argumentative essay performance task

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Exam: Performance Task 2: Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation

5 min read • november 23, 2021

Steven Kucklick

Performance Task 2 Overview

PT 2 may seem more intimidating than PT1, especially since you have to do it all yourself. But, don't let the 2000 word paper 👀 or the eight minute presentation scare you off!

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In a lot of ways, PT 2 should be more familiar to you. Here, you are writing ✍️ a traditional argumentative research paper and then presenting on it. It's pretty much that simple.

Where things can get kind of intimidating is the implementation of the stimulus materials .

These are a collection of articles, poems, videos, songs, or really anything in between, that are meant to guide 👨‍💼 students towards a particular topic.

Using this topics students will brainstorm their own research question and and construct an argumentative paper.

The presentation is simply a place where you can explain your argument and the evidence you chose while demonstrating your knowledge of your thesis ✍️.

Let's work through each section of PT 2 and look at how best to approach it.

Stimulus Packet

Each year the College Board release a set of Stimulus Materials to act as guide 👨‍💼 for students as they choose their topic. Each source that the College Board provides in this packet is based around a large central theme that students should use as a guide while they choose their topic.

Before we get any further, let's look at the 👉  Stimulus Packet from 2019 .

Here we can see that we have 7 different sources. This will be true (as of now) in all stimulus packets.

We can also the variety in sources that College Board provides. We have everything from academic journals to a Bob Dylan song 🎵.

Typically, in Stimulus Packets there will be a peer reviewed article, a historical source , an opinionated argumentative source , a piece of media, and some collections of poetry, music, or fiction.

The great thing about the Stimulus Packet is that you are allowed to go through it with your class and your teacher. As you analyze each source think about the central theme across all sources. In the Stimulus Packet I linked, the central theme is 'change.'

Remember, this theme will be broad, but you should start thinking about topics that fit 👉 👈 within it.

Stimulus Packet is not just there to serve as the topic for PT 2, you will also need to incorporate at least one of the sources in your actual written paper.

Because of this, you should also look for a topic that will fit well with some of the sources. Because the sources are so diverse, you shouldn't have too hard of time finding a topic that interests you while still incorporating a source.

Now that we have our big theme, we can move on to topic selection!

Picking your Topic

Now to the most important part of PT2.... picking your topic 😍! Again, you should be brainstorming around the larger topic from the Stimulus Packet and one of the sources within it.

I would recommend doing this with a classmate 👨‍🏫. Having someone you can bounce ideas off of can be really helpful. I would strongly encourage not doing the same topic as classmate so that you don't run into plagiarism issues.

As you're brainstorming topics it's important to remember not to go too big or too small. You should be broad enough that you have enough evidence to use, but specific enough that you don't have too much to talk 🗣️ about.

Don't be afraid to pursue multiple topics and do some preliminary research. Sticking to one topic early can often lead to stress if you can find enough evidence or the right evidence for you.

You should also feel comfortable changing your topic slightly as you do research. As much as your topic should influence your research, your research should also influence your topic.

Individual Written Argument

Now that we've settled on a topic and we've found good evidence, we can start writing ✍️!!

The Individual Written Argument (IWA) is essentially a standard argumentative research paper where you are arguing for a thesis using claims and evidence.

Your entire IWA sort of rests on your thesis 👀 so it's important get that written first and foremost. The traditional three pronged thesis is of course acceptable, but not required. What should be true is that your thesis needs to outline your entire argument. I should know exactly what you are going to argue just by reading your thesis .

Once you begin writing you are essentially just writing a standard argumentative research paper , even if it is the longest paper you've written.

Here are some things to keep in mind 🤔 while you write:

• The evidence is there to support your claims, just like the claims are there to support your argument. All of these elements need to work together. Don't just make your paper a book report on your evidence. 📕
• Line of reasoning is also crucial for a successful paper. Organize your claims and your evidence in a way that makes sense to the reader. Check out the Big Idea 2 guide to review line of reasoning . 🤨
• Don't ramble! 2000 words seems like a lot, but you have a lot to talk about! Be thoughtful with your words. ✍️
• I would aim for about 15 to 20 pieces of unique evidence when you go into writing. If you use less, you use less! It's better to be over prepared than under. 💻

Individual Multimedia Presentation

Finally we've made it... the Individual Multimedia Presentation 🗣️! Your IMP will be very similar to the Team Multimedia Presentation. However, instead of arguing for your solution to the problem, you will be arguing your thesis .

A good way to think about this is that you will be translating your paper into an eight minute presentation. You need to explain the importance of your argument while connecting your claims with your evidence 🤝.

You should also take some time to explain the different perspectives of your evidence.

You will also be asked to answer two questions. This is your  Oral Defense  section. These question will ask you to reflect on the research process and how you could extend on your topic.

As always, these questions are available to you. You can find them on page 63 of the  Course and Exam Description.

In Conclusion...

Wrapping things up I want to remind you not to get too stressed out. PT 2 can easily feel very overwhelming, but if you chunk things up and plan, you will be great!

As always the  rubrics  are your friend! Make sure to read them to understand exactly how to get all the points you need.

Key Terms to Review ( 14 )

Argumentative Research Paper

Central Theme

Historical Source

Line of Reasoning

Media Source

Opinionated Argumentative Source

Oral Defense

Peer-Reviewed Article

Performance Task 2

Research Question

Stimulus Materials

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Performance assessment: persuasive essay, persuasive essay introduction.

This module will ask you to practice the stages of the writing process. You will develop an essay to be finalized by the end of this module.

