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9 Ways to Construct a Compelling Argument

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But especially in the circumstances that we’re deeply convinced of the rightness of our points, putting them across in a compelling way that will change other people’s mind is a challenge. If you feel that your opinion is obviously right, it’s hard work even to understand why other people might disagree. Some people reach this point and don’t bother to try, instead concluding that those who disagree with them must be stupid, misled or just plain immoral. And it’s almost impossible to construct an argument that will persuade someone if you’re starting from the perspective that they’re either dim or evil. In the opposite set of circumstances – when you only weakly believe your perspective to be right – it can also be tricky to construct a good argument. In the absence of conviction, arguments tend to lack coherence or force. In this article, we take a look at how you can put together an argument, whether for an essay, debate speech or social media post, that is forceful, cogent and – if you’re lucky – might just change someone’s mind.

1. Keep it simple

Almost all good essays focus on a single powerful idea, drawing in every point made back to that same idea so that even someone skim-reading will soon pick up the author’s thesis. But when you care passionately about something, it’s easy to let this go. If you can see twenty different reasons why you’re right, it’s tempting to put all of them into your argument, because it feels as if the sheer weight of twenty reasons will be much more persuasive than just focusing on one or two; after all, someone may be able rebut a couple of reasons, but can they rebut all twenty? Yet from the outside, an argument with endless different reasons is much less persuasive than one with focus and precision on a small number of reasons. The debate in the UK about whether or not to stay in the EU was a great example of this. The Remain campaign had dozens of different reasons. Car manufacturing! Overfishing! Cleaner beaches! Key workers for the NHS! Medical research links! Economic opportunities! The difficulty of overcoming trade barriers! The Northern Irish border! Meanwhile, the Leave campaign boiled their argument down to just one: membership of the EU means relinquishing control. Leaving it means taking back control. And despite most expectations and the advice of most experts, the simple, straightforward message won. Voters struggled to remember the many different messages put out by the Remain campaign, as compelling as each of those reasons might have been; but they remembered the message about taking back control.

2. Be fair on your opponent

One of the most commonly used rhetorical fallacies is the Strawman Fallacy. This involves constructing a version of your opponent’s argument that is much weaker than the arguments they might use themselves, in order than you can defeat it more easily. For instance, in the area of crime and punishment, you might be arguing in favour of harsher prison sentences, while your opponent argues in favour of early release where possible. A Strawman would be to say that your opponent is weak on crime, wanting violent criminals to be let out on to the streets without adequate punishment or deterrence, to commit the same crimes again. In reality, your opponent’s idea might exclude violent criminals, and focus on community-based restorative justice that could lead to lower rates of recidivism. To anyone who knows the topic well, if your argument includes a Strawman, then you will immediately have lost credibility by demonstrating that either you don’t really understand the opposing point of view, or that you simply don’t care about rebutting it properly. Neither is persuasive. Instead, you should be fair to your opponent and represent their argument honestly, and your readers will take you seriously as a result

3. Avoid other common fallacies

It’s worth taking the time to read about logical fallacies and making sure that you’re not making them, as argument that rest of fallacious foundations can be more easily demolished. (This may not apply on social media, but it does in formal debating and in writing essays). Some fallacies are straightforward to understand, such as the appeal to popularity (roughly “everyone agrees with me, so I must be right!”), but others are a little trickier. Take “begging the question”, which is often misunderstood. It gets used to mean “raises the question” (e.g. “this politician has defended terrorists, which raises the question – can we trust her?”), but the fallacy it refers to is a bit more complicated. It’s when an argument rests on the assumption that its conclusions are true. For example, someone might argue that fizzy drinks shouldn’t be banned in schools, on the grounds that they’re not bad for students’ health. How can we know that they’re not bad for students’ health? Why, if they were, they would be banned in schools! When put in a condensed form like this example, the flaw in this approach is obvious, but you can imagine how you might fall for it over the course of a whole essay – for instance, paragraphs arguing that teachers would have objected to hyperactive students, parents would have complained, and we can see that none of this has happened because they haven’t yet been banned. With more verbosity, a bad argument can be hidden, so check that you’re not falling prey to it in your own writing.

