11/12

English for Academic

and Professional
Purposes
Quarter 2/4
Module 1: Analyzing the
Arguments Used by the
Writer/s in Manifestoes

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 11/12

English for Academic

and Professional
Purposes

Quarter 2/4
Module 1: Analyzing the
Arguments Used by the
Writer/s in Manifestoes
 Introduction
Welcome to the Alternative Delivery Mode module on Analyzing
Arguments Used by the Writer/s in Manifestoes.

We live a life of constant persuasion, whether it’s telling your

mom/dad to buy the shoes you love or asking your younger sister/brother
to wash the dishes for you; you try your best to find the best words to get
them do what you want.

We too, can be persuaded in ways that we may or may not notice. See
for instance television commercials, political speeches, election and
campaigns – they all want us to believe or do something. However, some of
the propositions we encounter everyday can be unreasonable, deceitful or
just plain wrong. It is very important that we know how to be selective in
grasping the significance of positions, including its concerns or problems.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be a lawyer in order to analyze the
arguments and positions of others. You only have to have the skill to do so.

This module is specifically designed to help you hone the skill so you
will be able to understand, analyze and construct positions that will be
helpful in your everyday endeavour.

This module is divided into the following parts:

What I Need to This part contains the skills that you

Know are to gain and accomplish at the end of
the module.

This involves activities that will

What I Know determine your prior learning on the
topic discussed.

This will help you recall pieces of

What’s In information you previously learned to
make connections with the topic of the
module.

This involves activities that give you

What’s New vivid ideas what the topic is about.

This equips you with the necessary

What It Is knowledge, principles and attitude
which will enable you to attain the
specified learning outcomes.
What’s More This includes activities that’ll help you
demonstrate your learning.

What I Have This part sums up the learning you

Learned have acquired through the module.

This part enables you to apply the

What I Can Do knowledge and skills gained from the
module.

Assessment This part will measure the extent of

learning you have acquired from the
lesson.

References This contains the list of sources used

for this module.
\ What I Need to Know
At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

 analyze the arguments used by the writer/s in

manifestoes
CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-IIa-d-3

What I Know

Let’s try to explore what you know about the lesson of this module by
accomplishing the task below.

Modified True or False

Directions: Write TRUE if the sentence is correct. If it is incorrect, underline

the word which made the sentence incorrect and write the
correct word in your notebook. Each number is good for 2
points.

___________1. In refining arguments, it appropriate to use moral or religious

truths.

___________2. Sources of information for arguments doesn’t have to be

credible.

___________3. In analyzing arguments, one doesn’t have to look into the

evaluation of the particular writing.

___________4. Argument is made up of three elements: thesis, evidence,

analysis.

___________5. The use of further explanations and situations as well as the

explanation of evidence is needed in building arguments.

___________6. Responsible writers of arguments do not storm people’s minds,

Instead, they persuade by gentler means, which is to share the
view with a reader willing to consider it.
___________7. In an argument, you champion or defend your opinion about
something.

___________8. Thesis sentence contains the claim of the argument.

___________9. Evidences may include facts, statistics (facts expressed in

numbers), expert opinions, examples and unreported
experiences.
___________10. In analyzing arguments, one has to look into the writer’s
main idea, idea, support for the idea, special writing
strategies and other elements.

___________11. Inference is especially important in discovering writer’s

assumptions.

___________12. Evaluation, as a part of the process of analyzing arguments

refers to linking the elements into whole or linking two or
more wholes.

___________13. Synthesis means separating ideas into parts.

___________14. Claim is synonymous to the writer’s opinion.

___________15. One can cite or quote respected authorities for strong

evidences.

___________16. All articles from the internet are all reliable.

 What’s New

A. Imagine that you are reading a magazine. Suddenly, you’ve come

across the statement below:

“While women talk, men are silent patient listeners.”

Do you believe and agree with the statement after reading it?

B. Study the image below.

lowres.cartoonstock.com

What can you see in the picture? How would you react to it?

