Give thoughtful and relevant reasons to support your overall claim

Purpose: to convince undecided readers to agree with your argument; to make opposing readers less resistant to your argument; to persuade readers who are in agreement with you to take action on your issue.
Audience: The audience for this argument is academic, so it includes your instructor, yourself, your peers, and other members of the academic community.
Requirements:
MLA formatting
3rd person point of view
3-4 pages in length, (not including your Works Cited page)
Properly formatted and incorporated quotations and source material.
Properly formatted in-text citations. You should use a minimum of 5 sources in your paper.
Opposition recognized and refuted (counterargument)
Works Cited page
Organization:
Introduction Paragraph:
Begin with an attention-getter, then introduce your topic with some background information.
End with your clearly stated claim (narrow, debatable, realistic) with supporting reasons that must be proven in the body paragraphs.
Body Paragraphs:
All body paragraphs must have the following criteria:
Begin with a topic sentence
Use transitions between ideas
Give thoughtful and relevant reasons to support your overall claim
Use sufficient evidence to support your argument and utilize in-text citations in the body of the essay
Evidence is ICE’d: introduced, cited correctly, and explained
AVOID overusing quotes. Most of your paper should be paraphrases and summaries of the evidence found in your sources.
A good rule of thumb is for body paragraphs to include 1-2 pieces of evidence for each argument, with each piece of evidence followed by explanatory/justification sentences.
Blending information from multiple sources within a paragraph is not mandatory, but it does increase the credibility of your argument. Finding compelling evidence in one source could be a coincidence; having it show up in two sources is convincing.
One of your body paragraphs must have the counterargument (or have it be a separate paragraph).
Acknowledge/Present the opposition’s strongest or key argument.
Include information about key people who promote the ideas.
Refute (discredit or prove wrong) the opposing argument (one full paragraph).
More than likely, you will not be able to prove that the argument is totally false, but you can show how it is misguided or not the most important thing to consider.
Remember to AVOID logical fallacies when refuting the opposition.
Think about the ORDER of your arguments:
History of the issue (in a paragraph or two): This is where you can discuss the key developments and movements on the issue.
Argument #1: This should be your second strongest reason/argument for your claim.
Argument #2+: These are “other” arguments; they’re decent but not as strong as the big boys. This is a great place to use pathos/emotional appeal; you do not want to lead with an emotional appeal because it can be used against you as though you are trying to manipulate your audience. After your initial argument, though, it is much more acceptable to show the “human” side of the argument.
Final Argument: This should be your strongest argument.
Conclusion Paragraph:
Begin with a transition and reworded thesis statement
Summarize the main points of your argument
Finish with final thoughts, a challenge to the reader, or answering the question, “So what?”
Include a Works Cited page and use proper MLA documentation for citations.
This must be the last page of the paper without any other paragraphs on it.