The term “college student” corrals a wide range of types of students in a single term. It stands to reason that different groups of people have different motivations for entering higher education, different goals while they are there, and different definitions of success once they graduate.

For this essay, you will select a specific category of college students, define a practice that could lead to enhanced success for that category, and argue for the adoption of that practice.

The thesis for this essay will persuade readers in the target audience to adopt the practice you’ve identified, in order to help them achieve better outcomes while in college. The thesis will be supported in the body of the essay with evidence demonstrating why this practice will increase success and how it can be implemented.

Assignment Details

The final essay will be 750-1000 words long. It will include a thesis statement that is supported by evidence. It will be well-organized, and display evidence of careful application of the writing process.

In order to successfully complete this assessment, a submitted essay must reach “Meets or Exceeds Expectations” in all categories.

• Performance Assessment: Persuasive Essay. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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3. Writing Performance Tasks (WPTs) – Opinion/Argument Writing

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 3 strong argumentative essay examples, analyzed.

General Education

Need to defend your opinion on an issue? Argumentative essays are one of the most popular types of essays you’ll write in school. They combine persuasive arguments with fact-based research, and, when done well, can be powerful tools for making someone agree with your point of view. If you’re struggling to write an argumentative essay or just want to learn more about them, seeing examples can be a big help.

After giving an overview of this type of essay, we provide three argumentative essay examples. After each essay, we explain in-depth how the essay was structured, what worked, and where the essay could be improved. We end with tips for making your own argumentative essay as strong as possible.

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is an essay that uses evidence and facts to support the claim it’s making. Its purpose is to persuade the reader to agree with the argument being made.

A good argumentative essay will use facts and evidence to support the argument, rather than just the author’s thoughts and opinions. For example, say you wanted to write an argumentative essay stating that Charleston, SC is a great destination for families. You couldn’t just say that it’s a great place because you took your family there and enjoyed it. For it to be an argumentative essay, you need to have facts and data to support your argument, such as the number of child-friendly attractions in Charleston, special deals you can get with kids, and surveys of people who visited Charleston as a family and enjoyed it. The first argument is based entirely on feelings, whereas the second is based on evidence that can be proven.

The standard five paragraph format is common, but not required, for argumentative essays. These essays typically follow one of two formats: the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model.

• The Toulmin model is the most common. It begins with an introduction, follows with a thesis/claim, and gives data and evidence to support that claim. This style of essay also includes rebuttals of counterarguments.
• The Rogerian model analyzes two sides of an argument and reaches a conclusion after weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

3 Good Argumentative Essay Examples + Analysis

Below are three examples of argumentative essays, written by yours truly in my school days, as well as analysis of what each did well and where it could be improved.

Argumentative Essay Example 1

Proponents of this idea state that it will save local cities and towns money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won’t have to travel to a library to get a book; they can simply click on what they want to read and read it from wherever they are. They could also access more materials because libraries won’t have to buy physical copies of books; they can simply rent out as many digital copies as they need.

However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems than print resources. A study done on tablet vs book reading found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, retain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause numerous health problems, including blurred vision, dizziness, dry eyes, headaches, and eye strain, at much higher instances than reading print does. People who use tablets and mobile devices excessively also have a higher incidence of more serious health issues such as fibromyalgia, shoulder and back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and muscle strain. I know that whenever I read from my e-reader for too long, my eyes begin to feel tired and my neck hurts. We should not add to these problems by giving people, especially young people, more reasons to look at screens.

Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have a multitude of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to converse with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering patron questions, and keeping the community connected. One neighborhood found that, after a local library instituted community events such as play times for toddlers and parents, job fairs for teenagers, and meeting spaces for senior citizens, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community. Similarly, a Pew survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others and get their questions answered, benefits tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.

While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens, despite the myriad issues surrounding them. It would also end access to many of the benefits of libraries that people have come to rely on. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.

The author begins by giving an overview of the counter-argument, then the thesis appears as the first sentence in the third paragraph. The essay then spends the rest of the paper dismantling the counter argument and showing why readers should believe the other side.

What this essay does well:

• Although it’s a bit unusual to have the thesis appear fairly far into the essay, it works because, once the thesis is stated, the rest of the essay focuses on supporting it since the counter-argument has already been discussed earlier in the paper.
• This essay includes numerous facts and cites studies to support its case. By having specific data to rely on, the author’s argument is stronger and readers will be more inclined to agree with it.
• For every argument the other side makes, the author makes sure to refute it and follow up with why her opinion is the stronger one. In order to make a strong argument, it’s important to dismantle the other side, which this essay does this by making the author's view appear stronger.
• This is a shorter paper, and if it needed to be expanded to meet length requirements, it could include more examples and go more into depth with them, such as by explaining specific cases where people benefited from local libraries.
• Additionally, while the paper uses lots of data, the author also mentions their own experience with using tablets. This should be removed since argumentative essays focus on facts and data to support an argument, not the author’s own opinion or experiences. Replacing that with more data on health issues associated with screen time would strengthen the essay.
• Some of the points made aren't completely accurate , particularly the one about digital books being cheaper. It actually often costs a library more money to rent out numerous digital copies of a book compared to buying a single physical copy. Make sure in your own essay you thoroughly research each of the points and rebuttals you make, otherwise you'll look like you don't know the issue that well.

Argumentative Essay Example 2

There are multiple drugs available to treat malaria, and many of them work well and save lives, but malaria eradication programs that focus too much on them and not enough on prevention haven’t seen long-term success in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major program to combat malaria was WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Started in 1955, it had a goal of eliminating malaria in Africa within the next ten years. Based upon previously successful programs in Brazil and the United States, the program focused mainly on vector control. This included widely distributing chloroquine and spraying large amounts of DDT. More than one billion dollars was spent trying to abolish malaria. However, the program suffered from many problems and in 1969, WHO was forced to admit that the program had not succeeded in eradicating malaria. The number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa who contracted malaria as well as the number of malaria deaths had actually increased over 10% during the time the program was active.

