Essay Structure*

* This handout was created by Patricia

ACCORDING to the Roman orator Cicero, there was one effective way of or-
Roberts-Miller, with additional material
ganizing a persuasive text: the author should begin with an exordium, or by John Jones.
introduction, followed by the argument: a statement of his (rarely her) case,
the establishment of the point of controversy between the two sides, a pres-
entation of evidence, and the refutation of the opposing side. All of these sec-
tions were to be capped by a conclusion where the author’s supporting
points are amplified while those of his adversaries are weakened and
invalidated.1 While this organization may have been extremely persuasive in 1 Cicero, De Oratore §1.31.

Roman civic debates—where Cicero was the acknowledged master—it is not

necessarily the best choice in all discourse situations. In fact, in some situa-
tions beginning a persuasive text with the main point or thesis can actually
be detrimental. As with other aspects of writing, the key to choosing an effec-
tive method of organizing and introducing your material is a sensitive inves-
tigation of the rhetorical situation. You will find that even though your pa-
pers for this class will often include most, if not all, of the elements Cicero
lists, the order of their presentation and the emphasis placed on each should
vary in response to the purpose of your paper, the occasion which prompts
it, its audience (and their presuppositions), and your need to establish a
sympathetic and trustworthy image of yourself with your readers. The first
part of this handout will deal with the latter four parts of Cicero’s list, the Jeffrey Walker, Reading Rhetorically (un-
published manuscript). Redrawn by John
organization of an argument, after which some different introduction tech- Jones.
niques will be presented.

Organization
KEEPING in mind that there are many different ways to organize an argu-
ment, it is good to be aware of the list, comparison, chronological,
advantages/disadvantages, and syllogistic methods of organization, for
knowing them can help you make an informed decision about how to pre-
sent your particular argument in a particular rhetorical situation.
In a list structure, your paper is built around a simple list of your main
points. If your list goes from your least to most important points, it builds; if
it goes from most to least important (as in journalism), then it declines. There
are other ways a list can build or decline besides importance, such as how
familiar the audience is with each point (going from most to least familiar is
often recommended for teachers), the relative strength of the points, how
abstract they are, or how persuasive they’re likely to be. A list, however,
doesn’t necessarily build or decline; in many circumstances (especially in
speeches, where most of the audience’s attention is on the opening and clos-
ESSAY STRUCTURE 2

ing arguments), it’s a good idea to put your weakest argument in the middle.
While the list structure is great in many circumstances, especially exams,
you’ll find it is not tremendously helpful in this class and should be avoided.
Another common way to structure a paper is through comparison. When
you compare two things (Coke and Pepsi, American Idol Contestants, the
rhetoric of two speakers, for example), you do so in regard to several quali-
ties (sweetness and level of carbonation; stage presence, vocal quality, origi-
nality; êthos and ethical decisions; etc.). An initial impulse that writers have
is to discuss the first thing and then the second, leading to a structure like
this:

Coke’s sweetness
Coke’s level of carbonation
Pepsi’s sweetness
Pepsi’s level of carbonation

or

Contestant 1’s stage presence

Contestant 1’s vocal quality
Contestant 1’s originality
Contestant 2’s stage presence
Contestant 2’s vocal quality
Contestant 2’s originality
Contestant 3’s stage presence
Contestant 3’s vocal quality
Contestant 3’s originality

or

Socrates’ êthos
Socrates’ ethics
Thrasymachus’ êthos
Thrasymachus’ ethics 2 Edward Tufte points out that in informa-
tion design “Comparisons must be en-
Though this method works fine for some (generally simple) situations, forced within the scope of the eyespan, a
these outlines expose its major flaw: it is extremely repetitive, requiring a lot fundamental point occasionally forgotten
in practice.” Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning
of backtracking along the way (as you remind your reader of the contrast) Information (Cheshire, Connecticut:
Graphics Press, 1990), p. 76. Elsewhere
and, for the same reason, a fairly long conclusion. Because the best method of Tufte clarifies this statement by noting
that these comparisons should be made
comparison is to place the items being compared in close proximity with in space, not in time. Because of the
each other,2 it’s often more effective to let the qualities organize the paper, as linearity of writing it is practically impos-
sible to eliminate the ordering of ele-
with the American Idol example: ments in time, and it is often difficult to
place all related arguments on the same
Stage presence: Contestant 1, Contestant 2, Contestant 3 page to enable spatial comparison; how-
ever, when possible it is usually better to
Vocal quality: Contestant 1, Contestant 2, Contestant 3 both 1) keep items which are being com-
Originality: Contestant 1, Contestant 2, Contestant 3 pared adjacent to each other and 2) re-
peat key points when necessary so that
The advantages of organizing by qualities are even more pronounced when your reader will not have to search
through your text to make essential com-
you are comparing three or more items. parisons.
ESSAY STRUCTURE 3

