Hi guys i need some help with my oral regarding formulating some solid arguments to back up my contention. My topic is child vaccination laws and to give you some background info, the government is basically going to be restricting parents from receiving government child benefits if they do not get there children immunized.
My contention is that instead of penalizing parents, we should focus on the real roots of the issue which is the lack of education and misinformation people are fed when it comes to vaccinations. The part I am struggling with is to come up with 3 solid arguments.
So far I have something along the lines of 1. parents need more education so that there misconceptions can be corrected. 2. There needs to be a ban on over exaggerated stories of the rare side effects of vaccinations as this simply feeds more misinformation to the public. I am not sure what my third argument should be and also not sure how I can clearly distinguish my first two arguments from one another since they are quite similar. Would appreciate any help or even suggestions on bettering my first 2 arguments because I don't feel too confident in them
Your contention is solid, but I'd agree that you need to broaden your arguments a bit more.
The first is decent, but it might be a little bit too similar to your actual contention. For instance, if I was arguing that libraries should be open 24/7, and my first 'sub-argument' was that opening libraries 24/7 would be very beneficial for people... I'm not really being more specific there, I'm just reconfiguring my broader point.
So you've stated your contention is that a lack of education and the perpetuation of misinformation is the real problem surrounding vaccinations, and your first sub-argument is that people need to be educated to correct this misinformation. See how they're a bit too similar?
Also, I'm not sure your second argument is as strong as it could be. Arguing that the media should outright ban covering certain stories doesn't seem very justifiable - it'd probably be more effective to say that media coverage needs to be more balanced, and geared towards informing the public about the issues surrounding vaccination rather than alarming them. That way you can still use similar points, but your overall sub-contention will hopefully be a little less jarring than advocating for a less-than-free press.
In order to come up with sub-arguments, you're going to want to consider the 'key players' = people/things/ideas related to your issue that you want to position in a certain way.For instance:
Contention: there needs to be more education to ensure that the public is not misinformed about vaccinations, and that parents can make the right decision and vaccinate their children.
If I want you to believe that vaccinations are a good thing and that people who protest or refuse them are misinformed (excepting those who do so on religious or health grounds, of course) then I'd want to position the kinds of people who perpetuate myths and twisted facts as dangerous predators who exploit parents' love for their children.
So to strengthen this contention, we need to construct a sub-argument surrounding how we want to portray this key player.If our KP here is 'the people and groups who deliberately and maliciously misinform people about vaccinations, or who grossly overestimate the potential risks,' then that section of your speech would be devoted to portraying them as the most sinister, greedy, careless kinds of scum imaginable. Heap on the rhetorical devices and emphasis, and make your audience believe what you want them to believe about anti-vaccination groups and biased media sources.
Because if they believe what you say about the key player, it should make it much easier for you to convince them of your contention.And you can consider the many other key players that might be relevant for this issue. For example, how do you want people to view:
- vaccinations and their benefits/risks
- parents and their duty to their children
- children's health and well-being
- the government's responsibility to protect its citizens
- the media and their accuracy or intentions
- the skepticism and denial leveled against vaccinations
- people's freedom to make their own decisions
- the value and power of education and information
etc.
You don't have to touch on all these key players, and you might end up grouping some into collective sub-arguments, but hopefully thinking about these strategic portrayals and depictions will give you a little bit more direction in your speech writing.Having said all that, there's no real reason why you need to have three distinct sub-arguments unless that's something your teacher/school mandates. It's okay to just get up and talk about the issue, so long as what you say is persuasive. And it's fine if your arguments link together; in fact, they
should do this! If your arguments are too disconnected then it makes it more difficult to tie things together on a contention-level.
The flow of your speech is more important than how clearly you demarcate your sub-arguments though, so see if you can just expand upon your ideas without the rigid framework of 'Argument 1 = ...' and so on. But if you do prefer/need to use the sub-argument structure, then have a think about the positioning of your key players to give you some direction.
Your Thoughts on Prison Reform
Current ideas
-rehabilitation in prisons over punishment to reduce recidivism rates (Using Norway as an example comparing to US and Aust)
- Solitary confinement in prisons resulting in mental illnesses
What kind of prison reform are you looking at exactly? Is this specifically in relation to Australian prisons, and if so, what proposed reform are you considering? US prisons are a horse of an entirely different and more problematic colour, so comparing the two is a little difficult.
Ultimately these debates tend to come down to what you believe prison should accomplish, and whether the priority should be the reform of the individual, or the safety of society, or the sense of justice in 'making the punishment fit the crime,' or the notion of 'setting an example' by doling out lengthier sentences (--> link to some of the recent terror threats and their sentencing,) or whether it's a mix of all of these and more.
But the first step is to be more specific if you're looking to iron out the details - it's one thing to say 'prisons need reform' but quite another to be able to stipulate how and why.