One of the major reasons for the failure of the project was that it set uniform strategies and policies. By failing to consider variations between governments, geography, and infrastructure, the program was not nearly as successful as it could have been. Sub-Saharan Africa has neither the money nor the infrastructure to support such an elaborate program, and it couldn’t be run the way it was meant to. Most African countries don't have the resources to send all their people to doctors and get shots, nor can they afford to clear wetlands or other malaria prone areas. The continent’s spending per person for eradicating malaria was just a quarter of what Brazil spent. Sub-Saharan Africa simply can’t rely on a plan that requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise than they have to spare.

Additionally, the widespread use of chloroquine has created drug resistant parasites which are now plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa. Because chloroquine was used widely but inconsistently, mosquitoes developed resistance, and chloroquine is now nearly completely ineffective in Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 95% of mosquitoes resistant to it. As a result, newer, more expensive drugs need to be used to prevent and treat malaria, which further drives up the cost of malaria treatment for a region that can ill afford it.

Instead of developing plans to treat malaria after the infection has incurred, programs should focus on preventing infection from occurring in the first place. Not only is this plan cheaper and more effective, reducing the number of people who contract malaria also reduces loss of work/school days which can further bring down the productivity of the region.

One of the cheapest and most effective ways of preventing malaria is to implement insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs).  These nets provide a protective barrier around the person or people using them. While untreated bed nets are still helpful, those treated with insecticides are much more useful because they stop mosquitoes from biting people through the nets, and they help reduce mosquito populations in a community, thus helping people who don’t even own bed nets.  Bed nets are also very effective because most mosquito bites occur while the person is sleeping, so bed nets would be able to drastically reduce the number of transmissions during the night. In fact, transmission of malaria can be reduced by as much as 90% in areas where the use of ITNs is widespread. Because money is so scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa, the low cost is a great benefit and a major reason why the program is so successful. Bed nets cost roughly 2 USD to make, last several years, and can protect two adults. Studies have shown that, for every 100-1000 more nets are being used, one less child dies of malaria. With an estimated 300 million people in Africa not being protected by mosquito nets, there’s the potential to save three million lives by spending just a few dollars per person.

Reducing the number of people who contract malaria would also reduce poverty levels in Africa significantly, thus improving other aspects of society like education levels and the economy. Vector control is more effective than treatment strategies because it means fewer people are getting sick. When fewer people get sick, the working population is stronger as a whole because people are not put out of work from malaria, nor are they caring for sick relatives. Malaria-afflicted families can typically only harvest 40% of the crops that healthy families can harvest. Additionally, a family with members who have malaria spends roughly a quarter of its income treatment, not including the loss of work they also must deal with due to the illness. It’s estimated that malaria costs Africa 12 billion USD in lost income every year. A strong working population creates a stronger economy, which Sub-Saharan Africa is in desperate need of.  

This essay begins with an introduction, which ends with the thesis (that malaria eradication plans in Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on prevention rather than treatment). The first part of the essay lays out why the counter argument (treatment rather than prevention) is not as effective, and the second part of the essay focuses on why prevention of malaria is the better path to take.

• The thesis appears early, is stated clearly, and is supported throughout the rest of the essay. This makes the argument clear for readers to understand and follow throughout the essay.
• There’s lots of solid research in this essay, including specific programs that were conducted and how successful they were, as well as specific data mentioned throughout. This evidence helps strengthen the author’s argument.
• The author makes a case for using expanding bed net use over waiting until malaria occurs and beginning treatment, but not much of a plan is given for how the bed nets would be distributed or how to ensure they’re being used properly. By going more into detail of what she believes should be done, the author would be making a stronger argument.
• The introduction of the essay does a good job of laying out the seriousness of the problem, but the conclusion is short and abrupt. Expanding it into its own paragraph would give the author a final way to convince readers of her side of the argument.

Argumentative Essay Example 3

There are many ways payments could work. They could be in the form of a free-market approach, where athletes are able to earn whatever the market is willing to pay them, it could be a set amount of money per athlete, or student athletes could earn income from endorsements, autographs, and control of their likeness, similar to the way top Olympians earn money.

Proponents of the idea believe that, because college athletes are the ones who are training, participating in games, and bringing in audiences, they should receive some sort of compensation for their work. If there were no college athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist, college coaches wouldn’t receive there (sometimes very high) salaries, and brands like Nike couldn’t profit from college sports. In fact, the NCAA brings in roughly $1 billion in revenue a year, but college athletes don’t receive any of that money in the form of a paycheck. Additionally, people who believe college athletes should be paid state that paying college athletes will actually encourage them to remain in college longer and not turn pro as quickly, either by giving them a way to begin earning money in college or requiring them to sign a contract stating they’ll stay at the university for a certain number of years while making an agreed-upon salary.  

Supporters of this idea point to Zion Williamson, the Duke basketball superstar, who, during his freshman year, sustained a serious knee injury. Many argued that, even if he enjoyed playing for Duke, it wasn’t worth risking another injury and ending his professional career before it even began for a program that wasn’t paying him. Williamson seems to have agreed with them and declared his eligibility for the NCAA draft later that year. If he was being paid, he may have stayed at Duke longer. In fact, roughly a third of student athletes surveyed stated that receiving a salary while in college would make them “strongly consider” remaining collegiate athletes longer before turning pro.

