Chapter Twelve

            The subject of chapter twelve was developing an argument. The first step in the development of arguments is to choose reasons in support of the thesis statement. For an argumentative document, the writer tries to convince the reader to except the argument with reasons. The reasons should be constructed with thought towards how much the reader already knows. The reasons need to be chosen with the arguments and counterarguments in mind. The second step in the development of arguments is to find evidence that backs up the reasons. For an academic essay, this would mainly include sources from libraries and databases. The third step is choosing how to appeal to the readers. There are various appeals, such as ones to emotion, character and authority. Logical appeals can work from facts and principles to come up with a conclusion. In evaluating the integrity of an argument, checking for logical fallacies is a good idea. Fallacies that distract the reader from the argument are based on the focus of something on the side. This could include attacking a person and not their argument, or bringing up something completely irrelevant. Fallacies based on questionable assumptions include oversimplifying arguments in order to more easily refute them, or hastily generalizing. Fallacies based on misrepresentation can often include incomplete information, such as only representing evidence for one side of an argument or using bad analogies. Examples of fallacies that have careless reasoning are circular reasoning, which uses a statement to support itself, or fallacies that state if a couple things happened around the same time, they must be related.