This section will help you figure that out which components may come from your professor, which you just have to think about, which you have to write, and which you have to find in your sources.

Here, again, are the components we’ll cover:

• The question you (or your professor) want answered
• Your claim or thesis
• One or more reasons for your thesis
• Evidence for each reason
• Others’ objections, counterarguments, or alternative solutions
• Your acknowledgment of others’ objections, counterarguments, or alternative solutions
• Response to others’ objections, counterarguments, or alternative solutions

The Question You Want Answered

Sometimes your professor will give you the research question, but probably more often he or she will expect you to develop your own from an assigned topic. You learned how to develop research questions in another section. Though vitally important, they are often not stated in essays or term papers but are usually stated in reports of original studies, such as theses, dissertations, and journal articles.

Your Claim or Thesis

You write the claim or thesis–it doesn’t come directly from a resource. Instead, it is the conclusion you come to in answer to your question after you’ve read/listened to/looked at some sources. So it is a statement, not a question or hypothesis, that you plan to prove or disprove with your research.

After you’ve done more research, you may need to change your thesis. That happens all the time–not because you did anything wrong but because you learned more.

One or More Reasons

Write what you believe makes your thesis (the answer to your research question) true. That’s your reason or reasons. Each reason is a summary statement of evidence you found in your research. The kinds of evidence considered convincing varies by discipline, so you will be looking at different sources, depending on your discipline. How many reasons you need depends on how complex your thesis and subject matter are, what you found in your sources, and how long your essay or term paper must be. It’s always a good idea to write your reasons in a way that is easy for your audience to understand and be persuaded by.

Evidence for Each Reason

This is the evidence you summarized earlier as each reason your thesis is true. You will be directly quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing your sources to make the case that your audience should agree with you.

Others’ Objections, Counterarguments, or Alternative Solutions

Do any of your sources not agree with your thesis? You’ll have to bring those up in your term paper. In addition, put yourself in your readers’ shoes. What might they not find logical in your argument? In other words, which reason(s) and corresponding evidence might they find lacking? Did you find clues to what these could be in your sources? Or maybe you can imagine them thinking some aspect of what you think is evidence is illogical.

Your Acknowledgement of Others’ Objections, Counterarguments, or Alternative Solutions

What will you write to bring up each of those objections, counterarguments, and alternative solutions? Some examples:

• I can imagine skeptics wanting to point out…
• Perhaps some readers would say…
• I think those who come from XYZ would differ with me…

It all depends on what objections, counterarguments, and alternative solutions you come up with.

Response to Others’ Objections, Counterarguments, or Alternative Solutions

You must write your response to each objection, counterargument, or alternative solution brought up or that you’ve thought of. (You’re likely to have found clues for what to say in your sources.) The reason you have to include this is that you can’t very easily convince your audience until you show them how your claim stacks up against the opinions and reasoning of other people who don’t at the moment agree with you.