perception is KEY

In high school, I took a few classes focused on rhetoric and forming arguments, and in all those classes the very first thing was that everything can be an argument. Which at first that idea made sense to me, because why would you possibly disagree with a teacher when you’re just a high school student?!?! But then I thought that can’t possibly be true, because what if I tried to argue that grass is actually blue, like I think everyone, even little kids, would just look at me and think I’m crazy?

SOOOOO let me tell you what happened next! I went into one of my classes and brought that very same example up to my teacher, and he still insisted I has the basis for a very strong argument. At that point I was so confused and I had no idea what life was anymore, and the teacher could probably tell by the look on my face that I lost all sense of reality because he told me to sit down and he would explain himself. He then started by saying that just because everything can be an argument, doesn’t mean they all need to be good ones (which now retelling this story I feel like such an idiot because this seems like such a trivial idea, but I swear I wasn’t the only one who had their mind blown). He then went on and said although not all arguments are good, we can make any argument good. He then brought up my example of grass actually being blue, and asked us if he had a research paper proving grass is not actually green, would we believe the grass could possibly be blue. Or what if he asked that same question to someone who has never seen grass before, would they not believe his argument?

In Gregory M. Colon Semenza’s book, “Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century”, he states that proving an argument is the easiest part of writing a paper, which I do agree with if you knew exactly who your audience is, but what if you don’t know who your audience will be? You won’t be able to assume whoever reads your paper has the same background as you, is from the same culture as you, or even live in the same “universe” as you. So while writing a scholarly research paper it is probably acceptable to assume your audience understands a majority of your ideas, that same concept of the argument is easy to prove may not always hold true.

However, many times when writing you already have an intended audience so you can assume a lot when forming and proving your argument, this was just an interesting idea I thought of which was inspired by my high school teacher. Although everything can be made into an argument, a) they may not all be good, and b) it’s impossible to prove your argument to everyone (unless you have some crazy amazing argumentative skills, which if you did you can probably rule the world because you can make everyone believe everything you say).

Source

Semenza, Gregory M. Colón. 2010. Graduate Study for the Twenty-First Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities. Rev. & updated 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.v