Building an Argument

Learning Objectives

  • Examine the structure of arguments and types of supporting claims used to build an argument

Your Assignment

Once you have a topic and you know which type of argument you will make, you will begin to think about your stance on the issue.

Let’s imagine you are assigned the following prompt:

  • Gather research related to recycling in our community. Based on your findings, write an essay detailing specific recommendations for ways that your college should approach recycling in order to become more green. Your proposal may either support or oppose existing recycling programs and explain further what course of action should be considered in the future.

Already, we know you are being asked to write a proposal. The basic outline is shown in the following video.

Watch It: A Proposal Argument

You can view the transcript for “A Proposal Argument” here (opens in new window).

Taking a Stance

You have the first steps completed in building an argument—identifying your topic and knowing what type of argument to make, but now you need to decide how to move forward. This means doing some preliminary reading and research on the topic (and often reading materials provided to you in class). During your research, think about your feelings on the matter. Do you think recycling is done effectively on your campus? Do lots of students recycle? Are there bins readily available? Is there lots of non-renewable waste? Who is least likely to recycle? What is the cost of recycling to the institution? Is there enough awareness on campus? What type of recycling does your campus do—in-house, or outsourced to a different company? Is it single-stream recycling, meaning all recyclables are collected in one bin and then divided later? Or are materials commingled, meaning there are likely two separate bins for types of recyclables? At this stage, ask as many questions as you can to help develop your argument.

Writing Workshop: Argument Brainstorm

Stop here! Before going any further, think about your stance on campus recycling and write down your initial thoughts in the Working Document:

  1. What are two or three things you think your campus can do to be more green or to improve their recycling efforts? Why?
  2. What is your initial stance, or tentative “conclusion” for your proposal argument?
    • Hint: In order to address the growing climate crisis, Big State University should …

Next, you’ll develop your stance and do more detailed research, looking for specific evidence to support your proposal, while also gathering evidence from the “other side” to prepare a rebuttal. The process associated with developing and building your argument is truly just that: a process. You might go through this sequence multiple times when working on an essay, and your drafting process might then look like this:

I chose a topic and read / annotated some texts
I decided on a stance and starting researching
I read an article that changed my mind about what I thought was true I read an article that gave me a new idea for how to focus my approach
I changed my opinion of this topic and now have a new argument / stance on the topic
I drafted my thesis and continued researching
I read an article and watched a TED Talk that confirmed my opinion I visited my professor during office hours and revised my thesis based on our conversation I read more sources and feel more confident about my thesis & argument
I continued researching
I began drafting my essay
I continue drafting my essay, and my thesis seems to be working — I continue researching and drafting

Recycling Research

In order to build an argument and draft a thesis statement, you will need to do some preliminary reading on your topic. Five examples of research are provided below. You’ll need to write a brief summary of each and consider how you could use it in your own essay to support your proposal argument.

ITEM A: from “A Comprehensive Overview of University and College Recycling Programs” by Brooke E. Mason

“One prominent barrier to success can be a campus that lacks knowledge about their recycling program’s characteristics…Evidence suggests communicating the proper procedures along with the benefits of recycling can positively influence behaviors, aid in forming recycling habits, and overall improve the campus recycling program. Studies have found that compliance increases when signs are posted above recycling containers as shown by the recycling station at a cafe…”

“A primary constraints to student recycling behaviors has been inconvenience and proximity of recycling containers. Convenience must be built into every step of the recycling process, particularly placement of containers. One survey found 83% of students and 69% of staff said if there were more recycling bins around campus they would recycle more…”

“The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) conducted a waste audit in 2010 which analyzed waste from 15 activity areas. Their study found that more than 37% of the waste materials in all but one of the activity areas were recyclables. Most of the non-recyclable materials were plastic packaging and composite materials. Overall, more than 70% of the waste stream could have been diverted.”[1]

ITEM B: from “Being in a ‘Green’ Building Elicits ‘Greener’ Recycling, but Not Necessarily ‘Better’ Recycling,” by
David W.-L. Wu, Alessandra DiGiacomo, Peter J. Lenkic, Vanessa K. Wong, Alan Kingstone

 

Following our previous observational study [28], in the present study we randomly assigned participants to a sustainable building or a non-sustainable building to examine systematically how building context may influence recycling behavior. By using an experimental design we controlled for variation in the infrastructure and arrangement of the receptacle stations, individual differences, and changes in the goal-frames between the two buildings. Thus if the buildings differentially impacted recycling behavior, it would be by acting on motivational factors. Such normative influences should have a strong impact on low barrier, low reward behaviors as predicted by Schultz [18].

