Dealing with weaknesses

No argument is perfect. All arguments have weaknesses, like missing or contrary evidence or plausible alternative interpretations. Some writers tend to sweep these things under the rug, afraid that if they call attention to them they're encouraging the reader to reject the whole argument. But such an all-or-nothing attitude isn't the right tack to take in essay-writing. It's understood that academic essays make arguments, not proofs. Instead, you can achieve the apparently paradoxical effect of strengthening your argument by conceding its limits. Disarm the opposition ahead of time, and your reader is likely to trust you and your argument more:

　　It may at first seem paradoxical to suggest that a company can increase its profits by putting other values above the bottom line. How can it not hurt revenues to give workers more family leave and increase spending on employee benefits?

　　Another example, from an essay arguing that Shakespeare was influenced by Machiavelli:

　　Admittedly, there is no direct evidence that Shakespeare read Machiavelli.

　　One more, from an essay praising Thomas Jefferson's political thought:

　　Clearly, judged by modern standards, Jefferson would be called a racist.

　　Let's look at one example in a bit more detail. Here's how a writer, arguing that NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia caused massive and unjustifiable environmental damage, seeks to defuse the objection that Yugoslavia's environmental problems predate the bombing. The whole paragraph is quoted so we can observe the structure:

　　In fairness, every international team doing environmental assessments in Yugoslavia has had difficulty distinguishing preexisting damage to soil and water systems from new toxins linked to the war. Long before the bombing, the Danube's viability was under siege from both industrial polluters to the north and from 50 years of lax environmental oversight in Yugoslavia and the former Eastern Bloc nations. Scientists taking core sediment samples after the war have found toxins dating from the '60s, '70s and '80s—including contaminants related to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. But the NATO bombing unquestionably made the situation worse. Preexisting pollution is no reason to dismiss the environmental fallout from the war; it only makes the case for a cleanup more urgent.

　　Joan McQueeney Mitric,"The Environment as Prisoner of War." Op-ed article, Washington Post （July 9, 2000）, B1, B4.

　　The writer does something inexperienced writers don't realize they can do: rather than avoiding the complicated argument of figuring out when pollutants date from, she takes on the argument, even laying out its data in some detail （the mention of toxins dating back to the 1960s）. But notice the sound structure: at the end she reasserts her argument （in the penultimate sentence, beginning But……）. And in the final sentence she actually uses the preexisting damage argument to buttress her own case for the need for environmental cleanup. Over the course of the paragraph she nimbly turns an apparent weakness in her argument into a strength.

　　See the section on Evidence for more guidance on building persuasive arguments.