Writing Argumentative Essays

Book excerpt: This brief rhetoric helps students develop strategies for critical reading, critical thinking, research, and writing that will help them argue clearly and convincingly. It teaches them to identify and develop arguments, to read and form reactions and opinions of their own, to analyze an audience, to seek common ground, and to use a wide, realistic range of techniques to write argument papers that express their individual views and original perspectives on modern issues. It includes clear explanations and examples of argument theory and reading and writing processes, research and documentation skills, and offers engaging, class-tested writing assignments and activities. 49 Essays for Analysis cover several broad issue and sub-issue areas, all of contemporary concern. Unique chapters discuss student argument styles, Rogerian argument, and argument and literature.