This essay focuses on bad arguments later.Statements are the kind of sentences that can be true or false. When someone is trying to persuade you to believe something, they will express this as a statement.

bad arguments later

The paper should should be 3 pages in length, written in the MLA format. It should have a clear thesis statement in the beginning. It should be organize building towards the central argument that the thesis makes. It should have three quotes from one or more outside sources (academic), in addition to numerous quotes from the story. You must have at least three quotes from one or more outside sources. These quotes can have to do with your story, the author, other stories by the author, anything you think is relevant to the paper you are writing. These quotes should help you make a statement. They should not feel like they were simply thrown in for credit. Examine what is being said and decide if there is room for this statement in your essay.

vious article, we discuss what statements are. Statements are the kind of sentences that can be true or false. When someone is trying to persuade you to believe something, they will express this as a statement.

But how do you know if what they are trying to persuade you of is true or false.

Unless they just want you to take their word for it without further discussion—and you probably shouldn’t—they will give you reasons in support of their views. Those reasons will also be express as statements. Together, all those statements form what we call an argument. This course is all about developing skills to evaluate whether arguments are good or bad. We will talk about good and bad arguments later. Before that, we need to be clear on what arguments are, and how to recognise them.

• Definition: An argument is a group of statements some of which, the premises, are offered in support of another statement, the conclusion.

Let’s see a very simple example of an argument:

Stan was driving his truck over the speed limit. He had no excuse for driving over the speed limit. Furthermore, he was intoxicate. Therefore, Stan was breaking the law.

We can easily isolate the conclusion:

• Stan was breaking the law.

Notice that we do not include the word ‘therefore’ when we state the conclusion. The word ‘therefore’ is not part of the statement that forms the conclusion.

All other statements are premises. We have:

• Stan was driving his truck over the speed limit.
• Stan had no excuse for driving over the speed limit.
• Stan was intoxicate