Introduction

Welcome to Upping Your Argument and Research Game! What kinds of games do you play? Do you play video games with friends? Do you play board games like Settlers of Catan or Monopoly with your family? Do you play basketball in the driveway or at school? All of these games involve a lot of practice – and a lot of fun with friends and family. I hope you will dive into this textbook with the same energy and commitment to practice that you bring to the games you love to play in your free time. Just like any game, the best writing and research occurs with other people – whether those are classmates, teachers, or writers who came before you.

This book is designed for college writers who most likely already have taken the first English course and are ready to learn more advanced strategies. To help you learn these advanced strategies, this book is divided into four main sections: an argumentation overview, rhetorical analysis, argument models and types, and research.

The argumentation overview identifies strategies for reading and understanding arguments, as well as methods for summarizing arguments. What do you think of when you hear the word “argument”? This type of argument is different than a fight. Rather than hard feelings and a fierce commitment to one’s own side, this type of argument is a way to carefully and fairly consider ideas.

Next, we will take a deep dive into the strategies used to persuade readers, viewers, and listeners in the rhetorical analysis section. You may be familiar with the terms ethos, pathos, and logos, but have you ever heard of Kairos? We will examine how to use these concepts to understand the persuasion strategies that advertisers, YouTubers, TikTok influencers, politicians, and others use to sway you to their side or to buy their product.

The second argument section looks at different argument models, including one counter-cultural one that calls for developing empathy for your opponents. This is a Rogerian Argument model. We also will learn about different types of arguments: evaluation arguments, definition arguments, causal arguments, and proposals. Learning about different types of arguments can help you to identify the best type for a particular assignment or a piece of workplace writing.

This book also introduces research strategies. While I am sure you are an expert at tossing words or a term into Google, this book will give you strategies for conducting research at the college level. What is a database? How do I find information in it? How can I dive deeply into a particular topic? What is a peer-reviewed or scholarly source? Once I do find peer-reviewed sources, how do I understand the technical jargon, or should I give up and return to Google? These questions and others will be answered in this textbook.

This book is the result of the hard work of many people, most of whom I have never met. They have generously used Creative Commons licenses that allow others to share and rework their work. Some chapters are from one source, and others are a combination of several sources, plus a few of my own additions. You may notice that some chapters have a more formal tone and others have a more informal tone. You benefit from all of this collaborative work among English teachers. I am especially grateful to Anna Mills of City College of San Francisco for her help via email and her incredible, student-friendly textbook, How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College.

I hope your work this quarter also builds upon the work of other writers and researchers – and brings in your unique and intriguing arguments. I hope you practice hard, strengthen your research and argument “game,” and have fun doing so with your classmates.