A chronological structure follows the flow of time, beginning with what-

ever happened first then moving to whatever happened next, and so on. This
structure is very helpful in some situations—a point-by-point refutation of a
text, for instance—but you should be wary of using it in analysis situations
because it’s easy to let the chronology overtake your argument, turning your
paper into a summary. Writing that follows a chronological structure will
often seem unstructured to a reader because in the process of selecting ex-
amples from the original text for analysis the writer must eliminate impor-
tant contextual information, a move which leaves unclear the rationale for
the original structure which is being followed. Perhaps more importantly,
using a chronological structure means surrendering your control of the text
to the author of the original piece, a move that can often be disastrous, mak-
ing your text seem like a cut and paste summary of the piece being analyzed.
For these reasons, in this class a chronological method of organization will
probably not be very helpful.
If you’ve done any debate, then the advantages/disadvantages structure
will be very familiar to you. As implied by its name, this structure begins
with the advantages and then the disadvantages of a proposed policy or (in
this class) an interpretation. Obviously, you can reverse the order (going
from disadvantages to advantages). Though it is very unusual for that struc-
ture to work in this kind of class, it’s commonly used in other writing situa-
tions where it works as a kind of comparison where the advantages and dis-
advantages are the qualities being compared.
Of these five organizational structures, the syllogistic might be the least
familiar to you. It is likely, however, to be the most useful method for you to
master. With this method the writer begins with the major premise of his or
her argument and then moves through the evidence to a conclusion; the
main claims of your paragraphs would serve as the elements of the larger 3 A syllogism consists of a major premise,
syllogistic argument and would be ordered accordingly.3 One useful way of a minor premise, and a conclusion which
follows from the premises. Persuasion is
creating a syllogistic argument is to figure out what you have in common often stymied by the fact that people who
disagree often do not use common prem-
with your audience; that is, identify premises which are common to both you ises to arrive at their conclusions. Recog-
and your audience and then build your reasoning on those premises. Be- nizing the premises on which an argu-
ment is based can be very helpful in both
cause this kind of reasoning moves from common ground—the shared prem- writing and analyzing arguments. For a
short introduction to syllogistic reasoning
ises—through evidence, it can be tremendously persuasive. Another helpful and enthymemes, see William A. Covino,
The Elements of Persuasion (New York:
form to use is the enthymeme, or shortened syllogism. An enthymeme does Longman, 1997), pp. 1–2, 10, or see the
not explicitly state the major premise and usually takes the form of “conclu- arguments handout for more information
on arguments in general and syllogisms
sion because argument.” in particular.
ESSAY STRUCTURE 4

Writing the Introduction

A good introduction establishes clear expectations with the reader, establish-
ing the topic and genre of the piece and your êthos. When the reader finishes
the introduction (which may or may not be one paragraph) he or she should
have some clear indication of these three issues: what the paper will be
about, what form the paper will take and its methodology (e.g., a policy pro-
posal, a history, a literary interpretation, a comparison of various theories),
and your êthos (well-read and fair-minded or closed-minded and sloppy?
honest or dishonest?).
Some teachers insist that their students place their thesis in their intro-
duction as one way to ensure that the topic, genre, and êthos are clearly es-
tablished. Though there are some situations that respond well to this kind of
structure—essay questions on tests are a good example—placing an argu-
mentative thesis in your paper before the evidence that supports it is often
bad preparation for most kinds of persuasive writing. The reason this tech-
nique can hamper your persuasion is that it tends to lock you into an êthos of
someone who is closed-minded on the subject—you’re announcing the an-
swer to a question that’s only barely been posed—a move that tends to alien-
ate informed opposition audiences.
Keeping that in mind, in a persuasive writing situation the best way to
think about an introduction is that it is the means by which you can persuade
your readers that there is a real question that they should want answered, and that
you are the person to answer it. This concern should be answered, implicitly or
explicitly, by the introduction to your papers in this class.4 While there are 4 A note about writing introductions: it is
often better to write the introduction—
many different kinds of introductions, the most common for students are the that is, the introduction that will be the
first few paragraphs of the paper—after
summary, funnel, focusing incident, thesis, history of controversy, and some you have a good draft, but some very
say (prolepsis). effective writers swear by writing a per-
fect introduction first. They say the rest of
the paper then zips along. Try both ways,
Odds are good that you already know how to do a summary introduction and see what works for you.

