discursive essay on keyboard warriors

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Beyond ‘Lulz' and ‘Keyboard warriors': exploring the relationship between trolling and radicalization

• Communication Arts and Sciences

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Despite the similar psychological profiles of internet trolls and radicalized political actors, as well as the historical connections between trolling and the alt-right, little research has studied how trolling corresponds with the process of radicalization. Our study examines this relationship between trolling and radicalization by interrogating two pieces of folk wisdom about internet trolls, that they only care about ‘the lulz’ and that they are merely ‘keyboard warriors.’ Using the issue of racial inequality in the United States as a case study, we ask whether someone’s enjoyment of trolling is affected by their attitudes about racial inequality as well as whether those who enjoy trolling are more likely to engage in politically motivated activist and radical activities related to their views about race. Based on a nationally representative survey (N = 739), our study finds that those who enjoy the discursive act of trolling also intend to participate in other forms of political engagement, including both activist and radical activities. Overall, our findings reveal significant overlaps between trolling, activism, and radical activities when it comes to the topic of racial inequality, demonstrating the value of considering discursive acts like trolling within the broader context of studying the adoption of extremist ideologies and actions.

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• Communication
• Library and Information Sciences

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• 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2302988

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T1 - Beyond ‘Lulz' and ‘Keyboard warriors'

T2 - exploring the relationship between trolling and radicalization

AU - Biddle, Katy

AU - Ekdale, Brian

AU - High, Andrew C.

AU - Stoldt, Ryan

AU - Maragh-Lloyd, Raven

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

N2 - Despite the similar psychological profiles of internet trolls and radicalized political actors, as well as the historical connections between trolling and the alt-right, little research has studied how trolling corresponds with the process of radicalization. Our study examines this relationship between trolling and radicalization by interrogating two pieces of folk wisdom about internet trolls, that they only care about ‘the lulz’ and that they are merely ‘keyboard warriors.’ Using the issue of racial inequality in the United States as a case study, we ask whether someone’s enjoyment of trolling is affected by their attitudes about racial inequality as well as whether those who enjoy trolling are more likely to engage in politically motivated activist and radical activities related to their views about race. Based on a nationally representative survey (N = 739), our study finds that those who enjoy the discursive act of trolling also intend to participate in other forms of political engagement, including both activist and radical activities. Overall, our findings reveal significant overlaps between trolling, activism, and radical activities when it comes to the topic of racial inequality, demonstrating the value of considering discursive acts like trolling within the broader context of studying the adoption of extremist ideologies and actions.

AB - Despite the similar psychological profiles of internet trolls and radicalized political actors, as well as the historical connections between trolling and the alt-right, little research has studied how trolling corresponds with the process of radicalization. Our study examines this relationship between trolling and radicalization by interrogating two pieces of folk wisdom about internet trolls, that they only care about ‘the lulz’ and that they are merely ‘keyboard warriors.’ Using the issue of racial inequality in the United States as a case study, we ask whether someone’s enjoyment of trolling is affected by their attitudes about racial inequality as well as whether those who enjoy trolling are more likely to engage in politically motivated activist and radical activities related to their views about race. Based on a nationally representative survey (N = 739), our study finds that those who enjoy the discursive act of trolling also intend to participate in other forms of political engagement, including both activist and radical activities. Overall, our findings reveal significant overlaps between trolling, activism, and radical activities when it comes to the topic of racial inequality, demonstrating the value of considering discursive acts like trolling within the broader context of studying the adoption of extremist ideologies and actions.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182251590&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85182251590&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2302988

DO - 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2302988

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85182251590

SN - 1369-118X

JO - Information Communication and Society

JF - Information Communication and Society

VAN Magazine

An independent online classical music magazine

Keyboard Warriors

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Stravinsky puts it pithily enough: Music “expresses nothing outside of itself.” It’s a dictum that puts critics like me on the back foot, accusing us of peddling only a pale and inadequate imitation of the thing itself. Those who can’t, write. But it also describes a deeper sense of music as incommensurable, elevated by thinkers like Walter Pater or Schopenhauer above all the other arts because its expressive language is an exquisite fusion of subject and form. Music sheds the earth-bound burden of representation, and, the thinking goes, is transcendent, even universal, because it is not tethered to an outside. Music, Pater has it, is “the ideally consummate art.”

