 We all know what the stasis of policy is even if we haven't used that word for it before We're very familiar with people telling us what to do people talking about the way the world ought to be Somebody ought to pass a law somebody shouldn't drive like that And you know if you want to do the the right thing you need to do what I would do in that same situation We've got plenty of people talking to us like that our whole lives We talked to other people like that that sometimes becomes our default mode But we don't typically think of this as a conclusion in an argument We might go on and give what seems like a reason But we typically don't think of it as something that has a structure and so frequently the most common thesis statement in every Composition class I've ever taught over the last 15 years has been some sort of policy statement Somebody wants to say here's the way things should be whether it's a law that should be passed or the way people should do things and There's nothing wrong with that But you have to be very careful how many of those you are going to put in one essay Really with a few exceptions It's the best sort of principle the best heuristic to follow is pick one policy statement one should statement that You're going to then spend the rest of your essay trying to develop specify anchor in reality Explaining cause-and-effect relationships how doing this thing will lead to this result why this thing is better than the other alternatives and Defining your terms very specifically and grounding everything in facts because otherwise The tendency might be to just give one policy claim after another policy claim after another policy claim after another policy claim so if I said People should eat more Vegetables and eat fewer simple carbohydrates. Oh, they should also go exercise more They should also do things outdoors more often and They should also take vitamin supplements and they should also all of these are separate claims And they might seem to fit together under a general topic like health But each one of them is a separate policy claim and each one of them depends on a whole list of premises and a lot of unspoken warrants that you're not going to have time to Enunciate to articulate and to back up with supportable evidence in a fortified page paper So pick one policy argument and then think of everything else is structure Because if you have a policy argument that doesn't have a structure of other stasis warrants underneath it Then all you really have is a should statement a claim without a good argument And if someone already agrees with that claim, that's fine They're they're gonna buy into it, but not because of anything you've said But if they don't already if they don't share all your warrants if they don't Share the same values and the same beliefs about cause and effect and the same definitions And they don't know the same facts then everything that you want to get across is just gonna fall apart So we don't have to go in this order in your paper, but you have to have Your reader to the point where they will agree or at least give a scent to all of these things before you can really get them to adhere to your policy claim and that doesn't mean you can't put a policy claim first But before your readers going to really give a scent to that policy claim They have to Acknowledge that the facts that you're using in supporting your case are real facts You get them from peer-reviewed sources or you can at least Sight a source that will allow your reader to verify those facts independently you have to use the same definitions and Those definitions have to have the same not only denotation, you know Not only the specific definition, but also the connotation if there's value judgments connected to them Then if your reader doesn't share those then your argument's not gonna work If your reader isn't focusing on the particular facts if they're not Using the same concepts then your argument's not gonna work So you you have to enunciate the important definitions the ones where people might not be in sync if if there's any chance somebody is is reading a word that you've written and Depending on a different definition or different concept then you have to explicitly define those terms and define that focus You've got to be able to prove cause and effect if you want to say somebody should do something then Presumably that's because it's going to lead to a commonly beneficial result a result We both want but they may not believe that that action will lead to that result So you have to show good reason you have to make an argument Why one thing will lead to another and that might be a sufficient cause, but it's more likely going to be Unnecessary cause that might be remote that's gonna it's gonna take some evidence It's gonna take some Support, but that's all gonna be a moot point if you don't have the same key value assumptions the warrants that lead you to prefer one outcome to another and certain people might share all the same Foundations of value they might have a sort of Deontological thinking But you might need to move them to a more utilitarian thinking in order to get them to think about Helping people that are further away or avoiding harm that is not immediately obvious if you want to get them to validate warrants about Authority and loyalty and purity you've got to really make that case because that's those are the kinds of Foundations of morality that not everybody holds in the same esteem as they hold things like doing no harm and being fair and Only once all of that structure is in place Does the whole thing start to work start to flow then all those other points of stasis will flow into Your policy claims so much so that you won't really have to spend too much time Saying more about the policy as long as it's specific and they know what they can do once you've got a scent on all these other Points of stasis then the policy will become self-evident But it's only then that you can argue for a type of policy That might be as simple as saying people should eat more of this kind of food and less of that kind of food or