If you have that feeling of verfying these assertions, you are one step
closer to becoming a critical reader. Why? It is simply because a critical
reader doesn’t easily believe in any information offered by a text, and this, is
the skill you need to hone in order to analyze arguments later on in this
module.
 What It Is

What is an argument?

An argument aims to win readers’ agreement with an assertion

or claim by engaging their powers of reasoning. Unlike some television
advertisers, responsible writers of argument do not storm people’s minds. In
writing a paper, of course, persuasion should be done in gentler ways, that
is by sharing the view with a reader willing to consider it. You’ll want to
learn to express your view clearly and vigorously. But to be fair and
persuasive, it is important to understand your readers as well.

What are the elements of an argument?

a. Thesis Sentence

In an argument, you champion or defend your opinion about

something. This opinion is the thesis, or claim of your argument, and it will
probably appear in your essay as the thesis sentence. Usually, but not
always, you’ll state your thesis sentence at the beginning of your essay,
making a play for readers’ attention and clueing them for your purpose.

An example of a thesis sentence is stated below.

“For crimes involving the deliberate and inexcusable taking of human

life, by men openly defiant of all civilized order – for such crimes [the death
penalty] seems a just and proper punishment. (H.L. Mencken, “The Penalty
of Death”)

b. Evidence

To support the thesis of your argument, you need evidence – anything

that demonstrates what you are claiming. Evidence may include facts,
statistics, expert opinions , examples, reported experience.

c. Explanation

Further explanation is often needed such as the clarification between

the link of assertion and the evidence, the use of further examples and
situations, and the explanation and contextualization of the evidence
and its importance.
 How to analyze arguments?

In analyzing arguments, one has to employ critical reading skills as

analysis, inference, synthesis and evaluation – to a particular kind of
writing.

a. Analysis.
Say you’re listening to a new album of your favorite KPOP Idols.
Without thinking much about it, you isolate melodies, song lyrics
and instrumentals – in othe words, you analyze the album by
separating it into parts. Analysis is the same process. While
analyzing a subject, you might begin classifying it, or comparing it
with something else, or figuring out what caused it.
b. Inference.
Say that after listening to your favorite KPOP Idols, you
conclude that it reveals a preoccupation with traditional blues
music and themes. Now you are using inference, drawing
conclusions about a work based on your store of information and
experience. In writing, inference is specifically important in
discovering a writer’s assumptions, opinions of beliefs, often
unstatedm that direct the writer’s choices of ideas, support, writing
strategies, and language.
c. Synthesis.
What are the KPOP Idols trying to accomplish with their new
album? Is it different from their previous album in its
understanding of the blues? Asnwering such questions will lead
you to synthesis, linking elements into whole, or linking two or
more wholes. During synthesis, you use your special aptitudes,
interests, and training to reconstitute the work so that it now
contains the original elements but also your sense of their
underpinnings and relationships.
d. Evaluation.
It generally means, judging the quality of work. You’ll probably
form a judgment of the KPOP Idols new album, (is the band getting
better or just standing still?) In this manner, your are now
employing the process of evaluation.
 What’s More

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY

Read the article below and accomplish the tasks which follow.

The Case for Short Words

Richard Lederer

When you speak and write, there is no law that says you have to use
big words. Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words-like
sun and grass and home-are best of all. A lot of small words, more than you
might think, can meet your needs with a strength, grace, and charm that
large word do not have.

Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write
and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big thingsnight
and day, love and hate, war and peace, and life and death. Big words at
times seem strange to the eye and the ear and the mind and the heart.
Small words are the ones we seem to have known from the time we were
born, like the heart fire that warms the home.

Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like
the dawn. That greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt
tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame,
and terse like the dart and sting a bee.

Here is a sound rule: Use small, old words where you can. If a long
word says just what you want to say, do not fear to use it. But know that
our tongue is rich in crisp, brisk, swift, short words. Make them the spine
and the heart of what you speak and write. Short words are like fast friends.
They will not let you down.

