Incorporating Evidence and Counterclaims
Outline
While you have already practiced brainstorming and outlining, you will now incorporate more counterclaims and rebuttals into an argument. You will create a full outline based on another persuasive topic. Your topic for this outline is:
Founding Father James Madison once stated in a speech, "All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." Do you agree that those in power cannot be trustworthy? Develop a stance on this issue and include specific evidence.
Your outline needs to include all of the following:
- Claim or thesis: This is your argument, the position you will take on your issue.
- Two or three points to support your claim: These reasons will become the topic sentences of your body paragraphs. You will need to support these reasons with evidence.
- Evidence (at least one supporting detail per point): This can be in the form of facts, statistics, examples, analogies, expert testimony, or definitions. However, your evidence needs to be factual, not fictional. In order to add credibility to your argument, you should expect to conduct some outside research, which will vary depending on the issue you will argue. Therefore, you will need to include parenthetical citations in your outline.
- Counterclaim and rebuttal: You need to include at least one counterclaim. Counterclaims can be included in body paragraphs or in a separate paragraph at the beginning or ending of the paper. Remember that you will need to prepare a rebuttal for each counterclaim.
Keep in mind that you are only creating an outline without having to develop complete paragraphs. Use Roman numerals and letters to outline your major paragraphs and parts of your paragraphs, such as point, evidence, or counterclaim. This planning stage is where you will decide the organization and essential content of a persuasive paper.
You will need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment, so please submit a Works Cited document with your assignment submission. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for information on citing resources. Before you begin, review the Persuasive Essay Outline Checklist to make sure that you include all of the items required for full credit.
Once you have completed your persuasive essay outline, please submit your work to the dropbox.