We are less stringently formalist in our sense of music’s relationship to the outside world today. We see its meaningfulness shaped by contexts and parallels beyond the pages of the score or the pitch-class set. So too do we grasp its historical and political baggage, as well as its subjective or psychic resonances. But why, nevertheless, do musicians turn to writing? What can they possibly have to add? What makes the writing musician distinctive? The last year has seen a flurry of books from major keyboard players—Stephen Hough, Alfred Brendel, Zuzana Růžičková, with a new book forthcoming from András Schiff—who have all turned to another expressive medium.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has curtailed the frisson of live performance that, as a critic, I enjoy with relative and privileged frequency. In lieu of this we’re offered streams—of opera, ballet, concerts—or direct access to the homes of performers themselves, which can feel awkwardly informal. Stripping the vestiges of ritual from performance is itself distancing. Streaming opera with a group of close friends and toasting each other over Zoom in boozy intervals offers more social than strictly artistic succor, though is still sorely welcome. Reading books by musicians during this crisis has felt like a more immediate connection to the musical culture in abeyance. Perhaps this is because reading is more commensurate with our circumstances than trying to squeeze the Wigmore Hall into an 11-inch laptop screen, or the Met onto an iPad. Music seems to find its feet again, to come to life more, when paradoxically channeled through the intimate conduit of prose.  

Of course, instrumentalists who write are nothing new, though their efforts are usually practical rather than determinedly literary: my old violin teacher did her doctorate on 18th-century violin treatises; my singing teacher just completed his thesis on bel canto pedagogues. Their subjects wrote to shape technical and expressive norms, propagating the influence of their musical schools. The writings of Leopold Mozart or Manuel Garcia are rich accounts of their artistic practice, but they offer only an oblique picture of the self-reflective artistic consciousness.

Technical writing on music from musicians, not least composers, would burgeon and grow in the 19th century, with the increasingly complex arts of orchestration, harmony and conducting calling for new treatises and theories, boosted too by the rise of the professional conservatory. Hector Berlioz, one of the most inventive writers of musical history, would bring poetic sparkle to a technical manual on orchestration. The clarinet, he writes, has a “priceless ability to produce a distant sound, the echo of an echo, a sound like twilight.” In Weber’s “Freischütz” overture it intones a music of “the lonely virgin, the blond betrothed of the huntsman, who raises her eyes to heaven.”

The proliferation of newspapers and journals in the 19th century, along with the concomitant rise of the professional critic, gave the writing composer another avenue of exploration. Berlioz made a living from such work, and in cartoons would be pictured holding both quill and baton.

“Lélio” (1831) for orchestra, vocalists, and actor is a deliciously bizarre hybrid of Berlioz’s dual interests. The eponymous protagonist reads a text by Berlioz between the musical scenes that is more artistic manifesto or critical essay than theater. Its culmination sees the artist-composer realize a tone poem based on “The Tempest”—a play that has in Prospero a figure who knows the incantatory power of both words and music.

Not all musicians would make writing so indivisible from composition. But as a side hustle it would become increasingly important to composers, for financial and personal reasons. In France, Gabriel Fauré, Camille Saint-Saëns, Claude Debussy, and Paul Dukas would likewise be as respected for their critical writings as their compositions. Pierre Boulez would sustain this double vision in the 20th century, upbraiding peers and admonishing rivals with machine-gun prose in the pages of Tel Quel or Domaine musical .

Wagner looms predictably large here. Boldly extemporaneous essays like The Artwork of the Future, Opera and Drama, and Art and Revolution come from the late 1840s and early 1850s. They are placeholders for an aesthetic project he was unable then to even begin to realize, for want of both funds and friends (the ban on his music in Dresden, and elsewhere, would not be lifted till 1862).

As pieces of prose they are as visionary—and long—as the music dramas he would eventually write. In their blend of philology, linguistics, anthropology, music theory and political history, they presage the discipline-bending ambitions of the Gesamtkunstwerk . But their prolix verbosity make them meagre substitutes for the musical and dramatic eloquence of Wagner’s operas. They are also good examples of when musicians would be wise to shut up. Wagner might’ve won some antecedent benefit of the doubt if he’d stayed his pen before writing Jewishness in Music or essays on the racist Arthur de Gobineau.

