nothing but the truth argumentative essay

Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But the Truth

Resources & Preparation
Instructional Plan
Related Resources

After reading the novel Nothing But the Truth , students discuss the protagonist Phillip and his right to free speech as well as their own rights. Students examine various Websites to research First Amendment rights, especially as they relate to the situation in the novel. After their research, students compose a position statement regarding their opinion of whether Philip's rights were violated then work with small groups to strengthen their statements and supporting evidence. Groups present position statement and supporting evidence to the whole class and debate Philip's civil rights as a culminating activity.

Featured Resources

Persuasion Map : Use this online tool to map out and print your persuasive argument. Included are spaces to map out your thesis, three reasons, and supporting details.

From Theory to Practice

In "Writing to Think Critically: The Seed of Social Action", Randy Bomer states that "one of the goals many writing teachers share is that of enabling students, usually rendered voiceless in the world at large, to speak for social change in their writing" (2). Bomer declares that "we want students to view their writing as more than exercises for learning to write, as more than obedience to teacher instruction, but rather as a unique form of social action" (2). Students begin to see writing as more than a teacher-directed exercise when they can see how their writing relates to their lives and the world around them. It is useful to use an interdisciplinary approach that blends two or more disciplines together, as social justice cannot be achieved through writing alone. Rather, a writer must understand the social, historic, and scientific background of an issue. One such issue that is addressed in this lesson, is students' freedom of verbal expression-what speech is protected by the First Amendment? How is the nature of a particular expression determined? Who has the final authority in issues of free speech? Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

Copies of Avi’s Nothing But the Truth

Position Statements handout
Expression Rights of Students (handout on Supreme Court cases regarding free speech in schools)
Nothing But the Truth Presentation Rubric

Preparation

Students should have read the novel Nothing But the Truth .
Decide when students will write their response to the first writing prompt. In this lesson, students write the response after reading the book; however, the prompt can be used as an anticipatory activity, before reading the novel.
Make copies or an overhead of the Position Statements handout and the Nothing But the Truth Presentation Rubric .
Familiarize yourself with the Expression Rights of Students cases regarding free speech in public schools.
Check the First Amendment Websites to ensure that all are appropriate for us in your class. If desired, make an overhead or copies of the links so that students can continue their research outside of class.
Decide how much time to allot for each group’s presentation. If groups keep their presentations in the 5-7 minute time limit, all the presentations can be given in one day.
Decide when to give presentations, ideally a week after their work with the Persuasion Map . Ideally, build at least one additional work day into the schedule to provide enough time for students to plan and practice their work. Work time in class is especially important to ensure that students can assemble easily without having to arrange for special meetings outside of school hours. You may also make arrangements for students to work in your classroom or the library is they before school starts, during lunch, and after school.
Test the Persuasion Map on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

Student Objectives

Students will

analyze the theme of a novel using both personal opinion and factual information.
engage with the novel by making personal connections to its themes.
use the Internet for research.
use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information in support of an opinion.
compose a position statement.
synthesize their position statements with those of two to four other students.
present, explain, and defend their position statements.

Session One

In their journals or loose leaf, have students respond to the following prompt as they enter the room, “Using your own experience and the events in Nothing But the Truth , list the rights you feel you should, but do not have, as a young adult.”
Divide students into small groups and give each group a piece of chart paper and some markers. Alternatively, students can gather their responses on overhead transparencies.
Ask groups to discuss their responses to the prompt, compiling a list of their rights or rights they think they should have on the chart paper. Give students about five minutes for this work.
Bring the class together and ask representatives from each group can share their lists, either posting their list on the wall or sharing it with an overhead projector.
Using the lists generated as a class, ask students to write for a few minutes about which of the rights they listed are violated in Philip’s situation.
After allowing students to gather their ideas, ask students to discuss Philip’s situation and their opinion of his rights (about 20 minutes or so).

Philip: “It’s a free country.” Dr. Palleni: “Nothing is free.” (74-5) Dr. Palleni: “If a student creates a disturbance in a classroom, that’s breaking a rule. An important rule. Students cannot break—cannot make a disturbance in a classroom.” (83) Mrs. Narwin: “He’s a student. I’m a teacher. Hands aren’t meant to be even.” (177)

Session Two

Explain that during this session you will look for reference material and research material relating to the issues of free speech raised in Nothing But the Truth .
Begin the session with basic information about free speech, pointing first to the Bill of Rights and then to the information from the handout on Supreme Court cases regarding free speech in schools .
Point students to the First Amendment Websites . If you want to allow students to continue research outside of class, provide them a copy of the Web page or ask them to copy the addresses into their notebooks.
Ask students to use the First Amendment Websites to find as much information as they can about rights for young adults, focusing on free speech rights related to schools. Depending on your students’ Internet capabilities, you may want to narrow the search further.
Ask students should keep track of the important points found in their research, such as Supreme Court cases, examples from schools throughout the country, public opinion, and so forth.
If desired, explain that students can cut and paste relevant information from Web pages to a Word document, explaining why the information is important using a different font color, making sure that they cite their sources.
Have a 10 to 20 minute discussion of the information that students find. A suggestion would be for each student to read one section of his/her notes with both the Internet information and his/her evaluation of its importance.

Session Three

Have students respond in writing to the following prompt, “Explain whether or not you feel Phillip’s free speech rights were violated.”
After allowing students to gather their ideas in writing, ask them to discuss their answers as a class or in small groups. Encourage students to engage specifically in issues that expose different opinions. Ask students to point to evidence from the novel or from their research that supports their beliefs.
After students have had time to share their views, introduce position statements, using the Position Statements handout.
Answer any questions that students have about how to write position statements. If students need additional examples, work through the process of composing position statements on another topic, such as funding for after-school activities or the use of standardized testing.
Once you're satisfied that students understand the task, ask students to create a position statement that related to Phillip’s free speech rights (or another topic) in the novel. Students’ goal during this session is to gather ideas informally. Explain that they will work on creating a more polished statement with support during the next session.
As students work in their groups, circulate and monitor student progress, encouraging them to brainstorm reasons for their position. Let them know a few minutes before the work period will conclude so that they have time to wrap up their thoughts.
If desired, students can continue their work as homework. By the beginning of the next class session, students should gathered the reasons supporting their position—using their research, passages from the novel, and their personal opinion.

Session Four

Introduce the Persuasion Map Student Interactive to your students, demonstrating how to use the tool. To provide a full example, work through the interactive using one of the example topics from the previous session (e.g., a position on school uniforms).
Answer any questions about using the Persuasion Map , then ask students to enter their information in order to construct a position statement and a map of the related support. Ask students to complete their maps as they finish.
As students finish and printout their work, arrange them in groups based on their position, placing all the students with the same position together. Ask groups to combine their statements and support to create the strongest argument possible. Groups will refine their statement and support as more students finish and join the group.
Once all students have finished with the Persuasion Map and joined a group, explain that groups will present their position statements and support orally during the next class session.
Go over the Presentation Rubric , indicating the amount of time each student needs to speak.
Allow students the remainder of the class session to work on their presentations.

Additional Work Time (optional)

If possible, allow students additional time to work on their group presentations in class. At the beginning of work sessions, remind students of the assignment and the requirements of the Presentation Rubric .
As students work in their groups, circulate and monitor student progress.
If students need additional support for their positions, encourage them to return to the resources used in Session Two.
Let them know a few minutes before the work period will conclude so that they have time to wrap up their thoughts.

