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Critical Writing

Opportunities to build your critical writing skills and use of argument.

Valid arguments

What is an argument?

An argument is a set of reasons or evidence offered in support of a claim. Premises are claims or assertions and when linked they lead the reader to a conclusion. Claims are presented as statements or claims to truth. If your readers contest the validity of any of the premises, they will probably have to reject the conclusion you have drawn; your entire argument will fail. Premises are often chained together to strengthen an argument as more reasons offered, lead to a strong, authoritative conclusion.

Let's take our essay title: Should boxing be banned?

Here’s a simple argument:

Premise 1 During a boxing bout a fighter has a 48% risk of a brain injury (Leiden, 2019).
Premise 2 Research has shown that of those with brain injuries 28% die (Bronagh, 2018).
Premise 3 The number of people with lasting health problems as a result of boxing head injuries is estimated at 36% of all fighters worldwide (Bronagh and Maloney, 2019). Cognitive functioning, memory, decision making, and mood regulation can be badly affected (Kavanagh, 2019).
Conclusion

Therefore, boxing is dangerous and places participants at long-term risk of impaired health outcomes; it should be banned.

Obviously, in academic writing your arguments are often more complex and you will introduce more background reading, evidence, research, statistics and figures to back up your developing stance. Here’s an example of a more complex argument structure and plan which builds through the development of broad themes and premises:
 

This essay will build an argument that boxing is dangerous and should be banned by quantifying the risk to sportspeople and society.

Introduction: An introduction could include the following:

  • Your outline of  the topic or background information
  • Offer your rationale for the topic.
  • Definitions or any key terms
  • Main concepts, your approach, sequence and ordering of any information
  • How will you address the assignment question? Use verbs to indicate your  purpose: analyse, evaluate, illustrate, critique.
  • Identify if you intend to apply any particular theories

Section 1: Content and background to argument

Evidence of deaths, brain-injured sportspeople, concussions over last 20 years in both professional and amateur boxing in the UK.

Section 2: Exploration of social/ health costs

Statistics on number of post-boxing injuries lasting longer than 6 months, cost to the health service. Includes figures from Dept of Health.

Section 3: Exploration of personal impact and costs

Evidence on personal impact on people injured in terms of quality of life, lack of independence, reduced ability to take part in life: meaningful work activity and purpose, impact on family, loving relationships, employment, social  life. Refers to wide journal reading and evidence from longitudinal studies.

Section 4: Exploration of impact of growing boxing trend on young men

Explore concept of boxing as popular sport amongst young men, particularly those from working-class origins. Include statistics. Explore legal concepts in sport: duty of care, protection, safeguarding.
include evidence from reading on severity of injuries on growing brains. Refers to wide journal reading and evidence from longitudinal studies. Build argument young people should be protected from harm. Challenge whether sport should be banned or not. Explore parallel occurrences relating to dangerous sports.

Conclude with a summary of your argument

Validity

Ensure that your arguments are valid. The conclusions must flow from the premises and there must be an internal logic to the claims made.

Avoid flawed arguments. Here’s one:

  1. Freud was a clever man. (Premise one - true).
  2. Freud had a beard.  (Premise two - true).
  3. All men with beards are clever. (Conclusion - untrue. We cannot conflate having a beard with always being clever. Premises can be true, but they can still lead to a false conclusion.)

Criteria apply to Freud: certainly, he was a man with a beard. Freud happened to have a beard and allegedly, he was clever. However, not all bearded men are clever, therefore this argument fails because the conclusion 'all men with beards are clever' is not true.

To explore more, see What is a Good Argument? - From The Critical Thinker Academy 2024.

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