András Schiff’s latest book, Music Comes Out of Silence , begins in conversation with Martin Meyer, an author whom Schiff has worked with previously. Zuzana Růžičková’s story is told in the first person but is presented with Wendy Holden, also named as author. Holden tells us that the book is compiled from a lifetime of interview transcripts which Holden revisited with the harpsichordist before she died in order to compose the book. From this patchwork of conversations a life emerges.

They are not the first. In 2016 conductor Seiji Ozawa’s interlocutor was novelist Haruki Murakami; Daniel Barenboim would team up with literary critic (and friend) Edward Said to write Parallels and Paradoxes in 2002. Said’s acute grasp of philosophy and geopolitics make this a particularly fruitful, indeed contrapuntal, meeting of minds. The significance of the difference between a short note and a long note, when they discuss it, is no less than the struggle of life and death.

Even in a book with just one writer we can hear multiple voices. Alfred Brendel punctuates 2019’s The Lady from Arezzo with translations (sometimes his own) of nonsense poetry by Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Daniil Kharms, giving the whole a polyvocal quality. For Brendel poetry and essays allow him to express parts of himself unavailable on the concert stage: “Whoever looks for the Dadaist in my piano playing,” he notes, “has tried the wrong door.” “One Finger Too Many” begins Brendel’s first collection of poetry, the story of a pianist who grows an extra digit to chide coughing audiences and “to point things out / when both hands were busy.” It’s an apt symbol for Brendel’s additional literary capacities: an extra finger for writing on a quite different keyboard to his usual one.

Like his beloved Haydn, Brendel is a humorist. He does not turn to writing to show off his expertise or justify artistic choices—though remarkable essays on Schubert or Haydn’s “Seven Last Words from the Cross” offer plenty of scope for that—but to tease and delight. The nonsense poems sprinkled throughout suggest Brendel’s feeling for language as evocative magic rather than a tool for settling scores. The memoir he includes in The Lady from Arezzo mostly eschews discussion of his private life, wrong-footing readers in search of juicy revelations. He writes that he is “too fond of the truth” to observe the conventions of autobiography.

Brendel delights in anecdotes of a blithe, absurdist quality. After a recital in Lockenhaus with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau the singer “instantly disappeared, and was carried away by a helicopter.” The reason? “He was being pursued by a woman with a gun.” Brendel’s stories raise more questions than they answer, more like dreams than entertaining table-talk, though they are often darkly witty. He writes of a concert promoter in Australia:

The man in charge was a certain Mr Moses whose hobby was chopping wood. In his office, there was a cupboard full of axes. In order to demonstrate how sharp-edged they were, he selected one of them, rolled up his shirt-sleeve and shaved off a few hairs from his arm.

András Schiff is a comparatively straight-shooter in a book of discipline and focus. As a writer he is less pleasure-seeking than Brendel or Hough. Martin Meyer’s preface says the book is “all-encompassing…a tour d’horizon ,” and we are given a comprehensive picture of Schiff as an artist. He is forthright, even irascible, in setting out his stall: he chides audiences for their lack of discipline, takes arms against the reckless advocates of Regietheater , and woe betide those who pedaling is lax; other bugbears include the internet and the “globalization” of the piano sound incarnate in the Steinway (as regrettable as “in the worlds of fashion or gastronomy”).

Schiff likes to get to the point. He is as direct in condemnations of Viktor Orbán in Hungary as he is wary of “authenticity” in performing Bach, and his book is more taut and driven than others I describe here. Schiff’s writing is a direct reflection of the performer, not one of his other selves: immaculately precise in gesture, serious in atmosphere, thorough in approach. Nothing is wasted in Martin Meyer’s smooth, firm prose, which reproduces Schiff’s own feeling for the “short notes” he describes early in the book: “Short notes aren’t beautiful, but so what? It always depends on their context and function.” This could be Schiff’s writing in a nutshell: unsentimental, stoutly spoken, interrogative of received wisdom. His humor, self-deprecating or acidic, sharpens the points of his explication.

Pianist Stephen Hough’s Rough Ideas , published last year, has an aphoristic, digressive quality; like many books by musicians it is a miscellany, built from program and CD notes. Hough describes the book being composed on the road, in the dead time between airport, hotel and concert, “jotting…unfinished musings on scraps of paper or saved as files on my iPhone.” Episodes rarely exceed a page or two, with sudden shifts of subject matter across parallel trains of thought. Their brevity catches Hough’s gift for aphorism (“If Rothko was arguably the most Romantic of the modernists, Chopin was the most Classical of the Romantics”).

