Pasadena City College

Writing Center
English 901

REASONING LESSON THREE

2.3 Supporting Your Position
You finished Lesson Two by writing a paragraph in which you stated two
opposing viewpoints as well as your own position of the culture and success
debate. In this lesson you will outline an argument in support of your position.
Parts of Argument Review
Remember that arguments have essentially three parts:
1. A claim
2. Reasons
3. Evidence
For this assignment, the position you stated at the end of your Lesson Two
paragraph will serve as the central claim of your argument.
To support this argument, you will develop two supporting claims (reasons), and
for each reason, you will provide two pieces of evidence.
Directions
Using the template on the next page, outline an argument in support of your
position on the debatable topic of the triple package.
1. For the claim, rewrite the position you stated at the end of your Lesson
Two paragraph. Be sure that you state it here as a complete sentence.
2. For Roman numeral I and II, list two reasons for your claim position.
These statements will either explain why you believe your claim to be true
or how (in what way) your claim is true. Be sure that each of these reasons
is stated as a complete sentence.
3. For each A and B statement, provide a piece of evidence that you believe
supports the reason that precedes it. You will need two pieces of
evidence to support reason I and two pieces of evidence to support
reason II. Remember that evidence can be facts, statistics, examples,

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Writing Center
English 901

expert opinion, analogies, and first-person accounts. Be sure to state

each piece of evidence as a complete sentence or, even, as multiple
sentences.

Pasadena City College

Writing Center
English 901

Outline
Claim: Olive Garden is not authentic Italian Food.

I.

Its a chain restaurant all across the United States.

A. Chain restaurants are corrupted in the form of authenticity or
freshness. Its a factory line, their main purpose it to get all the
food out into their restaurants everywhere. It tastes good but its
all the same. There is no love or originality built into the food.
B. Their goal is to make money of course. But that also includes
making sure everything is appropriately proportionate to not be
classify it into wasting money. They cant give you the extra

II.

bowl of minestrone for free because theyd be losing money.

The food is not fresh.
A. When you ask for food to go they give you a frozen plastic box
with a wordy little sticker on the lid. It was pre-cooked with an
appropriate amount of food that is of proportionate size. No
gluttony for you tonight in that plastic box.