4.10 Responding with further argument 191
Responding with further
argument
4.10
Evaluating an argument means deciding
whether or not the claims made in it are
acceptable, and whether or not they support
the conclusion. Further argument goes a bit
further: it is your opportunity to put some of
your own ideas on the table, either supporting
or challenging the author’s conclusions.
It has to be said straight away that further
argument is not any argument: it must relate
directly to the text you are working on. It is
not a chance just to set off on some line of
your own that happens to be on a related topic.
You would get no credit in an exam if you
read the article ‘Time to get tough’ – which
featured in the last two units – and then
wrote about prison reform, or the abolition or
reintroduction of the death penalty. There
may be issues that connect these topics to the
argument about profiting from crime, but
they are not central issues. Your further
argument must be for or against the
conclusion. Otherwise it is just a digression.
Evaluation often leads very naturally into
further argument, and it is sometimes difficult
to say where one ends and the other begins. For
example, here is part of a student’s response to
the third paragraph of ‘Time to get tough’:
[1] The author says that notorious gangsters
don’t need any talent to attract an
audience, and that their reputations are
enough. This may be true, but it doesn’t
mean that notorious gangsters don’t ever
have some talent. They may be very
talented. People often think of a gangster
being a stupid person, who just uses
violence to get their way, but there are
gangsters who have got where they are bytheir intelligence. It takes brains and
imagination to plan a big crime and get
away with it. It takes brains to be a
television presenter. So you can’t say
that because someone has been a
criminal they haven’t got the ability to be
a celebrity. I read a book by a reformed
drug addict who had stolen to buy drugs,
and it was brilliant, as good as any other
writer could do. It wouldn’t have been
published and sold in the bookshops if
he was stupid and couldn’t write.
Therefore this statement by the author is
misleading.
Is this extract from the student’s essay
evaluation or further argument, or both?
Plainly it is both. It is a critical evaluation
because it exposes a weakness, a questionable
assumption, in the author’s reasoning.
However, it does much more than just say
there is a weakness. It highlights it by bringing
in fresh claims and counter-examples that
challenge the author’s assumption that a
person cannot be a criminal and be talented.
The student uses her own reasons for
concluding that the author’s claim is
misleading. She even draws on her own
(reading) experience to illustrate the point she
is making. This clearly marks it as further
argument and not just evaluation.
Of course it is not a decisive further
argument. It doesn’t completely undermine
the author’s case: it merely kicks away one of
the supporting planks. To this extent we can
say it damages the argument rather than
destroys it: it seriously weakens it, but not
fatally.