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Argument Paper

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Your assignment: Read an article on one of the below topics, then write a 1500-2500 word analysis which takes each of the author's arguments paragraph by paragraph and analyzes them. You'll ultimately state which arguments agree or disagree with, and why.

We live in the information age. We're inundated by innumerable answers. Want to know who won the 1977 World Series or what was Brad Pitt’s first movie? The answer's a Google click away. However, some argue that a frightening side-effect of this information overload is that we think less deeply now than did previous generations.

Sure, we can answer immediately whether we support abortion or think marijuana should be legalized or whether teachers assign too much busywork, but those, some would say, are easy questions with easy answers.

This paper will give you a chance to explore a more complex question, and even more importantly, to resist our information-age urge to answer that question quickly.

Stop. Think.

Step one: look over the questions on this page, pick one that makes you stop and think. Each of these questions has an article written about it, which you can read by clicking on the images.

The first thing you’ll be doing in your paper is summarizing this writer’s article, and throughout your essay you’ll return to the writer’s ideas, considering and reconsidering his/her arguments, having a mini-conversation with the writer (this is a key component of academic essays, so get into the habit of academic conversation).

Another way of thinking about the content and structure of this paper (and future academic papers you write) is that you’re not really answering one question with a one-sentence thesis. Instead you’re analyzing a series of questions. For example: Is Google making us stupid? This might prompt you to examine things like: how do we define intelligence? Is the internet changing the way we read and thus the way we think? Did the advent of printed books make people stupider? And if Google is making us stupid, is that really bad?

Delve. Deep.

Step two: research the question on your own

  • Research blog postings by random people
  • Read scholarly interpretations in the online academic databases
  • Ask friends and family the question
  • Gather facts, figures and statistics that illuminate the subject

The final paper should attempt to answer the question, but that’s not really the point.

Instead, the goal is to explore the question from every possible angle, questioning and requestioning your assumptions and conclusions, as well as others’.