DQ1: For this provide a specific example from the media of an expressed argument and an implied argument and answer the following questions:
What is the expressed argument you identified? What specific argument does the author make? What evidence does the author use to support his or her claims?
What is the implied argument you identified? What specific argument does the author make? What evidence does the author use to support his or her claims?
Why is it important to understand expressed and implied arguments?
How might you use your understanding of expressed and implied arguments when drafting your first essay in this course?
DQ2: For this, you will be writing a definition essay about a term related to organ sales or donations. Please share your current thesis statement for your definition essay.
Here is a sample thesis statement for the definition essay: Organ sales in the United States would be unethical because they exploit the poor, favor the rich, and create an unfair or black market organ lottery.
DQ3: Read “Legalizing the Organ Trade?” by Ritter, located on the Time website (copy and paste the link into the URL).
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1833858,00.html
As noted in Peter Ritter’s (2008), “Legalizing the Organ Trade?”, Singapore’s health minister, Khaw Boon Wan, argued that, “We may be able to find an acceptable way to allow a meaningful compensation for some living, unrelated kidney donors, without breaching ethical principles or hurting the sensitivities of others” (para. 2). In the definition essay assignment, you are asked to select a term, define the term, and offer evidence to support your definition of the term.
In this case, imagine you have selected the term meaningful compensation to define. You might ask yourself: What constitutes meaningful compensation for an organ donor, especially if the donor is poor and the recipient is wealthy? What examples of human organ sales can I find that match or do not match your definition of meaningful compensation? What other terms related to organ sales and donation would be suitable for an argument of definition?
DQ4: In the Aristotelian or Classical Framework for argument, a writer might target an audience of readers that is undecided or neutral about the main claim (thesis statement) of the essay. A section is placed directly before the conclusion for acknowledging opposing viewpoints. Then the writer chooses to concede or refute that view.
Why does the writer not want to spend much time on an opposing viewpoint? Why mention that viewpoint at all? How might a concession help or hinder the main claim of the essay (the thesis)? What are some opposing viewpoints you might include in your definition essay?