pretty well. This introduction is the “tell them what you’re gonna tell them”
portion of the “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them
what you’ve told them” formula that is often advocated in speech courses.
The idea is that you should summarize the whole argument of the paper in
capsule form in the first few paragraphs.

It is one thing to consider abandoning the use of gold stars and candy bars.
But praise? All of us hunger for approval; many of us wish we had gotten a
lot more praise (and a lot less criticism) as children. When the experts tell us
to get in the habit of finding something about people’s behavior that we can
support with positive comments, this strikes us intuitively as sound advice.
So what could possibly be wrong with telling our children (or students or
employees) that they’ve done a good job?
ESSAY STRUCTURE 5

In this chapter, building on what has gone before, I try to answer that ques-
tion, arguing that we need to look carefully at why we praise, how we
praise, and what effects praise has over time on those receiving it. I distin-
guish between various forms of positive feedback: on the one hand, straight-
forward information about how well someone has done at a task, or encour-
agement that leaves the recipient feeling a sense of self-determination; on the
other hand, verbal rewards that feel controlling, make one dependent on
someone else’s approval, and in general prove to be no less destructive than
other extrinsic motivators.5 5 Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The
Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans,
While this kind of introduction has its uses—to provide effective repeti- A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1993), p. 96. Notice
tion in a speech, or, in the case of this example, to give some structural vari- how this summary introduction does not
begin the book, but rather begins a chap-
ety to a book’s middle chapter—it’s just one of many ways to begin a persua- ter after the author has (presumably)
already established some grounds for his
sive paper, and generally not the most effective. Students who are good at controversial thesis that rewards are bad.
this kind of introduction usually write them last. Lots of students try to write
them first, but it often doesn’t work for one of two reasons. First, most of us
figure out what we think through the process of writing, so finishing a sum-
mary introduction first can be like trying to summarize an argument you’ve
never heard before: you can’t summarize it because you don’t know what it
is. For this reason, that first shot at a summary introduction is often either a
summary of a much more simplistic argument than a later version would be
or a summary of a completely different argument than the one you arrive at.
The second problem is that a summary tends to be very unpersuasive to an
informed and intelligent opposition audience. More often than not they are
alienated by this method because providing conclusions in your introduction
presupposes initial agreement—agreement which is rarely present with op-
position audiences—skipping over the evidence and reasoning that supports
those conclusions.
There are some situations, however, where the summary introduction
can be very effective. As mentioned above, it’s often effective in non-
persuasive situations—an essay exam, for instance, in which the reader just
wants to see that you’ve given the correct answer. In those cases, the sum-
mary introduction can serve as a blueprint indicating where the argument
should go. Just as a blueprint keeps the builder from doing something un-
planned and therefore potentially dangerous, so a summary introduction
will keep the writer to the plan they have already figured out for answering
the question. Also, there are circumstances in which you are expected to
summarize your argument—in an abstract or précis, for instance—so know-
ing how to write a brief summary of a complicated argument is a good skill
to develop. Finally, if you’re good at writing summaries and bad at conclu-
sions, a good summary introduction will often serve as an effective cap to an
argumentative paper.
I hope by this point it is clear that while the summary introduction is
good in some writing situations, it is probably not the most effective form of
ESSAY STRUCTURE 6

introduction for the kind of papers you are going to write in this class, where
one of your goals should be mastering introduction techniques that are effec-
tive in persuasive situations.

