Warm up question:
What are the different types of thesis statements that you have written for your assignments and papers. Knowing the purpose of thesis statements, how would you categorize them? How would you compare types and styles of thesis statements cross-culturally and across different disciplines? Discuss in your group for 5 minutes.
What are the different types of thesis statements that you have written for your assignments and papers. Knowing the purpose of thesis statements, how would you categorize them? How would you compare types and styles of thesis statements cross-culturally and across different disciplines? Discuss in your group for 5 minutes.
Debatable vs. non-debatable thesis statements
An argumentative essay is built around a specific statement (or main premise) that is debatable within the field in which you are studying. In other words, at the center of an argumentative essay is a statement with which your readers may disagree. Your essay will need to support that statement in a manner that convinces your readers of its truth.
Debatable: a statement with which other people might or might not agree.
Non-debatable: a statement with which no-one would normally disagree or argue.
Types of Evidence
The goal of an argumentative essay is to persuade readers by providing evidence to justify reasons supporting your thesis. To strongly support each reason, writers should use different types of evidence containing specific, verifiable details. Here are five common examples of evidence:
I. An anecdote relates a brief story; it explains what happened, who was involved, and where and when it happened.
II. Statistics support a reason by using specific numerical data such as percentages, fractions, decimals, whole numbers, and/or ratios. The writer must report statistics accurately and objectively.
III. An authority or expert is a person or an organization with credentials, such as educational degrees, publication credits, work experience, professional presentations, etc., that demonstrate his or her expertise on the topic discussed.
IV. An analogy is a comparison between two distinctly different things that still have at least one significant, relevant similarity.
V. A hypothetical situation is a believable but fictional incident with enough detail to feel real. A writer using a hypothetical situation should create details that tell what happened, to whom it happened, and where and when it happened. However, hypothetical situations are considerably weaker evidence than the other methods because they’re not factual.
