Strategies for Arguing

"Our destiny is stitched together like those 50 stars"
 Obama said this during one of his speeches, and it saying that America began with unity of the people for common goals, and that America today is still aiming for common goals, even though they might be different compared to the original goals. We are all on the same team, and we should not be fighting each other, we are all Americans. Classification is putting something into a group, effectively defining it by the terms by which that group is defined by. For example, if you classify a beagle as a dog, they are assumed to have 4 legs, a tail, and bark. Moving onto comparing and contrasting;

There are two different ways you can compare/contrast in an essay.
Block by Block examines one story at a time, effectively showing the differences, for example:

Molly bought a new 2007 Mustang for $20,000. The color of the Mustang she bought is red.
Alex bought a new 2007 Mustang for $15,000. The color of the Mustang he bought is blue.

while Point by Point is what I prefer, where there is less flow to a story but it clearly compares/contrasts what your trying to do, for example:

Molly bought a new 2007 Mustang for $20,000. Alex also bought a new 2007 mustang, for $15,000! Molly's Mustang is blue, while Alex's is red.

You'll want to define keywords when you are arguing in your writing. When you give a clear definition, people will have a harder time disputing that and your argument will be stronger. Strong descriptions use intense imagery, and lots of it. You want to paint pictures. Storytelling is an important part of writing, and the clearer you can make the scene, the more immersive it will feel. This is exactly what author Terry Tempest Williams does, and what makes his excerpt in the chapter so strong.

Of the three types of Rhetoric, Pathos has the ability to be the strongest, as it can evoke intense emotion. Steve Jobs invoked pathos when talking about his cancer when he explained what they did and how they ran tests on him, and then in his final paragraph where he is telling what he learned in life. He is appealing to the reader's emotions, and making them feel for him and what he has had to go through.

As long as something isn't true to be completely neutral and unbiased, humor can always be used in academic texts, in finite amounts. Satire is fine, and people will be able to catch on to satire due to the language of the text, and other humor is usually few and far between. The Onion is a popular online satirical newspaper, and in this chapter an excerpt from it talks about issues about how athletics are becoming an increasingly big part of colleges, and people are getting into colleges just for being good at athletics, and then majoring in something random just to keep playing their sport.

In order to develop their problem/solution speech, writers must reiterate what the problem is, and how they want to solve it. They must also back it up with research. Martin Luther King's speech has been able to resonate with people for over 4 decades because of it's sheer power. He was an incredible public speaker, and his words were the voice of the civil rights movement. He was the figurehead of the civil rights movement, and that is why his famous speech in DC is still resonating today.