"Making Claims,"

                                               

Constructing Claims:  Complex and focused claims can help you construct a coherent essay

 

Click here for short review lecture

 

Step One:  Read Everyday Writer, Chapter 11, Sections 11a-11h, pages 79-89.

 

Step Two:  Read the following Notes on Making Claims [See assignment sequence continued at bottom of this page].  

 

Informed arguments should be centered on and constantly supporting a main idea.  All evidence and minor ideas in the essay should support this claim.  In order for this to work well, your claim should be "focused" and "complex":

Unfocused

Focused

Capital punishment is the only way to punish violent criminals.

A humanely administered death penalty is an effective and appropriate punishment for rapists and serial murderers.

 

Notice that the focused claims add names of specific things -- not just any violent criminal, but "rapists and murderers;" not just any kind of execution, but a humane one.  This gives you opportunity to discuss what a "humane execution" is and why you might want to make sure it is humane.  It, also, gives you opportunity to show the difference between rape and serial killings, as opposed to simple murders of passion and greed.

 

Unfocused

 

Focused


Gays and lesbians should not have the same rights as everybody else.

 

The gay and lesbian lifestyle should not be legitimized by allowing them to be legally married.

 

Focusing the main claim of an informed argument, narrows the topic so that you aren't talking about every aspect of the subject and wandering around aimlessly into widely divergent issues.  In the unfocused claim on the left, you are left open to discuss everything from voting rights to adoption.  In the focused claim to the right, only marriage laws and rights are in question.  The main claim controls what you can legitimately discuss in the essay.

 

Unfocused

 

Focused

 

We should be able to invade other countries who threaten our security.

 

The U.S. government has the right to defend itself against imminent threat from known terrorist states. 

 

Well-written main claims should use the conventional vocabulary of those who argue the cause.  In the focused statement to the right, the subject is still basically the same, but now there is formal vocabulary -- "imminent threat," "terrorist states" -- vocabulary which experts who discuss this subject commonly use.  This gives you an opportunity in the essay to outline what "terrorist state" and "imminent threat" means to the experts.  

 

However, focusing the topic means that you need to know more about the subject.  No longer are you free to wander through the topic at will using every source you have found.  Now you must find sources which speak to the issues as specifically as your does.  This means more research, more reading in the topic area, finding out more about less.

 

Focused but simple

Focused and complex

 

A humanely administered death penalty is an effective and appropriate punishment for rapists and serial murderers.

 

A humanely administered death penalty is an effective and appropriate punishment for rapists and serial murderers because it is the only way to bring closure to the victims.

 

Notice that a clause starting with the "subordinate conjunction" "because" has been added to the claim on the right.  This creates a complex sentence which tells the reader something about the logic of why you argue as you will in the essay.  Subordinate conjunctions which can show strong logic:

If, Since, Because, When, Even though, Although

See Hodge's Harbrace Handbook, Chapter 24 for a review of this subject.   

 

Focused but simple

 

Focused and complex

 

The gay and lesbian lifestyle should not be legitimized by allowing them to be legally married.

 

When we legitimize the gay and lesbian lifestyle by allowing them to be legally married, we degrade the whole history of the institution.

 

In order to add a "subordinate conjunction," this sentence had to be rearranged and completely re-written.  But now, the logic appears and a sub-topic is defined -- the "whole history of the institution" can now be discussed with good reason.

 

Focused but simple

 

Focused and complex

 

The U.S. government has the right to defend itself against imminent threat from known terrorist states. 

 

The U.S. government has the right to defend itself against imminent threat from known terrorist states if it has credible intelligence showing imminent threat. 

 

Well-written claims will qualify themselves by noting exceptions and specifying the conditions under which the claim is valid.  In this case, the qualification is that there should be "credible intelligence."  The paper which follows will be careful to spell out what credible intelligence is and discuss examples in which "credible intelligence" was either present or not present in particular historical situations.

 

Well written claims are constantly revised as the body of the essay is written.  It is often the case that as the essay is being written, the main claim has to be written because 

The claim acts as a guide through the essay, so the claim and the content of the essay should echo and reflect each other constantly.  As such, since the claim is a guide, it can act as an outline for the essay.  Breaking the claim into logical parts can often reveal the structure of an argument. 

 

Guiding Main Claim of an Essay: 

 

The U.S. government has the right to defend itself [Part One] against imminent threat [Part Two] from known terrorist states [Part Three] if it has credible intelligence showing imminent threat [Part Four].

 

Dividing claim up and using it as an outline  

 

Part One:  The U.S. government has the right to defend itself -- historical examples showing this is true for all countries, not just the U.S.

Part Two:  The idea of "imminent threat" and what happens if "imminent threat" is ignored; historical examples of when disaster could have been prevented if "imminent threat" had been considered.

Part Three: Detailing the actions of "known terrorist states" showing the damage they are doing to the world, in general, and America, in particular.

Part Four:   Considering the qualifier, "credible intelligence showing imminent threat," and how it should make us cautious in applying the new rule of "defense."  Examples of times when credible evidence was present and times when it was not present needed.

 

Step Three:  Take the quiz, "Making Claims" posted on the Announcements Page of Blackboard.

 

Step Four:  Write a claim for your end of the semester "Informed Argument Essay," and bring it to class.  Think about the material and research you have collected to this point and try to devise a claim which you think you have plenty of information to use for support. 

 

Step Five:  Discuss each other's claims in class.

 

During this discussion, you should:

Step Six:  Submit your claim to the teacher by email anytime during this process.  Your goal is to get me to accept your claim as a well-constructed, logical claim which I think can lead to a focused, coherent, and well developed essay. 

 

(10 points when your claim is accepted by the teacher). 

 

This may or may not be the claim you finally end up supporting in the finished informed argument.