Unit 9 · Topic 9.4

9.4 Transitions into counterarguments, and when to skip them

Transitions like "admittedly," "some argue that" and "however" tell readers you're moving into or out of a counterargument. Not every argument has to address the other side directly, so part of the skill is deciding whether a counterargument will actually make your case stronger.

Key terms

transition
counterargument
signal phrase
concession
line of reasoning

Transitions into and out of a counterargument

Readers need signals so they don't mistake the opposing view for your own. A transition into the counterargument marks it as someone else's position; a transition out of it marks your return.

Job	Transitions
Introduce the opposing view	Some argue that, Critics claim, It might seem that, One common objection is
Concede	Admittedly, Granted, To be sure, It's true that, Of course
Turn back to your claim	However, Still, Even so, Nevertheless, Yet, But
Conclude the response	Therefore, Thus, For this reason, In the end

A public-domain example

Thoreau, in "Civil Disobedience" (1849), concedes and turns in a single sentence: "It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way." The phrase "we must all allow" grants a point his readers believe, and "yet" swings back to his criticism. (Alacrity means eagerness or speed: the government helped only by quickly getting out of the way.)

Where to put the counterargument

In the introduction, to set up the debate your thesis answers (7.1).
In its own body paragraph, usually near the end, so it doesn't interrupt your main line of reasoning.
Inside a body paragraph, as a sentence or clause that anticipates an objection to that specific claim.
In the thesis, as an "although" clause that concedes before you argue.

When to skip it

Not every argument needs to address a counterargument explicitly. Leaving it out can be the right choice when:

The opposing view is weak or not widely held, so answering it would waste time and space.
Your audience already agrees with you and needs motivation, not persuasion.
Time is short, and a developed line of reasoning matters more than a rushed objection.
You're writing a rhetorical analysis, which asks you to analyze the writer's choices, not argue against the writer.

On the essays

Readers don't require a counterargument to award full points on the argument or synthesis essay. But a counterargument that's fully developed and genuinely answered is one of the most reliable ways to show the nuance that the sophistication point rewards. A counterargument that's only hinted at in one vague sentence doesn't help much, so either develop it or leave it out.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Choosing a transition
Practice draft (written for this practice set): "Requiring community service for graduation would connect students to their neighborhoods. ____ some students already work long hours at paid jobs and have little free time. The requirement could count paid work at local businesses, so these students would not be left behind." Which choice best completes the blank? (A) Therefore, (B) Admittedly, (C) For example, (D) Similarly,
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Identify what the second sentence does. It raises a problem with the writer's proposal, so it's a counterargument the writer is conceding.
2. Step 2: (A) "Therefore" signals a result, but the second sentence doesn't follow from the first.
3. Step 3: (B) "Admittedly" signals a concession: the writer grants a fair point before answering it in the third sentence.
4. Step 4: (C) "For example" would make the busy students an example of neighborhood connection, which they aren't.
5. Step 5: (D) "Similarly" signals another point in the same direction, but this sentence pushes the other way.
Answer: (B) Admittedly. It marks the second sentence as a concession, and the third sentence answers it by adjusting the proposal.
Example 2
Deciding whether to include a counterargument
Practice prompt (written for this practice set): Argue whether schools should teach students how to cook. You have about 40 minutes and three strong reasons for your position (health, money, independence). Should you include a counterargument, and if so, which one and where?
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: List the strongest objection: schedules are full, and adding cooking means cutting something else.
2. Step 2: Ask whether it's widely held: yes, almost any reader would raise it, so ignoring it would look like avoidance.
3. Step 3: Decide on depth: you have time for one developed counterargument, not several.
4. Step 4: Choose placement: after your three reasons, so it doesn't interrupt your line of reasoning.
5. Step 5: Plan the response: concede that time is limited, then rebut by proposing cooking as a unit within existing health classes.
Answer: Include one counterargument, the crowded schedule, as a short final body paragraph: concede it ("Admittedly, school days are already full"), then rebut it by showing cooking can fit inside an existing health course. Skip weaker objections; one well-answered objection does more than several mentioned briefly.

Common mistakes

Introducing an opposing view without a transition, so readers think it's your own claim.
Using "however" both to enter and to leave the counterargument, which confuses the direction. Mark each turn clearly.
Adding a one-sentence counterargument that's never answered, just because you think essays need one.
Arguing against the author in a rhetorical analysis essay instead of analyzing the author's choices.

On the exam

Transition questions are common in multiple-choice writing sets. Identify the logical relationship between the two sentences first, then choose the transition that names it.
On the argument essay, a developed counterargument with a clear transition in and out is a reliable way to show nuance; an undeveloped one adds little.

Connected topics

Videos

When to Include COUNTERARGUMENTS? (Argument Essay)
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Check yourself

5 questions on 9.4 Transitions into counterarguments, and when to skip them. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men—digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow-men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked with blood and stained with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

Frederick Douglass, formerly enslaved abolitionist, from an oration delivered at Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, the day after the Fourth of July; as printed in his book My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). Earlier in the speech, Douglass harshly condemned American slavery.

Question 1 of 5

The sentence "No; I will not." in paragraph 4 functions mainly to

Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against at least the common objections. But, some one may say, "Let them be taught the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never heard controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the theorems to memory, but understand and learn likewise the demonstrations; and it would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant of the grounds of geometrical truths, because they never hear any one deny, and attempt to disprove them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.

[. . .] To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised, may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.

Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in their most puzzling form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they admit of.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), from Chapter II, "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion." The bracketed ellipsis marks omitted text.

Question 2 of 5

Mill introduces opposing views with phrases such as "But, some one may say" and "an enemy of free discussion may be supposed to say." These phrases mainly serve to

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

[. . .] There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, first published in New York newspapers in November 1787 under the pen name Publius, as part of a series urging ratification of the Constitution. Madison defines a faction as a group of citizens united by a passion or interest opposed to other citizens' rights or the community's interests. The bracketed ellipsis marks omitted text.

Question 3 of 5

The sentence "The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise" functions mainly as a transition that

(1) Our town library still charges ten cents a day for overdue books, and it is time to stop. (2) Fines are meant to make people return books on time. (3) But the fines fall hardest on families with the least money, and many simply stop visiting once they owe more than they can pay. (4) Last year, according to the library's annual report, more than 300 cardholders had their borrowing blocked because of unpaid fines.

(5) Some argue that without fines, people will keep books forever. (6) The library could still send reminders and charge for books that are never returned. (7) Fines also bring in money for the library. (8) Losing them would barely dent the budget. (9) The library should go fine-free next year.

Written for this practice set: a student's draft of an argument essay. The library and its report are fictional.

Question 4 of 5

The writer wants to make clear that sentence 6 answers the concern raised in sentence 5. Which word or phrase, placed at the beginning of sentence 6 (with the first word in lowercase), best accomplishes this goal?

Question 5 of 5

The writer is considering moving sentences 5 and 6 so that they come after sentence 9, at the very end of the essay. Should the writer make this change?

0 of 5 answered