This page attempts to advise you on how to make sound arguments for essays, specifically when using sources. It’s meant to be discussed in class, so, if you weren’t in class, this won’t be as effective as it could be. Here is some general advice for making sound arguments in essays:
- Make sure you can answer the “so what?” of an assertion–why is it significant to your overall goal?
- Be coherent and keep your ideas about a topic (or subtopic) together–don’t House of Pain it…
- Support all assertions with sound reasoning or evidence.
- Weave in your sources and don’t just drop in quotations with no explanation–you need to synthesize you research.
Below is an ineffective attempt at supporting an argument. In fact, it doesn’t really make an argument, but I think we can read that the author wants to make claims about love in American culture…
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy, so they say. Society has lots of attention given to the ideals of love, making love an important ideal. Relationships are a part of American culture, but they often fail, making love problematic. Society wants to jam love down our throats in an attempt to normalize this sickness. Because divorces happen at a rate of 50% in the population, this known failure of love contradicts societal norms, making love a priority to create healthy relationships. I think the Everly Brothers said it best, “I know it isn’t true, know it isn’t true / Love is just a lie made to make you blue” (“Love Hurts”).
This is fine as a pre-draft one doesn’t turn in, but it needs to make a supported argument. By the way, I prefer Nazareth’s 1974 version of this Boudleaux Bryant song.
Pros
Let’s start with what the author does well…It’s grammatically correct, and there’s an attempt at repetition for emphasis; however, repeating “making love” makes this less-than-serious writing. Scrutinize your prose more carefully.
Cons
This is an example of writer-based prose. The writer has bridged the chain of significance in their head, but they haven’t explained that chain to the readers. The author probably doesn’t believe what’s written, but they might be trying to please the teacher, who often explains the folly of love and provides evidence upon evidence that maintaining a “loving” relationship requires lying. Also, the author makes two references that could be “common knowledge,” but you can’t expect readers will assume exactly what you state–they will have different references:
- “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy…” (1 Cor. 13:4)*
- Fifty percent of marriages succeed in divorce is a myth that has been perpetuated and rarely scrutinized. (Goldberg Jones)
- “10 Divorce Myths Debunked” (Goldberg Jones)
- Might be closer to 20%-30%…(PsychCentral)
The Everly Brothers reference isn’t a problem, but it’s dropped in without explanation. Technically, you MUST analyze song lyrics immediately when you include it to fall under “fair use” (according to my last editor), but you may still need permission from the artist (John Iovine). You need to synthesize your outside research and not make the reader guess what you mean.
*Paul’s letter. John and Paul’s letter was “She loves me yeah yeah yeah…”
Revision
Title: The Love Conundrum: Why We Waste Money on Relationships
Everyday humans have been engaging in love, and artists have been discussing love for millennia. Love runs the gamut of emotions from exalted to horrific to mundane, making it an often contradictory emotion. In order to focus better on this topic, I’ll be referencing romantic love as opposed to familiar love: eros and agape, respectively [**]. Romantic love can be a double-edged sword, and even the Bible notes this dichotomy: “Love suffers long and is kind” (KJV, 1 Cor. 13:4). American cultural often promotes love as a necessary component of life, and capitalism manufactures products, such as Valentine’s Day and dating sites, to normalize partnering. One of the biggest industries related to love is the wedding industry, which caters to brides and grooms wanting to demonstrate their “love” by throwing an overpriced party they actually don’t get to enjoy. Ironically, even with these lavish parties, somewhere between 24%-43% of married couples will divorce (PsychCentral). Although that rate is not the 50% divorce-rate myth we’ve often heard, the number of divorces is high enough to see love as problematic. However, the pursuit of love persists even with the successes and failures around us. Couples have the assumption that their relationship is different, clouding their chance to think critically about the drastic choice they’ll make.
Perhaps, though, seeing love as terrible focuses too much on the negative aspect, a frequent narrative of films, novels, and TV shows that use couples’ strife for dramatic effects. Heartbreak narratives abound in popular culture, leading to many ballads about this emotional game. The Everly Brothers take a rather pessimistic look at love when they sing, “I know it isn’t true, know it isn’t true / Love is just a lie made to make you blue” (“Love Hurts”). Whereas, Katrina and the Waves sing an ebullient melody about love: “I feel alive, I feel the love, I feel the love that’s really real” (“Walking on Sunshine”). Love permeates our culture. And it’s big business.
This revision creates two paragraphs to set up a discussion on the expense of love and how the love industry manufactures desire, which the rest of this “essay” would cover.
**You might need a citation if this isn’t common knowledge or if it’s new to you. You might also want a citation if you use an author’s specific definition: Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, etc. or Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros. Also, “suffers” in the Bible often means endures, so this isn’t the best quotation for the author’s argument…but you know sometimes words have two meanings.