Paying athletes could also stop the recruitment scandals that have plagued the NCAA. In 2018, the NCAA stripped the University of Louisville's men's basketball team of its 2013 national championship title because it was discovered coaches were using sex workers to entice recruits to join the team. There have been dozens of other recruitment scandals where college athletes and recruits have been bribed with anything from having their grades changed, to getting free cars, to being straight out bribed. By paying college athletes and putting their salaries out in the open, the NCAA could end the illegal and underhanded ways some schools and coaches try to entice athletes to join.

People who argue against the idea of paying college athletes believe the practice could be disastrous for college sports. By paying athletes, they argue, they’d turn college sports into a bidding war, where only the richest schools could afford top athletes, and the majority of schools would be shut out from developing a talented team (though some argue this already happens because the best players often go to the most established college sports programs, who typically pay their coaches millions of dollars per year). It could also ruin the tight camaraderie of many college teams if players become jealous that certain teammates are making more money than they are.

They also argue that paying college athletes actually means only a small fraction would make significant money. Out of the 350 Division I athletic departments, fewer than a dozen earn any money. Nearly all the money the NCAA makes comes from men’s football and basketball, so paying college athletes would make a small group of men--who likely will be signed to pro teams and begin making millions immediately out of college--rich at the expense of other players.

Those against paying college athletes also believe that the athletes are receiving enough benefits already. The top athletes already receive scholarships that are worth tens of thousands per year, they receive free food/housing/textbooks, have access to top medical care if they are injured, receive top coaching, get travel perks and free gear, and can use their time in college as a way to capture the attention of professional recruiters. No other college students receive anywhere near as much from their schools.

People on this side also point out that, while the NCAA brings in a massive amount of money each year, it is still a non-profit organization. How? Because over 95% of those profits are redistributed to its members’ institutions in the form of scholarships, grants, conferences, support for Division II and Division III teams, and educational programs. Taking away a significant part of that revenue would hurt smaller programs that rely on that money to keep running.

While both sides have good points, it’s clear that the negatives of paying college athletes far outweigh the positives. College athletes spend a significant amount of time and energy playing for their school, but they are compensated for it by the scholarships and perks they receive. Adding a salary to that would result in a college athletic system where only a small handful of athletes (those likely to become millionaires in the professional leagues) are paid by a handful of schools who enter bidding wars to recruit them, while the majority of student athletics and college athletic programs suffer or even shut down for lack of money. Continuing to offer the current level of benefits to student athletes makes it possible for as many people to benefit from and enjoy college sports as possible.

This argumentative essay follows the Rogerian model. It discusses each side, first laying out multiple reasons people believe student athletes should be paid, then discussing reasons why the athletes shouldn’t be paid. It ends by stating that college athletes shouldn’t be paid by arguing that paying them would destroy college athletics programs and cause them to have many of the issues professional sports leagues have.

• Both sides of the argument are well developed, with multiple reasons why people agree with each side. It allows readers to get a full view of the argument and its nuances.
• Certain statements on both sides are directly rebuffed in order to show where the strengths and weaknesses of each side lie and give a more complete and sophisticated look at the argument.
• Using the Rogerian model can be tricky because oftentimes you don’t explicitly state your argument until the end of the paper. Here, the thesis doesn’t appear until the first sentence of the final paragraph. That doesn’t give readers a lot of time to be convinced that your argument is the right one, compared to a paper where the thesis is stated in the beginning and then supported throughout the paper. This paper could be strengthened if the final paragraph was expanded to more fully explain why the author supports the view, or if the paper had made it clearer that paying athletes was the weaker argument throughout.

3 Tips for Writing a Good Argumentative Essay

Now that you’ve seen examples of what good argumentative essay samples look like, follow these three tips when crafting your own essay.

#1: Make Your Thesis Crystal Clear

The thesis is the key to your argumentative essay; if it isn’t clear or readers can’t find it easily, your entire essay will be weak as a result. Always make sure that your thesis statement is easy to find. The typical spot for it is the final sentence of the introduction paragraph, but if it doesn’t fit in that spot for your essay, try to at least put it as the first or last sentence of a different paragraph so it stands out more.

Also make sure that your thesis makes clear what side of the argument you’re on. After you’ve written it, it’s a great idea to show your thesis to a couple different people--classmates are great for this. Just by reading your thesis they should be able to understand what point you’ll be trying to make with the rest of your essay.

#2: Show Why the Other Side Is Weak

When writing your essay, you may be tempted to ignore the other side of the argument and just focus on your side, but don’t do this. The best argumentative essays really tear apart the other side to show why readers shouldn’t believe it. Before you begin writing your essay, research what the other side believes, and what their strongest points are. Then, in your essay, be sure to mention each of these and use evidence to explain why they’re incorrect/weak arguments. That’ll make your essay much more effective than if you only focused on your side of the argument.

#3: Use Evidence to Support Your Side

Remember, an essay can’t be an argumentative essay if it doesn’t support its argument with evidence. For every point you make, make sure you have facts to back it up. Some examples are previous studies done on the topic, surveys of large groups of people, data points, etc. There should be lots of numbers in your argumentative essay that support your side of the argument. This will make your essay much stronger compared to only relying on your own opinions to support your argument.

Summary: Argumentative Essay Sample

Argumentative essays are persuasive essays that use facts and evidence to support their side of the argument. Most argumentative essays follow either the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model. By reading good argumentative essay examples, you can learn how to develop your essay and provide enough support to make readers agree with your opinion. When writing your essay, remember to always make your thesis clear, show where the other side is weak, and back up your opinion with data and evidence.