The title of this essay and the four paragraphs that you have just read
are wrought entirely of words of one syllable. In setting myself this task, I
did not feel especially cabined, cribbed, or confined. In fact, the structure
helped me to focus on the power of the message I was trying to put across.

One study shows that twenty words account for twenty-five percent of
all spoken English words, and all twenty are monosyllabic. In order of
frequency they are: I, you, the, a, to, is, it, that, of, and, in, what, he, this,
have, do, she, not, on, and they. Other studies indicate that the fifty most
common words in written English are each made of a single syllable.

For centuries, our finest poets and orators have recognized and
employed the power of small words to make a straight point between two
minds. A great many of our proverbs punch home their points with pithy
monosyllables: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,””A stitch in time saves
nine,” Spare the rod and spoil the child, “A bird in the hand is worth two in
the bush.”

Nobody use the short word more skilfully than William Shakespeare,
whose dying King Lear laments:

Shakespeare’s contemporaries made the King James Bible a

centrepiece of short words-“And God said, Let there be light: and there was
light .And God saw the light, that it was good.” The descendants of such
mighty lines live on in the twentieth century. When asked to explain his
policy to parliament, Winston Churchill responded with these
monosyllables:” I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all
our might and with all the strength that God can give us,” In his “Death of
Hired Man” Robert Frost observes that “Home is the place where, when you
have to go there ,They have to take you in.” And William H. Johnson uses
ten two-letter words to explain his secret of success: “If it is to be, it is up to
me.”

You don’t have to be a great author, statesman, or philosopher to tap

the energy and eloquence of small words. Each winter I asked my ninth
graders at St. Paul’s School to write a composition composed entirely of
onesyllable words. My students greeted my request with obligatory moans
and groans, but, when they returned to class with their essays, most felt
that, with the pressure to produce high-sounding polysyllables relieved, they
had created some of their most powerful and luminous prose. Here are
submissions from two of my ninth graders:

What can you say to a boy who has left home? You can say that he
has done wrong, but he does not care. In spite of the breeze that made the
vines sway. We all wished we could hide from the glare in a cool, white
house. But, as here was no one to help dock the boat, we had to stand and
wait.

At last the head of the crew leaped from the side and strode to a large
house on the right. He shoved the door wide, poked his head through the
gloom, roared with fierce voice. Five or six men came out, and soon the port
was loud with the clank of chains and creak of planks as the men caught
ropes thrown by the crew; pulled them taut, and tied them to posts. Then
they set up a rough plank so we could cross from the deck to the shore. We
all made for the large house while the crew watched, glad to be rid of us.

Answer the questions comprehensively.

1. What is the thesis of the essay?

2. What are the reasons given in the selection for using short
words?
3. What is your stand on the issue of using short words whenever
possible?
4. Is the author successful in accomplishing his purpose? Why or
why not?

What I Have Learned

I have learned that:

 Argument aims to win readers’ agreement with an assertion or claim

by engaging their powers of reasoning
 Inorder to analyze arguments of writers, we should use
analysis, inference, synthesis and evaluation.
 The elements of arguments are thesis, evidence and explanation.
 What I Can Do

Task No. 1

Directions: Below is an argument about television. Break down the

arguments of the essay by filling in the table below.

Is the Argument
Thesis/Claims Evidence Explanation Valid? Why or
Why Not?

Television news has a serious failing: It’s show business. Unlike a

newspaper, its every image has to entertain people. To score high ratings
and win advertisers, the visual medium favors the spectacular riots,
tornados, air crashes. “The more you can get data out instantly,” says media
critic Jeff Greenfield. In 1996, as American missiles bombed military sites in
Iraq, President Clinton held a press conference to explain the action. His
lengthy remarks were clipped to twenty seconds on broadcast on one news
broadcast, and then an anchor-woman digested the oppposition to a single
line: “Republicans tonight were critical of the president’s actions.”
Americans who rely on their television for news (two thirds, according to the
recent polls) exist of a starvation diet.

