Arguments

To achieve many professional goals, scientists and engineers must provide a logical written argument, in order to convince others of the importance of achieving these goals. This chapter discusses higher levels of argument: combining paragraphs to argue for a premise and combining premises to argue for a thesis. It examines some of the premises that might be used to argue for three types of theses: attaining funding for a research proposal; publishing an article in a journal; and attracting investors to a new enterprise. The chapter presents three examples of arguing for a premise—using one premise from each of the three types of theses listed above—with attention to the paragraphs that support the premise. In the examples, the chapter identifies the premise, lists the points that support the premise, presents the set of paragraphs that argue for each point, and shows how the premise fits within the larger argument.