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Visually your hierarchy is a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is your
policy recommendation. Your policy recommendation 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 Recommendation (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!
For more about formulating policy recommendations and contentions, please
consult Getting from
Topic & Bibliography to Recommendation & Contentions.
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