Outline and Counterargument

Hey everyone. Welcome to just a notable one of my electric videos.

Hopefully you're enjoying this.

Whether you're watching this in the morning and the afternoon or in the evening.

Um, today I'm gonna be talking over arguments and counter arguments.

I'm gonna do a little bit of talk about outlining,

Which of course is a tricky one.

So this is based off of chapters 20 and 21 of the writers mindset.

Um, one point of detail,

So fun fact when I was going through and get ready to make this video,

I realized I made a uh, to power points over the course of the term at some point I was,

I made a power point and then I forgot it.

So I made another one,

this one and went ahead and was posted both of them for you to peruse.

I thought that the other one that goes over

the counter arguments maybe gives a little more detail.

Maybe gives a bit more

um,

closest to that could be helpful to maybe look back on while this

one maybe has that over our keep you too can be beneficial.

So anyway, make sure you check those out there, both posted for you in the modules.

So, um,

the outlines are gonna be focusing on the big thing here

simply as most of you know what an outline is.

I don't know how much of you actually use an outline.

So the benefit of an outline simply is to help with organization,

You are writing a paper that's longer than you are used to.

And so that means so like this is probably the longest paper you've written to date.

And so I wanted to kind of push the value of having an outline.

What it does is it helps you saves you time

because it gives you attraction point where to work with.

Now

there is a million and one ways to write

an outline and your book actually gives a really,

I think helpful way to make an organization.

What I will say is there's not really a

certain method you have to utilize.

I certainly just recommend that you do use 11 of my weaknesses as a

writer is I tend to be known for having too long of sentences,

too much worthiness and some ideas can be a little convoluted.

That's kind of one of my weaknesses as a writer and I get told that time and time again

and I learned that the reason why that was the

problem is because I wouldn't make an outline to follow.

Instead I would just vomit my ideas out and then go back and clean it up.

And while it is a strategy and certainly it has been successful,

it prevented me from making the best paper I could have made.

So one strategy for you simply to think about what are you trying

to accomplish and going through that and making sure you do that.

So I am really pushing for you to have

an outline. Now.

The first step you need to have for your outline is simply to have a working

thesis meaning you need to have three reasons

and a counterclaim within your thesis statement,

you already an argument paper that is going to be safe,

substantial and fairly meaty.

So you need to make sure that you understand your position on a topic

why you believe it and how are you prepared to defend it?

So, a sentence structure that works is as follows despite blank.

That's your counter reasoning

blank. That's the topic and the position because blank, that's your reason.

Okay, so you're going to establish that what some people disagree with you

but you've got your beliefs because of these reasons.

Okay, we are pushing to move away from having three listed reasons.

That is what's called a closed thesis statement that

tends to not work for papers of this length.

You're going to be doing what's called an open thesis status.

That basically means you need to have a written a um

your reason need to be established in a way that gives you

flexibility of what you're gonna talk about versus listing what exactly

you're going to be talking about in a closed thesis statement.

You would tell me the three examples you're going to work through an open thesis,

leaves it a bit a bit open.

So

you should not have your examples there.

It is typically seen as weak writing or weaker writing. So here's an example.

Do not do this. So this would be a bad example.

Don't do this despite some people arguing that raise the

minimum wage will lead to a better life doing so

will ultimately hurt workers because it will raise inflation and

the cost of jobs they were meant to help.

So that gives two examples of what this it gets the job done but it is weak writing.

So it's not gonna be as effective for as length

of a paper as you're trying to navigate here.

Instead do what I've written here despite its potential to bridge the wage gap,

raise.

The minimum wage ultimately fails in the real world because of

the complex and often unforeseeable repercussions

that such economic policy triggers.

This gives you leverage to explore multiple topics.

Again it's called an open thesis statement.

So look at what I did and try to emulate that for your paper versus doing

the other one which is maybe what you've been taught to lean upon and it's fine.

Like that's a strategy that I teach my high school students.

It's just that for a paper this link it's just not gonna work for you.