Session Five: Discussing Phillip's Rights

Before the presentations begin, ask students to keep notes on the presentations, consisting of the group’s position, their reasons, and the student’s opinion of the argument. Ask students to use their notes to record any questions they have for the group at then end of the presentation.
Rotate through the groups, allowing each group the allotted time to present.
When all the groups have presented, ask students to debate whether Phillip’s rights were violated.
If possible, arrange the desks in a circle for debate, asking students to sit by people with the same viewpoint.
To manage the class discussion, students can pass a sponge ball to someone on the opposite side, with a hand raised, for a response. The responding speaker should acknowledge the main point of the previous speaker, offer an opinion on the point (not the person), and add something original.
Explain what surprised you the most from your research abut students’ rights.
Explain how your research affected your opinion of Phillip’s situation.
How have you been affected by rights you do or do not have as a student?
In what ways are your experiences similar to Philip’s?
How has Philip’s situation and your research shaped your view of fighting for your rights?
Use the students’ printout from the Persuasion Map as a graphic organizer for a persuasive essay on the novel.
Tie the rights discussed in this lesson to another novel, such as Summer of My German Soldier, Farewell to Manzanar, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Bat 6 , or Speak .

Student Assessment / Reflections

As students discuss free speech and the situation in Nothing But the Truth , listen for comments that indicate students are identifying specific evidence from the story that connects to the information they have researched. The connections that they make between the details in the novel and the details they choose as their supporting reasons for their position will reveal their understanding and engagement with the novel.
Monitor student interaction and progress during group work to assess social skills and assist any students having problems with the project.
Use the Presentation Rubric to assess group presentations.
Respond to the content and quality of students’ thoughts in their final reflections on the project. Look for indications that the student provides supporting evidence for the reflections, thus applying the lessons learned from the work with the Persuasion Map and position statements.
Calendar Activities
Lesson Plans
Student Interactives

Students will identify how Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of nonviolent conflict-resolution is reinterpreted in modern texts. Homework is differentiated to prompt discussion on how nonviolence is portrayed through characterization and conflict. Students will be formally assessed on a thesis essay that addresses the Six Kingian Principles of Nonviolence.

The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Novel — Examining “Nothing but the Truth”

Examining "Nothing But The Truth"

Categories: Novel Truth

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Words: 667 |

Published: Sep 12, 2023

Words: 667 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

The story of "nothing but the truth", the characters and their perspectives, themes and implications, relevance in contemporary society, philip malloy:, miss margaret narwin:, dr. joseph palleni:, journalists and media:, freedom of speech:, consequences of actions:, media influence:, patriotism and symbolism:, media and controversy:, patriotism and symbols:.

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Nothing But The Truth Essay

In Avi’s book, Nothing But the Truth, Brutus says,”No Cassius; for the eye sees not itself/But by reflection, by some other things.” I think that what this quote means is that a person cannot see how they act unless someone else either acts in the same way or describes it to them.

A teacher cannot understand how his or her students see them, but the students can. It is impossible to know what is going on in somebody else’s mind. This book talks a lot about perspective and how important it is to think about things from other people’s points of view.

This book is also about a teacher who gets fired for telling the truth. He was trying to do the right thing, but he got caught up in a lie. The whole book is about him trying to figure out what happened and why he got fired. It’s a really good book, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about perspective and thinking from other people’s points of view.

This quote is resonating with me because the main character, Philip Malloy, cannot see himself clearly. In that way, I am like Philip Malloy. I have no perception of whether my actions have positive or negatives effects and always assume that I am right. If something goes wrong, it’s always somebody else’s fault in my eyes. For example, in the story Philip blames his Language Arts teacher for not teaching well and being uptight instead of looking at ways he could improve too.

This is very similar to how I often act. If something does not go my way, instead of looking at myself, I tend to blame the people or environment around me. Just like Philip, who gets suspended from school because he hums during class, I often do not think about how my actions will effect those around me. In the end, both Philip and I need to learn to take responsibility for our own actions and words instead of placing the blame on others.

Nothing But the Truth is a novel by Avi that follows the story of Philip Malloy, a high school student who gets suspended for humming during class. The novel addresses the issue of truth and its importance in our lives. It also explores the idea of perception and how our own biases can distort the way we see the world.

The novel is set in the town of Harrison, Maine, and follows Philip Malloy as he attends high school and interacts with his classmates and teachers. Throughout the novel, Philip struggles to tell the truth and often finds himself in trouble because of it. He also has difficulty seeing things from other people’s perspective and often gets into arguments with his classmates and teachers.

One of the themes of the novel is the importance of truth. The novel shows how lying can lead to problems and how telling the truth can help to resolve them. It also explores how our perception of events can be distorted by our own biases and how this can lead to misunderstanding and conflict.

He claims that she is the only reason that he does not have a passing grade in class and cannot be on the track team, but I think Philip may not be considering how he could also part of the problem. If onlyPhilip tried harder , Miss Narwin’s Language Art’s class, maybe he would able to pass.

I was a little hesitant to agree with Philip’s mom at first. It seemed unfair to put all the blame on Miss Narwin. However, after giving it some more thought, I realized that she may be right. Philip has been having a lot of trouble in school lately and it seems like he is not doing anything to try to improve his grades.

I think that if Philip would just sit down and talk to Miss Narwin, he might be able to get her to help him improve his grades. Maybe she could give him some extra credit assignments or something. I know that it would be a lot of work, but it would be worth it if it meant that Philip could finally get his passing grade in Language Arts.

It’s important for Philip to realize that he is not the only one who is struggling in Miss Narwin’s class. There are other students who are having a hard time too. Maybe if he talked to some of them, he would feel better about his situation.

At the end of the day, it’s up to Philip to decide whether or not he wants to try to improve his grades in Miss Narwin’s class. I think that if he puts in the effort, he will be able to succeed.

Miss Narwin has been teaching for many years and follows traditional methods. She believes that her method is no longer relevant and wants to attend a workshop on modern approaches. When she request this opportunity from her school, she is turned down and becomes disgruntled. I think MissNarwin’s sudden interest in taking theworkshop stems from wanting to keep up with Philip.

After all, he is her best student and she might be worried that he isn’t learning anything from her. Personally, I think that Miss Narwin is a great teacher. She’s always challenging us to think about the books we read in new and different ways. For example, when we were reading The Scarlet Letter, she had us imagine what life would be like if we lived in Puritan times. It was a really interesting exercise and it made me appreciate the book a lot more.

But I also think that Philip is right – Miss Narwin could benefit from attending a workshop on new teaching methods. Maybe she could learn some new techniques that would help her connect with her students even more. Either way, I’m sure that Miss Narwin will continue to be an excellent teacher, no matter what.

Miss Narcin sees Philip as a intelligent student that just needs some help to find his way of excelling. What Philip believes is Miss Narwin being mean is actually her trying to get him improve for the better. I do not always see things from her perspective, but I understand and value her intentions.

Miss Narwin is my teacher and she always wants us to succeed. She knows that we have the potential to do great things and she does everything she can to help us reach our goals. Sometimes I don’t see things clearly, but I always appreciate her efforts. Thank you, Miss Narwin, for everything you’ve done for me.