4. Make your assumptions clear

Every argument rests on assumptions. Some of these assumptions are so obvious that you’re not going to be aware that you’re making them – for instance, you might make an argument about different economic systems that rests on the assumption that reducing global poverty is a good thing. While very few people would disagree with you on that, in general, if your assumption can be proven false, then the entire basis of your argument is undermined. A more controversial example might be an argument that rests on the assumption that everyone can trust the police force – for instance, if you’re arguing for tougher enforcement of minor offences in order to prevent them from mounting into major ones. But in countries where the police are frequently bribed, or where policing has obvious biases, such enforcement could be counterproductive. If you’re aware of such assumptions underpinning your argument, tackle them head on by making them clear and explaining why they are valid; so you could argue that your law enforcement proposal is valid in the particular circumstances that you’re suggesting because the police force there can be relied on, even if it wouldn’t work everywhere.

5. Rest your argument on solid foundations

If you think that you’re right in your argument, you should also be able to assemble a good amount of evidence that you’re right. That means putting the effort in and finding something that genuinely backs up what you’re saying; don’t fall back on dubious statistics or fake news . Doing the research to ensure that your evidence is solid can be time-consuming, but it’s worthwhile, as then you’ve removed another basis on which your argument could be challenged. What happens if you can’t find any evidence for your argument? The first thing to consider is whether you might be wrong! If you find lots of evidence against your position, and minimal evidence for it, it would be logical to change your mind. But if you’re struggling to find evidence either way, it may simply be that the area is under-researched. Prove what you can, including your assumptions, and work from there.

6. Use evidence your readers will believe

So far we’ve focused on how to construct an argument that is solid and hard to challenge; from this point onward, we focus on what it takes to make an argument persuasive. One thing you can do is to choose your evidence with your audience in mind. For instance, if you’re writing about current affairs, a left-wing audience will find an article from the Guardian to be more persuasive (as they’re more likely to trust its reporting), while a right-wing audience might be more swayed by the Telegraph. This principle doesn’t just hold in terms of politics. It can also be useful in terms of sides in an academic debate, for instance. You can similarly bear in mind the demographics of your likely audience – it may be that an older audience is more skeptical of footnotes that consist solely of web addresses. And it isn’t just about statistics and references. The focus of your evidence as a whole can take your probable audience into account; for example, if you were arguing that a particular drug should be banned on health grounds and your main audience was teenagers, you might want to focus more on the immediate health risks, rather than ones that might only appear years or decades later.

7. Avoid platitudes and generalisations, and be specific

A platitude is a phrase used to the point of meaninglessness – and it may not have had that much meaning to begin with. If you find yourself writing something like “because family life is all-important” to support one of your claims, you’ve slipped into using platitudes. Platitudes are likely to annoy your readers without helping to persuade them. Because they’re meaningless and uncontroversial statements, using them doesn’t tell your reader anything new. If you say that working hours need to be restricted because family ought to come first, you haven’t really given your reader any new information. Instead, bring the importance of family to life for your reader, and then explain just how long hours are interrupting it. Similarly, being specific can demonstrate the grasp you have on your subject, and can bring it to life for your reader. Imagine that you were arguing in favour of nationalising the railways, and one of your points was that the service now was of low quality. Saying “many commuter trains are frequently delayed” is much less impactful than if you have the full facts to hand, e.g. “in Letchworth Garden City, one key commuter hub, half of all peak-time trains to London were delayed by ten minutes or more.”

8. Understand the opposing point of view

As we noted in the introduction, you can’t construct a compelling argument unless you understand why someone might think you were wrong, and you can come up with reasons other than them being mistaken or stupid. After all, we almost all target them same end goals, whether that’s wanting to increase our understanding of the world in academia, or increase people’s opportunities to flourish and seek happiness in politics. Yet we come to divergent conclusions. In his book The Righteous Mind , Jonathan Haidt explores the different perspectives of people who are politically right or left-wing. He summarises the different ideals people might value, namely justice, equality, authority, sanctity and loyalty, and concludes that while most people see that these things have some value, different political persuasions value them to different degrees. For instance, someone who opposes equal marriage might argue that they don’t oppose equality – but they do feel that on balance, sanctity is more important. An argument that focuses solely on equality won’t sway them, but an argument that addresses sanctity might.

9. Make it easy for your opponent to change their mind

It’s tricky to think of the last time you changed your mind about something really important. Perhaps to preserve our pride, we frequently forget that we ever believed something different. This survey of British voters’ attitudes to the Iraq war demonstrates the point beautifully. 54% of people supporting invading Iraq in 2003; but twelve years on, with the war a demonstrable failure, only 37% were still willing to admit that they had supported it at the time. The effect in the USA was even more dramatic. It would be tempting for anyone who genuinely did oppose the war at the time to be quite smug towards anyone who changed their mind, especially those who won’t admit it. But if changing your mind comes with additional consequences (e.g. the implication that you were daft ever to have believed something, even if you’ve since come to a different conclusion), then the incentive to do so is reduced. Your argument needs to avoid vilifying people who have only recently come around to your point of view; instead, to be truly persuasive, you should welcome them.