Our results converge on the conclusion that the atmospherics of a building can be a driver of recycling behavior and can do so by acting on motivational factors. Specifically, we found that participants in the sustainable building shifted their disposal strategies by decreasing the use of the garbage receptacle, while increasing the use of the container and organics receptacles.

This conclusion is supported by three lines of converging evidence. Our selection analysis found that participants in the sustainable building chose the garbage receptacle significantly less than participants in the non-sustainable building. And our accuracy and content analyses showed that participants in the sustainable building were so predisposed to avoid the garbage that garbage items were reassigned erroneously to the container and organics receptacles. It appears clear that sustainable building participants wanted to use the garbage receptacle less.[2]

ITEM C: from “Solid Waste Characterization and Recycling Potential for a University Campus in China”
by Dongyong Zhang, Mengge Hao, Sida Chen, and Stephen Morse”

 

Waste characterization is the first step to a successful waste management system. This paper explores the trend of solid waste generated on a university campus (Longzi Lake Campus of Henan Agricultural University) in China and the factors that influence the potential for recycling of the waste. Face-to-face interviews were carried out for 12 consecutive months on a campus in central China, and 416 interviewees were questioned. It was found that 7.32 tonnes of solid waste were generated on the campus each day, of which 79.31% were recyclable.””…the biggest solid waste generator was area (b), the cafeterias. It generated an average of 3.31 tonnes of solid waste per day over the period of 12 months, which accounted for 45.3% of daily waste generation of the whole campus. Area (a), the dormitories, was the second contributor to the campus waste generation (36.6%), while areas (c–e), the gardens, academic area, and the laboratory building, contributed less than 20% of the total waste.”

“Organic waste represents the largest stream of waste generated on the LL Campus, accounting for 67.18% (60.83% + 6.28% + 0.07%) of the total waste generated. Food waste is the biggest contributor to organic waste (91%), followed by leaves, branches, and very small amounts of animal carcass and corn cobs. Leaf litter and branches come from lawn cuttings in the garden, and it is seasonal. Corn cobs and animal carcasses are mainly generated during laboratory work in area (e), and this waste is irregular and small in volume.

Food waste is produced every day and is often wet and heavy. Dormitory buildings and cafeterias are the two areas with the largest amount of food waste, accounting for 20% and 64% of the total organic waste, respectively. Some students choose not to dine at the dining hall, but to take the food to the dormitory to eat. The leftovers are dumped in the trash can in the dormitory, which leads to the generation of organic waste in the dormitory buildings (there is no kitchen in the dormitory buildings in China).” [3]

ITEM D: from a press release from the website RecyleMania.

 

“The RecycleMania competition is designed to educate and challenge students, staff and faculty at U.S, college campuses to compete for best in category by reducing and recycling the most waste in an prescribed eight week period.The competition measures such factors as how much of a campus’s waste stream is recycled, how much is diverted, per capita results, food waste abatement and more. It also examines the effect of education on young people avoiding single-use plastics such as disposable bottles and packaging.

Some 300 campuses in 43 states competed in RecycleMania in 2019 engaging 4.25 million students and 900,000 faculty and staff for a total of more than 5.1 million participants.

…

Loyola Marymount University in California wins in two of the main RecycleMania categories – the diversion category recognizes Loyola for the highest waste diversion percentage of 89%, and the per capita category awards Loyola for recycling the largest combined amount of paper, cardboard and bottles and cans on a per person basis (both students and staff); Loyola’s per capita for the 2019 competition was 78 lbs. per person. Knox College in Illinois takes first place in Food Organics, for donating close to 5,000 pounds of food to a local food bank.[4]

ITEM E: from an article by Bill Barlow from The New Jersey Sustainability Reporting Project

[Lyn Crumbock, Cape May County’s recycling coordinator] continued that the biggest problem is what people add to the single-stream process, especially plastic grocery bags.

“Yes, we have an enormous plastic bag problem,” Crumbock said. People either fill them with cans and bottles or try to recycle them, as part of the single-stream system. At the site, they get tangled in the machinery, accumulate on the floor and cause other problems.

The bags can be recycled and are collected at supermarkets around the county, but are nothing but a problem at the single-stream facility.

Crumbock described “wishful recycling” as a big problem for the system. People want to do the right thing, and put anything that seems recyclable into the system. That’s included brake pads from a vehicle, sneakers, clothing, pots and pans, even a bowling ball. Brake pads have damaged equipment three times in the past few years.

“I didn’t just make that up,” she said. “In the past two years, we’ve had equipment shutdowns because it wasn’t picked out of the first quality control room.”

