Argumentative Text – Concept, characteristics and examples

by

We explain what an argumentative text is, its resources, types and other characteristics. Also, its structure and examples.

  1. What is an argumentative text?

    An argumentative text is that oral or written text in which the author pursues the transmission of a perspective around a specific topic or series of topics, that is, that aims to convince the reader to take a certain position. In this, they are distinguished from the expository texts.

    Argumentative texts are normally considered synonyms for dissertation, essay or opinion, given that in their approach to the specific topic persuasion strategies are usedThat is, strategies that make the approach to the subject convincing in the eyes of the reader.

    However, to do this type of texts, use:

    • Exhibition resources: They offer the reader relevant information.
    • Narrative resources: They can tell stories that highlight the focal point.
    • Rhetorical Resources: They are formal tools to enhance or beautify the meaning of the text.

    These resources can be:

    • Quotes from a book or publication;
    • Textual references to an authority in the area;
    • Examples and illustrations;
    • Abstractions, generalizations, enumerations;
    • Schemes and simulated situations;
    • Paraphrases and reformulations;
    • Descriptions and stories.

    Everything always in order to give strength to their own points of view.

  2. Argumentative text types

    Argumentative texts can be of a very different nature, depending on their construction, their development mechanisms and their context of appearance. Here are some possible types:

    • Essays. These are texts of a literary type, in which the author freely spends or reflects on a subject of his choice, to propose, aesthetically, a point of view.
    • Election propaganda. Typical texts of political contests that try to convince the other through more or less rational or emotional arguments, to assume a specific political position, facing an election, militancy, etc.
    • Advertising. Those texts related to the consumption of products, which seek to convince us to buy a specific brand or the advantages of a specific product above its competition.
    • Opinion texts. Appeared in the media (editorials or opinion pieces), they tend to promote a certain social, political or intellectual perspective among readers of a newspaper or viewers of a television program.
    • Legal texts. Many legal texts defend a type of interpretation of the laws written in codes or in the Constitution, by means of arguments and deductions and references to past cases. This is what lawyers do in trials.

  3. Characteristics of an argumentative text

    The argumentative texts are characterized by:

    • Have a persuasive intentionthat is, wanting to convince the reader of something.
    • Using arguments to convince, that they are reasoned propositions through the gradual and careful exposition of information, accompanied by their desired interpretation.
    • Organize your content in the most convenient way for the intended purpose.
    • Get hold of strategies typical of other types of text (expository, narrative).
    • They don’t always respond to a formal argumentative sequence, especially when it comes to spoken language.
    • You can use different types of arguments: logical, emotional or affective.

  4. Structure of an argumentative text

    An argumentative text generally consists of three fundamental parts:

    • Introduction or approach, which is the starting point or approach of an initial situation, from which the problem to be addressed in the text should emerge. Also known as “premises” or “data.”
    • Thesis or proposition, which is the set of ideas to defend argumentally, which usually come off the approach, by way of inferences.
    • Conclusion or synthesis, final stage to which the arguments lead and that summarizes the point of view on the subject of the author of the text.

    There may also be a previous thesis, which is an earlier starting point that is rescued in the text (an investigation of another, an ancient text, etc.), and a stage of counter-argumentation, that is, a phase in which they are fought in advance the arguments contrary to their own, from previous texts or from the author’s imagination.