Documenting United States History

putting it all together 229

Putting it All togEthEr

Revisiting the Main Point

•   

Analyze the connection between westward expansion, economics, and

regional interests in the first half of the nineteenth century.

•   

What political debates were inspired by westward expansion? To what extent

were these political debates based on moral considerations?

•   

How did environmental factors shape American expansionism?

Organizing and Outlining a Reason-Based

Historical Argument

In examining ways to support a historical argument, previous chapters have fo-

cused on the following areas:

•   

Patterns in evidence

•   

Synthesizing written and visual text—knowing what and when to quote

In addition, you should think about different ways of organizing and present-

ing your points and evidence. A solid organizational structure is an important

foundation for making sound historical arguments.

One effective way to organize your evidence is to arrange it in a way that

reflects the reasoning behind your position. Typically, you will rely on one of two

types of reasoning:

Inductive reasoning is the process of making claims or arguments that are

based on generalizations about specific facts, examples, and other evidence.

When you use inductive reasoning, you don’t necessarily provide absolute

proof for your argument, but you do present strong evidence for it.

Deductive reasoning is a process of logically linking specific premises with

conclusions.

When you organize your argument around an inductive approach, you work

from the “top down,” beginning with a specific event, observation, or example

and then expanding into a general statement that represents a wider context. For

example, consider the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), which determined the

northwestern border with Canada but left unresolved the issues that related to the

occupation of the Oregon Territory. An inductive approach to examining west-

ward expansion would begin with an analysis of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty

buil Ding AP®

writing sKills

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