While the summary introduction has some merits, the same can’t be said for
the funnel, an introduction that is commonly used by students. The funnel
introduction moves from abstract generalizations to the most specific state-
ment, which is assumed to be the thesis statement.

People have always used different kinds of rewards. There are many kinds
of rewards in the world. A bonus at work is obviously a reward, as is giving
a child a chocolate bar to do her homework. Many people think that rewards
are an effective way to change someone’s behavior, but others think that it is
bad to give out rewards. But is a simple behavior like praising someone’s
good work a reward that is bad?

Notice how vague and unfocused this sample paragraph is. In the first
four sentences the author appears to be trying on and then abandoning three
different approaches to the subject of rewards: proving the ubiquity of re-
wards as a means of behavior modification, giving a taxonomy of—classify-
ing—different kinds of rewards, and deciding whether rewards are good or
bad. None of these approaches is developed, and, at best, they are all only
peripherally related to the thesis that the final sentence seems to be setting
up, the question of whether or not praise is beneficial.
This is very much student writing. Though funnels might show up in a
professional writer’s early drafts, it is very unusual to see any non-student
writing that uses this kind of introduction, for revision would narrow this list
of options down to the one that the author wants to argue, eliminating di-
vergent approaches and adding material to set up, build on, or establish the
pertinence of the argument. In fact, the funnel most resembles the trial and
error approach of teasing out a topic that would show up in the invention
stage. So, the reason this technique regularly appears in student papers is not
because student writers are inherently inferior, but because revision is the
step of the writing process students struggle with most, and using a funnel
often indicates a failure to revise. Funnels are far too broad, inviting the stu-
dent to ramble off into generalizations, and if the first paragraph raises what
are, ultimately, abstract generalizations, the paper can end up overemphasiz-
ing them. It should be apparent that unfocused writing like this is very, very
unpersuasive.

Unlike the first two techniques, much published writing, especially journal-
ism, relies on the focusing incident, a real or hypothetical example of the
essay or article’s issue.
ESSAY STRUCTURE 7

On December 7, 1991, Russian president Boris Yeltsin met with the leaders of
Ukraine and Belarus in a forest dacha outside the city of Brest. After two
days of secret meetings, the leaders issued a declaration: “The Union of So-
viet Socialist Republics, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical
reality, is ceasing its existence.” With that announcement Yeltsin and his col-
leagues sounded the final death knell for a centralized power structure that
had ruled for nearly 75 years. In its place, the leaders established a coalition
of independent republics, and they promised a radical decentralization of
economic and political institutions.

[. . .] Throughout the world, there is an unprecedented shift toward decen-

tralization.

The decentralization trend is evident in the ways that people organize coun-
tries and corporations, and in the ways people design new technologies. But
more important, it is evident in the ways people think about the world. More
so than ever before, scientists are using decentralized models and metaphors
to describe the phenomena they observe in the world. Increasingly, scientists
(and others) are seeing decentralization wherever they look. It seems fair to
say that we have entered an Era of Decentralization.6 6 Mitchel Resnick, Turtles, Termites, and
Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively
While the focusing incident can be cloying (it has often devolves into Parallel Microworlds (Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 6-7.
“Little Johnnie” stories: “On the morning of the October 9, Little Johnnie was
on his way to the store with his mother—who loved him very much—to buy
the cutest little puppy ever. But Little Johnnie didn’t like to wear his seat-belt,
and his mother never saw that truck changing lanes.”), the technique is
widespread in journalism. Most of the stories in Time and Newsweek begin
this way and for good reason: it’s effective. One reason for this effectiveness
is that it focuses the attention of the reader and writer on something specific;
it could almost be considered the opposite of the funnel. If well done, the
focusing incident provides the reader with a vivid image of the issue. It also
has the advantage of being highly portable. Many times a focusing incident
can be used together with another introduction technique to provide a more
complex and interesting prologue to a piece of writing.