Hough rarely lingers on one topic, though occasionally grounds us for more than a few pages: a sequence of four moving eulogies, quietly focused, is followed by four “Great Greens,” who are actually three (his piano teacher, Gordon; Catholic priest, Father Maraus; and novelist Julien). Others will jump from Teju Cole to architecture to the painter Anthony Mastromatteo, in a book whose learning would be dizzying if it wasn’t worn so lightly.

An unwillingness to be pinned down sees Hough playfully tease out ideas. “I don’t hate Bach” follows “I don’t love Bach.” More controversial and sombre disquisitions are saved for the final sections of the book, where Hough’s Catholic faith comes to the fore on euthanasia, abortion, Lazarus, and Alzheimer’s. Others are cheekily provocative (“Gay pianists: can you tell?”; “Don’t listen to recordings”) or confessional parable (“Stephen, that was really dreadful!”; “My Terrible Audition Tape”). Like Brendel Hough relishes the vividly poetic—in phrases like “Caruso’s Garlic Breath”—and often offers intense literary renderings of music. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 is

a great Romantic work…heard from a point of inaccessibility: tunes deflected and diverted by the frozen surface, fissures forcing the counterpoint to veer off at strange tangents, climaxes narrowly averted, melodies ungraspable.

I ask Hough why he writes. Rough Ideas follows his 2018 novel The Final Retreat , and a memoir is slated for next year. “Right now it’s the only thing I’m getting paid for!” he notes from lockdown in London, a situation which has nonetheless given him the opportunity to compose. For him writing is pleasurable and tactile. “I love the process of writing…the musical sound of words clashing against each other,” which he attributes to his love of the sensuous, overheated sound world of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is not drawn, he says, to the more intensive and involved business of musicological and scholarly research.

Hough feels that writing achieves a permanence he feels is harder to access as a musician. Music, he tells me, “disappears into the air. As a performer you yearn to set something down…it’s falling through your fingers.” Perhaps this is why pianists seem especially drawn to writing books. The piano, unlike strings or woodwinds, is an instrument whose sonority is defined by decay. Keyboard players are especially alive to the fragile dissipation of musical sounds.

Hough was particularly aghast when The Telegraph deleted a series of blogs he’d written for them. It is no doubt a source of reassurance that he can bind between the covers of Rough Ideas ephemera gathered from CD liner notes and program books over the years; fragments, to invoke a line from T.S. Eliot, that Hough has shored against his ruins.

Rough Ideas ’ fleet, discursive feet traverse much musical and non-musical terrain. Its short bursts create the impression of a set of piano miniatures in recital; Hough himself compares it to the skittering procession of 18 pieces that make up Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze,” which nonetheless communicate “a sense of unity.” The fragment has an expressive immediacy, he tells me, which he finds in Emily Dickinson and Paul Celan. Hough says that one of his writerly inspirations came from reading a biography of William Burroughs, who composed The Naked Lunch from a suitcase full of fragments he then collated with the help of Allen Ginsberg. He likes “pulling together disparate things.”

Rarely do these musicians tell their stories in a straight line. Zuzana Růžičková’s 2019 memoir One Hundred Miracles is built of fragments too, collated by her co-author and biographer from a lifetime of interviews; two tender recollections, one from Mahan Esfahani, make an epilogue.  

Růžičková tells the story herself, in the first person, but this appearance of surface unity only partly belies deeper fissures. At its traumatic heart lies her experiences of the Holocaust, in the Terezín ghetto and Auschwitz, though her story is told out of order, with episodes from early childhood jumping forward decades and then back again. As in many Holocaust narratives we are left with the impression that, despite her frankness, the horror can only be approached obliquely, and that its moral catastrophe shatters the possibility of narrative order itself.

Because Růžičková plays the harpsichord, there are additional fractures in her story. The Holocaust haunts her career. She is desperate to “make up for time lost in the camps”; the war stymies her chance to study with the great Wanda Landowska in Paris; frostbite damaged her hands. She is apprehensive about entering the 1956 ARD competition in Munich because of the prospect of meeting former Nazi perpetrators there. But Růžičková resolves to go because of Bach. Her husband, the composer Viktor Kalabis, says it is her “duty” as a Jew and a survivor: “You will be showing them that someone who is not German and not an Aryan can play Bach. You will be proving to them that Hitler was not the last word.” She won a 500-mark prize.

