Write an essay (of roughly 2-3 pp. or 600-900 words) presenting an argument and an objection to it. This paper is intended to provide further practice in analyzing and presenting arguments, this time adding a possible criticism of the argument. The argument should be found in material you have read for the course. The objection may appear in that material, but it need not: it might be an objection of your own or one you can imagine someone offering.

The argument you present should again appear in a short passage, probably a paragraph or less and maybe just a sentence or two. You should explain what is being argued in it in a way that helps a reader see the conclusion being argued for and the reasons or assumptions on which the conclusion is based. You might present the objection in a similar way, but your aim here is less to analyze an argument than to offer one. That is, you can think of the objection as a component of your presentation of the original argument, a component that points to a possible weakness in the argument. (I say “possible weakness” because the objection need not be one you would offer, so you may not think it points to an actual weakness.)

As in the first paper, you should avoid paraphrasing or summarizing an author’s presentation of an argument (since that is designed for a different context), and you should instead craft an exposition to serve your purposes. The same goes, of course, for the objection if you have found it in something you have read.

You should also again make clear the specific location of the argument in the text you’ve read (using a bibliographic citation, page references, and perhaps brief quotations), and you should do the same for the objection if you have found that in something you read. If you have devised the objection by modifying something you have read, you should cite that source, too, indicating why you are citing it (e.g., by saying something like, “This argument is suggested by … though it is different from the argument offered there”). The idea is to say enough to let a reader know of connections you have found among texts.

Although I’ll be willing to accept your essay on paper, I’d prefer that you send a copy by e-mail (either as an attachment or in the body of a message). My address is helmang@wabash.edu.