Chapter Twelve

Developing your argument was the main point in the reading of chapter twelve.  Developing your argument involves identifying reasons to accept your thesis statement, selecting evidence to support your reasoning, and deciding how you will go about appealing to your readers.  It requires the development of a strategy to support your thesis statement.  Not only should your strategy reflect your purpose and role, but your readers' needs, interests, values, beliefs, and knowledge.  There are three steps to go by when supporting your thesis statement.  Choose reasons, which varies according to the type of document being written.  Select evidence to support your reasons, such as details, facts, observations of your own, and expert opinions.  In the last step, decide how to appeal to your readers to accept their ideas as reasonable and valid.  You can persuade your readers to accept your argument by appealing to authority, emotion, principles, values, beliefs, character, and logic.  To ensure the integrity of your argument, acquaint yourself with common logical fallacies.  Look for fallacies based on questionable assumptions.  Search for fallacies based on misrepresentation, and locate fallacies based on careless reasoning.  Chapter twelve was helpful when explaining how to go about developing your argument.  The reading gave me a little more confidence for my next step towards my writing process.