Task No. 2

Directions: Write a short letter to your campus newspaper in which you

wish to object to a particular feature, column or editorial in the paper. Be
guided with the elements of a good argument as you write your letter.

Hurray!

Now that we’re almost done with our venture, let’s try to assess what
you have learned from this lesson!
 Assessment

Taken from a textbook on public relations, the following paragraph

argues on issues about lobbyists (who work to persuade public officials in
behalf of a cause).

Using what you have learned from the discussion, your task is to
analyze the arguments presented to determine whether the writer is for or
against the issue. Be sure to employ the process of analyzing arguments
(analysis, inference, synthesis, evaluation). You may express your answers
through sentences/paragaphs. Be guided with the rubrics for scoring
presented below.

Although the public stereotypes a lobbyist as a fast-talking person

twisting an elected official’s arm to get special concessions, the reality is
quite different. Today’s lobbyist, who may be fully employed by one industry
or represent a variety of clients is often a quiet-spoken, well-educated man
or woman armed with statistics and research reports. Robert Gray, former
head of Hill and Knowlton’s Washington office and a public affairs expert for
thirty years, add, “Lobbying is no longer a booze and buddies business. It’s
representing honest facts and convincing Congress that your side merits
another.” Gray correctly points out that a variety of special interests also do
it. These may include such groups as the Sierra Club, Mothers Against
Drunk Driving, The National Association of Social Workers and the
American Civil Liberties Union. Lobbying, quite literally, is an activity in
which widely diverse groups and organizations engage in an exercise of free
speech and representation in the markertplace of ideas. Lobbyist often
balance each other and work toward legislative compromises that not only
benefit their self-interests but society as a whole.

- Dennis L. Wilcox, Philip H. Ault, Public

Relations: Strategies and Tactics

Rubrics for Scoring:

Criteria Excellent Proficient Adequate Limited Score

(4) (3) (2) (1)
Argumentation Always Usually Sometimes Rarely
supports supports supplements supports
argument argument argument argument
with evidence with evidence with evidence with evidence

Organization Introduction, Introduction, Introduction, Introduction,

detail, detail detail detail
 arrangement, arrangement, arrangement, arrangement,
transitions, transitions, transitions, transitions,
conclusion conclusions conclusion conclusion
and coherence and
and and
are superior. coherence
are very coherence are coherence
good. satisfactory. are limited.

Persuasion Purpose is Purpose is Purpose is

Purpose is
clearly clearly established
vaguely
established established but may not
established
and effectively and generally be sustained.
and may not
sustained. sustained. be sustained
Language Precise and CarefullyGenerally Vague,
sophisticated chosen andprecise and imprecise or
vocabulary complex straightforwa inappropriate
used. vocabulary is
rd vocabulary vocabulary is
Sentences used. is used. used. Mainly
vary in Sentences Sentences simple
pattern and often vary in
sometimes sentences,
length. pattern and
vary in lacking in
length. pattern and variety are
length. used.
TOTAL SCORE (Highest possible score = 16 )

Congratulations! You have successfully accomplished this module!

Always remember these lessons and I am sure you are going

to BEE a great writer!

“Block Replacement Project.” Blog. Accessed July 25, 2020.
https://www.iyfnet.org/sites/default/files/P4L_ProjDesign_PropWrit
Guide.pdf

Department of Education. English for Academic and Professional Purposes

Reader First Edition.Quezon City: Sunshine Interlinks Publishing House,
Inc, 2016.

Digital Image. Accessed July 25, 2020.

http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/food-drink-carrots-seeing-eyesight-
eyes-darkness- cgr0556_low.jpg

Kennedy, X.J. Dorothy M. Kennedy, Jane E. Aaron. The Bedford Reader.

United States of America: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.

Saqueton,Grace, and Marikit Tara Uychoco.English for Academic and

Professional Purposes.Quezon City: Rex Book Store, Inc., 2016.