So what follows are some other examples that are posted. I tried to be balanced.

I try to approach it from a different ways some of these,

I wrote some things I looked up.

I try to really make sure you can hit different topics just

to see what are some ways that you can write your papers.

Okay so I'm gonna leave these here for you and

you're welcome to check this out on your own time.

Okay. But those are some examples of thesis statements

and. Kay

step two

good evidence, a good argument paper will balance the evidence,

striving to have multiple sources in a single paragraph.

That's going to keep

too often.

I see on these papers where I get one source, one paragraph that's not going to cut,

it's going to make two week of the paper is not going

to show your ability to synthesize material and to make new ideas.

Instead it tends to turn into students

just regurgitating what they found the evidence.

So weak writers rely too much on a single source or they fail to synthesize.

I'm looking for a minimum of two sources per paragraph. That should be your goal.

There sometimes spaces for three.

There are occasionally faces for one but the average needs to be to

be looking for an average of two

and that doesn't mean you have to use,

I'm sorry you can still use the strategy known for writing, body paragraphs.

That's not a hard and fast rule.

It is a great place to start if you're not

sure what you're doing where you have a topic,

sentence reason, commentary, commentary, sorry, topic sentence, evidence,

commentary, commentary, evidence, commentary, commentary,

conclusion statement.

That's still fine to do. That's just not the only way to do it.

But you'll notice that you should still should

still have two examples in per paragraph.

That needs to happen. So I need two sources for it.

One strategy you'll see is as you're moving through the

paper balancing also the types of evidence you have.

So that could be choosing that authoritative expert driven source which is key.

I do expect to see that and if I do

not see that you probably will not be successful newspaper.

What that means is you cannot rely on just journalists or newspapers.

They're not the experts. They can help but they're not the top.

You need to have the voice of someone who actually dedicate their lives to this work.

So that would be the academics, the researchers, the professionals,

the people who are doing this thing.

You need to talk to them.

You need to know they say this does mean that you have to use the B. C.

Website to find this information.

You're not going to be as successful by doing a basic google search.

That is simply the way that it is.

Now as I said before, you can have other kinds of sources right?

It is helpful to use a source from the new york times.

It is helpful to use a source of the atlantic. Those are fine.

It's helpful to use a um uh interview that

you heard from somebody or that a newspaper did.

It's helpful to find a documentary on Youtube.

Those are helpful but they're not going to be sufficient If that's all you have.

Your paper will suffer on its ethos and that will lead to a failing grade.

So as that's kind of what I said here right, having a good human face can help out.

One of the best college papers I read

was talking about legal immigration and the student.

They were talking about all these hard data points about illegal immigration.

And then at the end of each paragraph they would point us

to a specific story of somebody who was impacted by these policies.

And they used that to help build the pathos of a part of

a paper in order to help make sure that it worked sufficiently.

And it was a brilliant tactic and that was actually one of your students at B. C. H. S.

Who did that. So definitely keep an eye out for that.

Um, So all sources must be vetted for credibility.

What that means is that if your sources are not

credible then it will most likely hurt your grade.

Sorry.

It will most likely not only hurt your grade,

but it will also lead to a ineffective paper.

If it's so egregiously wrong, then it can lead to an automatic fail.

What I basically mean by that.

This is not a chance for you to look up conspiracy theories.

I'm not interested in conspiracy theories.

Not interested in fringe theories that's not beneficial.

Those are simply not vetted.

You need to have the information from a from a wide variety of sources,

people who are reasonably talking about this space.

So there are multiple voices you need to be looking for.

Okay, and two reasons people have to be able to talk about it. So

if one,

basically what I'm saying here is if one person says it and 99 are going against it,

I'm not interested in that one person's voice,

most likely it's not as authoritative as you might think it is.

Even if it confirms what you already believe about the subject,

um, the next thing, the best reasons.

So this goes back to something I said in a previous lecture,

you can't rely on the first source you find.

So, um, so that's number one, uh outside of that.

You also need to think about the best reasons and what order you put them in,

So you can't just lock them all together?

