What is your subject? What is your side?

Learning Goal: I’m working on a english question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Proposal Assignment:

First of all, as the Argument Essay Assignment description will explain, you’re being asked to present an original argument on the topic of your choice.
Remember, you can only argue something that is debatable; in other words, there has to be potential for the existence of another side that disagrees with you! To make this assignment more interesting for you, you may want to choose a topic that you feel passionate about. For example, if you strongly believe that schools should be required to provide students with healthy lunches, and you can think of several important reasons why you believe that way, you may want to write about that. I honestly don’t care what you write about … and I’m certainly not going to grade you based on whether or not I agree with your viewpoint. As long as you can support your argument with solid reasons, I’m here for it! 🙂

Step 1 in the process will be a Proposal. What’s that? Well… it’s literally where you propose – or pitch – your idea to me. (The idea with this is that if you’re going in the wrong direction, I can catch it early on and redirect you before you write a whole essay that’s wildly off track!)

Your Proposal does not need to be structured like an essay. In fact, it can either be a paragraph containing the information I’m requesting, or just a series of bullet points. Whatever format you decide upon, be sure to include the following information:

• What is your subject?
• What is your side?
• What will your main points be? (Your “preview of ideas.”)
• Write out your thesis statement in full!
• What kind of claim is this? (A claim of value, fact, or policy?)
• What kind of audience would you like to address? (You can choose this for yourself: Do you want to pretend your audience is hostile, supportive, or wavering?)
• How does your audience affect the types of rhetorical appeals you’ll be using? (Pathos, ethos, or logos, or a combination of these?)

An example proposal might look something like this:

• Subject: Trade school vs. college
• Side: People should look into the trades (plumbing, electrical, welding, etc.) instead of being obsessed with the idea of attending traditional college
• Preview of ideas: Trade schools are practical, cost less money (and won’t leave you in huge amounts of debt), and there’s good money in the trades
• Thesis: Students should be encouraged to consider trade school as an alternative to traditional college education because trade schools provide practical skills, they cost less money and relieve the problem of student debt, and the skills taught at trade schools can provide students with financial stability.
• What type of claim? This is a claim of value because I’ll be arguing that one thing (trade schools) is better than another thing (traditional college)
• Chosen audience: I’d like to pretend that my audience is hostile; it’s a group of college professors who scoff at the idea of vocational/trade school being a good alternative to college education
• Rhetorical Tactics, based on Audience: Because my audience is hostile, I’m going to be chiefly sticking to ethos and logos. I’ll need to establish myself as an authority in the subject, and I’ll need to present a lot of facts to support my claim. I’ll stay away from pathos here because my audience doesn’t sympathize with me… so we don’t really have enough common ground for me to appeal to their emotions