EAPP Handouts Week2

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES
QUARTER II: WEEK 2
Competency: Defend a stand on an issue by presenting reasonable arguments supported by properly cited factual evidences
(CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-IIa-d-4)
Overview:
 In making the defense, you have to ensure that you are addressing all sides of the issue and presenting them in a manner that is easy for
your audience to understand. Your job is actually to take one side of the argument and persuade your audience that you have well-founded
knowledge of the topic being presented.
 Claim is a statement about what is true or good or about what should be done or believed.
COMMON TECHNIQUES TO SUPPORT CLAIMS
1. Quotations
 (e.g., direct quotes, paraphrases, summaries)
 In its research project, the Literacy Foundation (2014, p. 167) argues that “common punctuation errors cause problems with
meaning-making in student writing”.
2. Examples
 (e.g., illustrations of your points)
 Many student writers have difficulty with some aspects of punctuation. For example, researchers (George et al., 2016;
Jones & Brown, 2013; Smith, 2012) find that many students misuse commas, mix up colons and semicolons and use capital
letters incorrectly.
3. Statistics
 (e.g., facts, figures, diagrams)
 The literacy Reference Group (2017, para.10) finds that more than 60% of the students who were assessed on their literacy
scale made errors in their punctuation.
STEPS IN PRESENTING ARGUMENTS TO DEFEND OR SUPPORT A STAND ON AN ISSUE
1. Make Issue Criteria

 Keep in mind that you have to persuade others and make them believe in your claim. When shaping it, consider and ask
yourself the following questions to ensure that you will be able to present strong arguments on the issues.
 Is it a real issue with genuine controversy and uncertainty?
 Can I identify at least two distinctive positions?
 Am I personally interested in advocating one of these positions?
 Is the scope of the issue narrow enough to be manageable?
 Prevalence and pervasiveness of the issue
 Arguability of the issue
 Urgency of advocating one side of the issue
 Sense and significance of the issue
2. Collect Evidences from Properly - Cited Sources
 Before deciding on a stand to defend, you should do some research on the subject matter. While you may already have an
opinion on your topic and an idea about which side of the argument you want to take, you need to ensure that your position
is well supported. Listing the pro and con sides of the topic will help you examine your ability to support your counterclaims,
along with a list of supporting evidence for both sides. You will find many different kinds of evidentiary sources. Here is a list
of the most common: surveys, descriptive studies, case studies, academic journals, popular magazines, biographical
information, quotes or summaries of work from established authorities, statistics, interview of an authority or ordinary citizen,
laboratory research, and textual analysis.
3. Make an Appeal to Your Audience
 To convince a particular person that your own views are sound, you have to consider the audience way of thinking.
 Appealing to the audience is another important part of defending a stand on an issue. This can help you strengthen your
position or claim. In an academic argument, logical appeals are the most common, however, depending on your topic,
ethical and emotional appeals may be used as well. Your claim or position may be supported through three major types
of appeals:
a. Logical Appeals
 This is the use of facts in order to support and defend a position. This means reasoning with your audience,
providing them with facts and statistics, or making historical and literal analogies. It persuades the audience
by targeting their thinking.
 Example: More than one hundred peer-reviewed studies have been conducted over the past decade, and
none of them suggests that coconut milk is an effective treatment for hair loss.
 In this argument, the peer reviewed studies are used as – factual supports.
b. Emotional Appeals
 This is the use of the audience’s feelings for the subject of the paper such as anger, pity, and aversion in
order to persuade. It may also refer to values that the reader may identify with such as the importance of
family ties, hospitality and the bayanihan spirit.
 Example: How can you say that the government shouldn’t censor the internet? Think of the poor children
who might be exposed to inappropriate content.
This type of argument attempts to elicit a strong emotional response, since people will generally want to
protect children, and since no one wants to adopt a stance that will purportedly harm them.
c. Ethical Appeals
 This is the use of convincing an audience through the credibility of the persuader, be it a notable or
experienced figure in the field or even a popular celebrity.
 Example: As a doctor, I am qualified to tell you that this course of treatment will likely generate the best
results.
 Here, people tend to believe the opinions of doctors in the matter of medical treatments. The audience
consider the argument because of the credibility of the speaker.
4. Organize your Viewpoints or Arguments
 Sample Outline
I. Introduction
A. Introduce the topic
B. Provide background on the topic to explain why it is important
C. Assert the thesis (your view of the issue).
II. Your Arguments
A. Assert point #1 of your claims
1. Give your educated and informed opinion
2. Provide support/proof using more than one source (preferably three)
B. Assert point #2 of your claims
C. Assert point #3 of your claims
III. Counter Argument
A. Summarize the counterclaims
B. Provide supporting information for counterclaims
C. Refute the counterclaims
D. Give evidence for argument
IV. Conclusion
A. Restate your argument
B. Provide a plan of action but do not introduce new information
*Your introduction has a dual purpose: to indicate both the topic and your approach to it (your thesis statement), and to arouse your
reader’s interest in what you have to say. One effective way of introducing a topic is to place it in context – to supply a kind of backdrop
that will put it in perspective. You should discuss the area into which your topic fits, and then gradually lead into your specific field of
discussion (re: your thesis statement).
*You may have more than 1 overall points to your argument. Each argument should be supported with properly - cited sources.
* You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself what someone who disagrees with you might say about each of the points you've
made or about your position as a whole. Once you have thought up some counterarguments, consider how you will respond to them--will
you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the
counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger
than opposing arguments.
*Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to
go back and revise your original argument accordingly.
*Now, you have known that when defending a stand on an issue it is very important that you have to organize your arguments clearly.

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ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

QUARTER II: WEEK 2

COMMON TECHNIQUES TO SUPPORT CLAIMS

STEPS IN PRESENTING ARGUMENTS TO DEFEND OR SUPPORT A STAND ON AN ISSUE

1. Make Issue Criteria

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