Argument

Academic Arguments

Academics and other researchers frequently use the term argument. This may conjure images of cable news pundits yelling at each other or flame wars in internet comment sections (see Godwin’s law). But that’s not the kind of argument we are talking about. It might be clearer if we used the term claim, or even better, evidence-based claim. By argument or claim, we mean that a person does more than simply describe something; they put forward a position that is not automatically or obviously true, and so it needs to be explained, supported, and defended.

Let’s use a historical example to clarify the difference. “Harriet Tubman led dozens of enslaved people to freedom” is really just a description of an accepted fact. It doesn’t take any position. No reasonable person disputes it, and it provides no new insight.

In contrast, if we said “When we say that ‘Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves,’ we are erasing the contributions that the enslaved people made to achieving their own freedom,” that is a claim. It takes a position that is more than a description of fact, and it is not obviously or even widely accepted as true. A reader of that claim would not be automatically convinced that it even is true, so it requires more support and explanation. That’s where the argumentation comes in.

Strong Arguments—General Characteristics

An academic argument can also be thought of as a thesis, and you may already be familiar with some of the characteristics of a strong thesis.

• A reasonable person should be able to disagree with it; otherwise, there’s no point in demonstrating it.
• It should be original or innovative enough to provide a new insight to a reasonable reader. Not every researcher has to cure cancer or find a new law of physics, but the audience needs to gain something new.
• It is specific enough that you can sufficiently support it in the space you have to work with.

The 2nd and 3rd bullets work together. One key to making good arguments (and research in general) is finding the right balance between breadth and depth. You want to work narrowly enough that you can make real progress and have something new to say, but you want to be able to connect to a big enough issue that other people will care about it. Most students tend to err on the side of thinking too big: “I will show why Germany lost World War II.” There’s only a slim chance you can say something new on this topic in a 3-page first-year paper. It’s better to work much more closely with your sources; when you magnify things close up, it’s much easier to find details or ideas that no-one else has noticed before.

One other aspect of a good argument is that it is honest. It does not ignore or neglect countervailing evidence or interpretations. It acknowledges its own limitations. We use the term “straw man” for arguments that make their opponents sound misleading weak or simplistic. If you want to make a strong argument, then you should “steel man” the possible counterarguments. Just like a scientist testing a hypothesis, you should do your best to consider the ways that someone could reasonably disagree with your claim.

Strong Arguments—Logic

Now I will make my own argument. I would like to propose that discussions of theses and arguments often neglect an important aspect: logic. An argument is more than a pile of evidence. It uses some kind of logic to produce an interpretation or explanation of the evidence. That logic is what takes us from description to claim, and it’s what turns information into knowledge and understanding.

Here’s an example of an argument that really doesn’t have any logic to it: “Both authors talk about education.” It simply describes the evidence that exists. It provides no explanation of what the evidence means, and therefore no new understanding.

Here’s an example of what I would call a “pile on” argument: “There were three reasons why the Industrial Revolution was important: it gave people a higher standard of living, it led to medical advances, and it produced environmental damage.” This meets most standards for a good thesis. But what insight will the reader emerge with, other than a list of the effects of the Industrial Revolution? How do these three things relate to one another?

A simple adjustment dramatically improves this example: “The Industrial Revolution improved some people’s lives by giving them a higher standard of living and medical advances. But those same advances caused environmental damage which made some people’s lives worse. In fact, the people who got the most benefits from the Industrial Revolution often were not the people who suffered the worst costs.” We’ve now got multiple layers of explanation. We see that 2 of the effects were benefits but 1 was a cost. We see that the benefits are linked to the costs. And our big insight is that the people who benefitted the most were likely to avoid the costs, while those who suffered the costs likely benefitted the least. This last point is what I would consider the key new insight that a reader could gain from my argument. It goes well beyond simply describing or listing facts.

Categories of Argumentative Logic

Even if you agree with my claim that logic is an essential part of an argument, you may be wondering how you’re supposed to come up with an original idea, especially when you are a novice in a particular subject area. Fortunately, we can think of argumentative logic in terms of general, abstract patterns. Most historical arguments (and most academic arguments in general) fall into a pretty small number of these patterns.

Here are six different logical patterns that are commonly used in arguments. For each one, I show you an abstract representation of the argument, an example drawn from the history of the American Revolution, and an example of how you can organize and show the reader your logic. The structure and presentation of your argument should support your logic, and different organizational models work better for different kinds of arguments.

Pile On

This is the basic argument that we previously encountered. The parts are interchangeable, so there is limited logic connecting them and no particular order for the presentation.

Neglect

This may be the most common type of research argument. Any time you are presenting something that you think has never been presented before, it’s a kind of neglect argument. Academics especially love this one because it’s a way to justify their research. They commonly talk about a “gap in the literature,” which means there’s something missing in the existing scholarship that they intend to fill. You often need to explain what is there in order to show why your work has previously been missing or unknown.