People know materials can be recycled, they just don’t know how.[5]

Try It

Consider the following research abstract from “Evaluating Increased Effort for Item Disposal to Improve Recycling” by Jennifer N. Fritz, Danielle L. Dupuis, Wai-Ling Wu, Ashley E. Neal, Lisa A. Retting, And Renee E. Lastrup from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.[6]

“An evaluation of increased response effort to dispose of items was conducted to improve recycling at a university. Signs prompting individuals to recycle and notifying them of the location of trash and recycling receptacles were posted in each phase. During the intervention, trashcans were removed from the classrooms, and one large trashcan was available in the hallway next to the recycling receptacles. Results showed that correct recycling increased, and trash left in classrooms increased initially during the second intervention phase before returning to baseline levels.”

Writing Workshop: Evidence for your Argument

Open your working document to the section on “Evidence for Your Argument.”

In this writing workshop, you will write a brief summary for each of the items included above. Then, below the summary, consider how this evidence could be used to support an argument about recycling on campus. The first has been done for you:

ITEM A: “One prominent barrier to success can be a campus that lacks knowledge about their recycling program’s characteristics…Evidence suggests communicating the proper procedures along with the benefits of recycling can positively influence behaviors, aid in forming recycling habits, and overall improve the campus recycling program. Studies have found that compliance increases when signs are posted above recycling containers as shown by the recycling station at a cafe.”

“A primary constraint to student recycling behaviors has been inconvenience and proximity of recycling containers. Convenience must be built into every step of the recycling process, particularly placement of containers. One survey found 83% of students and 69% of staff said if there were more recycling bins around campus they would recycle more.”

“The University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) conducted a waste audit in 2010 which analyzed waste from 15 activity areas. Their study found that more than 37% of the waste materials in all but one of the activity areas were recyclables. Most of the non-recyclable materials were plastic packaging and composite materials. Overall, more than 70% of the waste stream could have been diverted.”[7]

ITEM A summary: Awareness and information for proper recycling procedures result in better recycling habits and increased cooperation. More convenient access to recycling bins improves the odds of recycling—83% of students said they would recycle more if there were more bins on campus. One waste audit conducted at the University of Northern British Columbia found significant room for recycling improvement, as 37% of their trash could have been recycled and 70% could have at least been diverted away from the dump.

How to use ITEM A: Based on the first part of this information, I could argue that our college should increase access to recycling bins and put informative signs next to bins. I could also use the last part of this evidence to argue that there is room for improvement and our campus could also consider a waste audit to see where our resources are being wasted. This information could also be used to encourage green behaviors beyond recycling such as composting or changing the types of materials used for packaging.

  1. ITEM B:
  2. How to use ITEM B:
  3. ITEM C:
  4. How to use ITEM C:
  5. ITEM D:
  6. How to use ITEM D:
  7. ITEM E:
  8. How to use ITEM E:
  1. Mason, Brooke. (2017). A Comprehensive Overview of University and College Recycling Programs. 10.2174/97816810847181170101. ↵
  2. Wu DW-L, DiGiacomo A, Lenkic PJ, Wong VK, Kingstone A. (2016). Being in a “Green” Building Elicits “Greener” Recycling, but Not Necessarily “Better” Recycling. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0145737. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145737 ↵
  3. Zhang, Dongyong, et al. Solid Waste Characterization and Recycling Potential for a University Campus in China. 12 Apr. 2020, www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3086/htm. ↵
  4. Ordóñez-Lancet, Jessica. “5 Million College Students, Faculty and Staff Engage in the War on Plastic Pollution and Solid Waste in National Tournament.” National Wildlife Federation, 7 May 2019, www.nwf.org/Latest-News/Press-Releases/2019/05-07-19-RecycleMania. ↵
  5. Bill Barlow - Cape May County Herald, New Jersey Sustainability Reporting Hub February 4. “Plastic Pros, Cons: Material's Common, but Less Than 10% Gets Recycled.” New Jersey Sustainability Reporting Hub, 7 Feb. 2020, srhub.org/2020/02/04/plastic-pros-cons-materials-common-but-less-than-10-gets-recycled/. ↵
  6. Fritz JN, Dupuis DL, Wu WL, Neal AE, Rettig LA, Lastrapes RE. Evaluating increased effort for item disposal to improve recycling at a university. J Appl Behav Anal. 2017;50(4):825-829. doi:10.1002/jaba.405 ↵
  7. Mason, Brooke. (2017). A Comprehensive Overview of University and College Recycling Programs. 10.2174/97816810847181170101. ↵