Růžičková’s book is about the fate of Bach, whose music has a very literal place in the debased world of the Lager and ghetto. The sarabande from the English Suite in E minor, BWV 810, is the last piece Růžičková plays with her teacher before being transported to Terezín; she copies out the first page of it on a scrap of paper. It accompanies her to Auschwitz, where it is nearly lost. Růžičková turns the music over in her mind as a kind of benediction.

This is the same Bach, Růžičková notes, of whom she and her husband could’ve talked with Fritz Klein, the cultured deputy of Dr. Mengele, though Růžičková’s humanism insists on Bach’s redemptive dimension. BWV 810 contains harsh music, angular, percussive; the sarabande is a rare moment of prayerful repose. In her recording she alters the final chord by adding a G-sharp, turning it from minor to major, desolation to radiance. Růžičková would identify herself with Bach: in times of crisis she would literally ask herself, “What would Bach do?” She sees parallels between their troubled lives, where their constant companions are “music and death.”

After the war Theodor Adorno would write that musical language, despite its abstract character, “points to something beyond itself by reminding us of something, contrasting itself with something or arousing our expectations.” Růžičková’s Bach is a keen exploration of music’s paradoxical relationship to its (often appalling) context, reflecting back and intensifying its tragedies, while also offering flight or restitution from them.

We see in her book the imperfect equivalence of music and the world. Walter Pater, among others, praises music for its transcendental abstraction, elevating it above and beyond any single referent, which would be so limiting and mundane. But it is this very same quality that leaves it so troublingly open to appropriation or degradation. When musicians write they bring music back to earth, showing how it fits into the places and events of our lives—even as it promises to liberate us from them. ¶

26 Planning a Discursive Essay

Discursive essay – description.

A discursive essay is a form of critical essay that attempts to provide the reader with a balanced argument on a topic, supported by evidence. It requires critical thinking, as well as sound and valid arguments (see Chapter 25) that acknowledge and analyse arguments both for and against any given topic, plus discursive essay writing appeals to reason, not emotions or opinions. While it may draw some tentative conclusions, based on evidence, the main aim of a discursive essay is to inform the reader of the key arguments and allow them to arrive at their own conclusion.

The writer needs to research the topic thoroughly to present more than one perspective and should check their own biases and assumptions through critical reflection (see Chapter 30).

Unlike persuasive writing, the writer does not need to have knowledge of the audience, though should write using academic tone and language (see Chapter 20).

Choose Your Topic Carefully

A basic guide to choosing an assignment topic is available in Chapter 23, however choosing a topic for a discursive essay means considering more than one perspective. Not only do you need to find information about the topic via academic sources, you need to be able to construct a worthwhile discussion, moving from idea to idea. Therefore, more forward planning is required. The following are decisions that need to be considered when choosing a discursive essay topic:

• These will become the controlling ideas for your three body paragraphs (some essays may require more). Each controlling idea will need arguments both for and against.
• For example, if my topic is “renewable energy” and my three main (controlling) ideas are “cost”, “storage”, “environmental impact”, then I will need to consider arguments both for and against each of these three concepts. I will also need to have good academic sources with examples or evidence to support my claim and counter claim for each controlling idea (More about this in Chapter 27).
• Am I able to write a thesis statement about this topic based on the available research? In other words, do my own ideas align with the available research, or am I going to be struggling to support my own ideas due to a lack of academic sources or research? You need to be smart about your topic choice. Do not make it harder than it has to be. Writing a discursive essay is challenging enough without struggling to find appropriate sources.
• For example, perhaps I find a great academic journal article about the uptake of solar panel installation in suburban Australia and how this household decision is cost-effective long-term, locally stored, and has minimal, even beneficial environmental impact due to the lowering of carbon emissions. Seems too good to be true, yet it is perfect for my assignment. I would have to then find arguments AGAINST everything in the article that supports transitioning suburbs to solar power. I would have to challenge the cost-effectiveness, the storage, and the environmental impact study. Now, all of a sudden my task just became much more challenging.
• There may be vast numbers of journal articles written about your topic, but consider how relevant they may be to your tentative thesis statement. It takes a great deal of time to search for appropriate academic sources. Do you have a good internet connection at home or will you need to spend some quality time at the library? Setting time aside to complete your essay research is crucial for success.