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9.3: The Argumentative Essay

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Learning Objectives

Examine types of argumentative essays

Argumentative Essays

You may have heard it said that all writing is an argument of some kind. Even if you’re writing an informative essay, you still have the job of trying to convince your audience that the information is important. However, there are times you’ll be asked to write an essay that is specifically an argumentative piece.

An argumentative essay is one that makes a clear assertion or argument about some topic or issue. When you’re writing an argumentative essay, it’s important to remember that an academic argument is quite different from a regular, emotional argument. Note that sometimes students forget the academic aspect of an argumentative essay and write essays that are much too emotional for an academic audience. It’s important for you to choose a topic you feel passionately about (if you’re allowed to pick your topic), but you have to be sure you aren’t too emotionally attached to a topic. In an academic argument, you’ll have a lot more constraints you have to consider, and you’ll focus much more on logic and reasoning than emotions.

A cartoon person with a heart in one hand and a brain in the other.

Argumentative essays are quite common in academic writing and are often an important part of writing in all disciplines. You may be asked to take a stand on a social issue in your introduction to writing course, but you could also be asked to take a stand on an issue related to health care in your nursing courses or make a case for solving a local environmental problem in your biology class. And, since argument is such a common essay assignment, it’s important to be aware of some basic elements of a good argumentative essay.

When your professor asks you to write an argumentative essay, you’ll often be given something specific to write about. For example, you may be asked to take a stand on an issue you have been discussing in class. Perhaps, in your education class, you would be asked to write about standardized testing in public schools. Or, in your literature class, you might be asked to argue the effects of protest literature on public policy in the United States.

However, there are times when you’ll be given a choice of topics. You might even be asked to write an argumentative essay on any topic related to your field of study or a topic you feel that is important personally.

Whatever the case, having some knowledge of some basic argumentative techniques or strategies will be helpful as you write. Below are some common types of arguments.

Causal Arguments

In this type of argument, you argue that something has caused something else. For example, you might explore the causes of the decline of large mammals in the world’s ocean and make a case for your cause.

Evaluation Arguments

In this type of argument, you make an argumentative evaluation of something as “good” or “bad,” but you need to establish the criteria for “good” or “bad.” For example, you might evaluate a children’s book for your education class, but you would need to establish clear criteria for your evaluation for your audience.

Proposal Arguments

In this type of argument, you must propose a solution to a problem. First, you must establish a clear problem and then propose a specific solution to that problem. For example, you might argue for a proposal that would increase retention rates at your college.

Narrative Arguments

In this type of argument, you make your case by telling a story with a clear point related to your argument. For example, you might write a narrative about your experiences with standardized testing in order to make a case for reform.

Rebuttal Arguments

In a rebuttal argument, you build your case around refuting an idea or ideas that have come before. In other words, your starting point is to challenge the ideas of the past.

Definition Arguments

In this type of argument, you use a definition as the starting point for making your case. For example, in a definition argument, you might argue that NCAA basketball players should be defined as professional players and, therefore, should be paid.

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/20277

Essay Examples

Click here to read an argumentative essay on the consequences of fast fashion . Read it and look at the comments to recognize strategies and techniques the author uses to convey her ideas.
In this example, you’ll see a sample argumentative paper from a psychology class submitted in APA format. Key parts of the argumentative structure have been noted for you in the sample.

Link to Learning

For more examples of types of argumentative essays, visit the Argumentative Purposes section of the Excelsior OWL .

Contributors and Attributions

Argumentative Essay. Provided by : Excelsior OWL. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/rhetorical-styles/argumentative-essay/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
Image of a man with a heart and a brain. Authored by : Mohamed Hassan. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : pixabay.com/illustrations/decision-brain-heart-mind-4083469/. License : Other . License Terms : pixabay.com/service/terms/#license

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Knowledge Base
How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

Make a claim
Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
Cite data to support your claim
Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
Highlight the problems with this position
Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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Nothing But The Truth

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Nothing but the Truth Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

Nothing but the Truth by Avi and Edward Irving Wortis

Essay Topic 1

Shame and propriety are common themes throughout this book. What are some of the instances where these themes are present, and why are they so important to the characters involved?

Essay Topic 2

What are some of the key examples of gratitude in this book, and how do these instances affect that characters involved in those scenes?

Essay Topic 3

Miss Narwin endures many different trials before the end of the book. What are some of these trials and what lessons does she learn through these experiences?

Essay Topic 4

Allison was a minor character whose presence made a big difference in the plot. How did she accomplish this? What are some ways that her presence- however brief, altered the outcome of the plot? What would have happened differently if she had not been in the book at all?

Essay Topic 5

Many different characters in this book were persuaded...

(read more Essay Topics)

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to write an a+ argumentative essay.

Miscellaneous

You'll no doubt have to write a number of argumentative essays in both high school and college, but what, exactly, is an argumentative essay and how do you write the best one possible? Let's take a look.

A great argumentative essay always combines the same basic elements: approaching an argument from a rational perspective, researching sources, supporting your claims using facts rather than opinion, and articulating your reasoning into the most cogent and reasoned points. Argumentative essays are great building blocks for all sorts of research and rhetoric, so your teachers will expect you to master the technique before long.

But if this sounds daunting, never fear! We'll show how an argumentative essay differs from other kinds of papers, how to research and write them, how to pick an argumentative essay topic, and where to find example essays. So let's get started.

What Is an Argumentative Essay? How Is it Different from Other Kinds of Essays?

There are two basic requirements for any and all essays: to state a claim (a thesis statement) and to support that claim with evidence.

Though every essay is founded on these two ideas, there are several different types of essays, differentiated by the style of the writing, how the writer presents the thesis, and the types of evidence used to support the thesis statement.

Essays can be roughly divided into four different types:

#1: Argumentative #2: Persuasive #3: Expository #4: Analytical

So let's look at each type and what the differences are between them before we focus the rest of our time to argumentative essays.

Argumentative Essay

Argumentative essays are what this article is all about, so let's talk about them first.

An argumentative essay attempts to convince a reader to agree with a particular argument (the writer's thesis statement). The writer takes a firm stand one way or another on a topic and then uses hard evidence to support that stance.

An argumentative essay seeks to prove to the reader that one argument —the writer's argument— is the factually and logically correct one. This means that an argumentative essay must use only evidence-based support to back up a claim , rather than emotional or philosophical reasoning (which is often allowed in other types of essays). Thus, an argumentative essay has a burden of substantiated proof and sources , whereas some other types of essays (namely persuasive essays) do not.

You can write an argumentative essay on any topic, so long as there's room for argument. Generally, you can use the same topics for both a persuasive essay or an argumentative one, so long as you support the argumentative essay with hard evidence.

Example topics of an argumentative essay:

"Should farmers be allowed to shoot wolves if those wolves injure or kill farm animals?"
"Should the drinking age be lowered in the United States?"
"Are alternatives to democracy effective and/or feasible to implement?"

The next three types of essays are not argumentative essays, but you may have written them in school. We're going to cover them so you know what not to do for your argumentative essay.

Persuasive Essay

Persuasive essays are similar to argumentative essays, so it can be easy to get them confused. But knowing what makes an argumentative essay different than a persuasive essay can often mean the difference between an excellent grade and an average one.

