Writing a Counterargument

If you’ve seen the movie 8-mile you’re familiar with the climactic rap battle at the end when the protagonist, B-Rabbit, takes on the film’s antagonist, Papa Doc. Rabbit raps first and his strategy is to bring address everything that Papa Doc plans to say about him before he has the chance. By doing so, when it’s Papa Doc’s turn to talk, he has nothing to say. The counterargument is the section of your essay which enables to employ this very same technique. For many people, the most challenging part of counterargument writing is deciding what counterclaim or counterclaims to address. A counterclaim is something that people who hold the opposite position of yours would argue against you. You don’t want to argue a weak counterclaim or a misrepresentation of your opponents. Doing so is called a straw man fallacy and it makes your position much weaker than what it does when you argue against a high quality counterclaim. It’s difficult, but very effective to put yourself in the shoes of your opponent and think about what’s wrong with your arguments or what arguments they might present. In a verbal argument, people can present points back and forth, but with writing you only get one chance to address all backlash that could come your way, so you have to think carefully about those possibilities and narrow it down to one or two of the best counterclaims. Once you’ve picked a counterclaim or two, there are a couple different ways to address them. You might use logical explanations or other reliable evidence to explain why the counterclaim is wrong, or invalid. You might also acknowledge that the counterclaim is a good point, but explain why it is not a good enough reason to change your position on the issue. Perhaps it’s only one good point while your side as has multiple points that are equally valid. Or perhaps one of the arguments you presented is much stronger than the reason provided in the counterclaim. In the example provided, you’ll see that the most popular reasons for making seatbelts a legal requirement are acknowledged by the author, but the author explains the flaws in the reasoning that come with it. If the author believed that the opposition’s best counterclaims were logically sound, he or she could acknowledge them before explaining why even though they are logically sound, they are not good enough reasons to trump the reasons for the author’s position. An example of that kind of counterargument can be seen here.