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Analyzing Grammar in Context

Section 2: writing and the structure of argument.

A primary ability for any writer in academic and professional writing contexts is constructing effective arguments. Although necessarily brief, this page provides an introduction to the basic elements of argument and strategies for constructing effective arguments.

A typical argument contains three primary elements:

Claim/Thesis

The claim or thesis is a clear statement of the position that you are asking your readers to accept. A claim can encompass the entire text, a particular section of the text, an individual paragraph, or a single sentence. Ideally, claims presented in each of these instances should be consistent throughout the text. The claim includes information you are asking readers to accept as true, or actions you want them to accept and enact, and must be supported by specific reasons, along with evidence that supports those reasons.

In planning an argument, the first step is to define your position and make a claim. Obviously, your stance is your opinion, for your arguments should reflect your point of view in some way. Once you define your position and make a claim, you need to consider the context of the argument—the setting—as well as the data or assumptions that are agreed upon or incontrovertible within that context. This will help your readers understand the background of the argument and the accepted or understood positions.

Statement(s) of Reason(s)

Your reasons state why you are taking this position, why you believe what you do. You must spell it out for the reader, for an argument requires more than a good thesis. Any argument will have a list of supporting reasons and evidence. These reasons should be concrete and supported with evidence. Each statement of reason should include the following elements: the (supporting) reason; an explanation/definition of the reason; evidence; an explanation of the value of that evidence.

Remember your claim needs to be supported by your reasons: your ideas. The key to a strong argument is to start with your ideas , not those of your sources. If you start with the ideas of your sources, it's easy to fall into the trap of writing a paper that mostly summarizes what other people think or say. To avoid this, start planning your argument by listing your supporting reasons. Under each reason, list the information you need to provide in order to explain it. Some of this information will be evidence from your outside sources, but some of it could be based on your own experience or your own explanations of why you think something is important.

Also, as discussed in Writing as Cognitive Process and Social Practice , keep your audience in mind as you develop your supporting reasons.

From there, you can create a rough outline, listing your main supporting reasons, the evidence you want to use to explain those reasons, and any questions or challenges you need to answer in order to persuade your readers. A rough outline can help you figure out what kind of research you still need to do or help you notice sections of your argument that need more support, or that already have plenty of evidence.

Evidence/Support/Proofs/Counterarguments

A good argument will explain how each piece of evidence relates to the argument and why the evidence is valuable and credible. The primary purpose of support is to explain why your reasons are legitimate ones. While support may take many forms, you should always think of support as a logical explanation.

Usually, supporting evidence includes facts, ideas, and quotes from current research and/or experts, examples of cases related to your topic, and quotes from people who are affected by it. As you can see, supporting evidence often arises from source material, but never use a quotation or paraphrase without explaining its relevance to your reason immediately, never let a source do the talking for you, and never let a source have the last word in your argument.

In general, the evidence/support that you use in academic writing takes three basic forms:

Rhetorical Appeals/Proofs: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Another way to think about the evidence that you provide to support your argument are the rhetorical appeals or proofs. In the Rhetorica , Aristotle identifies the three canonical modes of artistic proof: ethos, pathos and logos. He states that in order to persuade, one must exude good character, move the audience by appealing to emotions, and advance good reasons. Whenever you read an argument you must ask yourself, “Is this persuasive?” Rhetorical appeals are prevalent in almost all arguments and can provide the tools for analyzing and understanding effective argument practices.

Ethos: The Writer's Image

Ethos can be roughly translated as ethics or ethical practice, but a more accurate use of the term would be the “image” of the writer. Aristotle uses ethos to refer to the speaker's character as it appears to the audience, for he believes that if the audience accepts that a speaker has “good sense, good moral character, and goodwill,” they are more inclined to believe what that speaker says. While we might also define ethos in terms of appropriate expertise or authority, the key is for the writer to establish and project credibility to the audience. As such, a writer's ethos is created largely by word choice and style, which can be a problem for novices who may be asked to create texts as if they have authority to speak persuasively, when in fact they may be relative newcomers to the subject matter and the larger field. To develop ethos, you need to use language that is suitable to the rhetorical situation—including an appropriate vocabulary and correct grammar—and offer a sincere and fair-minded presentation of the information. In doing so, you will demonstrate your reliability, competence, and respect for the audience's ideas and values.

