Argument essay paper

This paper is devoted to the process of creation of an argument that will contain all three needed basic elements.

My argument is: Barack Obama, the forty fourth President of the United States of America, is an outstanding personality. He became the first African American President in the history of the country. He is a successful published writer. He improved American legislation on many topics.

* Arguable issue: Whether or not Barack Obama is an outstanding personality. (We can argue whether or not Barack Obama is an outstanding personality, but that he is the forty fourth President of the United States of America is not something that is arguable. It is a verifiable fact.)

* Claim (conclusion): Barack Obama is an outstanding personality.

* Reasons (premises):

• He became the first African American President in the history of the country.
• He is a successful published writer.
• He improved American legislation on many topics.

Review. This is a valid deductive argument. That is an argument whose premises being true would mean necessarily that the conclusion is true. In the case of analyzing our argument, we can see that our premises greatly support the conclusion. 1. Barack Obama is really the first African American who became the President of the Unites States of America. 2. Barack Obama is really a successful published writer. He published his autobiography in 1995 Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The work received high praise from literary figures such as Toni Morrison and has been printed in 10 languages, including Chinese, Swedish and Hebrew. The book had a second printing in 2004, and is currently being adapted into children’s version. The 2006 audio book version of Dreams, which was narrated by Obama, receives a Grammy award for Best Spoken Word Album. His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006. The work discussed Obama’s visions for the future of America, many of which became talking points for his eventual presidential campaign. Shortly after its release, it hit No. 1 on both the New York Times and Amazon.com bestsellers lists. 3. Barack Obama really did a great work to improve American legislation on many topics. He worked with both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics, expanded health care services, and early childhood education programs for the poor. Obama created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. He also worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

Critique. According to the forms of its expression, critique can be obvious or non-obvious. Using the non-obvious technique we are not making the concrete analysis of opponent’s argument disadvantages and pointing out the weak sides of his argument. For example, we just say “Your ideas seem to be doubtful for me”. So, as we took the date for our argument from the Internet source, the information it provides must be evaluated with even more caution than information from the print media, radio, or television. That’s why, in this paper I would like to show you an example of obvious constructive critique. So, acting like an opponent at this stage, I am going to create completely opposite argument. Here it is. My conclusion is that Barack Obama, the forty fourth President of the United States of America, is not an outstanding personality, because he is a weak politician. Elections to the Unites States Senate held on November 2, 2010 showed how strongly Americans were disappointed in Barack Obama politics.  This argument also contains all need elements and we can even see the use of conclusion-indicating and premise-indicators words, like “my conclusion is” and “because”, studied earlier.