Practical Argument: A Text and Anthology

Writing a Critical Response

Sometimes you will be asked to write a critical response —a paragraph or more in which you analyze ideas presented in an argument and express your reactions to them.

Before you can respond in writing to an argument, you need to be sure that you understand the writer’s position and that you have a sense of how supporting ideas are arranged—and why. You also need to consider how convincingly the writer conveys his or her position.

If you have read the argument carefully, highlighting and annotating it according to the guidelines outlined in this chapter, you should have a good idea what the writer wants to communicate to readers as well as how successfully the argument makes its point.

Before you begin to write a critical response to an argument, you should consider the questions in the checklist on page 78.

Begin your critical response by identifying your source and its author; then, write a clear, concise summary of the writer’s position. Next, analyze the argument’s supporting points one by one, considering the strength of the evidence that is presented. Also consider whether the writer addresses all significant opposing arguments and whether those arguments are refuted convincingly. Quote, summarize, and paraphrase the writer’s key points as you go along, being careful to quote accurately and not to misrepresent the writer’s ideas or distort them by quoting out of context. (For information on summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, and synthesizing sources, see Chapter 9.) As you write, identify arguments you find unconvincing, poorly supported, or irrelevant. At the end of your critical response, sum up your assessment of the argument in a strong concluding statement.

Katherine Choi, the student who highlighted and annotated “When Life Imitates Video” by John Leo (pp. 71–73), used those notes to help her develop the following critical response to Leo’s article.

KATHERINE CHOI
RESPONSE TO “WHEN LIFE IMITATES VIDEO”

In “When Life Imitates Video,” John Leo takes the position that “video kill games” (para. 2) can actually lead to violent behavior. In fact, he suggests a cause-and-effect connection between such games and the notorious 1999 murder spree at Colorado’s Columbine High School, which occurred shortly before Leo wrote his essay.1

Although Leo acknowledges in paragraph 3 that there is no “direct connection” between video games and this crime and agrees that parents bear the “primary responsibility” for keeping violent games out of the hands of their children, he insists that our culture is also responsible. He is very critical of our society’s dependence on violent video games, which he considers “training in make-believe killing” (para 4). This argument is convincing, up to a point. The problem is that Leo’s primary support for this argument is a reference to an unnamed “widely cited survey” (para. 4), for which he provides no date. In addition, his use of a weak rhetorical question at the end of paragraph 4 instead of a strong statement of his position does little to help to support his argument.2

Leo cites an opposing argument at the beginning of paragraph 5—the “conventional argument” that video games are harmless because children can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. He refutes this argument with unsupported generalizations rather than with specifics, pointing out the possibility that the games will often be played by “unstable youngsters” who channel their “adolescent feelings of resentment, powerlessness, and revenge” into the games.3

The key piece of supporting evidence for Leo’s claim that video games are dangerous comes in paragraph 6 with the expert opinion of a psychology professor who is also a retired army officer. The professor, David Grossman, draws an analogy between adolescents’ video games and military training games designed to encourage soldiers to shoot their enemies. Although this analogy is interesting, it is not necessarily valid. For one thing, the army training Grossman refers to took place during World War II; for another, the soldiers were aware that the games were preparing them for actual combat.4

In paragraph 7, Leo goes on to cite Grossman’s comments about the young shooter in a 1997 attack in Paducah, Kentucky, and the Marines’ use of Doom to train soldiers. Again, both discussions are interesting, and both are relevant to the connection between video games and violence. The problem is that neither discussion establishes a cause-and-effect relationship between violent video games and violent acts.5

It may be true, as Leo observes, that video games are becoming more and more violent and that the victims in these games are increasingly likely to be police officers. Still, Leo fails to make his point because he never establishes that real-life violence is also increasing; therefore, he is not able to demonstrate a causal connection. His concluding statement—“If we want to avoid more Littleton-style massacres, we will begin taking the social effects of the killing games more seriously”—combines a frightening prediction and a strong recommendation for action. Unfortunately, although Leo’s essay will frighten many readers, it does not convincingly establish the need for the action he recommends.6

Work Cited

Leo, John. “When Life Imitates Video.” Practical Argument, 3rd ed., edited by Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 68–70.

TEMPLATE FOR WRITING A CRITICAL RESPONSE

Write a one-paragraph critical response to Gerard Jones’s essay on pages 64–67. Use the following template to shape your paragraph.

According to Gerard Jones, violent media can actually have positive effects on young people because ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. Jones also believes that violent media are a positive influence on children because ______________________________________________________________________________________________________. Jones makes some good points. For example, he says that ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. However, ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. All in all, ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.