Think about really think strategically what ideas and when

do you let them know what's that gonna do?

So start, first of the reason that will best appeal to your audience,

whoever your audience is, that's going to shape it.

If you are trying to talk to more general audience,

you probably want pay those to be the first appeal to use.

If you're trying to talk to more professionals,

then maybe logos is more beneficial.

Right? So think about those kind of things.

Do you still have to establish your ethos that's gonna be done throughout the paper,

but which one do you value? More

logos or pathos? Which one you start with? That's going to depend on your audience.

So that's one strategy of the book provides.

Another strategy is simply to end with your strongest idea.

You are a brilliant person, you have brilliant ideas, your strongest point,

that should be your final main idea.

Okay,

now, um whenever it comes to evidence, I want your voice to be dominant.

Okay,

um your your voice is going to give a unique take to

information and I will start and it will offer new information.

Another way to think about this,

two thirds of your paper needs to be your voice use toolbox 20.1 in

chapter 20 for tips on how to use evidence and use the F A.

Q at the end of chapter 20 for tips on outlining. So check those things out

now on counter arguments, I'll be pretty brief.

The biggest strategy simply is that you need to

have a reason that somebody would disagree with you.

This typically is your final point of your essay.

There are other strategies you can play with,

but most writers are going to probably use the final

body paragraph as their way to incorporate that evidence.

So, a strategy is simply a right. So I'm gonna actually skip that part.

Um here you go.

You have to know your audience,

your audience will determine what kind of counter argument you need to use.

Is it a balanced audience, a hostile audience or a sympathetic audience?

Check the chart on page 455 for more details on what

kind of strategy you should use based on your audience type.

With that said,

I am not interested in reading a paper of a sympathetic audience, basically.

I don't want you writing an article paper to confirm people's own beliefs.

I want you to try to shift the conversation, shift people's beliefs.

So I'm looking for you to write to either a balanced or a hostile audience.

If you're running to a sympathetic audience for one,

the strategy is you don't need to counter argument and I'm

letting you know now you have to have a counter argument.

If you do not, it will be considered a failing essay. Just making that clear.

So, um, typically the best strategy is the final paragraph.

Some people if it's more hostile audience, they put it at the first paragraph.

And other strategies.

If you feel like there's multiple kind of arguments you want to address,

that could be a for a balanced argument or for

a hostel or balanced audience or a hostile audience.

I often see the first half of paragraph B

your claim the second half the the counterclaim.

And I've seen that strategy work as well.

Most of you, I'm I'm imagining will use the final paragraph as your counterclaim.

I just need evidence that you do use a counterclaim and that you have inside.

Now a reputation does not mean that you just say the other person is wrong.

You have to instead use language to

recognize you under understand their point and that

you are going to logically prove why your position is still the dominant position.

That doesn't mean that you say they're wrong. Maybe it is right. But

um typically you want to look for grounds that you can kind of work through.

So despite this good argument,

maybe there's a part that they're overlooking or

maybe you have evidence to refute their points.

Okay.

There's some strategies found on page 456 and 458

that can help you out with that process.

Um Like I said earlier or sorry,

Well one thing I should say sometimes people are just wrong in your paper.

That's probably not the case.

Most of your choosing topics that should be available by multiple people.

However, um seat ground and make an appeal. So that's gonna be your big thing. Okay.

Um, so here's a counter argument example is a fictional example.

I honestly just wanted to use it so you

can see what a counter argument paragraphs looked like.

But I honestly just made up the I made up the sources.

I made up the um I made I made of everything.

So, but at least you can see the concept of it. So. All right.

Um, I believe that wraps us up. So

that was a quick way of going through these things.

You definitely need to be thinking about your paper topic now.

I know it's not due for what seems like a long time. You need to start working on it now.

Okay? Let me know what you're doing. Let me know and shoot me an email.

What are you planning to write your paper on?

I'll make sure I can respond to you so I can make a list and keep track of that.

Thanks everyone. Have a good time by.

Outline and Counterargument

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