Persuasive essays seek to persuade a reader to agree with the point of view of the writer, whether that point of view is based on factual evidence or not. The writer has much more flexibility in the evidence they can use, with the ability to use moral, cultural, or opinion-based reasoning as well as factual reasoning to persuade the reader to agree the writer's side of a given issue.

Instead of being forced to use "pure" reason as one would in an argumentative essay, the writer of a persuasive essay can manipulate or appeal to the reader's emotions. So long as the writer attempts to steer the readers into agreeing with the thesis statement, the writer doesn't necessarily need hard evidence in favor of the argument.

Often, you can use the same topics for both a persuasive essay or an argumentative one—the difference is all in the approach and the evidence you present.

Example topics of a persuasive essay:

"Should children be responsible for their parents' debts?"
"Should cheating on a test be automatic grounds for expulsion?"
"How much should sports leagues be held accountable for player injuries and the long-term consequences of those injuries?"

Expository Essay

An expository essay is typically a short essay in which the writer explains an idea, issue, or theme , or discusses the history of a person, place, or idea.

This is typically a fact-forward essay with little argument or opinion one way or the other.

Example topics of an expository essay:

"The History of the Philadelphia Liberty Bell"
"The Reasons I Always Wanted to be a Doctor"
"The Meaning Behind the Colloquialism ‘People in Glass Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones'"

Analytical Essay

An analytical essay seeks to delve into the deeper meaning of a text or work of art, or unpack a complicated idea . These kinds of essays closely interpret a source and look into its meaning by analyzing it at both a macro and micro level.

This type of analysis can be augmented by historical context or other expert or widely-regarded opinions on the subject, but is mainly supported directly through the original source (the piece or art or text being analyzed) .

Example topics of an analytical essay:

"Victory Gin in Place of Water: The Symbolism Behind Gin as the Only Potable Substance in George Orwell's 1984"
"Amarna Period Art: The Meaning Behind the Shift from Rigid to Fluid Poses"
"Adultery During WWII, as Told Through a Series of Letters to and from Soldiers"

There are many different types of essay and, over time, you'll be able to master them all.

A Typical Argumentative Essay Assignment

The average argumentative essay is between three to five pages, and will require at least three or four separate sources with which to back your claims . As for the essay topic , you'll most often be asked to write an argumentative essay in an English class on a "general" topic of your choice, ranging the gamut from science, to history, to literature.

But while the topics of an argumentative essay can span several different fields, the structure of an argumentative essay is always the same: you must support a claim—a claim that can reasonably have multiple sides—using multiple sources and using a standard essay format (which we'll talk about later on).

This is why many argumentative essay topics begin with the word "should," as in:

"Should all students be required to learn chemistry in high school?"
"Should children be required to learn a second language?"
"Should schools or governments be allowed to ban books?"

These topics all have at least two sides of the argument: Yes or no. And you must support the side you choose with evidence as to why your side is the correct one.

But there are also plenty of other ways to frame an argumentative essay as well:

"Does using social media do more to benefit or harm people?"
"Does the legal status of artwork or its creators—graffiti and vandalism, pirated media, a creator who's in jail—have an impact on the art itself?"
"Is or should anyone ever be ‘above the law?'"

Though these are worded differently than the first three, you're still essentially forced to pick between two sides of an issue: yes or no, for or against, benefit or detriment. Though your argument might not fall entirely into one side of the divide or another—for instance, you could claim that social media has positively impacted some aspects of modern life while being a detriment to others—your essay should still support one side of the argument above all. Your final stance would be that overall , social media is beneficial or overall , social media is harmful.

If your argument is one that is mostly text-based or backed by a single source (e.g., "How does Salinger show that Holden Caulfield is an unreliable narrator?" or "Does Gatsby personify the American Dream?"), then it's an analytical essay, rather than an argumentative essay. An argumentative essay will always be focused on more general topics so that you can use multiple sources to back up your claims.

Good Argumentative Essay Topics

So you know the basic idea behind an argumentative essay, but what topic should you write about?

Again, almost always, you'll be asked to write an argumentative essay on a free topic of your choice, or you'll be asked to select between a few given topics . If you're given complete free reign of topics, then it'll be up to you to find an essay topic that no only appeals to you, but that you can turn into an A+ argumentative essay.

What makes a "good" argumentative essay topic depends on both the subject matter and your personal interest —it can be hard to give your best effort on something that bores you to tears! But it can also be near impossible to write an argumentative essay on a topic that has no room for debate.

As we said earlier, a good argumentative essay topic will be one that has the potential to reasonably go in at least two directions—for or against, yes or no, and why . For example, it's pretty hard to write an argumentative essay on whether or not people should be allowed to murder one another—not a whole lot of debate there for most people!—but writing an essay for or against the death penalty has a lot more wiggle room for evidence and argument.

A good topic is also one that can be substantiated through hard evidence and relevant sources . So be sure to pick a topic that other people have studied (or at least studied elements of) so that you can use their data in your argument. For example, if you're arguing that it should be mandatory for all middle school children to play a sport, you might have to apply smaller scientific data points to the larger picture you're trying to justify. There are probably several studies you could cite on the benefits of physical activity and the positive effect structure and teamwork has on young minds, but there's probably no study you could use where a group of scientists put all middle-schoolers in one jurisdiction into a mandatory sports program (since that's probably never happened). So long as your evidence is relevant to your point and you can extrapolate from it to form a larger whole, you can use it as a part of your resource material.

And if you need ideas on where to get started, or just want to see sample argumentative essay topics, then check out these links for hundreds of potential argumentative essay topics.

101 Persuasive (or Argumentative) Essay and Speech Topics

301 Prompts for Argumentative Writing

Top 50 Ideas for Argumentative/Persuasive Essay Writing

[Note: some of these say "persuasive essay topics," but just remember that the same topic can often be used for both a persuasive essay and an argumentative essay; the difference is in your writing style and the evidence you use to support your claims.]

KO! Find that one argumentative essay topic you can absolutely conquer.

Argumentative Essay Format

Argumentative Essays are composed of four main elements:

A position (your argument)
Your reasons
Supporting evidence for those reasons (from reliable sources)
Counterargument(s) (possible opposing arguments and reasons why those arguments are incorrect)

If you're familiar with essay writing in general, then you're also probably familiar with the five paragraph essay structure . This structure is a simple tool to show how one outlines an essay and breaks it down into its component parts, although it can be expanded into as many paragraphs as you want beyond the core five.

The standard argumentative essay is often 3-5 pages, which will usually mean a lot more than five paragraphs, but your overall structure will look the same as a much shorter essay.

An argumentative essay at its simplest structure will look like:

Paragraph 1: Intro

Set up the story/problem/issue
Thesis/claim

Paragraph 2: Support

Reason #1 claim is correct
Supporting evidence with sources

Paragraph 3: Support

Reason #2 claim is correct

Paragraph 4: Counterargument

Explanation of argument for the other side
Refutation of opposing argument with supporting evidence

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

Re-state claim
Sum up reasons and support of claim from the essay to prove claim is correct

Now let's unpack each of these paragraph types to see how they work (with examples!), what goes into them, and why.

Paragraph 1—Set Up and Claim

Your first task is to introduce the reader to the topic at hand so they'll be prepared for your claim. Give a little background information, set the scene, and give the reader some stakes so that they care about the issue you're going to discuss.

