18 Break Down a Source
Sarah Duffy
Break down a source to show its meaning is clear to you. Develop a starting point for interpretation, evaluation, and critique.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why break down a source
- What are arguments and personal narratives
- How to break down arguments
- How to break down personal narratives
Pandemic Lessons: An Effective Argument?
Read this: In a May 2020 cbc.ca article, Canadian Mark Sakamoto expresses this view on COVID-19: “This pandemic has highlighted how our globalized and deeply interconnected world can be so vulnerable to a virus. How quickly and widely it can spread—to devastating effect. However, it has also shown us that our knowledge and expertise and hope can be shared just as quickly” (para. 3–4).
Consider this: There is hope to this perspective. Do you share this view? Does it relate to your experiences during the pandemic? What would you want to know before evaluating this argument further? How could you ensure that you assess the argument fairly and respectfully?
Why Break Down a Source
When you break down a source, you gain a clearer picture of how it is constructed. The benefits include
- furthering your understanding;
- identifying its parts and its structure; and
- laying the foundation, when applicable, for your development of a similar source, or for evaluation, interpretation, and critique.
For example, perhaps you must write a formal technical report as the culminating task for a capstone course in your program. Your professor provides you with a sample report from a previous student to use as a model. Your professor asks you to take the report apart, noticing its focus, support, organization, and style of writing. In doing this, you begin to understand how the report is constructed and think about how you will apply this understanding to write your formal report.
Or you are presenting an overview and interpretation of a recently released journal article in your field. You need to break down the article into its main idea and supporting points before you can interpret it. As you work on this, you develop a deeper understanding of the source’s position, and subsequently, you can begin to evaluate the strength and credibility of its support.
Arguments and Personal Narratives
(Content in this section is used with permission from Unit 6 of Centennial College 170 Online, Winter 2020.)
We will examine two types of sources further since they are often used in college-level communication courses: arguments and personal narratives. Both offer a perspective on an issue, question, or problem. Both have a message to share and provide support for that message.
However, they are different in several ways.
Arguments typically address a current issue and are persuasive—that is, the author has an opinion on a subject and intends to persuade the audience of their point of view. They do this by using various reasons and forms of evidence to influence the audience and substantiate their main idea or thesis. Their thesis is often directly stated.
Personal narratives address a problem or question and use first-person fact-based experiences, anecdotes, and life details to support the author’s perspective. Their main message is often implied and has to be determined by the audience after careful consideration.
| ARGUMENT | NARRATIVE |
|---|---|
| Addresses an issue | Addresses a problem or question |
| Includes a thesis (often explicitly stated) | Includes a main idea (often implied) |
| Provides reasons to support the thesis | Uses critical events (plot) from a story to emphasize, illustrate, and/or reinforce the main idea |
| Uses various types of evidence to support the thesis | Uses other narrative strategies and elements |
How to: Break Down an Argument
(Content in this section is used with permission from Unit 6 of Centennial College 170 Online, Winter 2020.}
Most arguments contain some mixture of the following types of strategy, known as rhetorical appeals (Centennial College, n.d., para. 5):
Logical: The writer persuades through facts and reasoning designed to seem rational and reasonable.
Emotional: The writer persuades through imagery, words, and stories designed to make the reader feel an emotion—joy, horror, sadness, empathy, etc.
Ethical: The writer persuades through markers of credibility (writing that is fair-minded, accurate, and self-aware; but this may also refer to elements not directly in the text, such as the writer’s background, experience, education, and reputation).
When you take an argument apart, you will look for its issue, thesis, reasons, and evidence.
Issue
An issue is the question or controversy addressed by the author.
Thesis
The thesis is the author’s perspective or point of view about the issue.
Reasons/Evidence
- Evidence is provided by the author to support the thesis.
- It helps to explain and provide reasons for the author’s position.
- Evidence can take various forms including anecdotes, personal observations or experiences, expert knowledge, statistics, historical details, scenarios, common knowledge, and analogies.
More on Evidence
| TYPES OF EVIDENCE | EXAMPLES | WHAT YOU’LL SEE |
|---|---|---|
| Stories or accounts based on the author’s personal experience | Stories or accounts based on the author’s personal experience | “I,” “my,” and other uses of the singular first-person voice |
| Expert (or disciplinary) knowledge | Theories, concepts, or research produced by scholars, journalists, scientists, or other writers | Full name of the expert, title of work by expert, university or college affiliation, title (i.e. PhD or Dr.), reference to study/results, such as “recent studies show. . .” |
| Statistics | Research in the form of data | Historical details |
| Historical details | Specific events that take place in the recent or distant past | Dates, places, notable historical figures/events (“9/11,” “WWII,” “Gulf War,” etc.) |
| Scenarios | Hypothetical situations | Asked to imagine a possible situation that could happen |
| Common knowledge | Information that is shared and widely known by the general public; may be extended to include commonly shared experiences and observations | Might use “we,” “our,” and other uses of the plural first-person voice |
| Analogies | Comparisons | Similarities found between two subjects, may use words or phrases such as “like,” “compared to,” “similar to” |
We’ll practise breaking down an argument by looking further at “It’s Time for ‘They’” by Farhad Manjoo.