Editorials sometimes use the thesis introduction, in which the first sentence
is the author’s thesis. For example:

Sylvester Stallone is one of the great physical actors in the movies, with a gift
for throwing himself so fearlessly into an action scene that we can’t under-
stand why somebody doesn’t really get hurt. When he explodes near the
beginning of First Blood, hurling cops aside and breaking out of a jail with
his fists and speed, it’s such a convincing demonstration of physical strength
and agility that we never question the scene’s implausibility. In fact, al-
though almost all of First Blood is implausible, because it’s Stallone on the
screen, we’ll buy it.7 7 Roger Ebert, “First Blood” in Roger
Ebert’s Video Companion 1998 Edition
The thesis introduction is generally not appropriate in academic writing (ex- (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 1997), p.
272.
cept exams), mainly because, in giving its conclusion first, it is usually not
very persuasive. Consider the situation of the example above, which is the
ESSAY STRUCTURE 8

first paragraph of Roger Ebert’s print review of First Blood. In a film review,
readers look for a judgment about whether or not the film is worth seeing.
On top of this fact, if the review is in a newspaper (Ebert’s reviews are pub-
lished in The Chicago Sun-Times) the reader will expect it to be formatted like
other newspaper stories, where a broad description of the entire event being
chronicled is presented in the first few sentences.
However, notice that Ebert does not merely present his thesis in this
paragraph. If you look closely at what he has written, there are really two
main claims that he is making. First, he argues that Sylvester Stallone is an
exemplary physical actor, “one of the great physical actors in the movies” in
fact, and he uses this argument—which he supports by evidence from First
Blood—to prove his primary claim about the film itself: its often ludicrous
action is grounded by the plausibility of its star. Compare that paragraph to
another one of Ebert’s thesis introductions, this time in his review of Fatal
Attraction:

Fatal Attraction is a spellbinding psychological thriller, and could have been

a great movie if the filmmakers had not thrown character and plausibility to
the winds in the last act to give us their version of a grown-up Friday the
13th.8 8 Ebert, “Fatal Attraction,” p. 265.

Here Ebert’s introduction is merely his judgment of the film—its possible

greatness is undermined by the ridiculous third act—is less inventive than
his other introduction, though he packs a lot of information into this short
sentence, suggesting why his readers should agree with him.
There is a reason that a well-respected reviewer like Ebert can get away
with this kind of introduction, and that reason suggests that the thesis intro
is not likely to be useful for you in your academic papers. Through his televi-
sion show, which has made his thumbs film icons, and the fact that for al-
most thirty years he was the only film critic to have won a Pulitzer Prize for
criticism—since he received his prize in 1975, there have only been two other
film critics to take the honor: Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post (2003)
and Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal (2005)—Ebert’s judgments
about film are granted a lot of weight by most readers. His êthos is such that
his opinions on movies are considered authoritative. Even this fact, however,
does not allow him to make claims without supporting those claims with
evidence, as these two examples show.
Another effective use of the thesis introduction is that if said thesis is
quirky or unexpected then it can be attention-getting, prompting the reader
to want to continue reading, even if only to see why the author would accept
such a wild conclusion. Kohn makes use of this effect in his book on rewards,
as does David Thomson in this introduction to an essay on Cary Grant:
ESSAY STRUCTURE 9

There is a major but very difficult realization that needs to be reached about
Grant—difficult, that is, for many people who like to think they take the art
of film seriously. As well as being a leading box-office draw for some thirty
years, the epitome of the man-about-town, as well as being the ex-husband
of Virginia Cherrell, Barbara Hutton, Betsy Drake, and Dyan Cannon, as well
as being the retired actor, still handsome executive of a perfume compa-
ny—as well as all these things, he was the best and most important actor in
the history of the cinema.9 9 David Thomson, “Cary Grant” in The
New Biographical Dictionary of Film
In this paragraph, Thomson presents what would for most be a surprising, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), p.
351.
though not completely objectionable, claim; that Cary Grant, who is best
known for his work in comedies and romantic—that is, non-serious—films,
is the greatest movie actor of all time. Occasionally this type of move can
work for claims that have the virtue of being surprising but not implausible
(usually the surprise is the result of a highly logical, but non-intuitive, argu-
ment). However, that’s about the limit of its merits in an academic or persua-
sive context. This type of introduction is used mostly in writing where the
author is not trying to persuade an informed and intelligent opposition audi-
ence but entertain an “in” audience, or where the author has other means of
persuasion—a strong êthos in Ebert’s case—at his or her disposal.

