Her thesis: We should not cut school funding because proposed cuts will decrease access and quality at CTCs.
The counter-argument should present a view point that is opposed to your thesis—one that contradicts your thesis or some part of it. If you said her article is persuasive, your c-a would say it’s not, and vice versa.
Paper’s Thesis: Her article is persuasive because she uses sufficient evidence to convince us we should not cut the budget.
Some possible counter-arguments (challenge assumptions or criticize her evidence. Remember, for our purposes, reasoning=assumptions.)
- Challenge the assumption that CTCs should provide access to all (challenges a core assumption)
- High tuition/high aid model won’t work. Bases it on anecdotal evidence. (criticizes her evidence.
Example (criticizing her evidence)
Some people might feel Kinsel’s claim that the high tuition/high aid model won’t work is based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence. [Give the examples of the two students in paragraph 14. Explain why this evidence might seem either insufficient or unrepresentative or both]
Rebuttal
While it may be true that these two examples are unrepresentative, this does not make her whole argument unpersuasive. She has more representative examples in other parts of the essay. As far as this particular point is concerned, these examples are used to show the extremes—how much damage the cuts could do some people. She then goes on in the next two paragraphs to give other examples [explain those a little], making her evidence in this whole section sufficient and representative. [say why it is sufficient and representative]
Another example criticizing her evidence
It could be said that Kinsel relies on emotion rather than solid evidence to prove her point, which is a way of saying that her evidence is irrelevant to her claims. Her examples of the two students who do not have a place to live is one place where she does this. Another is in her final paragraphs where she talks about her feelings in watching the cuts take place. Her feelings on the subject are not really relevant to the question of whether the schools can absorb budget cuts.
Notice that in this case the point is that the emotional appeals are not relevant. So even though this argument talks about her rhetoric, it is still focused on a key term in evaluating evidence.
Rebuttal
However, the stories are just there to give examples of certain students who can’t afford school. These examples are needed to make her point that people really are struggling. Her feelings as a teacher are a kind of evidence that things are not going well on her campus and probably not in the rest of the CTC system.
Another example, challenging a key assumption:
One might think that raising tuition would make students more focused, more serious about their studies. This would mean her article is not persuasive because she assumes that raising tuition will make students less successful in their classes. On the contrary, this argument goes, raising tuition could actually make students more successful. [Go on to say more about why raising tuition would make them more focused, using examples or other types of evidence.] Therefore, a major part of her thesis seems to be undermined.
Notice the use of qualifiers and conditionals (“might,” “would,” “may,” “seems”) to remind the reader that the opinions expressed in the counter-argument are not yours but those of another person, whom you are trying to persuade or disprove.
Rebuttal
However, students whose parents pay their tuition will not be motivated by the extra costs. At the same time, those who pay their own tuition would have to work more hours to pay the higher tuition. Most important, this argument assumes that students are not already serious about their education. This is simply not true. [examples, other evidence to show why].
Another example critiquing a different assumption
Kinsel assumes, however, that we need CTCs. Perhaps this is not so—maybe the state does not need CTCs. Why don’t we give the aid to the 4-year schools, making them more affordable for all and stronger overall? [Flesh out this idea—reasons why this would be better for students, the state, etc. Students are more serious at universities, there are more opportunities there, etc.] Without this founding assumption of hers, her argument becomes unpersuasive. It may be true that CTCs cannot survive any more cuts, but maybe there’s no need for them to survive. Because she rests her argument on this apparently faulty assumption, Kinsel’s article seems to fail.
Rebuttal
This sounds persuasive at first. But if we look a little closer we see that this argument is the one that is based on faulty assumptions, not Kinsel’s. Not everyone can afford a 4-year school even if we did this. There are other reasons for CTCs—money, grades, location, and time are all factors preventing people from attending university, which CTCs address. Also, universities already have larger classes than CTCs. If you were to add the CTC students to those at the universities, it would make those classes gigantic, which would limit academic opportunity for all the students. Altogether, then, we can see that Kinsel’s assumption that we need CTCs is actually correct, and her argument stands.
Example
It would be easy to suppose that Kinsel’s argument is not persuasive. Those who come to this conclusion may find her reasoning unconvincing. They may believe her evidence is anecdotal and therefore insufficient. Or they may feel some of the evidence does not represent the entire CTC population.
In this case, the paragraph is trying to cover too much. Each sentence after the first could be the basis for an entire paragraph on its own. It would be better to pick one (or possibly the two that deal with evidence) as the basis for the entire counter-argument. The critique of evidence has already been dealt with in our first example above (the anecdotes in paragraph 14 are either insufficient or unrepresentative or both). So, I’ll focus here on another critique of her assumptions.
Another example looking at one of her assumptions
Kinsel assumes that low-income, non-traditional-aged students would find loans too risky. But it’s simply not true that all such students refuse to take out loans. [Give examples—either ones you know of or hypotheticals. One possibility: Students would not need to take out loans for all tuition but just enough to offset the increase.] If such students can take out loans, wouldn’t it disprove her central claim that budget cuts will hurt typical CTC students?
I’ve revised this slightly to show how you can also use a question to pose your counter-argument. The final sentence in this paragraph uses this method, and the first sentence in the rebuttal answers the question, while also letting the reader see that we have switched perspective back to the view of the author, away from the counter-argument.
Rebuttal
Not really. The low-income student who takes out a loan is not really representative of such students in general. [Say why: maybe they have a higher expectation of future income, more tolerance for risk than the average student, or potential co-signers, might be good with budgeting and planning… Another approach is to say that there are not very many such students—some but not all, not even most. This is another way of saying they are not representative.] As for the idea that loans only need to cover the increase, this overlooks the fact that many students cannot afford tuition now. It also assumes the basic idea that they’d be able to pay off the loans, which is not a reasonable assumption even if the loan is small. So this argument fails to undermine Kinsel’s thesis.
Here are some questions I did not get to in class:
How to organize it?
See the “What is a Counter-Argument” handout. Use PIE. Remember that the rebuttal must answer the exact point made in the counter-argument, not go off on a tangent about some other reason why the article is persuasive.
How long should the counter-argumentbe?
One full paragraph for the counter-argument, with point, illustrations and explanations. A second full paragraph for the rebuttal, also with point, illustrations, and explanations.
What comes after the counter-argument?
See the “What is a Counter-Argument” handout, the section titled, “Where does the counter-argument go?”