MAKING AN ARGUMENT
How to devise and phrase your points
Points (or topic sentences) should be the first part of any analytical paragraph you write in English Literature. They establish the argument for that paragraph. This guide will explain what a point is for, provide some suggestions for how to come up with one, and explain how to phrase it in the correct way.
This guide is part of the Making an argument series:
Contents of this guide
Why you need paragraph points
You need paragraph points at the start of every paragraph to make it clear where your argument is going. You don’t want the reader of your essay looking at your evidence and wondering what you’re trying to say with it. And your points need to address the question - the thing the question is really asking, and not what it often seems to be asking (read on for more on this). You also need your essays to read like essays should read. Correctly phrasing your points will help with this, especially at KS3 when you’re getting to grips with essay writing.
A step-by-step guide to coming up with a point
Step 1: Work out what the question is really asking
The best way to think of a point is as a basic answer to the question, an answer summarised in one sentence. It is the thing you want to argue for in the paragraph (if you’re not sure what this means, check the guide to why we use the PEA structure). To come up with this answer, you first have to understand what the question is really asking. Generally speaking, analysis questions in English will begin with the word ‘how’ (e.g. How does Charles Dickens present Scrooge?). This wording is somewhat misleading, however, because these questions don’t really want you to lead with the ‘how’ part; they want you to lead with a ‘what’. You can see this in the examples below, for the two main types of question you’ll be asked.
Question type 1: How does the writer present a character / setting?
What the question really means: What is the character/setting like and how does the writer convey this to the reader?
Key question: What is the character/setting like?
Example question: How does Dickens present Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’?
Example point: Charles Dickens presents Scrooge as a cold, unfeeling man who doesn’t seem capable of empathy.
Question type 2: How does the writer present ideas about a theme?
What the question really means: What ideas does the text contain about the theme and how does the writer convey those ideas?
Key question: What ideas does the text contain about the theme?
Example question: How does Dickens present ideas about family in ‘A Christmas Carol’ ?
Example point: Dickens suggests that family is one of the keys to happiness in life; with a close and supportive family, even the worst hardships in life can be endured.
For both of these question types, it’s really a ‘what’ question that you need to answer with your point, rather than a ‘how’ question. The ‘how’ part will be addressed in your evidence and analysis.
Step 2: Make some inferences
Once you know what the question is asking, you need to come up with your point. The key idea for this is inference. An inference is something that you have understood from a text but which is not clearly stated; it is something you have read between the lines; a conclusion you have reached through reasoning. All of your points must be based on inference. Otherwise, you’ll have nothing to say in your analysis, since that is where you explain your reasoning. Without inference, there’s no reasoning to explain.
Let’s imagine you had to answer the following question:
How does Michael Morpurgo present the Birdman in this short extract from Why The Whales Came?
The little I saw of the Birdman was enough to convince me that all the stories we had heard about him must be true. He was more like an owl, a flitting creature of the dark, the dawn and the dusk. He would be seen outside only rarely in the daylight, perhaps out in his rowing boat around the island or sitting high on his cart; and even in the hottest summers he would always wear a black cape over his shoulders and a pointed black sou’wester on his head. The Birdman went everywhere barefoot, even in winter, a stooped black figure that lurched as he walked, one step always shorter than the other. He rarely spoke to anyone, indeed he scarcely looked at anyone.
First, you need to work out what the question is really asking. Let’s use the logic outlined above.
This is a character-based question and we need to turn it into a ‘what’ question rather than a ‘how’ question. The key question is therefore: What is the Birdman like? This is what you’ll need to address in your point.
Once you’ve got this figured out, you need to make some inferences in response to this question. Here are some examples of inferences you could make about what the Birdman is like based on this extract:
He seems a bit frightening
He seems like an outsider to society
He seems like an outcast from society
None of these things are clearly stated in the text, which is what makes them inferences, and one of them will form the foundation of your paragraph point. But which one? Which is the best inference to use? This question takes us onto the Step 3.
Step 3: Choose the best inference to use as your point
Once you’ve made some inferences, you’ve got to decide which one will make the best point. This is a bit complicated, and there are lots of factors which you might need to consider – too many to outline here. However, one rule that almost always applies is this: the more reasoning the inference requires, the more sophisticated it is. To help you understand what this means, let’s consider the last two inferences about the Birdman:
2. He seems like an outsider to society
3. He seems like an outcast from society
These inferences are very similar, but the second one is more sophisticated than the first. What makes it more sophisticated is that it requires more reasoning to explain it. You have to argue not only that he is an outsider but that it is other people who have made him into one (this is the difference between being an outsider and being an outcast). This makes the inference more sophisticated, and it will also give you more to write about in your evidence and analysis, which is why good points are so important in PEA paragraphs.
Another simple way to make a point better is to use a conjunction like and or but to develop it. You have to be a bit careful here, though, as you need the two things to be closely related. Consider the following two examples:
Peter seems kind and courageous
This inference doesn’t really work as the basis for a point. Kindness and courage are very different qualities, which will require different evidence and reasoning to explain, so you’ve essentially got two points here, stuck together.
Peter seems bold and courageous
This works much better as a basis for a point. This is because courage and boldness are more closely related. Acts of courage often require boldness, so bringing both of these ideas into the point helps to make it a bit more developed.
Using but is generally more interesting than using and, however, providing the two things are related. Here’s an example:
The Birdman seems quite frightening but not really dangerous.
This example takes inference #1 from the original list and makes it more interesting by offering a qualification. These two ideas are related (people are often frightened by danger) so putting them together makes the inference more subtle and nuanced. It also means it will require more reasoning to justify, making it a better point.
Step 4: Phrase your point in the right way
Once you’ve got your inference worked out, you just have to phrase it in the right way to make it into a point. This is the easy bit. You’ve basically got two options here:
1. The writer presents BLANK as BLANK
This wording is good for characters, especially if you are saying what type of person they are, but it doesn’t work for every inference. Here are some examples of this wording.
Michael Morpurgo presents the Birdman as an outcast from society.
The writer presents Peter as a bold and courageous man.
Charles Dickens presents Scrooge as a cold, unfeeling man who doesn’t seem capable of empathy.
2. The writer suggests that BLANK
This wording is more versatile and better for questions about themes, though it also works for questions about characters. Here are some examples of this wording:
Michael Morpurgo suggests that the Birdman is an outcast from society.
The poet suggests that love hurts and often leaves people feeling sad.
In the second chapter of ‘A Christmas Carol’, Charles Dickens suggests that Scrooge never really recovered from his childhood traumas and that they shaped much of what was to come in his life.
There are other ways that you could word a paragraph point, especially if you want to link it back to something that you’ve written about earlier in an extended essay, but these two approaches are enough to get you started, and to use as a foundation. We will look at writing linked points in our guide to creating a conceptualised response, but that’s a GCSE skill so not something you need to worry about right away.
Summing up – key things to remember when coming up with points
Your point is like a mini-answer to the question, but first you need to work out what the question is really asking
You are really answering a WHAT question with your points, rather than a HOW question
Your points need to be inferred
Good inferences are those that require more reasoning to explain
You can use ‘and’ or ‘but’ in your points to make them more developed, though you need to be careful to ensure you’re not just making multiple points strung together with ‘and’
You need to phrase your point in the right way: start with the writer and then use ‘presents’ or ‘suggests’