Writing counterarguments and concession | English homework help
Overview:
You have been reading about using counterarguments, concessions, and qualifiers as rhetorical tools to “account for positions outside of, or opposed to, their own claims” (258).
Chapter 17 in the CEL offers some helpful strategies for structuring counterarguments in your writing. Read the section on “Counterarguing” in CEL Ch. 17 (p. 524-526) as you prepare to practice making counterarguments for the issue that you have chosen to write about.
Assignment:
Write several short paragraphs explaining how you can use counterarguing to organize your writing for the Unit 3 assignment.
Use the questions below to discover what other perspectives you might want to address through counterargument (adapted from CEL Ch. 12, p. 386):
- Who might not agree with my perspective on the issue I have chosen? Who defines the issue differently or imagines a different solution?
- Why might my approach to the solution be misunderstood? What aspects of my approach are ineffectual, idealistic, or impractical?
- What other insights do people already have into the issue I have chosen? Why are those insights popular or visible?
- Why ultimately is my approach to the issue I have chosen worth pursuing?
You might choose to begin with
- Opposing Point A
- Your Counterargument
- Opposing Point B
- Your counterargument.
Or you might instead organize your ideas as
- Opposing Point A
- Opposing Point B
- Your counterargument to A
- Your counterargument to B
Submit all of your work to this assignment as your response. You do not have to answer each of these questions word for word in a separate paragraph, but your response overall should show that you are considering all of the questions above.