Next, you absolutely must have a position on an argument and make that position clear to the readers. It's not an argumentative essay unless you're arguing for a specific claim, and this claim will be your thesis statement.

Your thesis CANNOT be a mere statement of fact (e.g., "Washington DC is the capital of the United States"). Your thesis must instead be an opinion which can be backed up with evidence and has the potential to be argued against (e.g., "New York should be the capital of the United States").

Paragraphs 2 and 3—Your Evidence

These are your body paragraphs in which you give the reasons why your argument is the best one and back up this reasoning with concrete evidence .

The argument supporting the thesis of an argumentative essay should be one that can be supported by facts and evidence, rather than personal opinion or cultural or religious mores.

For example, if you're arguing that New York should be the new capital of the US, you would have to back up that fact by discussing the factual contrasts between New York and DC in terms of location, population, revenue, and laws. You would then have to talk about the precedents for what makes for a good capital city and why New York fits the bill more than DC does.

Your argument can't simply be that a lot of people think New York is the best city ever and that you agree.

In addition to using concrete evidence, you always want to keep the tone of your essay passionate, but impersonal . Even though you're writing your argument from a single opinion, don't use first person language—"I think," "I feel," "I believe,"—to present your claims. Doing so is repetitive, since by writing the essay you're already telling the audience what you feel, and using first person language weakens your writing voice.

For example,

"I think that Washington DC is no longer suited to be the capital city of the United States."

"Washington DC is no longer suited to be the capital city of the United States."

The second statement sounds far stronger and more analytical.

Paragraph 4—Argument for the Other Side and Refutation

Even without a counter argument, you can make a pretty persuasive claim, but a counterargument will round out your essay into one that is much more persuasive and substantial.

By anticipating an argument against your claim and taking the initiative to counter it, you're allowing yourself to get ahead of the game. This way, you show that you've given great thought to all sides of the issue before choosing your position, and you demonstrate in multiple ways how yours is the more reasoned and supported side.

Paragraph 5—Conclusion

This paragraph is where you re-state your argument and summarize why it's the best claim.

Briefly touch on your supporting evidence and voila! A finished argumentative essay.

Your essay should have just as awesome a skeleton as this plesiosaur does. (In other words: a ridiculously awesome skeleton)

Argumentative Essay Example: 5-Paragraph Style

It always helps to have an example to learn from. I've written a full 5-paragraph argumentative essay here. Look at how I state my thesis in paragraph 1, give supporting evidence in paragraphs 2 and 3, address a counterargument in paragraph 4, and conclude in paragraph 5.

Topic: Is it possible to maintain conflicting loyalties?

Paragraph 1

It is almost impossible to go through life without encountering a situation where your loyalties to different people or causes come into conflict with each other. Maybe you have a loving relationship with your sister, but she disagrees with your decision to join the army, or you find yourself torn between your cultural beliefs and your scientific ones. These conflicting loyalties can often be maintained for a time, but as examples from both history and psychological theory illustrate, sooner or later, people have to make a choice between competing loyalties, as no one can maintain a conflicting loyalty or belief system forever.

The first two sentences set the scene and give some hypothetical examples and stakes for the reader to care about.

The third sentence finishes off the intro with the thesis statement, making very clear how the author stands on the issue ("people have to make a choice between competing loyalties, as no one can maintain a conflicting loyalty or belief system forever." )

Paragraphs 2 and 3

Psychological theory states that human beings are not equipped to maintain conflicting loyalties indefinitely and that attempting to do so leads to a state called "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive dissonance theory is the psychological idea that people undergo tremendous mental stress or anxiety when holding contradictory beliefs, values, or loyalties (Festinger, 1957). Even if human beings initially hold a conflicting loyalty, they will do their best to find a mental equilibrium by making a choice between those loyalties—stay stalwart to a belief system or change their beliefs. One of the earliest formal examples of cognitive dissonance theory comes from Leon Festinger's When Prophesy Fails . Members of an apocalyptic cult are told that the end of the world will occur on a specific date and that they alone will be spared the Earth's destruction. When that day comes and goes with no apocalypse, the cult members face a cognitive dissonance between what they see and what they've been led to believe (Festinger, 1956). Some choose to believe that the cult's beliefs are still correct, but that the Earth was simply spared from destruction by mercy, while others choose to believe that they were lied to and that the cult was fraudulent all along. Both beliefs cannot be correct at the same time, and so the cult members are forced to make their choice.

But even when conflicting loyalties can lead to potentially physical, rather than just mental, consequences, people will always make a choice to fall on one side or other of a dividing line. Take, for instance, Nicolaus Copernicus, a man born and raised in Catholic Poland (and educated in Catholic Italy). Though the Catholic church dictated specific scientific teachings, Copernicus' loyalty to his own observations and scientific evidence won out over his loyalty to his country's government and belief system. When he published his heliocentric model of the solar system--in opposition to the geocentric model that had been widely accepted for hundreds of years (Hannam, 2011)-- Copernicus was making a choice between his loyalties. In an attempt t o maintain his fealty both to the established system and to what he believed, h e sat on his findings for a number of years (Fantoli, 1994). But, ultimately, Copernicus made the choice to side with his beliefs and observations above all and published his work for the world to see (even though, in doing so, he risked both his reputation and personal freedoms).

These two paragraphs provide the reasons why the author supports the main argument and uses substantiated sources to back those reasons.

The paragraph on cognitive dissonance theory gives both broad supporting evidence and more narrow, detailed supporting evidence to show why the thesis statement is correct not just anecdotally but also scientifically and psychologically. First, we see why people in general have a difficult time accepting conflicting loyalties and desires and then how this applies to individuals through the example of the cult members from the Dr. Festinger's research.

The next paragraph continues to use more detailed examples from history to provide further evidence of why the thesis that people cannot indefinitely maintain conflicting loyalties is true.

Paragraph 4

Some will claim that it is possible to maintain conflicting beliefs or loyalties permanently, but this is often more a matter of people deluding themselves and still making a choice for one side or the other, rather than truly maintaining loyalty to both sides equally. For example, Lancelot du Lac typifies a person who claims to maintain a balanced loyalty between to two parties, but his attempt to do so fails (as all attempts to permanently maintain conflicting loyalties must). Lancelot tells himself and others that he is equally devoted to both King Arthur and his court and to being Queen Guinevere's knight (Malory, 2008). But he can neither be in two places at once to protect both the king and queen, nor can he help but let his romantic feelings for the queen to interfere with his duties to the king and the kingdom. Ultimately, he and Queen Guinevere give into their feelings for one another and Lancelot—though he denies it—chooses his loyalty to her over his loyalty to Arthur. This decision plunges the kingdom into a civil war, ages Lancelot prematurely, and ultimately leads to Camelot's ruin (Raabe, 1987). Though Lancelot claimed to have been loyal to both the king and the queen, this loyalty was ultimately in conflict, and he could not maintain it.

Here we have the acknowledgement of a potential counter-argument and the evidence as to why it isn't true.

The argument is that some people (or literary characters) have asserted that they give equal weight to their conflicting loyalties. The refutation is that, though some may claim to be able to maintain conflicting loyalties, they're either lying to others or deceiving themselves. The paragraph shows why this is true by providing an example of this in action.

