1. Building Argument and Integrating Evidence

2. Session Objectives
To raise participants’ awareness of argument building in academic writing
To help participants identify the difference between persuasive and argumentative writing
To focus on developing effective arguments with evidence and introduce the ways of presenting evidence, e.g., quoting, paraphrasing, and summarising

3. Lead in
What is an argument?
Why is argumentation important in academic writing?
What is evidence and how is it presented in academic texts?
How do you integrate evidence in your writing?

4. Identifying the argument
Premise +
Conclusion =
Argument

5. Identifying the argument
Premise - a reason offered as support for a claim
Conclusion - the claim being supported by a premise or premises
Argument - a conclusion together with the premises that support it

6. Identifying the argument
All men are mortal.
Socrates was a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

7. Conclusion indicators
Handout A: Answer Key
Premise indicators
Conclusion indicators
Since
Because
For As
Follows from
As shown by
Inasmuch as
As indicated by
The reason is that
May be inferred from
May be derived from
May be deduced from
Given that
Therefore
Hence So
Accordingly
Consequently
Proves that
As a result
Thus
For this reason
For these reasons
It follows that
I conclude that
Which shows that
Which means that
Which entails that
Which implies that

8. Argumentative papers call the thesis a CLAIM.
A claim is always DEBATABLE.
They also must present opposing viewpoint which is called a COUNTERCLAIM.

9. What is evidence?
Evidence =
facts,
reasons,
personal experience,
expert research,
statistics, etc.

10. Ways to present evidence
Quoting
Paraphrasing
Summarising