What's Next?

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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argumentative essay

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• Create a sign-up sheet, or some other recording form, to keep track of the texts students have selected during Work Time B. Some students may want to choose the same text; determine whether it is preferred for students to each have different texts or if it is OK that they repeat.
• Due to time constraints, students should be encouraged to make their text selection during Work Time B. Provide computers or tablets for students to move on to the next step—gathering some brief biographical details about the author of their selected text to include in the Preface: Background and Context section of the Performance Task Recording Planner. Consider gathering this information in advance and giving it to students in bulleted format for them to write in their own words.
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Supports guided in part by CA ELD Standards 6.I.A.4, 6.I.B.5, 6.I.B.7, 6.I.B.8, and 6.I.B.12

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Argumentative writing: theory, assessment, and instruction

• Published: 09 May 2019
• Volume 32 , pages 1345–1357, ( 2019 )

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• Ralph P. Ferretti 1 &
• Steve Graham 2  

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Despite the early emergence of oral argumentation, written argumentation is slow to develop, insensitive to alternative perspectives, and generally of poor quality. These findings are unsettling because high quality argumentative writing is expected throughout the curriculum and needed in an increasingly competitive workplace that requires advanced communication skills. In this introduction, we provide background about the theoretical perspectives that inform the papers included in this special issue and highlight their contributions to the extant literature about argumentative writing.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

The argumentative impulse originates with the anticipation of a real or imagined difference of opinion about a controversial issue (van Eemeren et al., 2014 ). Given people’s inherently self-interested tendencies, it is likely that the appearance of argumentation as a form of verbal communication was nearly coincident with the emergence of human speech itself. In any case, we know that the systematic study of argumentation, its purposes, and the discursive strategies used to argue have a long and venerable history in Western thought. In fact, many theoretical and metalinguistic concepts that we now use to understand the varieties of argumentation originate in antiquity (van Eemeren et al., 2014 ).

The fifth century BC is seminal in the development of argumentation and human rationality because we see for the first time the construction of a written meta - representational system designed to formalize principles of reasonable argumentation (Harris, 2009 ). Aristotle ( 1962 ) clearly had an inchoate understanding of the importance of meta-representation when he wrote “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words”. The importance of this realization cannot be overstated because it suggests “…any full writing system is capable of rendering in visual form anything that is spoken (Olson, 2016 , p. 22),” and by implication, anything that can be mentally represented. Furthermore, and perhaps more important in this context, the creation of written meta-representational concepts and principles focusing on reasonable argumentation resulted in a sapient consciousness of the relevance, validity, and evidential basis for reasons (Olson, 2016 ). Simply put, writing enabled people to record, examine, and evaluate representations of reasoning as objects of reflection. The consequences of this discovery for the development of Western civilization are incalculable.

Naturalistic studies of argumentative discourse show that very young children engage in a variety of discursive tactics to influence other people (Bartsch, Wright, & Estes, 2009 ; Dunn, 1988 ; Dunn & Munn, 1985 ). Between 18 and 24 months, toddlers use sentences to argue with parents and siblings (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990 ; Perlman & Ross, 2005 ), and at 36 months, they are able to produce negative and positive reasons to justify a decision (Stein & Bernas, 1999 ). Despite this precocity, children and adults are prone to my-side bias (Kuhn, 1991 ; Perkins, Farady, & Bushey, 1991 ) and are predisposed to use self-interested standards to evaluate their arguments and those of other people (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ). The insensitivity to alternative perspectives and neglect of evaluative standards are also seen in students’ written arguments (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012 ). The NAEP report showed that only about 25% of students’ argumentative essays provide strong reasons and supporting examples, but they often fail to consider alternative perspectives. Evidence for my-side bias is widely found in the empirical literature (see Ferretti and Fan, 2016 ). These findings have sparked research about argumentative writing and given impetus to the design of interventions to improve the quality of students’ written arguments (Ferretti & Lewis, 2019 ).

Concern about students’ preparedness for the modern workplace has also heightened interest in their argumentative writing (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ). Opportunities for blue-collar jobs are diminishing, and work increasingly depends upon the use of sophisticated technology and the acquisition of specialized reading and writing skills (Biancrosa & Snow, 2006 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ). Furthermore, reading, writing, and content area learning have become inextricably interconnected throughout the curriculum (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008 ; 2012 ). As a result, students are expected to make and evaluate interpretative claims by using disciplinary strategies and evaluative standards when reading and writing (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ). These expectations are reflected in the emphasis in Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ) on argumentative writing across the curriculum.

Current theories of argumentative writing (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ) recognize its intrinsically social and dialogical nature, and that it involves the presentation of a constellation of propositions intended to achieve the interlocutors’ discursive goals (van Eemeren, 2018 ). There are, however, theoretically-motivated differences of perspective about the foci of argumentative writing research, the methods used to study written arguments, and the instructional strategies that can be implemented to improve written argumentation. In what follows, we provide some background about these matters for the purpose of contextualizing the contributions to this special issue.

Sociocultural perspective

Sociocultural theorists investigate how social mediation shapes meaning-making in historical and cultural context (Bazerman, 2016 ; Beach, Newell, & VanDerHeide, 2016 ; Englert, Mariage, & Dunsmore, 2006 ; Newell, Beach, Smith, & VanDerHeide, 2011 ). In the sociocultural view, writing is a semiotic tool that supports communication and social relationships, is learned and practiced in social situations, and is used to accomplish inherently social goals (Bazerman, 2016 ; Graham, 2018 ; Newell, Bloome, Kim, & Goff, 2018 ). Given the focus on communication and social interaction, writing research in this tradition focuses on the situations within which people write and the influence of those situations on the writer’s participation is social activities. The writing context is never static (Bazerman, 2016 ). New texts become available, new communicative relationships develop, and new social practices emerge that influence human communication. Hence, the sociocultural tradition focuses on the interactions that take place among people over time and in different situations, and how writing creates shared meanings and representations that have consequences for the participants (Bazerman, 2016 ; Beach et al., 2016 ).

