Go beyond the standard positions
Issues that are regularly discussed in public forums tend to have easily recognizable "pro" and "con" positions. Sometimes, these standard positions are obvious, knee-jerk reactions to a topic; sometimes, they are well-constructed arguments that have simply been used too often. In most cases, you should steer your own arguments away from these standard arguments, since they are so well known that they will occur to everybody. Even if they are good arguments, they are not your arguments, and they do not give you the opportunity to show what kinds of ideas you can come up with on your own.
If the assignment allows it, you might consider staying away entirely from issues that have been discussed so often that few new things are left to say about them. If you do write about such issues, however, approach them with subtlety and avoid the temptation to restate the usual lines of reasoning. Few readers will be persuaded by arguments that simply regurgitate standard lines of thinking.
Consider the following two arguments against legalized abortion, one of the most controversial and often-discussed issues in the modern political landscape:
Argument #1: "Abortion is murder. People who permit or perform abortions are
taking innocent human lives, which is the definition of murder, and it doesn't matter
how young each life is, since it is a life just the same. A child who has yet to be born is just as valuable as a child who has been born or an adult, so there is no reason why it should be acceptable to kill one if it is not acceptable to kill the other."
Argument #2: "The primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim of the value of its future. . . . The future of a standard fetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and such which are identical with the futures of human beings and are identical with the futures of young children. Since the reason that it is sufficient to explain why it is wrong to kill human beings after the time of birth is a reason that also applies to fetuses, it follows that abortion is . . . seriously morally wrong." (Marquis, Don. "Why Abortion Is Immoral." Journal of Philosophy 87 [1990]: 262-77)
These passages are similar in many ways. Both assert that abortion is immoral because of its impact on a human life, and neither uses religious terms or cliches (see below). The first argument, however, simply strings together the standard, predictable arguments that one usually hears in discussions of abortion.
The second argument—which comes from a famous article by a philosophy professor—goes well beyond the standard arguments. It frames the issue in a way that most people have not considered and adds something new to a very familiar debate. This response is more intellectually challenging than the first and is much more likely to persuade someone who does not already hold an anti-abortion position. It is, in other words, a more subtle approach to the same basic argument.
Avoid cliches
A cliche is an argument, a phrase, a slogan, or a catchphrase that has been used so often that it no longer conveys its original meaning. Sometimes a cliche is simply an overused comparison, such as "dead as a doornail" or "light as a feather," but arguments can also be cliched. Consider statements such as "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," "If you don't like abortion, don't have one," "Make love not war," or "America—love it or leave it." Whatever the original merits of these sentiments may have been, the arguments have become cliches that can be invoked by people who have never seriously considered the complicated issues that they raise.
In college writing, cliches often take the place of serious contemplation about an issue. Cliches discourage the development of new ideas. They tend to be short arguments with little support and inflexible conclusions, and they seem (and only seem) to make further thought unnecessary.
Construct a debatable position
For a claim to result in an interesting essay, it must be arguable. Consider, for example, the following claim and think of the essay that it would produce: "War kills innocent people." Most people would immediately agree that a lot of innocent people die in wars. Many people, however, would argue that the loss of innocent lives is sometimes necessary, even if it is bad. Others would disagree and say that war is always a bad thing, no matter how necessary it may seem. However, the claim that war kills innocent people would not result in an effective essay because it does not take a position that could be reasonably disputed. A better claim might be: "A commitment to pacifism on the part of world leaders is the only way to resolve difficult disputes without bloodshed," or "War is ineffective because it deals with the surface political problems that lead to disputes and not the ultimate problems that cause conflict in the first place."
Consider the implications of an argument
Most arguments have consequences and implications that are not directly stated but that can be clearly understood when read with a subtle, critical eye. When you develop your ideas, keep in mind what unstated assumptions (discussed in Chapter 9, p. 605) they rest on and what their consequences might be. For example, if you are writing an essay about responses to poverty and you want to argue that the government should increase welfare to help lift people out of poverty, then you need to consider the implications of such an argument. One unstated assumption would be that people are poor because of their circumstances and not because of their behaviors—such as drug use or irresponsible spending—which cannot be controlled by welfare payments. Consider also the possible consequences of increasing welfare payments. Would more people go on welfare? Where would the additional money come from—higher taxes? Or would it be taken from the budgets for other social services, such as Medicare or Head Start (an early-childhood-development program)? Would it mean decreasing spending on other programs the government funds, like the National Institutes of Health or the National Endowment for the Arts? You need to consider as many aspects like these as possible in your writing. A subtle, persuasive argument addresses both the implications and the consequences of the claim.
This requirement also applies when you analyze or respond to another person's ideas; an analysis or response that addresses unstated implications of an argument is far more effective than one that does not. Take, for example, Mo Tzu's essay "Against Music" (p. 236). Mo Tzu's stated argument is that music and the pageantry that accompanies it are harmful to society. Rather than focusing on this argument, a deeper reading would analyze the reason that Mo Tzu opposed music: music was a luxury that took resources away from society without adding anything to most people's lives. This reasoning has implications for many other things that required or require resources without benefiting the majority of people: past examples include the pyramids of Egypt, the Olympics of ancient Greece, the plays of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, while present ones include art exhibits, country clubs, and celebrity weddings. A truly subtle analysis of Mo Tzu's argument would account for and examine the implications of his argument that go far beyond what is stated in the text.