The Toulmin Model of Argument:
The path to writing better essays.
- Simply put, since the time you started learning about formal writing, you've been working off an exceptionally basic rhetorical model, especially when it comes to your thesis.
- By now you should know that a well thought thesis is essential to the success of an essay.
- Poor essays can usually trace their failures to an inadequate thesis.
Why This Matters?
- Becoming a better writer isn't just about "plugging in" the correct bit- its about truly understanding why the mechanisms of an essay work the way they do.
- You probably don't know what exactly makes a particular thesis sentence "good" or "bad" (How or why they work or don't work)
- The Toulmin Model of Argument is a more complicated process- the thesis becomes more elaborate than the basica theses you've become used to- but mastery of this approach will enable you to write far superior essays (consistently) as well as engage in highly productive rhetorical analyses of the arguments of others.
- It can do so because it is constructed in response to the reality of argument, it denies absolutes in favor of qualifiers (not just a yes or no answer).
Lets Agree,
- On the idea that all verbal communication is persuasive to the same degree.
- Therefore everything uttered is intended to get the listener to believe as the speaker believes.
- If that is true then everything verbal can be analyzed by a model of argumentation.
Kara Schroeder
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