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In Stuart Greenes Argument as Conversation arguments are

illustrated to be very similar to conversation in several ways. Arguments


entail proving good reasons to support your viewpoint, as well as
counterarguments, and recognizing how and why readers might object to
your ideas (145, Greene). Greene continues to introduce this idea by stating
that research is similar to an argument. However, in order to state an
argument, you first have to produce an original claim. To do this one would
have to research people who discuss similar ideas, conflicts, and questions.
Moreover, in order to be considered credible you would need to provide good
reasons to support your viewpoint from contexts that you have analyzed,
expect counterarguments, and know how to respond. As previously stated
that arguments hold many correlations to conversation, Greene claims there
are a few steps in writing as a form of dialogue. These steps include asking
important and relevant questions, identifying an issue, identifying a situation,
and then framing a good question.
Greene then begins to discuss the characteristics of framing. In
essence, framing is a writers perspective of an argument. An example given
is through E.D. Hirsch. He uses cultural literacy to prove a decline of literacy
through his perspective of people fulfilling his criteria for literacy and those
that dont. Greene states that there are four reasons to use framing in
writing: encourages you to name your position, define and describes the
principle of your argument, specifies argument which leads to
counterarguments used in conversation, and helps organize thoughts.

Furthermore, framing is a strategy of critical inquiry when reading. To further


understand this concept Richard Rodriguez uses Richard Hoggarts The uses
of literacy to explain his life as a student. By using the term scholarship
boy from one of Hoggarts passages, Rodriguez uses the idea of framing by
using this text as a tool to explain his experience as a student. Another
example Greene uses to illustrate the importance of framing is through a
students essay on Learning American in Spanish. In this essay the
student uses framing by incorporating ideas from Mary Louise Pratts article
Arts of the Contact Zone in order for her to further illuminate her
experience in the Dominican Republic in a town called Guayabal.
Although research is at times viewed as just collecting information, it is
so much more. By doing research you make connections among different
conflicts, and with these connections you prove a point or an idea about this
issue. Through conversation this research can then form a new worldview or
even broaden your own knowledge.

Work Cited:
Greene, Stuart. "Argument as Conversation: The Role of Inquiry in Writing a
Researched Argument." The Subject is Research. Ed. Wendy Bishop and
Pavel Zemliansky. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2001. 145-64. Print.

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