Building Up An Argument

A. Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Stating Position
Giving opinions
III. Developing Arguments
Balancing advantages and disadvantages
Making suggestions
Introducing a new point
Adding
Giving an example
Generalising
Presenting different solutions
Contrasting alternatives
Stating preferences
Justifying choices and alternatives
Giving a series of reasons
Showing a series of consequences
Warning about consequences
IV. Conclusion



B. List of Expressions

I. Introduction
- As you know,
- Theres been a lot of talk about
- I would like to begin by
- I would like to make a few remarks concerning
- I would like to comment on the problem of
- I would like to mention briefly that
- There are three points I would like to make.
- The most important points seem to me to be

II. Stating Position
Giving opinions
Strong Neutral Tentative
- I am sure that
- I am convinced that
- I feel quite sure that
- It is perfectly clear to me
that
- I think / I believe that
- As I see it,
- The way I see it is that
- As far as I am concerned

- It seems to me that
- It strikes me that
- My impression is that
- I tend to favour the view
that
III. Developing Arguments
Balancing advantages and disadvantages
- On the one hand , but on the other hand,
- Although , we must not forget
- Whereas , we have to remember
- In spite of , I still think
- Despite the fact that , I
Making suggestions
Strong suggestions
- The only solution is to
- I see no other alternative but to
- There is no other alternative but to
- We must
Neutral suggestions
- I recommend that we should
- I think we should
- My recommendation is that we should
- I would suggest that we
- We should / ought to
Tentative suggestions
- We could always
- It might be a good idea to
- Have you thought of ------ing ?
- One solution would be to
- What about -----ing ?
Introducing a new point
- I would [now] like to turn briefly to the problem of
- The next issue I would like to focus on is
- Turning to
Adding
- In addition,
- I might add that
- As well as , there is also
- Not only , but also
- Furthermore,
- Moreover,
Giving an example
- Let me give an example,
- To illustrate this point, let us consider
Generalising
- On the whole,
- In general,
- Generally speaking,
- By and large,
- All in all,
- All things considered,
Presenting different solutions
- Either , or
- There seem to be at least two ways of dealing with the problem.
- One solution is obviously to
- One possibility is to
- Alternatively, we could
- Another possibility would be to
Contrasting alternatives
- Whereas, on the other hand, but
- X means better profits. In contrast, Y could cause a lot of problems.
- X does have some advantages. However, theres no doubt that Y is a much
better choice.
Stating preferences
- I had rather than
- I prefer to
- I tend to favour as opposed to
- has an advantage over in that
- The main advantage of is that
Justifying choices and alternatives
- For one thing,
- But even more important is
- The advantage of X is that
Giving a series of reasons
I am against
I am for / in favour of
- because, first of all and secondly
- First, due to and secondly to
- One reason is . Another is
- For one thing, and for another,
Showing a series of consequences

If we opt for that particular decision,
it will mean
it will result in
it will lead to
As long as
If
these delays continue, we will not be able to meet our delivery dates.
And so,
Therefore,
Consequently,
As a result,

the new product will never have any chance of success.
Warning about consequences
Unless we buy
If you do not buy
a new printing machine,
I will not be able to guarantee
We must buy a
new machine
or else
otherwise
production
IV. Conclusion
- Let me conclude by saying
- I would like to conclude by stating that
- Allow me to conclude by
- In conclusion,
- In brief, briefly, in a few words,
- In short, to cut a long story short,
- All in all,