Probably the most common kind of introduction in academia is one that

gives the history of the controversy in question. Scientific papers, for in-
stance, begin by relating other studies on the same topic, philosophical es-
says begin by discussing the history of the issue, and even literary essays
often begin by discussing the recent scholarship on the specific piece or topic.

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and seven astro-
nauts died because two rubber O-rings leaked. [. . .] The immediate cause of
the accident—an O-ring failure—was quickly obvious [. . .] But what are the
general causes, the lessons of the accident? And what is the meaning of
Challenger? Here we encounter diverse and divergent interpretations, as the
facts of the accident are reworked into moral narratives. These allegories
regularly advance claims for the special relevance of a distinct analytic ap-
proach or school of thought: if only the engineers and managers had the
skills of field X, the argument implies, this terrible thing would not have
happened. Or, further, the insights of X identify the deep cause of the failure.
Thus, in management schools, the accident serves as a case study for reflec-
tions about groupthink, technical decision-making in the face of political
pressure, and bureaucratic failures to communicate. For the authors of engi-
neering textbooks and for the physicist Richard Feynman, the Challenger
accident simply confirmed what they already knew: awful consequences
result when heroic engineers are ignored by villainous administrators. In the
field of statistics, the accident is evoked to demonstrate the importance of
risk assessment, data graphs, fitting models to data, and requiring students
of engineering to attend classes in statistics. For sociologists, the accident is a
symptom of structural history, bureaucracy, and conformity to organiza-
tional norms. Taken in small doses, the assorted interpretations of the launch
decision are plausible and rarely mutually exclusive. But when all these ac-
ESSAY STRUCTURE 10

counts are considered together, the accident appears thoroughly overdeter-

mined. It is hard to reconcile the sense of inevitable disaster embodied in the
cumulated literature of post-accident hindsight with the experiences of the
first 24 shuttle launches, which were distinctly successful.10 10 Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanations:
Images and Quantities, Evidence and
This is a very useful model for students to use, and probably one of the most Narrative (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press,
1997), pp. 39-40. Though it is not re-
useful kinds of introductions for papers in this class. Additionally, notice flected in this quotation, Tufte provides
extensive citations of the sources used to
how in this excerpt, Tufte provides a focusing incident—wholly appropriate support these broad judgments about the
reaction of various disciplines to the
in this case, since his chapter deals with the effects of a particular event—and Challenger explosion. By providing them
combines other techniques of introduction together with the history of the as footnotes associated with the text,
Tufte is not only able to provide the ob-
controversy. servations in the introduction in simple,
clutter-free prose, he is also able to
Students should keep two things in mind when using this technique. greatly reinforce his êthos by showing
that these statements are not broad gen-
First, in some situations it’s possible to discuss the history of the controversy eralizations but rather the expert summa-
for you personally or for the class—to begin by describing how the class dis- tion of a large body of evidence.

cussion went, or how your own views evolved (a method which can be used
to structure the entire paper).

When I first heard about the Challenger disaster, I thought what most people
thought—something broke and it was NASA’s fault. However, after the class
looked at the different ways in which blame was assigned following the ac-
cident, I began to realize that the answer may not have been that simple. In
our discussions we couldn’t agree if it was the engineers’ fault for not work-
ing hard enough to convince their managers that the O-ring would fail, if the
managers had screwed up by not paying enough attention to the data the
engineers gave them, or if there was something wrong with the whole cul-
ture of NASA that would cause them to want to take unnecessary risks just
to make sure they met their goals. Our inability to reach a common conclu-
sion on this matter made me wonder how easy it really is to assign blame to
some single cause in a case as complicated as this one. Perhaps by studying
the multiple causes which led to the Challenger disaster it would be possible
to get a better understanding of the complexity of any causal argument, as
well as clues as to how those arguments can be communicated more clearly
for decision making.

Second, given that you have a limited amount of space and time to complete
your papers, don’t try to start too far back on the history of the controversy.
When this kind of introduction goes wrong, it turns into the “dawn of time”
introduction, a particularly pernicious variation on the funnel. (”Since the
dawn of time, people have been discussing spaceflight.”) Start your history
where your audience and argument need it to start.