Paragraph 5

Whether it be through literature or history, time and time again, people demonstrate the challenges of trying to manage conflicting loyalties and the inevitable consequences of doing so. Though belief systems are malleable and will often change over time, it is not possible to maintain two mutually exclusive loyalties or beliefs at once. In the end, people always make a choice, and loyalty for one party or one side of an issue will always trump loyalty to the other.

The concluding paragraph summarizes the essay, touches on the evidence presented, and re-states the thesis statement.

How to Write an Argumentative Essay: 8 Steps

Writing the best argumentative essay is all about the preparation, so let's talk steps:

#1: Preliminary Research

If you have the option to pick your own argumentative essay topic (which you most likely will), then choose one or two topics you find the most intriguing or that you have a vested interest in and do some preliminary research on both sides of the debate.

Do an open internet search just to see what the general chatter is on the topic and what the research trends are.

Did your preliminary reading influence you to pick a side or change your side? Without diving into all the scholarly articles at length, do you believe there's enough evidence to support your claim? Have there been scientific studies? Experiments? Does a noted scholar in the field agree with you? If not, you may need to pick another topic or side of the argument to support.

#2: Pick Your Side and Form Your Thesis

Now's the time to pick the side of the argument you feel you can support the best and summarize your main point into your thesis statement.

Your thesis will be the basis of your entire essay, so make sure you know which side you're on, that you've stated it clearly, and that you stick by your argument throughout the entire essay .

#3: Heavy-Duty Research Time

You've taken a gander at what the internet at large has to say on your argument, but now's the time to actually read those sources and take notes.

Check scholarly journals online at Google Scholar , the Directory of Open Access Journals , or JStor . You can also search individual university or school libraries and websites to see what kinds of academic articles you can access for free. Keep track of your important quotes and page numbers and put them somewhere that's easy to find later.

And don't forget to check your school or local libraries as well!

#4: Outline

Follow the five-paragraph outline structure from the previous section.

Fill in your topic, your reasons, and your supporting evidence into each of the categories.

Before you begin to flesh out the essay, take a look at what you've got. Is your thesis statement in the first paragraph? Is it clear? Is your argument logical? Does your supporting evidence support your reasoning?

By outlining your essay, you streamline your process and take care of any logic gaps before you dive headfirst into the writing. This will save you a lot of grief later on if you need to change your sources or your structure, so don't get too trigger-happy and skip this step.

Now that you've laid out exactly what you'll need for your essay and where, it's time to fill in all the gaps by writing it out.

Take it one step at a time and expand your ideas into complete sentences and substantiated claims. It may feel daunting to turn an outline into a complete draft, but just remember that you've already laid out all the groundwork; now you're just filling in the gaps.

If you have the time before deadline, give yourself a day or two (or even just an hour!) away from your essay . Looking it over with fresh eyes will allow you to see errors, both minor and major, that you likely would have missed had you tried to edit when it was still raw.

Take a first pass over the entire essay and try your best to ignore any minor spelling or grammar mistakes—you're just looking at the big picture right now. Does it make sense as a whole? Did the essay succeed in making an argument and backing that argument up logically? (Do you feel persuaded?)

If not, go back and make notes so that you can fix it for your final draft.

Once you've made your revisions to the overall structure, mark all your small errors and grammar problems so you can fix them in the next draft.

#7: Final Draft

Use the notes you made on the rough draft and go in and hack and smooth away until you're satisfied with the final result.

A checklist for your final draft:

Formatting is correct according to your teacher's standards
No errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation
Essay is the right length and size for the assignment
The argument is present, consistent, and concise
Each reason is supported by relevant evidence
The essay makes sense overall

#8: Celebrate!

Once you've brought that final draft to a perfect polish and turned in your assignment, you're done! Go you!

Be prepared and ♪ you'll never go hungry again ♪, *cough*, or struggle with your argumentative essay-writing again. (Walt Disney Studios)

Good Examples of Argumentative Essays Online

Theory is all well and good, but examples are key. Just to get you started on what a fully-fleshed out argumentative essay looks like, let's see some examples in action.

Check out these two argumentative essay examples on the use of landmines and freons (and note the excellent use of concrete sources to back up their arguments!).

The Use of Landmines

A Shattered Sky

The Take-Aways: Keys to Writing an Argumentative Essay

At first, writing an argumentative essay may seem like a monstrous hurdle to overcome, but with the proper preparation and understanding, you'll be able to knock yours out of the park.

Remember the differences between a persuasive essay and an argumentative one, make sure your thesis is clear, and double-check that your supporting evidence is both relevant to your point and well-sourced . Pick your topic, do your research, make your outline, and fill in the gaps. Before you know it, you'll have yourself an A+ argumentative essay there, my friend.

What's Next?

Now you know the ins and outs of an argumentative essay, but how comfortable are you writing in other styles? Learn more about the four writing styles and when it makes sense to use each .

Understand how to make an argument, but still having trouble organizing your thoughts? Check out our guide to three popular essay formats and choose which one is right for you.

Ready to make your case, but not sure what to write about? We've created a list of 50 potential argumentative essay topics to spark your imagination.

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Henry Louis Gates Jr. Unpacks Black Literature’s ‘Black Box’

In his latest book, the Harvard scholar shows how African American writers have used the written word to shape their reality despite constraints imposed on them from outside.

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By Tope Folarin

Tope Folarin is a writer and critic. He is the executive director of the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of the novel “A Particular Kind of Black Man.”

THE BLACK BOX: Writing the Race , by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

By way of explaining the metaphor that serves as the title of his latest book, “The Black Box,” the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. transcribes a conversation he had with his son-in-law after the birth of his granddaughter 10 years ago:

“Did you check the box?” I asked, apropos of nothing we had just discussed. Without missing a beat, my good son-in-law responded, “Yes, sir. I did.” “Very good,” I responded, as I poured a second shot of Pappy Van Winkle.

The box that Gates’s son-in-law checked on a birth registration form indicates that his granddaughter is Black, even though his daughter’s genetic admixture is 75 percent European, and his son-in-law is 100 percent European. In other words, as Gates notes, his granddaughter “will test about 87.5 percent European when she spits in the test tube.”

Gates offers this anecdote to suggest the arbitrariness of racial categories, and to focus our attention on the image of the box — a container that can function simultaneously as a “circumscribed enclosure” and a zone in which the confined can create a thriving “social and cultural world.”

For Gates, the box is a supple concept. Not only does it appear with surprising frequency in literature by Black Americans — from the fugitive slave author Henry Box Brown (who escaped slavery in a box) to Booker T. Washington (who described the box as a barrel) to the contemporary poet Terrance Hayes — but Gates extends the metaphor to other kinds of boxes that relate to Black experience, to ordeals withstood and survived. He cites an airplane’s flight recorder box, a device that “preserves a record of the truth amid disastrous circumstances,” and the slave ship, before arriving at his thesis: African Americans have consistently relied on the written word to express and shape their reality despite the constraints imposed on them from outside, which they have endured since they were first brought to this continent.

“The Black Box” is based on lectures Gates has delivered for many years in his Introduction to African American Studies class at Harvard. From the beginning, he shows, African Americans have turned to literary forms to validate their humanity. He quickly sketches the childhood of Phillis Wheatley — her journey to America via slave ship, her rapid mastery of English — and the varied responses to her poetry, which she began to publish as a precocious teenager.

