So You Want to Write a Counter Argument? Colbert’s Formidable Opponent Monty Python’s Argument Clinic Socrates Argument Clinic

Counter Arguing Defined Unlike many forms of writing, academic arguments will include discussions of objections to the position being advanced. Dealing with counterarguments and objections is a key part of the process of building arguments, refining them, interpreting and analyzing them.

Why Bother? From Thomas Friedman: Listening is also a sign of respect, and it is amazing how much people will allow you to say to them, by way of criticism, if you just bother to go listen to them first.

Why Bother? I heard Richard Brodhead, the dean of Yale College, give some very smart advice along these lines to incoming freshmen the other day. “Above all," Dean Brodhead told the students, "don't limit your associations to people who agree with you. . . . Who…will be able to deal more constructively with the challenges of our time: people who have only ever experienced preaching to the converted, or people who tested their understanding against the…understandings of others?"

Really, Why Bother? Better ideas. Shows and Earns respect. Shows you’ve thought things through. Creates sense of fairness. Clarifies your own argument. Can create organization

How to Find a Counter Argument You can generate counterarguments by asking yourself how someone who disagrees with you might respond to each of the points you've made or your position as a whole. Do some research. Talk with a friend or with your teacher. Consider your thesis and imagine someone who denies each point of it. For example, if you argued "Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent," you might imagine someone saying "Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and needy."

What to do with a Counter Argument Once You’ve Found One consider how you will respond to them— will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.

Others ways to deal with C-A • Anticipating your readers’ concerns: to persuade readers that your argument is reasonable, you need to begin by anticipating how they might think differently from you. What questions or doubts might they have? What alternative interpretations or arguments might they be tempted to find convincing? • Refutation: this involves being able to show important weaknesses and shortcomings in an opponent's position that demonstrate that his/her argument ought to be rejected. • Accommodating those concerns: You might find a way to agree with part of someone’s opposing argument without weakening your own argument. • Strategic concession: acknowledgment of some of the merits of a different view. In some cases, this may mean accepting or incorporating some components of an authors' argument, while rejecting other parts of it.

And Finally Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original thesis. If considering a counterargument changes your position, you will need to go back and revise your original thesis accordingly. When you are summarizing opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to show that you have seriously considered the many sides of the issue and that you are not simply attacking or making cartoons of your opponents. The opposite of this is called a “Straw Man” argument—something set up to be knocked down. It is usually better to consider one or two serious counterarguments in some depth, rather than to give a long but superficial list of many different counterarguments and replies.