Example of Argumentative Organizational Structures

These are example essay structures for each of the different types of argument. Refer to the aforementioned document for exclusions and practicality of each. Also, remember that these are examples, NOT guidelines! Also, other arguments can be intermixed; placeholders locations for them are omitted from each example purely for brevity. Try to have a conclusion for every one of these structures too to tie together your thoughts.

These don't tend to stand alone, but rather act as supportive evidence to another kind of argument. Remember that you need to define the concept for this argument type to be effective.

1. An intro which states your thesis.
2. A body that should define your concept if it wasn't defined in the thesis. An example also helps here to help solidify your definition.

Proposal arguments incite something from the audience, if your claim doesn't push that, you lose!

1. An intro that states your thesis that proposes something to the audience.
2. (Issue) bodies explain why there is a need for the solution in the first place, and shows the issues at hand. Examples and correlation to the main thesis are super important for this to be effective.
3. The (proposal) body explains how your solution is effective at solving the aforementioned issues.

Alternatively, You can combine 2. and 3., explaining the significance of the proposal for each issue directly rather than providing overarching claims.

Evaluative arguments judge something off criteria, this practically pigeonholes the format of the essay.

1. An intro that gives your opinion/evaluation of the something.
2. Body I should then describe the criteria that lead to your decision and why they should even be weighed in when judging the object.
3. Bodies II-n should then explain how the object meets these criteria. There should be evidence here to justify these claims.

Alternatively, if you have a bunch of 1:1 claim:evidence pairs you can set up each body to describe a criteria, explain its significance, and show how it is met by the subject object in one go. All depends on what flow you're trying to go for.

Causal arguments link the effects of something to possible actors.

1. The intro should reveal the actor accused and a general overview of both causes and effects of the situation at hand.
2. Then you have bodies that display the relationship between the causes and effect and vice-versa. These should be justified by evidence.

These body paragraphs can be formatted in one of three ways:

1. One cause → many effects
2. One effect → many causes
3. One cause → one effect

They can be intermixed of course, and you are free to write as many as you wish.

These are factual statements. Honestly, they are better suited as supporting evidence for another argument type. I don't have a structure here as you shouldn't rely on factual arguments as the basis of your claim. Especially on the AP Exam as they'll invalidate your claim if your “facts” are incorrect.