Prewriting to Consider Controversies

In the warm-up to this unit, you thought about three different types of controversial positions: opinions, proposals, and hypotheses. You thought about controversies you encountered among friends, family, and teachers. In search of a topic for your argument essay, you should also consider controversies farther afield.

One student thought about the following controversial positions that he encountered at school, read about in local and national newspapers, and discovered on Google News.

Controversies

Write down one controversial position that interests you:

I'm interested in the food-truck controversy. People at school are talking about it, and the local paper had a long article about a city council meeting where the topic blew up.

What reasons do people give to support this position?

Young people want food trucks for new, affordable food options. Restaurants don't want them because of competition and parking.

Do you agree or disagree with this position? What reasons do you have?

I don't know my position yet. I like the idea of more options for eating and attracting more people to our city, but I also see the point of restaurant owners who have a big investment here. I'll have to do further research to make up my mind.

Reading an Argument Essay

To understand how an argument essay works, you can read an example written by another student. He uses logic to build his case, and his voice shows investment in his position but at the same time fairly treats the views of others.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following argument essay and respond to the reading afterward. In the beginning paragraph, the student grabs the reader's attention and delivers the position statement. The middle paragraphs provide strong reasons in support of the position and answer objections from opponents. The ending paragraph sums up the argument and encourages the reader to agree with the position. Click on the side notes to study the features of this essay.

Warm-Up for Argument Writing

Not all arguments are created equal. Some involve people screaming at each other and throwing chairs. Others involve people rationally and logically analyzing an issue in order to come to an effective conclusion. When you write an argument essay, you need to do the latter, not the former. Tantrums only convince readers that you are a child. A logical argument that recognizes all sides but presents and supports a specific position can convince readers about an important issue.

Editing for Subject-Verb Agreement

Subjects and verbs must agree. Follow these rules to ensure subject-verb agreement:

1. A singular subject needs a singular verb, and a plural subject needs a plural verb. Usually, plural nouns end in s, and plural verbs do not: terms have and term has. Watch for one s between the noun and verb.

   Merriam-Webster offers them as synonyms for each other, but each has a slightly different focus. (singular subjects and verbs)

   Now that both terms have shucked many of their negative connotations, they are used by people about all kinds of non-academic, non-techie subjects. (plural subjects and verbs)

2. A compound subject joined by and is always plural.

   In the days of traveling circuses, the lion tamer, trapeze artist, and tightrope walker were royalty. (plural subject and verb)

3. When a compound subject is joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the subject closest to it.

   Neither the water boy nor the geek was considered a skilled carney. (singular final subject and verb)

4. Some indefinite pronouns are always singular (each, either, neither, one, everybody, another, anybody, everyone, nobody, everything, somebody, someone) and others are always plural (both, few, many, several).

   Everyone wants a geek to fix a computer. Few choose a jock.

5. Some indefinite pronouns (all, any, most, none, some) change depending on the object of the preposition that follows them.

   All of the sideshow acts are top notch. All of the bigtop is fireproof.

6. Don't be fooled when other nouns come between the subject and verb. Make sure the true subject and verb agree.

   A nerd, whether devoted to books or computers or sports, is a serious expert in the subject.

Revising for Order of Details

When you wrote your first draft, you may have been tempted to write one paragraph about denotations, a second about connotations, a third about synonyms and antonyms, and so on. The result might feel a bit formulaic, marching doggedly through the list of details that you found. An effective essay is more than a list of details. It organizes the details with the reader's questions in mind.

In the first sample essay, "Right to the Heart," the first middle paragraph begins with the dictionary definition and then combines quotations and logical arguments to unpack the meaning of the definition. This organization works because readers know the word courage but need to analyze what it means and doesn't mean.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

The topic of your essay can be any word that fascinates you. It could be a word from a school subject or just a word that you find intriguing:

What word fascinates me most and why?

I often hear the words nerd and geek, but some people insist that they are nerds and not geeks and some that they are geeks and not nerds, and some people say they are both. I know these words used to be negatives, but a lot of people see them as positives. I'd like to know what the difference is between them and how they started to be used the way they are used now.

Note that each of these lists ends in the word symbol, which directly relates to each subject. Look back over the lists. Many of the other words in the individual lists also relate to the other subjects. For example, angle, parallel, congruent, linear, average, significant, variable, and so on relate not just to math but also to science, social studies, life, and language. The best topics for definition essays do not have one meaning but many meanings. (In other words, you could explore the word triangle or even equilateral over many pages, but you'd be hard pressed to write much about isosceles.)

Reading a Definition Essay

Before you write your own definition essay, you should read and review an essay written by another student. You'll see how the student defines and explores a term using a variety of details. You'll also note how the writer's explanatory voice shows interest in the topic.

Reading a Student Model

Read the following definition essay, in which Julie explores the meaning of the word courage. Note how she catches the reader's attention and introduces the term and then develops paragraphs that explore the meaning and history of the word. Click on the side notes to see the different features of this definition essay.

Warm-Up for Definition Essays

Words let you think. When you don't have a word for something, you can't think very effectively about it. For example, you might think very little about the pencils you use, but having terms for different kinds of pencils can awaken your thinking:

• Hexie: a pencil with six flat sides
• Rounder: a pencil with a round bore
• Flatty: a carpenter's pencil, made not to break in a pocket and sharpened by whittling
• Dentcil: a pencil that has been chewed
• Penstub: a pencil that has been sharpened too many times; a golf pencil
• One-shot: a pencil with no eraser
• Mulligan: a pencil with a large eraser
• Fakecil: a pencil that won't sharpen correctly, with a tip of wood that doesn't write
• Lightsee: a #3 pencil that doesn't write darkly enough to be easily read
• Smudgie: a #1 pencil that writes like a crayon and smears
• Spock: a mechanical pencil
• Horseleg: an oversized pencil that doesn't fit in a sharpener

What Is a Definition Essay?

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A definition essay deeply explores the meaning of a term. It includes dictionary definitions (denotations), but goes far beyond, providing examples, etymology, synonyms, antonyms, and other details. Instead of defining the term narrowly, a definition essay seeks many connections and applies the term in many contexts.

The poet William Blake once noted that one could "see a world in a grain of sand," which is what you'll be doing when you write your definition essay. One interesting word, like a grain of sand, can lead you to many connections with the much wider world. To warm up your thinking, you can start by explaining a school-appropriate slang term to an older person.

Thinking About a Slang Term

Every generation has its own slang—words used in special ways that are generally not understood by people in the older generation. If you use a slang term in the presence of an older person, you may be asked what the term means. For example, the term "woke" in its modern slang usage has a very specific meaning:

Editing Dialogue

One key component of an effective narrative is dialogue—the words people say. Handling dialogue can be tricky.

When two or more people are having a conversation, start a new paragraph whenever you have a new speaker:

Note that a comma separates words like said or asked from the quoted material. A period separates a complete sentence from quoted material.

When one person speaks, or the spoken words are details included in a larger idea, you can embed them in the paragraph.

Place quotation marks before and after quoted material. When periods or commas follow quoted material, always put them inside the close quotation marks. When exclamation points or question marks follow quoted material, place them inside if they punctuate the quotation and outside if they punctuate the whole sentence. Note the correct punctuation in the following dialogue.