Sociocultural theorists also believe that writing development is influenced by participating in situations that afford opportunities to appropriate semiotic tools and social practices (Bazerman, 2016 ; Newell et al., 2011 ). Research in this tradition tends to use qualitative methods to reveal aspects of the context that affect and are affected by participation in social activity. Newell et al.’s ( 2018 ) study of a teacher’s shifting argumentative epistemologies during instructional interactions with her students illustrates how ethnographic methods can be used to capture the contextual and situational influences on her representation of argumentation, the development of her teaching practices, and the standards she used to evaluate her students’ argumentative writing.

In a similar vein, Monte-Sano and Allen ( 2018 ) used comparative case study methods to investigate the development of novice history teachers’ writing instruction after completing their pre-service teaching program. This study, which involved comparisons across multiple units of analysis, found that the types and sophistication of students’ written arguments depended on the kind of historical work they were assigned, the types of prompts to which they were asked to respond, and the degree to which their argumentative writing was supported by their teachers. Both studies relied on careful analysis of the contextual factors that influenced teachers’ instructional practices and students’ argumentative writing. Newell et al. ( 2018 ) and Monte-Sano and Allen ( 2018 ) also provide information about how the appropriation of disciplinary processes and standards in the English Language Arts and History influenced the development of teaching practices related to argumentative writing.

Cognitive perspective

The cognitive perspective (Graham, 2018 ; Hayes, 1996 ; Hayes & Flower, 1986 ; MacArthur & Graham, 2016 ) views argumentative writing as a problem-solving process that requires self-regulation to achieve the author’s rhetorical goals (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ; Graham & Harris, 1997 ). Problem solving is done in a problem space that results from the person’s internal representation of the task environment (Newell & Simon, 1972 ). The internal representation amounts to the problem solver’s understanding of the task environment, and the problem space is a network of paths for transforming this understanding into the goal. In the cognitive view, problem solving operates within an information processing system that is constrained by the writer’s available capacities and resources (Flower & Hayes, 1980 , 1981 ). Skilled writers manage these constraints by setting goals and then planning, writing, and revising their essays. Research shows that the failure to strategically allocate limited cognitive resources adversely impacts writing performance (Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ).

Writers draw on their knowledge of argumentative discourse, the topic, their interlocutor, and critical standards of evaluation to write arguments (Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ; Ferretti & Lewis, 2019 ). Expert writers possess fluent linguistic skills, genre and topic knowledge (McCutchen, 1986 ; 2011 ), and are skilled at setting goals to guide the writing process. In contrast, novices are less fluent, possess less genre and topic knowledge, and have difficulty strategically regulating the writing process (Graham, Harris, & McKeown, 2013 ; Harris, Graham, MacArthur, Reid, & Mason, 2011 ; McCutchen, 2011 ). In contrast to experts, novices write down topically relevant information that is used to generate related information (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ). Difficulties with self-regulation are seen in all aspects of the problem solving of unskilled writers (Graham et al., 2013 ).

Studies in the cognitive tradition often use experimental procedures and quantitative analyses to make inferences about the factors that influence argumentative writing. Ferretti and Lewis’s ( 2018 ) studied the effects of writing goals and knowledge of the persuasion genre on the quality of elementary and middle-school students’ argumentative writing. In addition, they examined students’ knowledge of persuasive discourse by analyzing the types of ideas they generated to help an imaginary student who was having difficulty writing. Their analyses showed that genre-specific writing goals and knowledge of persuasion predicted writing quality, and furthermore, that the ideas students generated to support an imaginary student revealed implicit knowledge about the intentions of other people that was not evidenced in their essays.

Graham et al. ( 2018 ) provided evidence about Alexander’s ( 1997 , 1998 ) model of domain learning, which posits that knowledge, motivation, and strategic behavior impact students’ writing development. In particular, Graham et al. measured whether individual differences in these characteristics predicted growth in the argumentative writing of fifth-grade students before and after writing instruction. There were some differences in the predictive value of different variables before and after instruction, but the most robust predictor of writing quality was topic knowledge. This finding is consistent with Ferretti and Lewis’s findings ( 2018 ), and provides further evidence for the influence of topic and genre knowledge on students’ argumentative writing (Gillespie, Olinghouse, & Graham, 2013 ; Olinghouse, & Graham, 2009 ; Olinghouse, Graham, & Gillespie, 2015 ).

Sociocultural and cognitive perspectives

Many of the papers that appear in this special issue draw on the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives to conceptualize, analyze, and interpret their research. Three intervention studies (Harris, Ray, Graham, & Houston, 2018 ; McKeown et al., 2018 ; Ray, Graham, & Liu, 2018 ) were inspired by the Self - Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of writing development (Harris & Graham, 1985 , 2009 , 2016 ; Harris et al., 2011 ). The SRSD approach is founded on multiple lines of theoretical and empirical inquiry that address the cognitive, social, and motivational dimensions of writing (Harris & Graham, 2016 ). The cognitive components address the aforementioned limits on students’ knowledge and processing capacities by explicitly teaching writing strategies that enable them to plan, write, and revise their essays. The social components include the dialogic interactions that take place between teachers and students to scaffold the student’s self-regulated problem solving. The motivational aspects are seen in the use of instructional procedures that are intended to improve students’ self-efficacy, increase their expectations for success, and attribute their success to effort and other controllable aspects of their performance. Collectively, these three papers contribute additional evidence to a well-established literature about the benefits of SRSD writing instruction.

