Advice about Argument Essays
(remember, your research paper is required to be an argument paper!)

Take a look at the argument papers in the Handbook, and look at the example paper from the webpage (the Hacker-Daly research paper). Like all essays and research papers, they all have Intro, Body, and Conclusion. The Body has 3 sections: Arguments; Counter-arguments; Refutations. On this page, I want to talk in more detail about each of these parts. Let’s start at the beginning.

Introduction
Here, you describe the problem that you have chosen as your topic. Is it “the effects of fast food on children’s behavior,” or is it “the working conditions in meatpacking plants?” Whichever of our 6 topics you chose, you will narrow the topic in the Intro. You will introduce it in a very general way. Imagine that you are describing the situation to someone from another country, or another planet – someone who does not really know what fast food is or what it does. But narrow the topic - you decide what aspect of the problem is interesting to you. You will describe what the problem is. Be simple and direct; this paragraph can be long.

Thesis
Your thesis is the main argument of your paper, and your thesis statement is the sentence(s) where you tell the reader the main purpose of your paper. For an Argument paper, your purpose is to tell the reader what you think we should do about the problem.
This is very important. Your thesis must tell the reader a good solution to the problem you describe. If you think you have a good solution but it will not work, do NOT use it as a thesis statement.

Examples of good thesis statements:
“We should require higher taxes on fast food, because if this unhealthy food becomes more expensive, people will not depend on it so often.”
“It’s already illegal to advertise beer during kid’s TV shows. Similarly, the government should pass a law against fast food advertising on children’s TV shows. That's because ads influence children even more than parents do these days.”
“Parents know that they should not feed their kids fast food so often, but since they are also addicted, they cannot change their habits. Therefore, we should have new food standards that require all food to have below a certain level of fat, salt, and additives.”
“Infected hamburger already makes thousands of people sick every year. The inspections that we have now don’t work well enough. We need to punish the slaughterhouses that spread disease with high fines.”
“Slaughterhouse work is dangerous for the workers and the customers that eat the meat. We should pass a new law requiring all meat-packing workers get to be citizens. That way, they will all have legal rights, and they will demand safer working conditions.”
“Fast food restaurant workers are often cheated and overworked. This is partly because many of them are teenagers who don’t know their rights. We need a new workplace safety law requiring all restaurant worker to be 21 or older.”
“Fast food is, like Eric Schlosser says, ‘indistinguishable from the culture of … children’ (73). We should change that culture and give power back to parents. One way to do that: we should pass a law banning toy and movie companies from working together with fast-food companies.”

Arguments
The Argument section is the longest. In a research paper, which often has 10 or so paragraphs, it has about 5 paragraphs – that is, 5 different paragraphs. A long argument may take several paragraphs.
Most facts (researched facts) are in the Arguments.
There are basically 2 kinds of arguments.
First, there are ones that say, “This is why we need my solution.” These arguments describe the problem in more detail, usually giving the causes of the problem.
Then, there are the ones that say, “This is why my solution is so good.”
Use as many of each kind as you like.

Counter-Arguments
The transition is VERY, VERY important here! You need to begin this section with a sentence like “But not everyone agrees,” “”The fast-food companies will disagree,” or “Some people, of course, have a different opinion.”
You can have one or more counter-arguments. The only important thing is to have exactly the same number of refutations.
There are 2 kinds of counter-argument. The first says “Some people think there really is no problem,” and the second says “Some people think my solution won’t work.”

Refutation (Rebuttal)
Every counter-argument needs a refutation that answers it EXACTLY.
You may repeat ideas from the Argument section. No need to be original here, just answer the people who disagree with you!

Conclusion
This is a good place to just discuss your opinion, without giving new facts. You may give your opinion about other solutions that you think are even better but may not work (like “Parents should control their children and stop their addiction, but we can see that American parents will not do that easily” or “If all Americans became vegetarians, this problem of infected meat would simply go away.”)

Works Cited Page
Don’t wait for the last minute to work on this! It’s an important part of the paper from the very beginning, and you will have to proof-read it many, many times. Use the Tutoring Center to help, use the Internet, and especially use the ENNL Handbook.