Purposes of causal arguments

We use operational criteria when we are looking for certain concrete results.

Methods

Such an argument analysis, also called a rhetorical analysis, asks you to describe what the other writer is up to, not just in terms of ideas but in terms of all the strategies they used to make the argument convincing.

Avoid the temptation to ‘sound academic’ with technical words and phrases unless the situation calls for it.

et's take an example: say we are analyzing an article on climate change, and we find that it doesn't try to prove that climate change is happening. Is it neglecting to address a counterargument?  Is it making a bold choice to ignore likely objections? To answer, we would need to know in what decade the article was written. In the 1990s, when climate change was first widely publicized, many people doubted whether it was real.

Often when we think of an "authoritative style," we think of someone who speaks impersonally and with confidence, describing how some aspect of reality works without involving their own or the reader with "I," "you" or "we."

How does a writer build trust if they never come face to face with the reader?

When we read, we lack the visual and auditory clues, but we still intuitively sense the writer's attitude.

If something in an argument is likely to set the reader against the argument, the writer can try to soften that reaction by choosing the most positive words available to fit the meaning.

Most academic arguments explore evidence in the form of specific examples, facts, statistics, testimonials, or anecdotes in order to arrive at a general conclusion. This is called inductive reasoning.

Sometimes we can identify the point a writer is trying to make, but major questions still remain about what the writer means. A critique can point out the ambiguity--the many possible meanings of some part of the argument.

A good first place to look for the focus, of course, is the title. Often the title will declare the main claim outright.

We can often paraphrase the claims more readily on a second read when we are already familiar with the content.

In other cases, the writer is not just trying to convince us that something is a certain way or causes something, but is trying to say how good or bad that thing is.

So when you are just trying to get the barebones ideas about something you have read straight, how do you go about it? An argument is a swarming cluster of words. How do you get to the heart of it?