Now you are ready to combine your research findings with your critical analysis of the results in a rough draft. You will incorporate source materials into your paper and discuss each source thoughtfully in relation to your thesis or purpose statement.

Before you begin to write, however, asking a few questions can help you clarify the work ahead of you. Determining such things as the audience of your project, the tone and style you’d like to convey in your writing, and a working thesis can all help make the initial steps of writing clearer and more manageable.

Who is the main audience for your research writing project?

Besides your teacher and your classmates, who are you trying to reach with your research? Who are you trying to convince as a result of the research you have done? What do you think is fair to assume that this audience knows or doesn’t know about the topic of your research project? Purpose and audience are obviously closely related because the reason for writing something has a lot to do with who you are writing it for, and who you are writing something for certainly has a lot to do with your purposes in writing in the first place.

In composition classes, it is usually presumed that your audience includes your teacher and your classmates. After all, one of the most important reasons you are working on this research project in the first place is to meet the requirements of this class, and your teacher and your classmates have been with you as an audience every step of the way.

Contemplating an audience beyond your peers and teachers can sometimes be difficult, but it might be useful for you to try to be even more specific about your audience as you begin your research essay. Do you know any “real people” (friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.) who might be an ideal reader for your research essay? Can you at least imagine what an ideal reader might want to get out of reading your research essay?

We’re not trying to suggest that you ought to ignore your teacher and your classmates as your primary audience. But research essays, like most forms of writing, are strongest when they are intended for a more specific audience, either someone the writer knows or someone the writer can imagine. Teachers and classmates are certainly part of this audience, but trying to reach an audience of potential readers beyond the classroom and the assignment will make for a stronger essay.

What sort of “voice” or “authority” do you think is appropriate for your research project?

Do you want to take on a personal and more casual tone in your writing, or do you want to present a less personal and less casual tone? Do you want to use first person, the “I” pronoun, or do you want to avoid it?

Our students are often surprised to learn that it is perfectly acceptable in many types of research and academic writing for writers to use the first person pronoun, “I.” It is the tone we’ve taken with this textbook (though we are talking in the first person plural), and it is an approach that is very common in many fields, particularly those that tend to be grouped under the term “the humanities.”

For example, consider this paragraph from Kelly Ritter’s essay “The Economics of Authorship: Online Paper Mills, Student Writers, and First-Year Composition,” which appeared in June 2005 issue of one of the leading journals in the field of composition and rhetoric, College Composition and Communication:

When considering whether, when, and how often to purchase an academic paper from an online paper-mill site, first-year composition students therefore work with two factors that I wish to investigate here in pursuit of answering the questions posed above: the negligible desire to do one’s own writing, or to be an author, with all that entails in this era of faceless authorship vis-á-vis the Internet; and the ever-shifting concept of “integrity,” or responsibility when purchasing work, particularly in the anonymous arena of online consumerism. (603)

Throughout her thoughtful and well-researched essay, Ritter uses first person pronouns (“I” and “my,” for example) when it is appropriate: “I think,” “I believe,” “my experiences,” etc.

This sort of use of the personal pronoun is not limited to publications in English studies. This example comes from the journal Law and Society Review (Volume 39, Issue 2, 2005), which is an interdisciplinary journal concerned with the connections between society and the law. The article is titled “Preparing to Be Colonized: Land Tenure and Legal Strategy in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii” and it was written by law professor Stuart Banner:

The story of Hawaii complicates the conventional account of colonial land tenure reform. Why did the land tenure reform movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries receive its earliest implementation in, of all places, Hawaii? Why did the Hawaiians do this to themselves? What did they hope to gain from it? This article attempts to answer these questions. At the end, I briefly suggest why the answers may shed some light on the process of colonization in other times and places, and thus why the answers may be of interest to people who are not historians of Hawaii. (275)

Banner uses both “I” and “my” throughout the article, again when it’s appropriate.

Even this cursory examination of the sort of writing academic writers publish in scholarly journals will demonstrate our point: academic journals routinely publish articles that make use of the first person pronoun. Writers in academic fields that tend to be called “the sciences” (chemistry, biology, physics, and so forth, but also more “soft” sciences like sociology or psychology) are more likely to avoid the personal pronoun or to refer to themselves as “the researcher,” “the author,” or something similar. But even in these fields, “I” does frequently appear.

The point is this: using “I” is not inherently wrong for your research essay or for any other type of academic essay. However, you need to be aware of your choice of first person versus third person and your role as a writer in your research project.

Generally speaking, the use of the first person “I” pronoun creates a greater closeness and informality in your text, which can create a greater sense of intimacy between the writer and the reader. This is the main reason we’ve used “we” in this chapter: using a first-person pronoun in a textbook like this lessens the distance between us (you as student/reader and us as writers), and we think it makes for easier reading of this material.

If you do decide to use a first-person voice in your essay, make sure that the focus stays on your research and does not shift to you the writer. When teachers say “don’t use I,” what they are really cautioning against is the overuse of the word “I” such that the focus of the essay shifts from the research to “you” the writer. While mixing autobiography and research writing can be interesting, it is not the approach you want to take in a traditional academic research essay.

The third-person pronoun (and avoidance of the use of “I”) tends to have the opposite effect of the first-person pronoun: it creates a sense of distance between writer and reader, and it lends a greater formality to the text. This can be useful in research writing because it tends to emphasize research and evidence in order to persuade an audience.

(We should note that much of this textbook is presented in what is called second-person voice, using the “you” pronoun. Second person is very effective for writing instructions, but generally speaking, we would discourage you from taking this approach in your research project.)

