Lesson 34(Composition Writing)

What is an argument?
 ‘a rational way of persuading’
 It differs from exposition as it seeks to convince not
just to explain it differs from emotional persuation as it
seeks to convince by appleaing to the mind.
Example:
 Getting a baby injected – though the parents emotion
are stirred by the baby crying yet they know it is good
for the baby.
Example :
1.
 “ the bear population of Maine is 7000 to 10000
animals,and the “annual harvest “ or “kill”
averages930. State wildlife biologists estimate that the
number killed falls short by 120 of the “allowable
harvest” i.e.
 “the harvest level that takes only the annual increase
and does not affect the population size”
2.
 . Every year blood thirsty hunters go into the Maine
woods and ruthlessly shoot to death hundreds of
bears. They hunters care nothing for the suffering they
cause, for the blood they spill, or for the harm they do
to creatures who have done no harm to them. Hunters
kill for a thrill and that is all they care about. No one
seems to care anything for the bears.
3.
 Though some people may think hunting is nothing
more than wholesale wanton destruction of living
creatures, hunters actually help to ensure the health
and survival of wildlife. Take bear hunting in Maine as
a case . Out of the 7000 to 10000 bears , that roam the
Maine woods hunters kill an average of 930 a year.State
wildlife biologists estimate that this is 120 fewer than
the annual population increase.If the bear population
 Allowed to grow unchecked, it would increase well
over 1000 a year and the food available for any one bear
would correspondingly decrease. By killing an average
of 930 bears, hunters keep the annual increase down
and therefore help to keep an adequte food supply for
the bear population as a whole.
Three fundamentally different
ways of taking the same topic.
 1. Calmly explains the relation between the number of
bears born and killed in Maine each year.
 2. Tries to make the readers feel at hunters. outrage at
hunters .
 3. Tries to prove that hunting is beneficial to wildlife.
Difference between 2 and 3
 Passage 2 relies on words like bloodthirsty to stir the
reader’s feelings.
 3. Relies on facts, figures and authoritative estimates to
gain the reader’s agreement.
 Purely emotive words may appeal to a reader who
already tends to feel like the writer but they are
unlikely to change an opponents mind.
 3. is thought provoking. It may not be able to
 Persuade all readers but it will give fervent
conservationists something to think about.
 To combat such an argument conservationists would
have to challenge its facts and figures, and its
estimates:
Rebutle
 Hunting advocates try to justify the killing of bears by
arguing that it limits the annual increase in the bear
population and thereby helps to ensure an adequate
food supply for the bears that remain. But this
argument rests on the assumption that wildlife
biologists can reliably estimate the size of the
population increase which is said to be 120 more than
the number of bears killed each year.