are given citations in the author's text.

You also want to consider the rhetorical situation of the text, especially if you're dealing with pathos, which is an appeal to emotion. If the author's rhetoric is unethical, then it's likely that this is compensating for a weakness somewhere else in the logic. It's also pertinent to pay attention to the structure and style of the text which you're reading because even a text with multiple credible sources can be weak in its own argument.

So consider the expectations for the discipline which the text was written in. Analyze the author's style, tone, syntax, and word choices. Consider are they effective for the audience? Are they clear? How did they affect your reading of the argument?

A good strategy is to summarize the argument paragraph by paragraph because it helps you build a big picture overview of the author's argument. Then you can ask questions like how is this structure working? What style of organization is being used? And is this an effective structure? If you find that the text that you're working with is particularly well written, then it's likely that this came from a reliable, professional source.

Let me walk you through an argumentative analysis of a few example texts. For our first example, let's work grab this research report. This research report is preceded by an abstract, which, as I mentioned before, gives a hint at what the argument of the text will be. The signal phrase, "findings suggest" hints to the reader that when it comes time to draw conclusions from this research data, the researcher's argument will have something to do with participants identifying negative cultural messages embedded in the film.

The traditional format for presenting a research study doesn't present the argument first, however. So we'll scan through this initial introduction to the research and skip to the conclusion, here labeled "Findings." And these researchers have provided us with a very easily identifiable thesis right beneath the heading of "Findings." They tell us that four themes emerge from their analysis of the data-- that media matters, cultural misconceptions exist, students identified embedded beliefs within the media text, and that there was a theme of outcasts. So in this case, we can see the connection between this very specific thesis and the general argument of the text as it was stated in the abstract. So it's a hint that this is probably a very strong argument.

The next step that we need to take is to really dive into the logic behind these conclusions and identify some primary pieces of supporting evidence and the rhetorical appeals that the author uses. One thing that really stands out to me about this article is that, even though the data collected is very subjective and emotional, the authors do not really employ path those in their argument.

Instead, we see that they quote actual sentiments from the students and actual terms that the students use as a way to build a very logical argument. Using logos in this discipline is expected and effective. So as I pause and evaluate throughout this text, I can really see where the conclusions are being drawn from, and I tend to agree with the conclusions that the authors draw.

When we get to the issue of analyzing the author's purpose, however, we have to remember to consider what has been left out. Again and again, the authors reference to students' perceptions of the Latino penguins as misfits or outcasts, and they criticize this as an act which puts Hispanics down or is reminiscent of other portrayals of Latinos that they see in popular media. However, one thing that isn't mentioned in the context of this article is that Latinos are represented at all. So while, on the one hand, students criticize this movie for putting Latinos down, on the other, there's really no attention given to the fact that many movies don't even offer multicultural representations at all.

So we can see that even though this appears to be a very objective analysis of the research data, the authors do have a little bias, and they want the readers to see the negative effects that the movie has on children's perceptions of themselves as Latinos. Even with that weakness, this argument is still quite credible. The researchers take pains to let us know the theoretical basis behind the study so we know that this research is part of a credible conversation in academia. They also make methods for data collection very explicit so that we know that even though the data is subjective and emotional that it's been collected in a scientific way, and we can consider this data very reliable.

Overall, this is very carefully written and carefully edited. And it's published by a peer reviewed source. And we can see that the authors themselves have PhDs, so we know that this is written by respected professionals.

Advertisements, like this one for Occidental Life Insurance, are easy targets for identifying unreliable arguments. For example, here, it would be easy to say that the thesis of this article is the bold print, that the insurance was just right for joining the Army. However, the primary argument of this text is that Occidental Life Insurance is actually the best buy. The only supporting evidence given is information about this particular insurance policy, and it doesn't give you anything to compare it against. Therefore, agreeing with this ad without further research is just sort of a blind compliance with what the ad is saying.

The rhetorical appeals probably logos. It gives some information about what kind of person they're targeting with this ad and saying, well, logically, you would need this sort of insurance policy. But the author's purpose forces you to read this text suspiciously. The person who made this ad is trying to get people to buy life insurance, so you can't just go and trust claims that they make without really analyzing how they apply to you personally.

It's not that there's any particular ethical problems with this situation. However, the argument is just way too subjective and lacks overall credibility. On the one hand, this could be considered a good ad for targeting men in the military who need life insurance. On the other, although it is making an argument for the life insurance, the argument itself is not very strong.

In today's lesson, we discussed considerations in academic argumentative research writing. We began by talking about where arguments are found in our daily lives and then talked about what to look for and what techniques to use to deconstruct these arguments in order to analyze their elements. Finally, we practiced a sample argumentative analysis using an academic research report and an advertisement. I hope that you'll find this approach helpful. Thank you very much for joining me today.