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(Re)Read these position pieces:
Your assignment for this essay is to write an informed, thesis-driven, well-argued, and well-written rebuttal to one of the essays above (4-6 pages are expected). Remember, in order to write a convincing refutation argument, you have first to understand exactly what it is the author is claiming, and you must understand it correctly. In order to do so, return to those techniques that we developed under "rhetorical analysis." Look up words, summarize, paraphrase, come to understand the ways in which your author is using ethos, pathos and logos to convince us that his position is the correct one. Note what assumptions underlie his argument and figure out how each of his examples supports it. Why? Well, because when you refute authors' ideas, you refute either their assumptions or their examples, something we keep returning to in class. Thus, you must understand those things well in order to demonstrate to your reader that their ideas are wrong, that your ideas are better. You may certainly counterargue against their positions in your own essay, though I will not require it. Instead, I will require that you be definite in your own thesis and that you support your ideas with clear and concrete examples of your own. Please be sure to reread pp. 186-7 as you write this piece. A note on research: Many of you will not know enough off the tops of your heads to be able to find "evidence" to rebutt the evidence of the pieces. One place you can go for likely material is the other essays in this chapter; you may use anything you find there. Moreover, if it helps, you can go to history texts used in other M.C. courses. Finally, you may use anything you find in a database accessed through the Monmouth College Library Homepage (and subsequent portals). You may not simply pull things off the web and use them; this mean no Wikipedia and no Google searching.
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