In order to refute other essays in your own essay, you must look
for (as you research) essays which propose ideas that are, in reality, untrue. Often, an author
uses an opinion but presents it as a fact, often through scholarly language and academic tone.
Other ways to refute arguments in your essay is to look for information that is presented by
means of false logic, or fallacies. In order to do this, you must be aware of common logical
fallacies.
The following list is not exhaustive, but certainly is a
good place to start when analyzing other essays and looking for refutable
points:
- generalizations
(hasty or sweeping): essentially, this is when an author makes an assumption about
all of something, based on a sampling of just a few of
that something. - Non
Sequitur: making the assumption (incorrectly) that one thing causes
another; often based on an assumption that is merely an opinion in the first
place. - deductive fallacy: this term
is typically applied as an almost "catch all" to say that the structure of the argument's
presentation renders the argument invalid. However, it is also used and applied to any
general or informal fallacy in an
argument.
Depending on what your paper is trying to
sayabout childhood obesity, a final approach to refuting others in your essay is to simply look
for direct contradictions to what you are saying or using as proof in your argument. You can
frame these kinds of examples with, "According to [example researched essay], childhood obesity
is (__________), but this simply is not true." Then, go on to prove why it
isn't true with facts from your own research.
The link below is a
much more extensive list of common types of fallacies in arguments and also contains examples,
which are helpful. Hopefully it will help you as you attempt to prove your argument and disprove
some of the counter-points made against your argument. Good luck.
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