Key Terms and Concepts

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. —Exodus 20:8

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The Second Amendment

How to Find the Key Terms Examine the claim and reasons. Look for nouns and verbs whose meaning is essential to the argument. Also consider unstated concepts that might form the underlying foundation of the meaning of the argument. (For example, American political arguments are often based on unstated but assumed concepts such as all people being equal or other constitutional rights.)

Example Claim: Reasons: In “Hitting Bottom: Why America Should Outlaw Spanking,” Emily Bazelon, a senior editor at Slate, argues just that—that corporal punishment of children should be banned in the US. Reasons: “It would make it easier for prosecutors to bring charges for instances of corporal punishment that they think are tantamount to child abuse.” “The idea is that by making it illegal to hit your kids, countries will make hurting them socially unacceptable.”

Example Key Terms: spanking corporal punishment outlaw ban America US child abuse socially unacceptable

Example Key Terms: spanking corporal punishment outlaw ban synonyms? America US child abuse socially unacceptable synonyms? synonyms synonyms less “key” than the others

How are the terms defined? Explicitly definitions examples synonyms/context clues negatives (what it’s not) common usage Implicitly

Example: Corporal Punishment Spanking and corporal punishment are used interchangeably throughout: The subtitle: “Why America should outlaw spanking” “Anyone with the slightest libertarian streak seems to believe that outlawing corporal punishment is silly” “a spanking ban” “Rather, it would make it easier for prosecutors to bring charges for instances of corporal punishment that they think are tantamount to child abuse. Currently, California law (and the law of other states) allows for spanking that is reasonable, age-appropriate, and does not carry a risk of serious injury.” “ban corporal punishment” “Sweden…passed a law against corporal punishment in 1979. The effects of that ban are cited by advocates on both sides of the spanking debate.”

Example: Corporal Punishment Bazelon relies on the commonly known definitions of these words as well as the common American practice of using spanking as a synecdoche of corporal punishment, it being the most common form of physical punishment used in the US. From Wikipedia: A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something refers to the whole of something or vice versa. A synecdoche is a class of metonymy, often by means of either mentioning a part for the whole or conversely the whole for one of its parts. Examples from common English expressions include "bread and butter" (for "livelihood"), "suits" (for "businessmen"), "boots" (for "soldiers") and "America" (for "the United States of America").

Example : Corporal Punishment These synonyms are also used: “a few swats” “a crucial disciplinary tool” “hit our kids” “a firm smack” “physical punishment” “84 percent of Americans believe that it's ‘sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good hard spanking.’” And this antonym: “milder punishments like scolding and timeouts”

Example Bazelon also defines corporal punishment by what its not—child abuse—while simultaneously pointing to the difficulty of creating an airtight legal distinction between the two: Currently, California law (and the law of other states) allows for spanking that is reasonable, age-appropriate, and does not carry a risk of serious injury. That forces judges to referee what's reasonable and what's not. How do they tell? Often, they may resort to looking for signs of injury. If a smack leaves a bruise or causes a fracture, it's illegal. If not, bombs away. In other words, allowing for "reasonable" spanking gives parents a lot of leeway to cause pain.

The Pattern 1 2 3 Identify Discuss Determine a key term and show how it is defined by the author. 2 Discuss how the audience is likely to respond. Ask: Will the audience accept this usage? Will ambiguity or inconsistency create confusion? 3 Determine how this response affects the success of the argument.