Wheatley’s success undermined the prevailing sentiment that Black Americans were less intelligent than their white counterparts, and in response to her art some thinkers, such as Voltaire, revised their formerly negative perspectives on Black people, while others, including Thomas Jefferson, remained steadfast in their views. (Jefferson on Wheatley: “The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.”)

Gates traces the history of slave narratives, a genre that “always told the story” of how enslaved authors “learned to read and write, and always, always, of course, of their escape to freedom.” And he describes the intense conversations within the Black American community around self-definition: “They stood on uncertain ground. Were they Africans, Americans, both, or neither?” In each of these instances, as throughout his book, Gates adroitly demonstrates how literature served as a site of self-interrogation and a pathway to liberation.

In other chapters, Gates writes about the manifold contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois; the boldness and flair of the Harlem Renaissance generation; the fierce debate between Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright over the proper way to represent the Black experience in literature; and the politics of passing.

Many of these ideas will be familiar to readers — Gates has written about them before. The allure of this book, and the reason for its existence, are the narrative links he draws among these people and events, and his insistence that a survey of African American history is incomplete without a special consideration of how writing has undergirded and powered it. This is a literary history of Black America, but it is also an argument that African American history is inextricable from the history of African American literature.

“The Black Box” arrives at an auspicious moment. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of a great man of American and African American letters: James Baldwin. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of “The New Negro,” an anthology of fiction, poetry, art and essays edited by Alain Locke that is widely regarded as a defining text of the Harlem Renaissance.

This is also a moment when many politicians are hard at work revising our shared history in order to justify present-day policy agendas. Gates addresses this phenomenon in his concluding chapter, portions of which appeared in The New York Times a year ago. He invokes the story of Mildred Lewis Rutherford, the historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who argued throughout her career that the Civil War was simply “the War Between the States,” and had nothing to do with slavery.

As Gates notes, it is important to repeat the truth about history as often as possible, and to repel efforts to redefine it, because “what is inscribed on the blackboard translates directly to social practices unfolding on the street.”

THE BLACK BOX : Writing the Race | By Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Penguin Press | 262 pp. | $30

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Even the Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Fed Up With the Garbage Coming Out of the 5th Circuit

What happens when a lawless judge and a terrible appeals court embrace the dopiest First Amendment claim you’ve ever heard out of pure spite toward a Democratic president? That would be Murthy v. Missouri , a brain-meltingly dumb case that the Supreme Court was unfortunate enough to hear oral arguments in on Monday. Murthy poses a question so asinine that to ask it is to answer it: Can government officials encourage social media companies to moderate certain content that they deem harmful—most importantly, disinformation about COVID-19 in the middle of the pandemic?

Yes, of course they can: The First Amendment does not gag public officials from urging Facebook or the Washington Post or anyone else to publish or not publish certain information, especially when it contains dangerous lies about a once-in-a-century pandemic that could exacerbate the crisis. The First Amendment bars government censorship, not government persuasion, and the Biden administration planted itself on the latter side of that bright line. At least six justices grasped this basic constitutional principle on Monday. Several of them used arguments to highlight how this inane case illustrates so much of what’s wrong with the judiciary today, and hinted at the dangers it could pose to American democracy in the future. That we should pay attention to. The rest was an unfortunate sideshow.

Like so many Supreme Court cases these days, Murthy is built atop a heap of fake facts. The case began when Missouri and Louisiana sued agencies and officials across the Biden administration, falsely accusing them of coercing social media companies into censoring their residents’ free speech. (These states later added a handful of fringe anti-vaxxers to the suit.) They filed their complaint in the Monroe Division of the Western District of Louisiana, where—surprise!—they were guaranteed to draw a Trump appointee, Terry Doughty, the one judge hearing cases in that division. Judge Doughty has a record of issuing nationwide injunctions against the Biden administration on the basis of dubious legal and factual analysis. Most notably, he issued a nationwide bar against Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers in an opinion riddled with anti-vax nonsense (which the Supreme Court reversed ).

Doughty, in other words, was certain to rule against Biden in the social media case. Even still, the opinion he handed down on July 4, 2023, was a humiliating mess of contradictions, fabrications , and (ironically) misinformation . Doughty adopted the plaintiffs’ theory that the administration “coerced” social media companies into removing “conservative” speech about COVID, including posts promoting hydroxychloroquine and rejecting the efficacy of vaccines. He accused government officials of launching a “coordinated campaign” to silence conservatives by forcing private companies to take down anti-vax content, as well as false claims about election fraud. And he issued one of the most sweeping injunctions in the history of the American legal system, prohibiting any employee—including Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Justice, and the FBI—from “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies” encouraging content moderation.

Doughty, it turns out, grievously butchered the record to reach his conclusion. An exhaustive analysis by Mike Masnick proves that Doughty consistently misrepresented testimony and other evidence in the record to construct a conspiracy theory with zero basis in reality. He distorted emails and other exchanges to make them look coercive when they were nothing of the sort, cherry-picking and rearranging quotations to put them in a censorious light. Yet the hard-right U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5 th Circuit, where law goes to die , affirmed Doughty’s conclusions and upheld much of his injunction (while narrowing it in part). That move sent the administration racing to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay, which it granted in October, over the dissents of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas. Monday’s arguments confirmed that a majority is prepared to side with Biden on the merits.

The justices did not sound happy to have the case before them. Justice Sonia Sotomayor scolded Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga (a former Alito clerk) for his lack of candor. “I have such a problem with your brief,” she told him. “You omit information that changes the context of some of your claims. You attribute things to people who it didn’t happen to.” Aguiñaga was unable to defend Doughty’s more extreme deceptions. So he had to fall back on what Justice Elena Kagan called an “extremely expansive” argument: the notion that “encouraging people to suppress their own speech” violates the First Amendment, even if it isn’t coercive. Kagan drew upon her past work in the executive branch to explain that, actually, government officials do this all the time . “I’ve had some experience encouraging press to suppress their own speech,” Kagan told Aguiñaga. Example: “You just wrote a bad editorial. Here are the five reasons you shouldn’t write another one.” Is that really unconstitutional?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a former White House staff secretary, also provided a real-world perspective after Alito fumed that officials had been too mean to the platforms and would never treat the traditional press so sharply. Kavanaugh gave Alito a reality check: “I’d assumed, thought, [and] experienced government press people throughout the federal government who regularly call up the media and berate them,” he told Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, who defended the administration. “You said the anger was unusual. I wasn’t entirely clear on that from my own experience.” Translation: Government employees yell at members of the media all the time. The media can accept or reject their requests. That is how it works .

But did Biden officials berate social media employees? Only on a few rare occasions. Here’s what really happened: The platforms in question, most prominently Facebook and Twitter, invited the government to help them identify and remove the most toxic disinformation. At the time, as Fletcher explained, these companies were eager to present themselves as “partners” with the administration in its push for COVID vaccination. Officials could “flag” questionable content, but the platforms made their own judgment calls, without any demonstrable fear of retaliation. Everyone agrees that the government violates free speech when it explicitly coerces companies into censoring expression under the threat of punishment. But, Fletcher persuasively argued, no such thing happened here.

