Description
The purpose of this exercise is to return to your sources after having completed your first rough draft. You do not merely want to select the evidence you martial from each of your sources; rather, you want to think through why you have selected that peice of evidence and, more importantly, what you hope to achieve by including that evidence. What effect do you want that evidence to have on your reader? How does that evidence work in relation to not only the specific point you want to argue but also your larger project in general? Is the evidence strong enough to justify it’s usage? For instance, you most likely don’t want to base your argument for a specific solution on a single individual’s blog post as it is not the most reliable or strongest kind of evidence.
- State your problem: Please state the key overarching problem that you’ve chosen to examine. This is the larger issue at hand, like poaching or video game addiction writ large.
- State the subproblems you will specifically address: It is not likely that we will be able to solve a large problem like video game addiction in one fell swoop. However, we can at least make progress in addressing small aspects of the larger problem. As clearly as possible, state the specific subproblems that you will be addressing. For instance, if your topic is video game addiction in regard to children, two aspects stand out: namely, the sheer amount of time spent playing and the ease of access to video games (pc games, console games, mobile games, etc.).
- Demonstrate the consequences of the problem/subproblems: It is not enough for you to merely claim that a particular issue is a problem; rather, you must be able to demonstrate the negative consequences of the subproblem. Walk your reader through the issue and martial evidence that shows us why this is a problem we need to address. To that end, please list the evidence (and source from which it is drawn) that will be used to justify your analysis of the specific subproblems you will address.
- Provide your specific solution(s) to each respective subproblem you examine: For this paper, we must advocate for one or more solutions that should resolve one or more specific subproblems. To that end, you must martial evidence that demonstrates the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed solution.
- List the proposed solution for a respective subproblem (and the source if available).
- Demonstrate Feasibility: The solution you advocate for must be feasible; that is, it must be actually able to be implemented. Thus, attempting to argue for the enactment of government regulation which restricts the sale of violent video games to minors is simply not able to be done because video games are protected by the First Amendment. On the other hand, if you are arguing that video game consoles and platforms need to implement time limit settings to protect kids from gaming too much, you can bring in Apple’s Screentime app and the Nintendo switch (both of which allow parents to set time limits on their children’s gaming) which functions as precedence. This demonstrates that if two major companies have implemented such features, that it is reasonable that other such companies would be willing to do the same. Please list what evidence you will martial to show your reader that the solution you advocate for is within the realm of possibility.
- Demonstrate Efficacy: The solution you advocate for must not only be feasible, but it must also be efficacious; that is, it must be effective at least theoretically if not in actual practice. Thus, if you are looking at video game addiction, not many solutions have been tried because it is such a new phenomenon. To that end, you may want to look at, say, the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous in helping alcoholics rehabilitate themselves. Therefore, if the regular group meetings held by AA are effective, you can argue—via analogy—that similar types of group meetings would be effective in helping those that suffer from video game addiction. Please list what evidence you will martial that demonstrates the efficacy of the solution you are advocating for.
- Provide the solution that you will serve as the foundation for your counterargument: For this aspect of the paper, you will need to find one solution that has been proposed to help fix the problem you are examining. You must then martial additional evidence which demonstrates why such a solution would not be either feasible to implement and/or efficacious for our specific situation. Thus, for video game addiction, China has created treatment camps which administer corporal punishment and electroshock therapy which has resulted in the death of several patients. It is highly unlikely that many American parents would be willing to condone such treatments. Moreover, there have been many studies on electroshock treatment (which was used in the US in the 70’s) which demonstrate that in many cases it is not only ineffective but also causes psychological trauma, producing more problems than it solves. On the other hand, the Cinderella Law enacted by Vietnam (which stops kids 16 or younger from gaming between midnight and 6am) might be efficacious but because of our current legal system it would be impossible to implement.
- List the specific elements of the solution that you will argue against: Remember in the poaching example, legalizing the ivory trade would likely result in an increase in the demand of the products thereby not effectively reducing the poaching of animals and, if anything, increasing it.
- List the evidence that you will use to argue against the bad solution: It is not enough to simply suggest that a proposed solution won’t work. Rather, you must bring in evidence which demonstrates that a solution won’t be feasible and/or effective, or that the solution will cause as many or more problems than it fixes. However, make sure that the evidence you use is specifically directed to the element of the solution you will argue against.
- Describe in detail the kind of argument you will construct: Think about Toulmin here. To that end please include the following elements:
- Claim/Grounds: What is your main claim? Remember, the claim and grounds can be thought to function as a because statement. For example: “(Context/Scope of problem) Video game addiction in regard to children is a relatively new phenomenon with many potential causes. However, as many scholars have demonstrated (Ferguson, Carnegey, etc.), the single defining feature of video game addiction is an excessive amount of time spent gaming on a daily basis. (Claim) Therefore, if video game platforms were to include time limit settings in their parental control features, we can begin to combat the single largest factor which can lead to video game addiction (Grounds) because parents could easily and effectively set limits on the children’s gaming.”
- Qualification/Rebuttal: “Though some children will always find a way to work around such limitations, it is likely that this solution will still be largely effective in reducing the number of children who play such games without parental consent.”
- Backing: Remember, you need additional backing which supports your Grounds: “Moreover, as all gaming platforms have parental control features included, it is likely that such platforms can add time limit settings to these parental controls, similar to what Apple’s Screentime app and the Nintendo Switch offer.” This backing serves as evidence to support the feasibility of the solution by showing the reader that other big companies are starting to recognize the potential problem of excessive gaming and that they are starting to include features to help combat this problem.
- Warrant: What is your warrant? What is the underlying reasoning or assumption on which your argument will be built? This will most likely be the most difficult conceptual element of your project, but try to think about the logic behind your overall argument. What we have in the above example is an inductive warrant of cause/effect: if video game platforms implement time limit settings and parents use them (cause), it will likely stop kids from spending a detrimental amount of time gaming (effect). (Please keep in mind that you may have more than one set of claim/grounds/backing/warrant depending on your argument. For instance, if you are also thinking about advocating for an awareness campaign located in the PTA, you are effectively dealing with an entirely different argument and may not be able to use the same kind of warrant.)