Question

Write a paragraph explaining why this argumentative paragraph is ineffective ( paragraph and detailed instructions below)

Answer 1

I gave it a shot.

The argument presented is extremely ineffective because it’s written as if it’s from the perspective of a child. The argument doesn’t even seem to state a claim, instead it poses a question “why do people want to ban the ownership of pets?” The writer could have easily improved their introduction by making a statement such as “the banning of pet ownership would be a violation of our free will” even something simple like “banning pet ownership would be bad” would be a better introduction then this. The writer follows up with an insufficient and frankly irrelevant list of supporting evidence, all of which is completely opinion based with some emotional appeal and small anecdotes sprinkled through out. Their first piece of supporting evidence is they love animals “the first reason I should be able to own a pet is that I love animals” the writer fails to bring a relevant and credible reason to back up their “claim” or rather their argument, they follow up with a personal anecdote as well as a quote from the writers mother stating the following “I don’t know what I would do without my little Josie!”. All of the writers supporting evidence is useless and irrelevant, an improvement that can be made while rather obvious is actually bringing credible evidence and reasons to the argument for example, the writer could have brought up that some people need to have service animals, people such as veterans and those with anxiety problems they also could’ve found articles on this very topic and used the evidence/reasoning found inside. As for the paragraph it self it seems to be very poorly put together, there’s essentially no transitions whatsoever letting the paragraph go from one point to the other without any notice for example as the writer finished their quote from their mother they simply cut off the sentence and move on with a brand new point. One way they could’ve improved is by filling any awkward spaces that leave out a clear ending to a point, for example instead of ending on a quote and moving on they could have ended the quote and wrote something to end it off such as a rhetorical question here’s an example of that “as you can see, my mother knows better than anyone how important animals are to me so I suppose the question is how important are they to you?” This leaves the reader to ponder and consider the argument presented. The over perspective of the writer is strange, they present everything from in an emotional light, most likely in an effort to appeal to the readers feelings, they could have done a better job at presenting it however, if they had just balanced logic and emotion or relied on solely logic the paragraph could’ve been effective. To end it off, let’s review the conclusion clincher, “honestly, what we do without our pets?” Now this conclusion clincher isn’t necessarily bad, in fact it’s a pretty good ending question for the argument, the problem lies in, once again the paragraph it self. If the reader had been given relevant reliable info then the conclusion clincher could’ve been effective they also could’ve extended it a short amount, like leading in with a sentence such as “in conclusion pets can be practical, low maintenance companions, showing traits of intelligence and care, both of which some people could use, so ask your self, honestly what we do without our pets”. To end it off, the writer presented a horrible argument with ineffective evidence and reasoning that down played the only good aspects it had.