Critical Rereading (Evaluation)
of Rough Drafts

To write a critically thought-out argument you should:

• evaluate your initial drafts as you would evaluate someone else’s argument;
• rewrite your draft as you would improve on someone else’s argument

Some Critical Rereading steps:

I.  What are your conclusion or conclusions? 

Reread your entire draft:

·        Change your conclusion if necessary so that it takes into account all of your reasons and evidence.

·        In the introductory paragraph, foreground the conclusion as a thesis and/or state the issue to which the conclusion responds.

·        In the concluding paragraph, state the conclusion clearly and summarize briefly how your overall argument has supported this conclusion.

II.  What are your most general reasons and the evidence that supports your conclusion?

Reread your entire draft:

·        Make sure that you most general and relevant reasons are isolated clearly in paragraphs or groups of paragraphs. So look over the reasons you list in separate paragraphs and combine those that make the same argument but in different ways or state clearly how each adds something different to the argument.

·        Cite evidence to support each general reason and make clear how the evidence supports this reason.

·        Explain clearly in paragraph topic sentences how each general reason supports the conclusion and how it adds something new to preceding reasons.

III. Evaluate how well your reasons support the conclusion, including the extent to which this support is strong sense.

A.  Make sure that you have provided all of the reasons and evidence necessary to support your conclusion.  

• In order to do this, look at your conclusion and blind yourself to your present reasons.  Then ask yourself what reasons and evidence you should have provided in order to fully support your conclusion.  Then check and see if you have given these.  Finally rewrite your argument in order to take these alternate reasons and evidence into account.

B.  Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your reasons and evidence, their accuracy and the extent to which they support your conclusion:

1. Make sure that each of your reasons support your conclusion.
2. Look for any ambiguities or fallacies (hasty generalizations, ad hominem, etc.) in your reasoning and and replace them with stronger reasons.
3. Evaluate the type, quality, and relevance of your evidence and make sure that it fully supports your reasons and conclusion.

C.  Make sure that you have defined central terms correctly (consult a dictionary) and make sure that these terms support your conclusion/

D.  Make sure that you have made a strong-sense argument, i.e. avoided a one-sided or an either/or argument.

1.      Look for unjustified descriptive or value assumptions that you should clarify or eliminate in order to make your argument for the conclusion stronger?  If your assumptions are one-sided, take into account alternative values.

2.      Look for alternate conclusions or causes that others find persuasive.

·        Figure out whether your reasons and evidence support only your conclusion or whether they could be used to support one or some of these alternate conclusions.  

• If the conclusion is a cause (X causes Y), then consider other possible causes for the same situation and evaluate whether one cause is sufficient to explain the situation or whether multiple causes might be responsible.

·        Think out and research the reasons and evidence that others use to support their alternate conclusions.

·        Determine the strengths and weaknesses of the alternate arguments (reasons, evidence, and conclusions).

·        Make a more strong-sense and nuanced argument by integrating the strengths of alternate arguments into your argument and making clear why you reject the weaknesses of alternate arguments.