Instructions: Our goal is to read efficiently, summarize in our own words, identify argument and evidence, and understand how course readings relate to one another and other materials. Write in complete sentences or paragraphs. Skim generously and aim for one hour/reading.
Instructions: Our goal is to read efficiently, summarize in our own words, identify argument and evidence, and understand how course readings relate to one another and other materials. Write in complete sentences or paragraphs. Skim generously and aim for one hour/reading.
1. Provide a full and correct bibliographic citation of the article that you read, using the Chicago Manual of Style format.
2. Identify and summarize the author’s thesis. You may quote the thesis statement if you
find a single sentence that sums it up, but you still need to summarize it in your own
words.
3. Summarize the arguments used by the author to support the thesis.
4. Discuss the most important primary sources used in the article. What are the primary sources used? What type of analysis did the author do of the primary sources? Did the author look closely at a small number of primary source evidence? Or did the author take examples from a wide range of sources? Something in between (explain)?
5. Discuss the secondary sources used by the author. Did the author include only sources that supported his/her argument? Or did the article also bring up secondary sources that he/she wanted to challenge or refute? Did the author try to resolve disagreements between secondary sources? How recent are the sources relative to the article’s publication date?
6. Write a short paragraph (5 or 6 sentences) indicating how valuable (or not) you think that the article is as a piece of scholarship. What did it change in your way of thinking about the past? What did it reinforce in your way of thinking?
IDENTIFYING AND ANALYZING ARGUMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Laurier Library’s presentation on “Identifying and Analyzing Arguments”
This presentation will explain the steps you should take to create strong and effective arguments from the academic sources you discover through your research.
By the end of this presentation, you should be able to understand the characteristics of an argument, identify those arguments that you find within an academic paper, and analyze those arguments.
Let’s begin!
IDENTIFYING ARGUMENTS
An argument, in the context of your university career, is a formal way to make a point in academic writing.
This remains distinct from the “real world” definition where an argument might mean a fight or a conflict.
An argument consists of two parts.
1. Firstly, a claim or statement that summarizes the main idea
2. and secondly, reasons why that claim is true, and/or evidence to support that claim.
Let’s look at an example.
Reflective writing can help students become better thinkers. It can help students see that ideas are meant to be discussed and debated. Bridges and Jost found that students who did weekly reflective journal writing about their course content for a semester could analyze course
concepts at a deeper level than those who didn’t (131).
In this case, the sentence “Reflective writing can help students become better thinkers” is the claim.
The claim is expanded upon in the next sentence, “It can help students see that ideas are meant to
be discussed and debated.”
Finally, evidence is presented, often in the form of a citation. Here, we read that “Bridges and Jost found that students who did weekly reflective journal writing about their course content for a semester could analyze course concepts at a deeper level than those who didn’t.”
This evidence supports the originally presented claim and its expansion.
This diagram displays a recommended argument structure which should be utilized in a universitylevel essay.
1. A main argument, or thesis, is presented first.
2. Then, different sections are formed with the purpose of supporting the main argument.
3. Within those sections, we find paragraphs which hold the purpose of supporting the sections that support the thesis.