Notice that this does not always require you to find something completely new. It can simply be a matter of “no one has looked for this thing in that situation before.” That can make it easier to find something new to say. You don’t have to invent an idea or discover something from scratch; you can just apply something to a new context.

Importance

This is a pretty simple form of logic. It simply says that one aspect is more important than another. This is also useful for making nuanced arguments. Sometimes students think that to argue means to prove your point and refute counterarguments. But research can rarely prove anything; that’s why we have to make arguments. And the counterarguments and alternative interpretations probably have their own good reasons and evidence. This model of argument allows you to acknowledge that other claims have merit, but you have decided that one factor or explanation is better or more important; not necessarily the only factor or explanation. You’ll decide whether to start with the most important factor (descending logic) or build up to it (ascending logic, as in the example).

Cause and Effect

This is one of the most common forms of argumentation in historical research. It works well with narrative (story-telling) because the events of a story lead to one another. Pure narrative description is not an argument, however, if it does not make any claims. Also, with historical arguments, be careful about attributing cause-and-effect relationships to events that are far apart in time. The previous event may contribute to a later event, but the standard should be pretty high to say that one thing caused another. After all, we know that correlation should not be confused with causation.

Analogy/Contrast

Analogies are useful for building off of existing knowledge. It can be a useful piece of new knowledge to know that something is similar to something else. When Darwin argued that wild animals were selected for favorable traits just like the way that breeders selected their stock, that analogy gave us a new way to understand how species evolve. In the example here, you can see how the combination of analogy/comparison and contrast makes for an even more interesting argument.

Classification

Classification is another common academic argument. It is kind of an advanced form of comparison and contrast. We are constantly grouping and dividing things into categories: species, forms of government, historical eras, drug classifications, etc. They are not arbitrary, as they help us understand things in useful ways. But they are flexible, and professional researchers have to decide how the categories should be defined and which categories should be applied to a given topic. Sometimes we create useful new knowledge by reshaping the categories. Perhaps drug possession charges should not be considered felonies. Perhaps viruses are not technically alive. Maybe we should think about “the civil rights movement” starting in the 1940s instead of the 1960s. These categories are not just arbitrary distinctions; they help us think about things differently.

Combinations

This is not a comprehensive list of all types of argument and logic. It is just a simple explanation of some common strategies you can use. You can also combine them to take small insights and make them more powerful.

For example, here is a common argument model that combines different elements.

X. However, A and B. Therefore Y.

The U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, and the framers of the Constitution are celebrated as visionaries. However, most states ratified on the condition that it be amended to better guarantee civil liberties, including Rhode Island, which did not ratify for another 1 1/2 years. Some of the most famous patriots opposed ratification, including John Hancock and Patrick Henry. Therefore, we should not overlook the political divisions even among the so-called “Founding Fathers” and treat the Constitution as a perfect document.

This is a combination of importance, cause and effect, and neglect arguments.

Historical Arguments

So far, I have focused on general argumentation, although I have used historical examples for illustration. There are a few specific aspects of historical arguments worth mentioning.

First, as with most research, historians can rarely “prove” anything of much consequence. We occasionally get to find a document that is a “smoking gun” that something happened, but most of the time we are interpreting or explaining big claims built on lots of evidence. Our goals are usually strong claims and persuasiveness rather than iron-clad proof.

Second, our evidence consists of primary sources and secondary sources. Sometimes we use quotations and other details, but we also build on the arguments of other scholars found in our secondary sources. We do tell a lot of narratives and provide lots of historical facts and details. But those are context, support, and illustration for the interpretations and explanations we want to make. Our goal is not just to recount facts.

When it comes to those arguments, there are four that historians tend to use the most. You can see that they are specific varieties of the general patterns described above.

Historical Causation

This is a version of cause and effect. We argue about which people, events, social factors, etc., led to subsequent events and outcomes.

Continuity and Change Over Time

This is a version of comparison and contrast. Sometimes we don’t want to claim that something caused something else, but we do think it’s important to note that a change happened. And sometimes we want to note that something did not change; for instance, the fact that women and African Americans did not receive the right to vote after the American Revolution.

Periodization

This is a version of classification. One of the ways that historians use categories is to divide up the past into historical periods: ancient times, the Ming Dynasty, the Classic Maya period, etc.

Compare and Contrast

This is not just a version of compare and contrast; it is compare and contrast. Historians, like other researchers, do a lot of comparing and contrasting.

Conclusion

The goal of this post is to take some of the mystery out of argumentation. Once you see that there are some basic patterns you can use, I hope you will find it easier to come up with that little insight that will give your audience something new to think about.