You’re exploring topics and writing a proposal argument this week. This assignment requires a two-part argument. The first part is describing the problem. However, you’re not just describing the problem; you’re making an argument that the problem is serious, serious enough to solve. This is an important distinction as you must consider who can solve the problem and address your argument to them. Sometimes, the reasons you think something is a problem won’t be the same as the reasons you need to give to your paper’s audience.
Problem Example:
At Kansas State there was a parking problem. The college was constructed in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the town of Manhattan grew around the campus. This didn’t allow for many parking lots, which wasn’t a problem in the nineteenth century. It was/is a problem for K-State in modern times.
How bad was the problem? If you arrived on campus after 8:05 am, you would not find a parking space, even if you had employee parking. If you parked illegally, the parking police would find and ticket your car. They were vigilant. They were so vigilant that about once every two or three weeks, I would see a car with a boot on (the device that locks onto a wheel so the car can’t be moved).
As teaching assistants, we had to teach a proposal argument. Many students chose parking as their topic. Many students made poor arguments about why parking was a problem.
How could they make a poor argument if there really weren’t enough spaces?
Simple. They focused on how the parking led to them getting tickets, and how getting tickets was just a drag. “I was just running into the library for a minute,” they would say. “I can’t get to class on time,” they would moan. “These points aren’t persuasive,” I would scream. I didn’t really scream, but I wanted to. The points weren’t persuasive because it’s the college administration who would implement changes to campus parking. College presidents have their own parking spaces, good ones. At K-State, the college’s president has their own house!
Imagine that you’re an administrator and you hear these arguments. What will you say? Probably something along the lines of “Leave earlier,” or “make better plans,” or “the parking rules are clear: to avoid tickets don’t park illegally.” I tried to encourage students to consider reasons that would mean something to a college president. Some students thought of good reasons. They noted that the poor parking could affect the school’s reputation and could even effect recruitment. These are reasons that an administrator would notice.
As you’re thinking of your own topic, consider all the various effects caused by your problem. This will help you structure the problem section of your paper. You’ll introduce the problem in the introduction; your introductory paragraph will be a longer version of this: “X community, we have a problem.” You’ll have supporting paragraphs describing how the community is affected by the problem. You should consider how people not directly involved with the problem are affected by it. Think of how opioid use affected the school system in the article that we read. Some of you are considering the homeless population of your community as a problem, so you’ll need to consider how people who aren’t homeless are affected by the problem. How is a community hurt by having a large homeless population?
One way to discuss effects is by discussing costs. Money is a powerful motivator, so you might think about how your community pays for a problem. You might argue about how those costs will rise if the problem isn’t solved. While money is an important cost to consider, you should also consider other costs, such as the extra work or damage caused by the problem. Show your readers that the problem is more serious than they may think.
When writing a proposal, you argue that the problem is serious to justify the costs of your solution. As most problems are complicated, the solutions will often by complicated and costly. Your solution argument is easier to make when you’ve already established that the problem is severe. You can say, “My solution may seem expensive, but it is cheaper than not fixing the problem. As I noted earlier, we’re already paying X because of this problem.” I’ll talk more about solutions in a later post, but just remember that you need to prove that the problem is serious to justify your solution and its costs.