do something Individually or it could be something as large as arguing for a bill that would hopefully become a law Something that would shape not only an individual action, but would actually shape The actions of lots and lots of people over a long period of time that sort of level of policy But once you're finally to that point once you have all the other groundwork covered You need to know exactly what you want. What sort of action you want to Advocate so a policy argument sometimes called a proposal the stasis of proposal This is a proposal for action or maybe inaction. Maybe you're telling people to not do something or stop doing something but it's aimed at either getting something done or preventing something from being done and The necessary components for that are there has to be a need or a problem that needs to be solved Because if everything's being done the best way, you don't need to tell people to do what they're already doing But if there's a problem or maybe it's a problem that hasn't been acknowledged You have to show that there's a problem You have to show that this particular policy this particular action that I'm proposing will solve that problem But to do that I have to examine questions of definition and value I have to use facts to prove that the problem is real then I'm going to recommend a specific action Not just somebody got to do something not something vague like that not people should show more Responsibility or people should care more about other people Those are not specific actions. I need a specific action And then I have to show that that action is feasible that it can be done This is why I don't usually recommend that students in a first-year composition class Write about what the government ought to do what laws ought to be passed because there's not a lot You can do at this level that's actually going to change the lawmaking process but there is the possibility of advocating a way of thinking about a Particular law that might spread to other people and those people might spread and it could eventually Help clarify the way we look at a particular decision process at the state or even national level But there's whatever the action you're advocating. It needs to be something that is something we could possibly accomplish it's an action that is possible practical and proportional to the problem and it's going to require us to examine questions of Cause and effect and anchor our decision process in the facts There's no use in trying to respond to something that may or may not be real and they're always going to be Alternative policies we might say that somebody should do something But if you're going to argue for a specific action, there may be other specific actions that might be better So you have to evaluate those you have to assign value and say why this action is going to Reach a better outcome a more valuable outcome than the others and to understand especially the part about what's feasible and what's relevant And what's actually a problem you have to know who your audience is you have to know what situation you're addressing the professor of rhetoric Lloyd Bitzer drawing on Aristotle and Aristotelian rhetoric advocates that we Consider when we consider rhetoric we consider the rhetorical situation the specific real-world situation that our rhetoric is addressing Is there a real-world problem? Who does that problem affect who can do something about it? Do they need to do something about it now is it important or can it wait and What are the constraints on doing something about that and that's why he identifies these three components to the rhetorical situation The first is exigence This is the problem or the relevance of what you're advocating The exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency is a defect an obstacle something way to be done a thing which is other than it should be and You're communicating to a particular audience and an audience isn't just whoever listens to you or whoever reads your essay I am not your audience as your professor unless you're talking about the way things should be done in a classroom think of your reader as somebody As a person who is capable of being influenced by this discourse and of beating a mediator for change This is especially true with policy is your your reader somebody who can actually do something who can actually do the thing that you're Advocating but this is something you also want to think about even if you're just Discussing an issue of cause and effect you're just trying to show that one thing does cause the other or that one thing is more valuable than the other or You're just trying to say that in this situation We should define terms more but your audience is only the people who were able to follow through with that advice to do something with it It's not just anybody who'll listen or anybody who'll read but then to do something about what you're talking about to act on this issue There are going to be constraints. We can't just do whatever we want We can't just say everybody ought to move mountains in order to make this thing happen We can't move mountains. We have constraints on what we're able to do as individuals What are those constraints in this issue and the constraints are as he says made up of persons events objects and Relationships which are part of the situation because they have the power to constrain decision and action needed to modify the exigence So some of the the constraints are going to be on the action. We're capable of achieving They're also going to be constraints that we're going to get to when we talk about the backfire effect and rosier in argument Constraints on whether or not people are going to really listen to our arguments. Give us a fair and objective Open-minded hearing Those constraints are there as well and it depending on who your audience is those constraints may be loose and those constraints may be tight But you have to know what those constraints are and to know that you have to know who your audience is and to know Who your audience is you have to know why the issue is a problem what the