Harris et al. ( 2018 ) investigated the effects of SRSD instruction for close reading of informational text to support the persuasive writing of unskilled fourth- and fifth-grade writers. The instruction focused on how material from the informational text could be used to elaborate and support students’ persuasive essays. SRSD instruction was associated with improvements in genre elements, the complexity of students’ plans, and the holistic quality of their essays. These finding highlight the integration of reading and writing instruction that is increasingly important as students make progress through the curriculum (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ; Ferretti & De La Paz, 2011 ).

Ray et al. ( 2018 ) developed a SRSD strategy to teach struggling high school writers to analyze prompts used on the ACT examination, and then plan and write their argumentative essays. Writing is a gateway skill for college success (Applebee & Langer, 2006 ), and high quality writing on admission tests can positively impact a student’s future educational prospects. Ray and her colleagues found that SRSD instruction for the ACT examination resulted in better plans, a greater number of genre elements, and higher ACT essay scores. These findings provide encouragement to students who may have difficulty writing arguments but seek the many benefits of attending a college of their choosing.

SRSD instruction is demonstrably effective in improving writing outcomes for novice and more experienced writers (Harris & Graham, 2016 ; Harris et al., 2011 ; Lewis & Ferretti, 2011 ; Song & Ferretti, 2013 ) when it is delivered under conditions that ensure its procedural fidelity. Unfortunately, many classroom teachers are poorly prepared to deliver high quality writing instruction with fidelity (Graham, in press), so there is a relative dearth of information about the effects of teacher-led, classroom-based interventions on the quality of students’ argumentative writing. McKeown et al. ( 2018 ) addressed this issue by comparing the writing quality of students in urban schools whose teachers either did or did not receive professional development for SRSD writing instruction. The authors found that the quality of students’ argumentative essays was better if their teachers received SRSD professional development despite the fact that procedural fidelity was not always observed. The authors surmised that the effects on students’ writing quality may have been even stronger if the instruction had been delivered with greater fidelity.

Earlier we mentioned that people generally fail to apply critical standards when evaluating arguments. Studies of argumentative writing have almost exclusively focused on the goal of persuading a real or imagined audience (Ferretti & Lewis, 2018 ). Audience considerations reflect a rhetorical judgment (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992 ; Santos & Santos, 1999 ) because they are based a community’s prevailing standards of acceptability. However, audience considerations alone are insufficient because judgments about an argument’s reasonableness require the use of normative standards for evaluating the person’s argumentative strategies (Ferretti, Andrews-Weckerly, & Lewis, 2007 ; Ferretti & Fan, 2016 ). The reasonableness standard is tested when interlocutors answer critical questions about the argumentative strategies used by them (Walton, Reed, & Macagno, 2008 ).

Nussbaum et al. ( 2018 ) assessed whether dialogic interactions and instructional support for the use of critical questions affected college students’ argumentative writing. Students engaged in debates and wrote arguments about controversial issues associated with assigned reading materials. All students were provided with argumentation vee diagrams (AVD) that were used to represent the reasons for and against a position prior to and during class discussions. However, in contrast to the control condition, the AVDs of students in the experimental condition also included information about the critical questions that could be used to evaluate the argument from consequences strategy. The authors found that over time, students who used AVDs with critical questions generated more refutations than those in the control condition. Some transfer was also seen when students wrote without the critical questions. These findings contribute to a relatively meager literature about the benefits of supporting students’ use of critical questions to evaluate their written arguments (Nussbaum & Edwards, 2011 ; Song & Ferretti, 2013 ; Wissinger & De La Paz, 2016 ).

Linguistic, sociocultural, and cognitive perspectives

A number of studies reported in this special issue are informed by constructs and methods drawn from sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic perspectives. Linguistic analyses can be helpful because texts are written in natural language by writers who have considerable discretion with respect to their goals, genre, word choice, and grammatical structures (Pirnay-Dummer, 2016). Skilled readers bring their knowledge of language, text structures, and world knowledge to bear on the interpretation of text (Duke, Pearson, Strachan, & Billman, 2011 ). However, even skilled readers can draw different interpretations about the simplest of texts. For this reason, considerable effort has been invested in conducting detailed analyses of linguistic features that are associated with high quality texts (McNamara, Crossley, & McCarthy, 2010 ).

MacArthur, Jennings, and Philippatkos ( 2018 ) analyzed the argumentative essays of basic college writers to determine the linguistic features that predicted their writing development. A corpus of argumentative essays was drawn from an earlier study focusing on the effects of strategy instruction on writing quality. Coh-Metrix, a natural language processing (NLP) tool (McNamara, Graesser, McCarthy, & Cai, 2014 ), was used to develop a model of linguistic constructs to predict writing quality before and after instruction, and also to analyze how those constructs changed in response to instruction. They found that essay length, referential cohesion, and lexical complexity were positively associated with writing quality. Furthermore, changes in writing in response to instruction were linked to improvements in referential cohesion and lexical complexity. These findings suggest that the text’s linguistic features are sensitive to instruction, and that NLP tools can be used to detect changes in those features. The latter finding is important because formative assessments using NLP-based scoring systems should be sensitive to changes in students’ writing in response to instruction (Chapelle, Cotos, & Lee, 2015 ).

