Attacking the Link
The same argument attacked twice. One blow leaves it standing and the other takes the conclusion off.
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Left: disagreeing with the conclusion. Right: denying that the evidence gets you there.
Name the other side's argument and take it apart, the move that makes a both-views essay convincing.
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Two paragraphs make the same argument. One of them has already heard what you were about to say.
A. Free public transport should be introduced in large cities. It would reduce car use, cut emissions, and help low-income households who spend a large share of their income on travel. Cities that have tried it report higher passenger numbers. On the other hand, some argue that it is expensive. However, the benefits outweigh the costs.
B. Free public transport should be introduced in large cities. The obvious objection is cost, and it is a real one: fares typically cover between a fifth and a half of operating expenditure, and that gap does not disappear. What it does is move — from passengers to taxpayers, and from a charge levied on the poorest travellers to one levied on the broadest base available. The question is therefore not whether the money is spent but who spends it, which is a different argument from the one the objection makes.
Which writer is in control?
Three places an argument can be attacked, one that costs you nothing, and one phrase that is not an attack at all.
Take a real one:
Cities with more cycle lanes have less congestion. Building cycle lanes therefore reduces congestion.
There are three places you can attack that, and no others.
1 — THE EVIDENCE. The premises are false, weak, or unrepresentative.
The correlation rests on eleven European cities, nine of which are in the Netherlands and Denmark.
2 — THE INFERENCE. The premises are true, and they do not support the conclusion.
It does not follow that the lanes caused the reduction; cities that build them may already have been less car-dependent.
3 — THE SCOPE. The conclusion is true, but narrower than claimed.
The finding holds for cities under a million people. The proposal here is for a city of nine million.
That is the complete list. When you are staring at an opposing argument with nothing to say, run these three in order — one of them is almost always open.
The same argument attacked twice. One blow leaves it standing and the other takes the conclusion off.
Left: disagreeing with the conclusion. Right: denying that the evidence gets you there.
Eight replies to the same argument. Identify what each one actually attacks — and two of them attack nothing.
The argument under attack, for every item below:
Cities that have introduced free public transport report higher passenger numbers. Free transport therefore reduces car use.
For each reply, identify what it attacks — the evidence, the inference, the scope, or nothing at all.
Remember the three surfaces, and remember that two of the phrases in this sprint are not attacks.
"It does not follow that the extra passengers came out of cars; they may be people who previously walked or did not travel at all."
Three chains. The attack you can make depends on what the opposing argument actually claimed.
Chain 1
The opposing argument: Employees who work from home report higher job satisfaction. Remote working therefore improves wellbeing.
You have no data of your own. But you notice that people who are already satisfied may be the ones who negotiate the arrangement in the first place.
Candidates: it does not follow that / the evidence is unreliable
Step 1 — Which surface is open to you, given that you have no data?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: remote working produced the satisfaction; the employees who obtain it may be the ones who were satisfied already.
Chain 2
The opposing argument: No public money should be spent in ways that distort a market price.
You want to show that this principle, taken seriously, destroys things your opponent supports.
Candidates: on this reading / far from being
Step 1 — Are you reversing the claim, or showing where it leads?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: , road building, agricultural support and every state school in the country would be indefensible.
Chain 3
You have just written: The case for free off-peak travel is strong. You realise a hostile reader could take you to be arguing for abolishing fares altogether, which you are not.
Candidates: this is not to say / the difficulty with this
Step 1 — Whose position needs adjusting here, yours or your opponent's?
Step 2 — Therefore the expert writes: that fares should be abolished; peak capacity is the one thing pricing is genuinely good at rationing.