Home Guides Parts of an Argument Invoke a Truism

Introduction

Clearly Stated Position

Introduction

Provide Context for the Argument

Establish Credible Authority

Compel the Audience to Listen

Truism

Quote

Common Concern

Anecdote

Questions

Something New

Epigram

Establish Common Ground

Clarify a Problem

Argument

Conclusion

Citations

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Invoke a Truism

Find something everyone in the discipline agrees with and propose it as the reason for your argument. In the example, the writer connects an argument about identity politics to a concern regarding students and how they learn. In this way, a theoretical issue-something many educators find uninteresting-is connected to something about which all educators are interested: their students.

Example:

In posing identity constitution as a central question for social rhetoric, I do not…seek to simply point out a theoretical difference in composition studies. Instead, I locate such questions about the discursive construction of identity primarily within a concern for students as writers and citizens. By examining the different assumptions social rhetoric makes about how discourse affects the student writer's construction of identity, I hope to highlight more explicitly the role pedagogy plays in "teaching" students not only how to construct public voices from which to speak of identity politics but also how to construct their identities.