Department of Politics

Visually your hierarchy is a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is your policy proposal. Your policy proposal is supported directly by a number of primary supporting contentions. Those, in turn, are supported by secondary supporting contentions. The structure of the pyramid is up to you. Only you can decide how many primary arguments there are for your policy. Only you can decide how many secondary arguments are required for each primary argument. At the base of your pyramid you must supply the empirical evidence upon which the whole edifice is built. Textually your hierarchy is an outline. One example might look like this:

• Policy Proposal (aka "Primary Contention" or "Thesis")
  • Supporting Contention #1
    • Subordinate Supporting Contention #1
      • Evidence for Subordinate Supporting Contention #1
    • Subordinate Supporting Contention #2
      • Evidence for Subordinate Supporting Contention #2
  • Supporting Contention #2
    • Subordinate Supporting Contention #1
      • Evidence for Subordinate Supporting Contention #1
    • Subordinate Supporting Contention #2
      • Evidence for Subordinate Supporting Contention #2
    • Subordinate Supporting Contention #3
      • Evidence for Subordinate Supporting Contention #3
  • Supporting Contention #3
    • Evidence for Supporting Contention #3.

Remember, a contention is a statement of fact for or against a proposal. Your contentions are statements of fact for (on behalf of) your policy recommendation. Since a sentence is the smallest grammatical unit that is capable of making a statement, it follows that your contentions must be sentences. Without supporting empirical evidence your contention is just an assertion. The passion with which you believe something to be true is not evidence for its truth. Show me the evidence! And document the source!

Organizing Your Contentions

It may be a good strategy to list all your possible contentions, and then sort them into categories.  Perhaps a number of contentions are economic.  Others might be legal.  Still others might be philosophical.  Organize your more specific contentions under broader ones.  For example, a variety of more specific economic contentions might be brought together under a more general economic contention such as, "The proposed policy is economically efficient" or "The economic benefits of my policy outweigh the economic costs."

Here are some common categories into which contentions may sometimes group:

• economic efficiency — the economic benefits of my policy outweigh the economic costs
• social efficiency — the social benefits of my policy outweigh the social costs
• equity or justice — my policy treats people equally; my policy gives people what they've got coming; my policy is fair to all concerned
• legality — my policy is consistent with the constitution and laws of the United States
• political culture — my policy is consistent with values which are widely shared in the United States
• my critics – their arguments are incorrect, unpersuasive, or outweighed by my own -- but note that it will generally be more effective to refute your critics' claims throughout you argument than under one specific contention

For more about formulating policy proposals and contentions, please consult Getting from Research Question & Bibliography to Policy Proposal & Contentions.