DISCURSIVE WRITING

A discursive essay has to contain argument. On one hand, you may have one main opinion and have to prove it. On the other hand, you may discuss lots of points of view and come to no definite decision. Whichever you are doing, you must provide some argument for the point of view you are putting forward at that point in your essay.

If an essay is like an argument, then to win an argument and to prove your point you need evidence. Evidence is when we provide proof that what we are saying is right. If you believe something and you are attempting to convince someone else you have to give reasons for them to believe you are right.

I may make a statement: Shakespeare is the best writer ever. I can give evidence in these forms: Quotes from experts. Paraphrasing (putting other people’s words into our own words). Examples. Facts and Statistics. Charts and graphs. Anecdotal (stories about the subject).

In English we tend only to use:  Quotes  Paraphrasing  Examples

A quote is a word-for-word rewriting of something someone has said or written. We use inverted commas to show that we are not using our own words. You can leave words out of a quote as long as you remember to show they should have been there. You use the … to show this.

Leo Tolstoy said: "I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium... Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment.King LearRomeo and JulietHamletMacbeth

Tolstoy obviously did not like Shakespeare If I wanted to prove that Shakespeare was the greatest writer ever, I should not use this quote! On the other hand I could suggest that Tolstoy did not have good taste!

Paraphrasing is when we write what someone says in our own words. This is very useful when we need to write a very long quote from a person in a short space.

Leo Tolstoy said that he got extremely bored and depressed when he read some of Shakespeare’s best plays. I’m sure you will agree that this is much shorter than the original quote, some slides back.

When you are arguing for a point, you might want to give an example: This could be a story from your own life, something that you have experienced, which demonstrate why you have your opinion. It could be an incident from the life of someone else: a relative, or someone in the news or from history.

However, just giving evidence or examples is not usually enough. You have to explain to your reader why you feel this evidence proves your point.

Look at these statements and evidence taken from ‘A Christmas Carol’: Poverty causes the deaths of innocent people. 'Tell me Spirit, Will Tiny Tim die? Poverty encourages fear as it did in Scrooge and fear makes us uncaring. As a child, Scrooge is abandoned by his father. Poverty often causes people to cease celebrating the goodness of God. Bob Cratchit is saddened but not surprised when he is told his daughter cannot spend Christmas day with the family. She has to work.

If you look at the arguments and evidence on the previous slide you may feel that the evidence proves my point. We often say that the ‘evidence was overwhelming’. However, someone who knows how to argue convincingly would wonder why the evidence was supposed to prove the point; they would counter the evidence for the first example with the points on the next slide.

Using the quote about Tiny Tim does not prove that poverty kills unless you explain the connection between poverty and Tiny Tim’s frailty. People often lose arguments because they give great propositions and great evidence but someone else turns it around by giving a good explanation such as: Tiny Tim was actually born this way, poverty had no effect on him at all. You would have to explain that, had Tiny Tim’s family been less poor, Tiny Tim would have been less frail and why.

Look back at the other arguments about poverty and ‘A Christmas Carol’ and see if you can produce counter- arguments for those too.