Your argument is a big deal in academic writing. A scholarly book must articulate and support a persuasive, meaningful argument (and argument is important for journal articles and dissertations, too).

But what if you’re not sure what your argument is? Or if it is meaningful enough? Every writer wrestles with these questions, so let’s poke around this argument thing a bit.

I’ve just read a new book—because I’m always reading a new book, so you don’t have to—on developmental editing for scholarly writers: Make Your Manuscript Work by Laura Portwood-Stacer. The book offers authors a development cycle for scholarly book manuscripts. Along the way, Portwood-Stacer distinguishes among different kinds of arguments that academic authors make. Scholarly books have a Core Argument and a bunch of other kinds of arguments that work together to support the Core Argument.

Crowning the Core Argument

Most of us don’t start drafting with the Core Argument clear in our minds. It emerges during the writing process, so a big part of the work of revision is finding it, refining it, and then making everything else work to support it. As Portwood-Stacer explains,

A scholarly argument is an original claim about your subject that grows out of the research you’ve done. You’ll want your book’s core argument to be intriguing enough that readers will be willing to spend a book’s worth of time engaging with it. (p. 57)

Think of your Core Argument as one argument to rule them all. This is the sexiest thing you’ve got to say that you can back up with your evidence. You have to make it clear that this is the Core Argument, and that all the other arguments and claims are in its service.

The Pretenders

When we are searching our drafts for that elusive Core Argument, we may come across other arguments and mistake them for it. These other arguments are still needed, but we have to keep them in their place. We can’t let them take over and make readers think they are the Core Argument. To help you recognize them, Portwood-Stacer lists typical important-but-not-Core arguments:

Premise

As Portwood-Stacer explains, “A claim based on research others have done or on readily observable facts is more likely to be a premise that sets up your argument” (p. 60) rather than the Core Argument. How does your work move readers beyond that premise?

Implication

An implication is “A claim that logically follows from another argument in your book, but isn’t directly supported by evidence within the text” (p. 61). You can check your evidence to judge if you've found an implication rather than the Core Argument.

Exhortation

Portwood-Stacer shares that “A normative exhortation” is a claim that “advances an opinion about a desired course of action;” for example, “You should stop doing X because it leads to Y” (p. 61). While you can offer such an exhortation, it is not the Core Argument. Instead, the Core Argument is probably just X leads to Y, if that is what you found in your research.

Claim for significance

A claim for significance is a research gap statement arguing why your research is needed. It might look something like, “I argue that X is understudied and merits further attention” (p. 61). We all need to make such claims, but it’s not the Core Argument. What did you find once you gave X that further attention?

Argument and Developmental Editing

I am an academic writing coach and developmental editor. If you aren’t an editor or publishing professional, you probably have never needed to know what “developmental editing” is or how it is different from any other kind of editing. In a nutshell, academic developmental editing helps an author do three things (thanks, Laura Portwood-Stacer, for offering clear language to describe the process!):

clarify the purpose and audience for the manuscript
evaluate the effectiveness of the manuscript’s argument, evidence, structure, and (sparingly) style
make a realistic plan to improve the manuscript’s argument, evidence, structure, and (at key, make-or-break points) style

Developmental editing helps you make the bones of your work as sturdy as possible. Other kinds of editing come later in the process. Most commonly called copyediting and proofreading, these two editing passes will ensure the manuscript’s sentences and references are clear, correct, and consistent.

Argument is something I get to help writers improve as a developmental editor. I love this work! Do you have any gems of wisdom to share about finding and crowning that Core Argument?

How do I figure out my argument?