problem is that you're addressing So let's take a look at one last example that puts together all of the different types of stasis and and builds up that pyramid to really solid but very nuanced and very Specific policy claim this is an article from the conversation calm Which is a good source for very well thought-out arguments and thought-provoking arguments that look at the subtleties involved Rather than trying to oversimplify things and in this case This is an article about a familiar Problem and that is how much screen time should children be allowed to have a time on their phones on video games Watching television and things like that But even though this is a commonly discussed issue This is not a common example of the type of argument where we would normally expect And these are quotations selections from the larger article But the article starts out by saying one of the most frustrating issues modern parents face is how to manage children's screen time it then makes reference to a familiar heuristic that children should be limited to two hours a day of screen time and Shows that well most children get a lot more than that a recent online poll of 18,000 children by ABC children's program behind the news Found that 56% of respondents exceed that two-hour daily limit a survey of 2,620 Australian children and this article was written in Australia but a survey of 2,620 Australian children aged 8 to 16 years had similar results the study showed that 45 percent of 8 year olds to 80 percent of 16 year olds exceed that recommended Less than two hours per day limit now. This is doing two things. It's defining the problem. It's showing that there is an exceeding of a limit that we've already established and It gives factual data It lays the groundwork for the the foundation of the rest of this argument by giving specific numbers that show us that We're not just extrapolating from Too small of a data set This isn't just some parent talking about their own children's use of screen time and generalizing from that they have specific data that you yourself can track down and This article acknowledges the usual definition of the problem It says that compulsive or non-stop checking of text emails news feeds websites or other apps can interfere with anyone's daily life Work and relationships This isn't a claim that's going to be necessary to the ultimate conclusion This isn't a premise that's going to be necessary to the ultimate conclusion of this article but it is a common premise that people bring to this conversation and This article is acknowledging that that premise in general can be true So it's the recognition of potential causal connections and it foresees the possible counter argument by acknowledging the possibility of a problem under Certain criteria if the behavior is compulsive then it can interfere. These are qualified terms. They're not very specific But the author is going to contest the Generalization that children are always getting too much a screen time by saying that the guidelines We used to benchmark how long children should spend on a screen or out of date They were actually developed years before tablets and the many devices we use today were even invented The screen time guidelines we currently use were developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics in the 1990s To direct children's television viewing in particular. They were a response to kids watching violent television content So what's happening now is rather than going to the usual policy from the rather than starting with that usual assumption about Causing effect that children get too much screen time and it's having these negative effects It's actually backing up to the level of definition and saying hey Wait a second. Our definitions might be inappropriate to the current reality where screen time now doesn't just mean watching television It also means using phones using tablets using playing video games, but also Presumably things like this taking an online course. So here's some more redefinition There's consumption. There's creation and there's communication. So notice these are three different types of screen time You consume like entertainment through the screen, then there's creation This is something you could not do on a television You couldn't create your own work of art. You couldn't create your own essay and then there's communication Communication in fact is the exact thing that people complain television interfered with You couldn't communicate through a television because the the informational comes one way But with if you're on Skype or if you're text messaging somebody you are communicating So this is Examining and redefining the concepts that we use to apply to interpret the facts The author continues by saying there's a big difference between endless hours of watching YouTube videos of chocolates weeks being unboxed This is presumably consumption or just entertainment value to video chatting with a parent who is away from home This is communication a better alternative is to determine children's screen use based on the quality of the activity and the level of Stimulation children are getting okay, so we now move to the judgment about quality or value once we redefine What screen time is we now have more than one value judgment associated with the word screen time Some of that value judgment will still be negative. It's just you know passive consumption, but some of it will be positive It's communication and it's creation So that means when we come back to this value premise to re-examine it We have to bring these new definitions to do that and our value judgments It's going to be a little bit more subtle and that finally leads to the policy claim Which is not the usual one you hear associated with screen time limitation We should still keep an eye out for excessive time online That word should is the indicator. This is a policy claim If a child is spending most of their day and night on screen then that needs reassessment and management So again saying that needs an action is is a policy claim But it's not the only policy claim. It's