Structuring your argument analysis response

Introduction (BAAAC)

The advice from the examiners is that tone should be left to the body of the piece to discuss and do not mention it in the introduction.  This makes sense as the tonal shifts which will generally occur need to be discussed with some complexity and that means that there isn’t the opportunity to do this in the introduction. So the recipe for the introduction is: BAAAC but you don’t have to present it in order. Use your own logic to order these elements.

Background – provide some context for the arguments. Is this an ongoing debate? Are there other issues that emerge in this debate… Show your awareness of the argument and what it has aroused in society. Use the background information to help you here. Understanding this is central in being able to consider the way the author has fashioned their arguments to attract (or attack) a variety of audiences.

Article – the provenance of the article and its authorship, for example.: Johannes Bloggs in his regular  opinion piece in  The Musical Note, 23/04/2013.

Audience – identify the target audience (who is nodding?). Note that there may be more than one group appealed to in the piece.

Arguments – briefly identify the key arguments (about 3) presented

Contention – briefly outline the author’s contention.

 Body (ALEE)

With a comparative argument analysis it makes sense to begin the paragraph restating the author’s contention. Remember the focus is on how the author presents and constructs their arguments. The use of appropriate metalanguage enable you to explain the examples of selected persuasive techniques in a more fluid and efficient way. Consider this annotated example from Mrs Catton:

With the comparative pieces, you will work your way through the key arguments presented, generally in the same paragraph, repeating the ALEE recipe as required. Note that the explanation/analysis is not a generalised comment on how a rhetorical question works, rather it is a specific discussion about how this particular example worked.

Comparing approaches – the comparative paragraph

Generally, you will compare (consider the differences AND similarities) of at least one (if not all) of these key areas: target audience, form, tone and arguments.

When discussing the target audience, you will necessarily discuss the way the arguments are presented. Sometimes the same argument will be presented but with quite different approaches in order to speak to the target audience. For example, in a discussion on muck up day, a parent who supports the need to mark the end of schooling may indeed present the same argument as a student but they will appeal to parents using quite different persuasive approaches because the target audience .have different concerns and interests.

The form of the piece sometimes has an expected tone, structure or approach. A personal letter of complaint about the cost of school uniforms from a parent to the principal will logically be more subtle and subdued in its tone when compared with a speech of a parent to a group of fellow parents on the school board. Blogs are not always informal but will always be more informal than an editorial. A discussion about how the author has shaped their arguments and language to suit the form (and sometimes the target audience expected with the  form) will again need examples/evidence to enable a focused specific discussion.

Tone is the most obvious one to compare, but it is a richer vein if discussing the way tone shifts because then you would discuss why and how it shifts at particular points. Again, this is focused discussion on how this particular argument has been presented.

Argument. This again is an obvious vein to mine, however, too often students look at this in isolation, rather than how it links to the target audience or the form.

Conclusion

Many students struggle with this area. This is where you pull the focal length back up to consider the overview, the background, the situation in which this argument erupted. Then make a couple of comments about the prime similarities and differences between the pieces presented. There is nothing new that is presented in a conclusion. All important comments have been given space to be discussed in depth in the body.