Seventeenth Lesson

Making an argument and persuading your reader

Your reader

Throughout this book we have thought about your reader as the actual person who will be reading your work: usually your tutor but sometimes another student. Your tutor is usually the person who will be marking your work and who also helps you to develop your ideas and improve your writing.

Your fellow student is someone who will be helping you to make your work clearer. Both of the readers should be interested in what you have say. In addition, we also talk about you yourself as the reader of your own work.   

What does argument mean

Argument is quite different term when applied to student writing because it is used in many different ways. Sometimes a good argument and a good structure mean the same thing. On the other hand, you can have a good structure in piece of writing without it strictly being an argument. Students who enjoy writing learning journals find that they are often more interested in raising questions, or playing with a range of different ideas than committing themselves to a particular point of view. 

Much of a student's work involves analysing different points of view or interpretations before they can think about making their argument. Sometimes getting a good argument as tutors see it, can be more or less equated with thinking critically: taking a questioning approach and thinking about Why or What? and going beyond the surface of what is described.