That left Aguiñaga to lean on the theory that the government contravenes the First Amendment when it merely “encourages” specific content moderation. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a stickler for legible rules, sounded borderline aghast at this baggy, boundless standard; she lobbed a series of hypotheticals at Aguiñaga that showed he was pushing a meaningless and impracticable test. Chief Justice John Roberts tried to help Aguiñaga understand that multiple agencies with competing agendas may pressure platforms in contradictory directions; doesn’t that “dilute the concept of coercion significantly?” (Aguiñaga just sounded confused.) Kavanaugh pointed out that the plaintiffs’ position could prevent officials from urging the press to safeguard national security by, for instance, asserting that a forthcoming article might imperil the troops.

Even Gorsuch, who started out sympathetic to Aguiñaga, was exasperated by the end, complaining that Doughty’s “universal injunction” was part of the “epidemic” that had to be stopped. Only Alito and Thomas sounded like surefire votes for the plaintiffs after nearly two hours of arguments, and Thomas’ heart was not fully in it. Alito stood alone in his increasingly uncontrolled and seething aggrievement .

The pandemic may be over, but Murthy remains a hugely relevant case. Perhaps most obviously, it is a cautionary tale about the extremism of Trump judges like Doughty, who keep issuing these lawless injunctions at the behest of red-state politicians, and the 5 th Circuit, which keeps upholding them. A disproportionate number of the Supreme Court’s cases this term emerge from the 5 th Circuit, which keeps appeasing the Trump-appointed zealots attempting to seize unimaginable amounts of power from the democratic branches. The chief justice is attempting to crack down on the kind of judge-shopping that occurred here, but the fight is just beginning. The evident frustration of Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and even Gorsuch on Monday suggests that a majority of the court is fed up with this political manipulation of the judiciary by rogue judges with undisguised partisan loyalties.

So, yes, SCOTUS is likely to reach the right result in Murthy . Alarmingly, though, so much damage has already been done. In light of Doughty’s injunction, the federal government shut down all of its efforts to combat disinformation, fearful of judicial sanctions. Bad actors have exploited this development to flood the internet with lies about the upcoming 2024 election. If foreign entities attempt to interfere with the election via social media, the Biden administration will have few tools left to fight them. It is just too late to revive the various task forces that worked with platforms before Doughty disbanded them last year. For the Murthy plaintiffs, then, a Supreme Court defeat may not matter much. They have already done immense damage to truth and transparency on the internet. And at this late date, the worst of it cannot be undone.

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Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But the Truth
Overview. After reading the novel Nothing But the Truth, students discuss the protagonist Phillip and his right to free speech as well as their own rights. Students examine various Websites to research First Amendment rights, especially as they relate to the situation in the novel. After their research, students compose a position statement ...
Examining "Nothing but the Truth": [Essay Example], 667 words
Table of contents. "Nothing but the Truth" is a thought-provoking novel by Avi that explores the themes of truth, free speech, and the consequences of one's actions. In this essay, we will delve into the story, characters, and the broader implications of the novel, considering the relevance of its themes in today's society.
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Nothing But the Truth. Categories: Career National Anthem Occupations Philosophy Teacher Truth. Download. Essay, Pages 3 (598 words) Views. 1935. Philip Malloy is a track-obsessed ninth grader at Harrison High School in Harrison, New Hampshire. He has an English teacher, Margaret Narwin, and is doing very poorly in her class; he is given a D ...
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Critical Context. Nothing but the Truth was designated one of two Newbery Honor Books by the American Library Association in 1992, as a runner-up for the best book for young people published in ...
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Nothing but the Truth Critical Essays. N othing but the Truth is a novel by Edward Irving Wortis, better known as Avi, about Philip Malloy, who is suspended for humming the National Anthem.
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This book talks a lot about perspective and how important it is to think about things from other people's points of view. This book is also about a teacher who gets fired for telling the truth. He was trying to do the right thing, but he got caught up in a lie. The whole book is about him trying to figure out what happened and why he got fired.
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In an academic argument, you'll have a lot more constraints you have to consider, and you'll focus much more on logic and reasoning than emotions. Figure 1. When writing an argumentative essay, students must be able to separate emotion based arguments from logic based arguments in order to appeal to an academic audience.
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Make a claim. Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim. Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim) Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives. The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays.
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Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Nothing But The Truth" by Avi. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Essay Topic 5. Many different characters in this book were persuaded... (read more Essay Topics) This section contains 637 words. (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample. More summaries and resources for teaching or studying Nothing but the Truth. View all Lesson Plans available from BookRags.
Nothing but the Truth by Avi argumentative essay
This is the outline for an argumentative essay for the book Nothing But the Truth by Avi. Students will write an argument for if Miss Narwin should have left teaching. There is an organizer to help students record their text evidence and an outline for their essay.
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Nothing but the Truth. Nothing But the Truth Title: The October Book Report by Sam Wasserman First Paragraph (Introduction) 1. Introduce book and author. 2. Give a BRIEF summary of the plot. 3. Explain how Avi wrote it and why. YOUR SENTENCES (The final number is up to you in each paragraph.) 1.
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An argumentative essay is a type of writing that presents the writer's position or stance on a specific topic and uses evidence to support that position. The goal of an argumentative essay is to convince your reader that your position is logical, ethical, and, ultimately, right. In argumentative essays, writers accomplish this by writing:
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512. Page: 1. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. Cite This Essay. Download. In order to maintain a good, healthy relationship with another person, there are many considerations. Some are more important than others.
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Though every essay is founded on these two ideas, there are several different types of essays, differentiated by the style of the writing, how the writer presents the thesis, and the types of evidence used to support the thesis statement. Essays can be roughly divided into four different types: #1: Argumentative. #2: Persuasive. #3: Expository.
Miss Narwin's Leave of Absence in Nothing But the Truth by Avi
In this argumentative essay, a student considers whether the teacher Miss Narwin from Nothing But the Truth by Avi should have taken a leave of absence after the situation with the United States National Anthem and her student Philip. The student asserts that Miss Narwin should not have taken a leave of absence because Philip was at fault for ...
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Nothing But The Truth. "Nothing But The Truth" was written by Edward Irving Wortis or "Avi". It was originally published by Orchard Books in 1991. "Nothing But The Truth" was re-published by Scholastic Inc. on January 1, 2010. The story is about how a ninth-grader boy's suspension for humming the national anthem during homeroom ...
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Analysis, Pages 3 (540 words) Views. 4. In the book, Nothing But the Truth at Harrison High School, the English school teacher Ms. Narwin was treated unfairly. I have many reasons, It was one-sided when it went on the newspaper and Ms. Narwin could not tell the public her side of the incident. People looked only at the bad stuff but not on the ...
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In the novel Nothing But the Truth, Philip Malloy, the main character, has parents who often argue with each other.Avi, the author of this documentary novel, never includes a long argument between ...
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Nothing but the Truth is a 2008 American political drama film written and directed by Rod Lurie.The film stars Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Angela Bassett, Alan Alda and Vera Farmiga.According to comments made by Lurie in The Truth Hurts, a bonus feature on the DVD release, his inspiration for the screenplay was the case of journalist Judith Miller, who in July 2005 was jailed for contempt of ...
Book Review: 'The Black Box,' by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Wheatley's success undermined the prevailing sentiment that Black Americans were less intelligent than their white counterparts, and in response to her art some thinkers, such as Voltaire ...
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The Supreme Court's conservatives are annoyed at the 5th Circuit
Doughty, in other words, was certain to rule against Biden in the social media case. Even still, the opinion he handed down on July 4, 2023, was a humiliating mess of contradictions, fabrications ...