In other words, “first person” and “third person” are both potentially acceptable choices, depending on the assignment, your purpose for writing, and the audience you are trying to reach. Just be sure to be consistent—don’t switch between third person and first person in the same essay. Also, be sure to check with your instructor, who may have specific requirements about using first, second, or third person.

What is your working thesis and how has it changed and evolved up to this point?

Remember: a working thesis is one that changes and evolves as you write and research. It is perfectly acceptable to change your thesis in the writing process based on your research.

What counterarguments do you anticipate and how will you address them?

Oftentimes, you’ll locate sources that do not agree—or do not entirely agree—with your thesis. You’ll have to bring up some of those sources in your research paper. In addition, you’ll need to put yourself in your readers’ shoes. What might they not find logical in your argument? In other words, which reason(s) and corresponding evidence might they find lacking in your paper? Did you find clues to what types of objections others could raise as you reviewed your sources? Or can you imagine someone thinking a particular aspect of what you think is evidence doesn’t make sense? You can anticipate and address others’ objections by building a counterargument into your paper, possibly offering alternative solutions to the problem(s) you are researching and writing about.

So, how will you bring up each of those objections, counterarguments, and alternative solutions? Some templates for introducing and addressing the views of others include:

• I can imagine skeptics wanting to point out…
• Perhaps some readers would say…
• I think those who come who believe… would differ with me…

It all depends on what objections, counterarguments, and alternative solutions your audience or your imagination come up with, but you want to use an appropriate signal phrase to contextualize the opposing viewpoint you imagine others raising.

You must write your response to each objection, counterargument, or alternative solution brought up or that you’ve thought of. (You’re likely to have found clues for what to say in your sources.) The reason you need to include this information is that you can’t very easily convince your audience until you show them how your claim stacks up against the opinions and reasoning of other people who don’t at the moment agree with you.

Another way to think of counterarguments is through the framework of acknowledging opposing ideas and limits to your argument.

Acknowledging Opposing Ideas and Limits to Your Argument

Because an argument implies differing points of view on the subject, you must be sure to acknowledge those opposing ideas. Avoiding ideas that conflict with your own gives the reader the impression that you may be uncertain, fearful, or unaware of opposing ideas. Thus it is essential that you not only address counterarguments but also do so respectfully.

Try to address opposing arguments earlier rather than later in your essay. Rhetorically speaking, ordering your positive arguments last allows you to better address ideas that conflict with your own, so you can spend the rest of the essay countering those arguments. This way, you leave your reader thinking about your argument rather than someone else’s. You have the last word.

Acknowledging points of view different from your own also has the effect of fostering more credibility between you and the audience. They know from the outset that you are aware of opposing ideas and that you are not afraid to give them space.

It is also helpful to establish the limits of your argument and what you are trying to accomplish. In effect, you are conceding early on that your argument is not the ultimate authority on a given topic. Such humility can go a long way toward earning credibility and trust with an audience. Audience members will know from the beginning that you are a reasonable writer, and audience members will trust your argument as a result. For example, in the following concessionary statement, the writer advocates for stricter gun control laws, but she admits it will not solve all of our problems with crime: “Although tougher gun control laws are a powerful first step in decreasing violence in our streets, such legislation alone cannot end these problems since guns are not the only problem we face.”

Such a concession will be welcome by those who might disagree with this writer’s argument in the first place. To effectively persuade their readers, writers need to be modest in their goals and humble in their approach to get readers to listen to the ideas.

Argument, Concession/Acknowledgement, and Refutation

As a writer of an argumentative essay, you do not just want to present your arguments for or against a certain issue. You need to convince or persuade your readers that your opinion is the most valid one. You convince readers by presenting your points of view, by presenting points of view that oppose yours, and by showing why the points of view different from yours are not as valid as yours.  These three elements of an argumentative essay are known as argument (your point of view), concession/acknowledgement/counterargument (admission that there is an opposing point of view to yours) and refutation (showing why the counterargument is not valid).

Acknowledging points of view different from yours and refuting them makes your own argument stronger. It shows that you have thought about all the sides of the issue instead of thinking only about your own views.

Sentence Structure: Argument and Concession

Read the following sentences about the issue of cell phone use in college classrooms. Notice the connectors used between the independent and the dependent clauses.

1. Although cell phones are convenient, they isolate people.
2.  Cell phones isolate people, even though they are convenient.

In the sentences above, the argument is “cell phones isolate people”.  The counterargument is “cell phones are convenient” and the acknowledgment/concession is expressed by the use of although/even though to make the concession of the opposing argument.

In addition, and most importantly, notice the following: Which clause contains the writer’s argument? Which clause contains the concession? The writer’s position is contained in the independent clause and the concession is contained in the dependent clause. This helps the writer to highlight their argument by putting it in the clause that stands on its own and leaving the dependent clause for the concession. Notice that it doesn’t matter if the independent clause is at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.  In both cases, the argument is “cell phones isolate people.”

Notice the difference between these two sentences:

1. Cell phones are convenient, even though they isolate people.
2. Cell phones isolate people, even though they are convenient.

This pair of sentences shows how the structure of the sentence reflects the point of view of the writer. The argument in the first sentence is that cell phones are convenient. The writer feels this is the important aspect, and thus places it in the independent clause. In the dependent clause, the writer concedes that cell phones isolate people. In contrast, in the second sentence the argument is that cell phones isolate people. The writer feels this is the important aspect and therefore puts this idea in the independent clause. The writer of this sentence concedes that cell phones are convenient, and this concession appears in the dependent clause.

Continue Reading: 19.6 The Structure of a Researched Essay