Pathos: The Emotions of the Audience

Pathos is the appeal to emotion, for the writer must also stir the emotions in order to move the audience to action. They may be any emotions: love, fear, patriotism, guilt, hate, joy, etc. The more people react without full consideration for the why of an argument, the more effective that argument might be. Although the pathetic appeal can be manipulative, it is the cornerstone of moving people to action. Many arguments are able to persuade people logically, but the apathetic audience may not follow through on the call to action. Appeals to pathos touch a nerve and compel people to not only listen, but to also take the next step and act in the world. To appeal to the emotions of the audience and evoke an emotional response, the writer should use vivid, concrete, and figurative language.

Logos: Logical Arguments

Logos is the appeal to reason and refers primarily to any attempt to appeal to the intellect. Since logic and rationality are highly valued in our society, logos is usually privileged over ethos or pathos. But as a rhetorical appeal, logos is most often based on probabilities rather than certain truth, for we often cannot know a thing with absolute certainty, yet we must act anyway. To appeal to logic and evoke a cognitive, rational response, the writer often uses more theoretical or abstract language that includes literal or historical analogies, definitions, factual data and statistics, quotations and citations from experts and authorities, and informed opinions. Persuasion, to a large extent, involves convincing people to accept our assumptions as probably true. Similarly, exposing questionable assumptions in someone else's argument is an effective means for preparing the audience to accept your own contrary position.

Counter-Arguments

Despite the careful construction of an argument, there may still be counter-arguments that can be used. These may be rebutted either through a continued dialogue, or by pre-empting the counter-argument by presenting a rebuttal as an integral part of your own argument. Remember, any rebuttal is an argument in itself, and thus may include all the elements of an argument.

In short, remember that when addressing a possible counter-argument, you need to know the opposing arguments, refute them by formulating responses to them, and follow all the rules of evidence that you used to support your argument. If you can do this, your argument will be much stronger.

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6 Strategies for Writing Arguments

Over the years, three major modes have dominated academic writing—narrative, explanatory, and argument. Traditionally, writing teachers have devoted equal attention to the Big Three in that order, but modern standards place argument writing at the head of the pack. Why?

A push for rigor may explain the shift. Argument writing requires clear, logical thinking and the know-how to appeal to readers' needs. Clearly, such communication skills come at a premium in today’s information economy, and developing those skills will help students flourish in school and the workplace.

But many developing writers struggle to write clear and compelling arguments. You can help them succeed by teaching the following strategies.

1. Distinguishing Argumentation from Persuasion

National writing standards and the tests that assess them focus on argumentation rather than persuasion. In practice, these approaches overlap more than they diverge, but students should understand the subtle difference between them.

You can help your students understand the difference between the two by presenting Distinguishing Argumentation from Persuasion .

2. Forming an Opinion Statement

Your students’ message will not make a full impact without a clear main claim or opinion statement. Reading arguments with a missing claim statement is like driving through fog; you're never quite sure where you're headed.

Present Developing an Opinion Statement to help students write a main claim for their argument. In this minilesson, students follow a simple formula to develop a claim of truth, value, or policy.

3. Appealing to the Audience

Once students state a claim, how can they support it in a way that appeals to skeptical readers? Aristotle outlined three types of rhetorical appeals. The first two work best in argumentation and the third in persuasion.

Assign Making Rhetorical Appeals to help students choose supporting details that will appeal logically and ethically (argumentation) or emotionally (persuasion).

4. Connecting with Anecdotes

Though argumentation should de-emphasize emotional appeals, it still should connect to readers on a human level. As Thomas Newkirk advises in Minds Made for Stories , “Any argument that fails to appeal to the emotions, values, hopes, fears, self-interest, or identity of any audience is doomed to fail.”

Apt anecdotes allow students to add interest and emotive impact to their writing. Give students practice Using Anecdotes in Formal Writing , and encourage them to add appropriate anecdotes to connect to readers.

5. Answering Objections

Students' arguments lose steam when they ignore key opposing ideas. Help them realize that addressing readers' disagreements does not weaken their arguments, but in fact strengthens them. Introduce these two ways to respond to opposing points of view.

Then present Answering Objections in Arguments .