| Break Down an Argument: “It’s Time for ‘They’” by Farhad Manjoo |
|
|---|---|
| Issue Tip: Express as a question. |
Should the plural pronoun ‘they’ be used in place of the singular gendered pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ in common usage? |
| Thesis Tip: Express as an answer to the question. |
In 2020, we should make the shift to ‘they,’ avoiding gender assumptions in our choice of pronouns (see paragraphs 5, 6, and 18) |
| Reasons & Evidence | Few linguistic advantages to gendered pronouns he/she (para. 3) • personal observation (para. 3) “They” is ubiquitous, inclusive, neutral, and already widely used (para. 7) • expert opinion (paras. 8–10) “They” is used in mainstream media by marketers and companies • personal observation (para. 11) “They” does not default to the limitations of gender binary • personal observation (paras. 13–16) |
How to: Break Down a Personal Narrative
(Content in this section is used with permission from Unit 6 of Centennial College 170 Online, Winter 2020.)
Personal narratives are an essay about a particular moment, event, problem, or question that occurs in the author’s life. They are usually brief and tightly focused. They use the same narrative techniques as fictional stories—plot, character, setting, figurative language—but they are true and autobiographical.
When you break down a personal narrative, you should look for its problem, main message, and narrative strategies/elements.
Problems or Questions
The writer of a personal narrative usually seeks to understand or unravel some specific problem or question in their life.
Main Message
Narrative writers typically avoid stating their main meaning directly. Readers must infer the lesson of the narrative, and it’s possible for different readers to arrive at different—but related—interpretations. As a reader, questions to ask may include “What does the writer most want me to understand?” or “What is the writer’s central insight?”
Elements
Narratives are built out of narrative elements, using key events in the personal story to support the main message. Narrative elements include character, plot, setting, theme, and symbolic or figurative language.
We’ll practise breaking down a personal narrative by looking further at “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
| Break Down a Personal Narrative: “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | |
|---|---|
| Problem/Question Tip: Can be expressed as a question or a statement. |
Why should people avoid simplifying the narratives of others’ lives? |
| Main Message Tip: Express as a statement, related to the problem/question. |
When viewing others, we should avoid the tendency to simplify someone’s life into a “typical” narrative because it will be incomplete; we will overlook nuances and be influenced by stereotype, bias |
| Narrative Elements (examples only) Tip: Address various elements. |
EVENTS/PLOT (para. 1-20): • grew up in Nigeria influenced by British and American literature • recalls a limited view of a neighborhood boy • attends university in America and is viewed by the single story of Africa: “a single story of catastrophe” • visits Mexico and had her own limited view of Mexicans/the country SETTING: Geographical – Nigeria, America, Mexico; Time – 1970s to 2000s; CHARACTERS: parents, roommates, other Nigerians; THEMES: limitations of stereotypes |
When you break down Adichie’s narrative, you get a well-defined picture of it. You clearly identify its main message and how Adichie supports it. Again, it gives you an opportunity to verify your understanding before moving on to evaluate and interpret it. You can also search for other sources that relate to it, that address the same problem. This allows you to begin to evaluate Adichie’s ideas. Are her ideas relevant? Are they shared by others? Are they verifiable? Can you find other authors who support or, perhaps, contradict Adichie’s perspective on this problem?
Try It!
Directions:
A. Break Down an Argument
- Watch “Fighting Islamophobia with Education” by Shafique Virani.
- Break down Virani’s argument by identifying the issue, thesis, and reasons/evidence.
- Check your work with your instructor or a peer.
B. Break Down a Narrative
- Read “Why Would My Father Not Want to Know Me” by Tara Ellison.
- Break down Ellison’s personal narrative by identifying the problem, main message, and narrative elements.
- Check your work with your instructor or a peer.
In this subtopic, you’ve learned an important step in absorbing a source. This includes
- defining arguments and personal narratives;
- breaking down arguments into issue, thesis, and reasons/evidence; and
- breaking down personal narratives into problems, main message, and narrative elements or strategies.
When you break down Manjoo’s argument in this way, it is simplified. You can use this simplified version to verify your understanding of the argument with a professor, colleague, or friend. In addition, you may want to find other opinions that respond to the same issue. You can use the issue to develop a research question and look for other relevant sources.
Subsequently, you can assess how well Manjoo supports the thesis with reasons and evidence. Are they sufficient to you as a reader? Would you prefer to see less personal experience and more expert opinion? Perhaps, if you prefer logical appeals—numbers, research studies, expert opinions—you would feel more persuaded if Manjoo increased the use of these forms of evidence.