not the only possible policy claim and this author isn't going to Stop there and say well Managing your children's screen time is all you need to do That is the the usual response, but this author is going to give a more subtle response That's not exactly a contradiction of that policy claim, but it's a more refined Plan of action But the ultimate message is that whatever resource we use to manage children's screen usage They ultimately need to learn to manage it themselves We must introduce them to the concept of mindful usage as children get older and accumulate more and more devices and Greater need to use technology helping them recognize the importance of balance becomes an important basic life skill So once again more things are changing not only Defining what we mean by screen time, but also the necessity the value of some of that screen time We have to learn to to use the computer more often. It's part of our modern world There is a causal necessity using electronic devices is almost now Mandatory for functioning in the modern world. So we can't just limit ourselves to two hours of use of any type of screen That's just no longer practicality, and it's not even necessarily something we want And once we realize that we Realize that there is a different policy judgment available to us And that is not just limiting it not making this an external imposition of authority but actually teaching children to be competent in deciding how much is too much and How to decide what type of screen time is good and what type of screen time is not so good So what this author does is take the same bedrock of facts and that is 56 percent of Children are getting more than two hours a day. They're exceeding that two-hour limit 45 percent of eight year olds 80 percent of 16 year olds exceed that two-hour limit the facts haven't changed But what we do with those facts depends on the definitions the old definition that people are still using is That screen time is just TV viewing and TV viewing is one Is unidirectional? It's just one way and it's passive entertainment But that's the 1990s definition if we move to the 2010s and 2020 definition that screen time is social interaction and its education But it's also passive entertainment. It can be any of those consumption creation or communication and with that definition that leads us to look at new causal parameters like the old cause-and-effect relationship was that TV time leads to attention deficit and antisocial behavior and That was and that's a bad thing or at least it was those negative outcomes Counterbalanced any value that the entertainment value of TV possessed and so that led to the policy of adopting a two-hour limit for children But now that cause-and-effect relationship is different now that we look at the we define our concept of screen time differently We see different cause-and-effect relationships at work So limited screen time actually limits the ability to socialize with other people it limits your ability to use Educational material it limits your time that you can use the the computer or the phone as a tool to create something but it also limits your passive entertainment time and What we do with those different cause-and-effect relationships depends on how we value their outcomes and The entertainment may not be that important But we do have a high value placed on socializing and education and creation So because those things are still important we still want to use the device that has the screen for those purposes But we want to limit our passive consumption. So that means not just restricting screen time This leads us to a new policy judgment, which is teaching mindful usage of any device with a screen so what the author has done is Not just compared to final policies, but actually gone all the way back to the level of the definition and Reassess the definitions reassess the causes reassess the values and those are the things every one of those points of stasis That's part of those two sort of those two pyramids that are built on the same bedrock of facts The entire thing the definitions are weighed against the definitions of the causal relationships are weighed against the causal relationships The value judgments are weighed against the other value judgments and only once all those are weighed Do we see that here's why one policy is better than another? So this isn't just the weighing of conclusions It's the weighing of entire arguments with all of their premises and all of their warrants connected to that final policy decision and this weighing of options is our Definition of what an essay is remember all the way back when we talked about the defining what an essay was It's not just a piece of writing. It's not just a string of opinions or string of conclusions that are not supported by reasons and evidence The word comes from the action of weighing gold against a material that may or may not be gold To see if this new material is actually gold and if it's diluted with some other Metal some cheaper metal then what's actually gold will be heavier This led to the use of the word essay as a trial a test or a proof for an experiment and from there It moves on to that same sort of comparison trial testing one argument against another that we do on paper or in this case digitally on a screen in Writing an essay and with that hopefully you're ready to make whatever policy argument you want to make Now that you realize what components are necessary to warrant that conclusion to earn that conclusion and to achieve a sent from people who may reach a different conclusion, but because of a difference in Value or a different assumption about cause and effect using different definitions different concepts or not being aware of all the facts Now once you bring your reader to an understanding of all these other components You almost don't have to make that policy claim too overtly the reader by the time they Have that foundation in front of them They're going to follow you right to that a policy judgment or at least you're going to be a little bit closer to that Then you would have been otherwise