How to Make a Cogent Argument

By Dr. Alastair Bonnett, author of How to Argue and How to be Original: Transform Your Assignments and Achieve Better Grades. Use the code MSPACEQ423 for a 20% discount on his books.

---

Why argue?

For Oscar Wilde ‘arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing’. Students don’t have the luxury of taking Wilde’s advice. The ability to argue is the single most important skill students need to learn if they are to do well in tertiary education.

Use the code MSPACEQ423 for a 20% discount.

It’s no wonder that professors feel so strongly about the subject and that they identify good students as ones who demonstrate the ability to argue, and weak students as ones who don’t. It’s just a shame that more is not done to disabuse students of the notion that there is something difficult or mysterious about getting into the former category. Students often get feedback that tells them that their work ‘lacks argument’ or is ‘merely descriptive’. They are baffled. What is an argument? What is ‘mere’ about description? These are good questions. Unfortunately they rarely get adequate answers.

In How to Argue, now in its fourth edition, I break down the skills of argument into simple steps. Over the years I’ve had doctors, teachers, and neighbours tell me they found the book useful but it was not designed for them: it is laser focused on the needs of students. The first thing to get right is that argument in higher education is a tool of learning and understanding. It is a form of intellectual engagement, a constructive intervention designed to contribute to a debate. Such ideals are diametrically opposed to the notion that the point of arguments is to win them. Thus How to Argue has very little in common with top lawyer Gerry Spence’s How to Argue and Win Every Time. If you want to ‘become born-again gladiators’ then Gerry is the man for you. This kind of stuff conjures up an image of the successful arguer as a sharp-suited, square-jawed, horribly handsome person with a steely glint in their eye; the kind of clever bully that frightens the life out of most of us. This terrifying figure appears to be an amalgam of lawyer, politician and business leader. Powerful people.

Offering such folk as model arguers is profoundly unconvincing. Good argument draws on skills of learning, listening and communication. It is a form of involvement; a willingness to participate actively in the pursuit of intellectual insight and knowledge. Let no one imagine that this model of argument is a soft option. It is true that it isn’t gladiatorial. It is unlikely you will lose any limbs. Yet, in contrast to the mock heroics and bombast of more aggressive approaches, it is not mere performance. The people reading or listening to your work might actually learn something.

How to Argue ranges across the various scenarios where you need to argue. There is a chapter on ‘arguing out loud’ because argument in oral presentations requires particular skills. There is also a chapter on ‘how to criticise argument’ as well as one on the different needs of different assignments, from dissertation to exams. The longest chapter introduces the different types of argument. Students need to pick one and stick to it, making it clear from the first or second paragraph what their argument is.

The most important sentence in any essay is the one that starts ‘This essay argues …’. It’s a sentence that can gather more marks if it shows reading, ‘Drawing on the work of x this essay argues …’. Make yourself write sentences like this and you’re essays will be better and your grades will be higher.

However, as useful as these tips are, they don’t work without answering a very basic question. ‘Does it matter?’. This is where bad arguments start. One of the most common comments markers make on exam and project scripts is the pithy and devastating ‘So what?’ ‘So what?’ means that this essay, exam response, dissertation, or oral presentation isn’t saying anything of any importance. Comments in the margin that are equally concise and almost as lethal are ‘obvious’ and ‘merely descriptive’. Good arguments are substantive arguments.

What does this mean? A substantive argument deals with one of two things:

A core concern within an ongoing debate in your area. Within the literature in your field you will find that certain authors, terms and ideas crop up repeatedly and form the axes of debate. Substantive arguments arise from an engagement with these established and recognised reference points. 

Or

An issue that should be a core concern within your field. This is a bolder departure point. Rather than sticking to what is already established as important within your particular area of interest you can look outside and draw in topics, ideas and authors that have been overlooked, unappreciated and, more important, have a contribution to make to existing debates in your area.

Substantive arguments are focused and precise. The more clearly and exactly you can pinpoint the issue that your argument is going to tackle, the more useful and informed your argument will be.

How to Argue has bucket loads of examples, often in the form of sample sentences. Here are two sentences that suggest their author has a substantive argument:

the utility of the two principal techniques currently employed to ameliorate or prevent desertification can only be fully exploited when they are allied to a range of other, supplementary measures;

the British economy in the nineteenth century was not a laissez-faire economy and that the idea that it was is a politically motivated myth;

and here are two that will get a ‘so what?’:

there are 16 ways to prevent desertification;

the British economy became more industrialised in the nineteenth century;

Try for a moment to forget about your interest or, more likely, lack of it in the nineteenth century British economy. What we’re looking for is substance and the first two sentences promise it and the second two don’t. The first two suggest reading and an explicit engagement with key authors. They also suggest an appreciation of complexity. This is communicated by the fact that they do not propose a black and white view of the world: their claims are qualified and contextualised, not simplistic and mono-dimensional. They offer analysis and explanation rather than mere description.

How to Argue is a short book and it’s designed for students to dip in and out of. Students don’t need to read the whole thing. That’s fine by me. I wasn’t interested in writing a philosophical treatise but in providing a tool kit, practical and easy to use. This is what students need, to get good grades and, more than that, to feel confident that they have something to say and know how to say it.

---

More Methodspace Posts about Critical and Creative Thinking