Disagreeing (and Agreeing), Part 2
As I said, the academic culture — and the world of essay-writing — is a great big discussion between many, many people. You don’t always have to disagree. Disagreeing is a way of adding something to a discussion, but not the only way. As Paul Fortunato points out (on page 171 of the same book by Gerald Graff that I cited last time), there are a number of ways to respond to your sources:
- disagree with some key statement.
- agree with something the [author] says, and then say even more about it than he or she did
- point to something the critic says that seems to go contrary to something else he or she says
- point to something the critic says and give a counter example…
- argue with the critic by showing that he or she is leaving out some key aspect of the [issue] or some key issue of the argument
- blow [the author] out of the water by showing that he or she is totally wrong
- praise [the author] for making an extremely important point, and then add something important to that point.
For the following exercise, you will use almost the same template as last time — but paraphrase the two authors in your own words — and then you will agree or disagree with their argument.
Here’s the main template:
TITLE: ________________________
The general argument made by AUTHOR X in his or her essay, ____________________________, is that _____________________________________. More specifically, X argues that ________________________________________________________________________. She/He writes, “__________________.” In this passage, X is suggesting that ____________________________. In conclusion, X’s belief is that ______________________.
In AUTHOR Y’s view, X is wrong/right, because___________________. More specifically, Y seems to believe that ___________________________________. For example, Y writes that ” ____________________________.” Y seems to disagree with X on the issue of _____________. X thinks that ___________________________, while Y maintain that ___________________________________. Therefore, Y concludes that __________________________________________.
Then you can add your own opinion!
Here are some templates add-ons for those moves, which you can append to the previous template:
disagree with some key statement
In fact, I disagree with X [or Y]’s claim that ___________________. I think that _____________________. X [and/or Y]’s claim that, “___________________,” is wrong because _____________________. In fact, _________________________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
agree with something the [author] says, and then say even more about it than he or she did
In fact, I strongly agree with X [or Y]’s claim that ___________________. I think that _____________________. X [and/or Y]’s claim that, “___________________,” is correct because _____________________. In addition, it is worth considering _________________________. For example, ________________________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
point to something the critic says that seems to go contrary to something else he or she says
In fact, I think there are problems with X [or Y]’s argument that ___________________. X [and/or Y]’s claim that, “___________________,” but then he [or she] contradicts himself [or herself] by arguing that ____________________. In fact, _________________________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
point to something the critic says and give a counter example…
In fact, there are problems with X [or Y]’s argument that ___________________. X [and/or Y]’s claim that, “___________________,” is not absolutely true. For example, ________________________. In fact, _________________________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
argue with the critic by showing that he or she is leaving out some key aspect of the [issue] or some key issue of the argument
In fact, I think there are problems with X [or Y]’s argument that ___________________. When X [and/or Y] claims that, “___________________,” he [or she] ignores the fact that ____________________. For example, _________________________. Because of this, we must agree that _______________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
blow [the author] out of the water by showing that he or she is totally wrong
However, X [or Y]’s argument that ___________________ is wrong. When X [and/or Y] claims that, “___________________,” he [or she] doesn’t have the facts straight. In fact, _________________. For example, _________________________. Therefore, because X [or Y] has based an argument on false information, I must conclude that _______________________.
praise [the author] for making an extremely important point, and then add something important to that point.
In fact, I strongly agree with X [or Y]’s claim that ___________________. I think that _____________________. X [and/or Y]’s claim that, “___________________,” is correct because _____________________. But that’s not all! It is important to consider aspects of SUBJECT that X [and/or Y] did not address, such as _____________ and ______________________. For example, ________________________. Therefore, I must conclude that _______________________.
Your newest template response paper is due a week from today, but more importantly, you should start thinking about how to use these kind of rhetorical patterns in your midterm essay. Think about whether you agree or disagree with the sources you’ve found so far, and consider how you might amplify or counter the arguments used in those sources!