The some say or prolepsis introduction is a lot like the history of controversy
introduction, except there is not an attempt to comprehensively summarize
all opposing arguments; with a some say you only discuss a limited portion
of the controversy—the side or sides with which you will take issue. Many
times that means it is merely a presentation of the opposite point of view
from your own. (This is an extremely important point to consider, and we
will return to it after this example.)
ESSAY STRUCTURE 11

In the previous chapters, I have discussed confusions that can be traced to

academia’s ways of fogging over its conversations. Some observers, how-
ever, complain that what characterizes the academic scene is not “conversa-
tion” so much as smash-mouth combat. I have taken flak myself for arguing
that conflict and controversy should be made more central in the curriculum.
My critics object that today’s academia, like today’s popular media, is all too
rife with conflict of a distinctly ugly and unedifying kind. The critics point to
talk-show violence, political attack ads, and other signs of a pervasive
“Gotcha!” spirit that aims at humiliating opponents rather than achieving
consensus and cooperation.

These objections often come from feminists, some of whom see patriarchal
gender bias in the adversarial forms of debate favored in such academic
fields as law and philosophy. According to these critics it’s increasingly hard
to tell the difference between the debates of academics and the trash-talking
and taunting that occurs in various professional sports or the kind of media
pseudo-debate that was satirized in a celebrated Saturday Night Live segment
of the seventies in which Dan Ackroyd opened his weekly news commen-
tary rebuttal to his counterpart Jane Curtin with the line, “Jane, you ignorant
slut.”11 11 Gerald Graff, Clueless in Academe:
How Schooling Obscures the Life of the
The some say is very, very effective when you have a hostile audience that Mind (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale UP,
2003), p. 83.
you are trying to persuade. In the pages following this excerpt, Graff goes on
to point out a particular critic of his, Deborah Tannen, and summarizes her
critique of his work, noting that it “is often persuasive,”12 before explicitly 12 Graff, p. 85.

stating his own claim: “To restore civility Tannen and the rest of us want in
American public discourse, we need more keen debate, not less.”13 As a gen- 13 Graff, p. 85.

eral rule, beginning a critique of an opposing argument with a fair and gen-
erous summary of that argument generates a tremendous amount of good-
will on your part with opposition readers. It shows that you are fair-minded
and that you have listened. (If you take any management or interpersonal
communications courses, you’ll find that scholars in those fields make a big
point about beginning a discussion, especially a potentially heated one, by
confirming what the other person has said.) In other words, it’s virtually the
opposite of the summary introduction. Rather than begin by summarizing
your argument, you begin by summarizing the argument of the opposition. 14 A note here: general usage dictionaries

Keep in mind that for this to work, however, your summary has to be genu- are not helpful for introducing academic
papers for a variety of reasons, the most
inely fair-minded—beginning by summarizing a stupid version of your pertinent of which is the effect such defi-
nitions have on your êthos. Using such a
audience’s argument has a worse effect on your êthos than using one of the definition 1) implies that you failed to do
any real research on the topic, taking the
more simple introductions, because it makes you appear dishonest and un- easiest course available to you—picking
ethical. up a dictionary you have laying around—
and substituting that task for real library
work and 2) gives the impression that you
IN conclusion, I would like to point out two misconceptions you will want to don’t think your audience is capable of
completing such a simple task on their
avoid when thinking about these techniques. First, these are not the only own. As with all such “rules,” there are
exceptions to this advice, but generally if
ways of introducing a paper. There are many other techniques you can use in you would like to use a definition, taking
your introduction, such as beginning with a quote, a definition,14 or a per- one from a discipline specific dictionary
or encyclopedia is much more effective
sonal narrative. However, the techniques recommended here are generally for academic writing.
ESSAY STRUCTURE 12

helpful for introducing persuasive writing. Second, do not think of these

techniques as being mutually exclusive. If you look back through the exam-
ples from professional writers in this handout, you should notice that with
only a few exceptions the authors use a mixture of techniques in their intro-
ductions, such as using a focusing incident along with a some say or history
of the controversy, or setting up a summary by asking questions. This obser-
vation suggests a final general rule for structuring your essays and dealing
with their style: a sensitive response to the rhetorical situation that prompts
your writing will require the use of multiple techniques and stylistic meth-
ods in conjunction with each other.