6. Avoiding Logical Fallacies

An effective argument uses clear and logical thinking. Sometimes, though, students get so eager to fight for a point of view that they accidently (or intentionally) make misleading or illogical claims to prove their points. You can help students look for and avoid fuzzy thinking by introducing common logical fallacies in the following minilessons:

Closing Thoughts

These six strategies can help your students write stronger and more convincing argument papers. Also know that many of the skills you teach during your narrative and explanatory units will translate well to argument writing. Sometimes an argument needs a touch of description, a careful analysis, or even a poetic turn of phrase. Good writing is good writing.

Want more ideas for argument writing?

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Jan 6, 2018

The 5 Principles of Good Argument

In our daily lives, we’re constantly hearing or making persuasive arguments. We may be listening to a colleague’s argument for why we should support one of her initiatives. We may hear an argument for why we should buy a certain product. Or we may need to make our own argument to get approval for one of our projects.

How should we evaluate arguments that people make to persuade us? And how should we construct our own arguments to be the most effective?

T. Edward Damer shares an excellent framework for creating good arguments in his book Attacking Faulty Reasoning . Damer begins by explaining what an argument is. At its core, an argument consists of a conclusion and one or more premises, or claims. The conclusion is what the communicator wants his or her audience to accept, and the premises are the reasons for believing the conclusion to be true. According to Damer, here’s the formal definition of an argument:

“An argument is constituted by two or more explicit and/or implicit claims, one or more of which supports or provides evidence for the truth or merit of another claim, the conclusion.”

So how do you craft a good argument? Damer shares the five principles for developing a good argument:

Let’s look at each of these principles in more detail.

1. Structure

A good argument must meet the fundamental structural requirements of a well-formed argument.

“Such an argument does not use reasons that contradict each other, that contradict the conclusion, or that explicitly or implicitly assume the truth of the conclusion.”

To evaluate any argument for whether it violates the principle of Structure , ask the following questions:

2. Relevance

The reasons that a communicator provides as part of his or her argument must be relevant for the truth or merit of the conclusion. What makes a premise relevant?

“A premise is relevant if its acceptance provides some reason to believe, counts in favor of, or has some bearing on the truth or merit of the conclusion. A premise is irrelevant if its acceptance has no bearing on, provides no evidence for, or has no connection to the truth or merit of the conclusion.”

To assess whether an argument violates the principle of Relevance , ask these two questions:

3. Acceptability

The reasons that a communicator provides in his or her argument should be likely to be accepted by a mature, rational adult. As Damer writes, a premise should be acceptable to a mature, rational adult if it meets the following standards of premise acceptability :

By contrast, a premise should be rejected by a mature, rational adult if it meets the following conditions of premise unacceptability :

An argument meets the acceptability principle when each of its premises conforms to at least one of the standards of acceptability and none of its premises conforms to the conditions of unacceptability.

To assess whether an argument violates the principle of Acceptability , ask the following questions:

4. Sufficiency

A communicator making an argument should provide reasons that are sufficient to justify the acceptance of his or her conclusion.

“There must be a sufficient number of relevant and acceptable premises of the appropriate kind and weight in order for an argument to be good enough for us to accept its conclusion.”

This principle is one of the most difficult to apply, because it’s a judgment call. There are no black-and-white guidelines for what constitutes a “sufficient” number and weight of reasons to accept a conclusion. Often, it’s a disagreement about the weight or sufficiency of the premises in an argument that prevents two intelligent and well-meaning people from reaching the same conclusion based on the same available evidence.

To evaluate whether an argument violates the principle of Sufficiency, ask the following questions:

5. Rebuttal

A good argument includes an effective rebuttal to all anticipated serious criticisms of the argument.

“An argument cannot be a good one if it does not anticipate and effectively rebut or blunt the force of the most serious criticisms against it and the position that it supports… A good arguer should be constantly mindful of the fact that an argument is not finished until one has ‘finished off’ the criticisms and counterarguments.”

There are multiple ways that an argument can violate the Rebuttal principle. Arguers often use diversionary tactics instead of making effective rebuttals.

“For example, arguments that misrepresent the criticism, bring up trivial objections as a side issue, or resort to humor or ridicule are using devices that clearly fail to make effective responses. The same can be said of those arguments that ignore or deny the counterevidence against the position defended. Finally, some arguers try to avoid responding to a criticism by attacking the critic instead of the criticism.”

To assess whether an argument fails to meet the Rebuttal principle, ask the following questions: