Running head: WRITING AN ARGUMENT

Writing an Argument
University of Phoenix
Management
521
June 05, 2011

Writing an Argument: Option 1

Planning a strategy to write a successful argument starts off by merging deductive reasoning—which presents-related principles that coincide with the writer’s main point of view, and inductive reasoning—which shows proof of the writer’s point of view. “This style of writing an argument will effectively assist in building up tactics like: cause and effect or problem and solution; eventually helping the writer gain the reader’s understanding of “why” his or her point of view was formed [ (Spatt, Writing the Research Essay, 2011) ].”
Cause and Effect or problem and solution Cause and effect or problem and solution are basically the same. This tactic verifies an informal relationship of two opposing positions. The opinion usually solves any uncertainty to the reader about “why?” For example, in the first class our group split up into two teams. Team Joe, Joe and Kurt were acting as the debate team in support of Wikipedia as a credible resource for research. Team Lisa, Lisa and Laurie were acting as the debate team against Wikipedia as a credible resource for research. Joe and Kurt’s debate attempted to solve listener’s uncertainty regarding “why” Wikipedia is a credible resource for research. Team Lisa’s debate attempted to solve listener’s uncertainty about “why” Wikipedia is not a credible resource for research. Team Joe mentioned that in comparison to Encyclopedia, Wikipedia has a wider range of user friendly topics contained in approximately 18 million freely usable articles and that Wikipedia is continually reviewed for accuracy. Team Joe also argued that Wikipedia is available to anyone who has access to the Internet at no cost to the user. Team Lisa argued that Wikipedia may have 15 times the number of articles; however, the articles are not fully developed articles. Writing excellence and impartiality of an article are important, and Wikipedia is losing this battle to Britannica. Team Lisa also debated that Wikipedia originated in 2001 and is self-published whereas, Encyclopedia originated in 1768 and “The Britannica has an Editorial Board of Advisors, which includes 12 distinguished scholars,” anyone can change the information on Wikipedia and currently has no credible verification of information (Wikipedia, 2011). Team Joe, argued that articles will constantly be tweaked as numerous individuals render corrections, making the value of the articles increasing improve while keeping the number of newly created articles to a minimum, so that further concentration can be exhausted on refining the current articles. “Wikipedia already meets or exceeds the quality of Britannica on hundreds of “featured articles,” and approaches or meets its rival's quality on thousands of other “good articles.” These are designations given by the Wikipedia community to recognize an article's outstanding quality, based on strict criteria regarding an article's content, organization, and style” (White, 2011, p. 2). Team Lisa reiterated that the level of excellence discrepancy exists for Wikipedia for several reasons. First, Britannica fact providers are selected and paid to provide facts because he or she is highly educated, able to write with excellence, and his or her proficiency in a specific area; he or she may have extensive writing experience in his or her area of expertise because the previous writings were published in books or academic journals. “From an examination of study found in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Wikipedia is not a reliable resource. Not only are most citations omitted to confirm all claims, but those references that are used are mainly from a few United States government Websites and online media news. The findings, in fact, are dismal” (Luyt, 2010). Team Joe argued that although most Wikipedia editors are not highly educated, the editors may have equal or more work experience education to write about relevant topics in his or her area of expertise. Team Lisa argued Wikipedia’s style of shared checking and proofreading, although used to produce rich articles, is also frequently chaotic, unorganized, and vague. Britannica employs individuals to examine each sentence and word for spelling and grammar mistakes. Despite the fanatical troop of volunteer editors Wikipedia has acquired, it still contains articles filled with horrific grammar and improperly spelled (Brewer, 2004). Neither team debated about bias. In fact this topic could have been a good defense for Wikipedia. Team Joe could have debated that as individual experts write articles on specific topics for Britannica; the article may be based on that expert’s viewpoint and not considering other experts’ viewpoints, making the article biased. Team Lisa could have argued that because Britannica has a smaller quantity of biased contributors and a protocol to maintain a neutral status, therefore Britannica is probably less biased than Wikipedia.
Presenting Arguments Fairly To present arguments honestly, all points of view of the argument needs to be presented to avoid seeming biased or careless in his or her research. When researching a controversial topic, there will be articles supporting both sides of the controversy. The researcher must extract all the pertinent information from both sides to allow the readers to form his or her own educated opinion. The reader will have more faith and support for the writer who can depict an honest vision of his or her opinion (Spatt, Writing the Research Essay, 2011). Presenting a full description of the argument is also important. The writer must fully depict the information he or she is citing and be careful not to pass over vital components the source’s information or evidence (Spatt, Mistakes to Avoid When Presenting an Argument). Comprehension of the source’s point of view is important for the writer as well as the reader. Nothing is worse than citing an article in which the writer assumes is in support of his or her idea, only to discover later the source was in complete support of the opposite side. This would be an example of “quoting an idea out of context” (Spatt, Mistakes to Avoid When Presenting an Argument). The writer should make available to the reader an open-minded report of the argument. Be careful not to repurpose the sources point of view to coincide with his or her argument (Spatt, Mistakes to Avoid When Presenting an Argument).
Conclusion
The approach to putting together a winning argument plan requires combining evidence the writer has collected to find the solution to a question or problem and bringing to light a decision based on facts or observation. This method of writing an argument will successfully aid the writer in determining cause and effect or problem and solution, which help the reader comprehend the writer’s point of view.

References
Brewer, D. (2004). Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of teh Early Modern World. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com
Luyt, B. a. (2010, April). Improving Wikipedia’s Credibility: References and. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY , p. 1.
Spatt, B. (n.d.). Mistakes to Avoid When Presenting an Argument.
Spatt, B. (2011). Writing the Research Essay. In B. Spatt, Writing From Sources (p. Ch. 9). Bedford : St. Marting Publishing.
White, M. (2011). Wikipedia-vs-Britannica. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/913976/Wikipedia-vs-Britannica
Wikipedia. (2011, June 2). Reliability of Wikipedia. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia