Position Paper

Instructions

    Encompass multiple perspectives or have aspects that make it difficult for people to agree on what should be done or how they should feel.

• Be on which people may reasonable disagree.
• Not be one on which viewpoints are so highly emotional and strongly entrenched.
• Give consequences (causes and effects, if-then situation). Show that one event is the cause or effect of the other.
• Point out a difference between what people hope, claim, assume, or expect and what is actually the case.
• Show that your topic is a part of a larger trend.
• Give multiple examples to prove a point. In arguing that consumption of bottled water is part of a “culture of indulgence,” Fishman motes that the sale of water from the island Fuji has more than one “environmental cost.”
• Provide facts that challenge readers’ assumptions in ways they might not expect. In “Message in a Bottle,” Fishman recounts an incident in which the person responsible for marketing Perrier was unable to distinguish between it and six other sparkling waters.
• Provide background that establishes the importance of your topic.
• Follow good news and bad news.

• Reiterate your basic point, either in your own words or those of an authority.
• Assert an implication that follows logically from your argument.
• Frame your argument, returning to an idea you mentioned in the introduction.