The Argument is : The importance of sleep.
Premise 1 : Our bodies need sleep for better energy and lower stress levels.
Premise 2 : Better energy and lower stress levels are good for us.
Conclusion : People should get more sleep in order to achieve better energy and lower stress levels
The Point: Constructing and defending valid arguments on both sides of your issueThe Topic: The importance of sleep.
The Lesson: To construct clearly valid and possibly sound arguments on both sides of a controversial issue. This involves fairness to opposing views with which you may not personally agree. This promotes fair-mindedness and quality reasoning skills independent of the position.The Steps: The paper will have the following components:1. Introduce your topic 2. Present your main argument for your own position. This will be a new and improved version of the main argument you presented in the last paper. Make sure it is valid and that you believe that all of the premises are true (and defensible to others).3. Defend any controversial premises of that argument. You are welcome (but not required at this stage) to back up these premises with research sources.4. Present a valid (and as sound as you can make it) argument for the opposite position on your issue. That is, you will present the best argument that you can for the completely opposite view. This is called the counterargument.5. Explain and defend any controversial premises of this counterargument as well (as in step 3 above). 6. Explain why people with the two opposite views disagree about this subject. For example, is there a basic premise about which they disagree? Are they using different sources of truth? 7. Explain how we might seek to more objectively decide how to address the disagreement about this topic. For example, is there a way that we can test or know or be more objective about how to decide what is right when it comes to this topic?