Argumentative essays are difficult to score in vivo when the assessment goal is to guide timely instructional decisions and support student learning. Concerns about the time-sensitivity of writing assessments have led researchers to develop automated essay scoring (AES) systems (Shermis & Burstein, 2013 ). AES systems analyze observable components of text to identify approximations to intrinsic characteristics of writing (Shermis, Burstein, Higgins, & Zechner, 2010 ) These systems have traditionally been designed to yield a holistic score for on-demand, timed summative assessments that are correlated with human judgment (Deane, 2013 ). However, serious questions have been raised about the usefulness of AES systems in providing feedback for instructional purposes, as well as the construct validity of scores derived from these systems. Deane ( 2013 ) argues that these concerns may be mitigated if information derived from AES systems is augmented with data about the component reasoning skills related to writing collected from other tasks.

Deane et al. ( 2018 ) reported about the use of scenario-based assessments (SBAs) to measure the component skills that underlie written argumentation. SBAs provide students with a purpose for reading thematically related texts and engaging in tasks that are sequenced to assess increasingly complex reasoning skills. The sequence of SBAs is guided by an hypothesized learning progression (LP) framework that describes skills of increasing sophistication that are thought to contribute to proficiency in argumentative writing (Deane and Song, 2014 ). Deane and his colleagues measured students’ performance on SBAs that tapped the component skills of creating, evaluating, and summarizing arguments. In addition, linguistic features of students’ essays were measured with the AES system E - rater (Attali and Burstein, 2005 ). Measures of the linguistic features and component skills were used to predict the quality of students’ argumentative writing. Furthermore, the component skills were analyzed to see if they were aligned with the hypothesized LP. They found that linguistic features and the component skills contributed unique variance to the prediction of argumentative writing. Furthermore, the component skills were generally aligned with the hypothesized LP. These findings provide suggestive evidence for the hypothesized LP and for Deane’s ( 2013 ) conjecture about the value of measuring genre-related reasoning skills that influence students’ argumentative writing.

Allen, Likens, and McNamara ( 2018 ) observed that associations between linguistic features and writing quality can vary across a range of contextual factors, resulting in multiple linguistic profiles of high quality writing (Allen, Snow, & McNamara, 2016 ; Crossley, Roscoe, & McNamara, 2014 ). This finding has resulted in the hypothesis that skilled writing results from the flexible use of linguistic style rather than a fixed set of linguistic features (Allen et al., 2016 ). Allen and her colleagues examined this hypothesis by having high school students write and revise their argumentative essays in Writing Pal (W-PAL; Roscoe, Allen, Weston, Crossley, & McNamara, 2014 ; Roscoe & McNamara, 2013 ), a NLP-based intelligent tutoring system that can provide formative and summative feedback about writing, support practice for mechanics, and deliver strategy instruction. All students in this study received formative and summative feedback about their writing, and half of students also received feedback about spelling and grammar.

The authors were interested in whether feedback about spelling and grammar affected linguistic flexibility, and whether linguistic flexibility was related to writing quality. In addition, they sought information about the dimensions along which linguistic variation was observed. Statistical analyses showed that students’ essays varied along a number of linguistic dimensions across prompts and within drafts, and that variation in some of these dimensions was related to essay quality. However, feedback about writing mechanics did not influence the linguistic properties of their writing. These findings are consistent with the linguistic flexibility hypothesis and with Graham and Perin’s ( 2007 ) conclusion that writing quality is unaffected by spelling and grammar instruction.

We mentioned earlier that curricula increasingly emphasize the interdependence of reading and writing (Biancrosa & Snow, 2006 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ). Students are expected to integrate and evaluate information from diverse sources when writing, identify arguments and evaluate specific claims in a text, and assess the adequacy of the evidence offered in support of those claims (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010 ). These are formidable tasks for native language (L1) speakers, and even more challenging for second language (L2) students. L2 students may have limited reading and writing proficiency, lack L2 fluency for academic communication, possess minimal background knowledge in L2, and have difficulty making inferences in L2, especially when those inferences rely of genre-specific cultural conventions (Grabe & Zhang, 2013 ). Confronted with these challenges, Cummins ( 2016 ) has argued that L2 students may draw on a shared pool of shared academic concepts and skills to support transfer across languages, that is, the linguistic interdependence hypothesis (LIH).

van Weijen, Rijlaarsdam, and Bergh ( 2018 ) tested the LIH by having Dutch speaking college students write essays in their native language and in English after reading sources that could be used as evidence for their argument. The authors sought information about the degree to which students’ essays were of comparable quality in L1 and L2, and whether their use of sources was similar across languages and predictive of essay quality. van Weijen and her colleagues found a relatively strong positive correlation between essay quality in L1 and L2. In addition, they found that students tended to rely more heavily on source material when writing in L2, but in general, writers tended to use common source features when writing in both languages. Students also tended to incorporate evidence for and against the proposition in L1 and L2. Finally, the same two features of source material predicted writing quality in L1 and L2, and that these relationships were not language dependent. In sum, these findings provide some support for the LIH, and suggest that students draw on a shared pool of concepts and skills when writing from source material in L1 and L2.

Final thoughts

The papers in this special issue highlight a range of theoretical perspectives and analytic methods that have been used to study argumentative writing and understand the conditions that influence its development. The sociocultural, cognitive, and linguistic perspectives have each made important contributions to our understanding of argumentative writing, but as the studies in this special issue show, unique synergies arise when scholarship is not constrained by theoretical, methodological, and analytic siloes.

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Ferretti, R.P., Graham, S. Argumentative writing: theory, assessment, and instruction. Read Writ 32 , 1345–1357 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-019-09950-x

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Published : 09 May 2019

Issue Date : 15 June 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-019-09950-x

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