It is only through complete forward planning about the shape and content of your essay that you may be able to choose the topic that best suits your interests, academic ability and time management. Consider how you will approach the overall project, not only the next step.

Research Your Topic

When completing a library search for online peer reviewed journal articles, do not forget to use Boolean Operators to refine or narrow your search field. Standard Boolean Operators are (capitalized) AND, OR and NOT. While using OR will expand your search, AND and NOT will reduce the scope of your search. For example, if I want information on ageism and care giving, but I only want it to relate to the elderly, I might use the following to search a database: ageism AND care NOT children. Remember to keep track of your search strings (like the one just used) and then you’ll know what worked and what didn’t as you come and go from your academic research.

The UQ Library provides an excellent step-by-step guide to searching databases:

Searching in databases – Library – University of Queensland (uq.edu.au)

Did you know that you can also link the UQ Library to Google Scholar? This link tells you how:

Google Scholar – Library – University of Queensland (uq.edu.au)

Write the Thesis Statement

The concept of a thesis statement was introduced in Chapter 21. The information below relates specifically to a discursive essay thesis statement.

As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the discursive essay should not take a stance and therefore the thesis statement must also impartially indicate more than one perspective. The goal is to present both sides of an argument equally and allow the reader to make an informed and well-reasoned choice after providing supporting evidence for each side of the argument.

Sample thesis statements: Solar energy is a cost -effective solution to burning fossil fuels for electricity , however lower income families cannot afford the installation costs .

Some studies indicate that teacher comments written in red may have no effect on students’ emotions , however other studies suggest that seeing red ink on papers could cause some students unnecessary stress. [1]

According to social justice principles, education should be available to all , yet historically, the intellectually and physically impaired may have been exempt from participation due to their supposed inability to learn. [2]

This is where your pros and cons list comes into play. For each pro, or positive statement you make, about your topic, create an equivalent con, or negative statement and this will enable you to arrive at two opposing assertions – the claim and counter claim.

While there may be multiple arguments or perspectives related to your essay topic, it is important that you match each claim with a counter-claim. This applies to the thesis statement and each supporting argument within the body paragraphs of the essay.

It is not just a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. A neutral tone is crucial. Do not include positive or negative leading statements, such as “It is undeniable that…” or “One should not accept the view that…”. You are NOT attempting to persuade the reader to choose one viewpoint over another.

Leading statements / language will be discussed further, in class, within term three of the Academic English course.

Thesis Structure:

• Note the two sides (indicated in green and orange)
• Note the use of tentative language: “Some studies”, “may have”, “could cause”, “some students”
• As the thesis is yet to be discussed in-depth, and you are not an expert in the field, do not use definitive language
• The statement is also one sentence, with a “pivot point” in the middle, with a comma and signposting to indicate a contradictory perspective (in black). Other examples include, nevertheless, though, although, regardless, yet, albeit. DO NOT use the word “but” as it lacks academic tone. Some signposts (e.g., although, though, while) may be placed at the start of the two clauses rather than in the middle – just remember the comma, for example, “While some studies suggest solar energy is cost-effective, other critical research questions its affordability.”
• Also note that it is based on preliminary research and not opinion: “some studies”, “other studies”, “according to social justice principles”, “critical research”.

Claims and Counter Claims

NOTE: Please do not confuse the words ‘claim’ and ‘counter-claim’ with moral or value judgements about right/wrong, good/bad, successful/unsuccessful, or the like. The term ‘claim’ simply refers to the first position or argument you put forward (whether for or against), and ‘counter-claim’ is the alternate position or argument.

In a discursive essay the goal is to present both sides equally and then draw some tentative conclusions based on the evidence presented.

• To formulate your claims and counter claims, write a list of pros and cons.
• For each pro there should be a corresponding con.
• Three sets of pros and cons will be required for your discursive essay. One set for each body paragraph. These become your claims and counter claims.
• For a longer essay, you would need further claims and counter claims.
• Some instructors prefer students to keep the pros and cons in the same order across the body paragraphs. Each paragraph would then have a pro followed by a con or else a con followed by a pro. The order should align with your thesis; if the thesis gives a pro view of the topic followed by a negative view (con) then the paragraphs should also start with the pro and follow with the con, or else vice versa. If not aligned and consistent, the reader may easily become confused as the argument proceeds. Ask your teacher if this is a requirement for your assessment.

Use previous chapters to explore your chosen topic through concept mapping (Chapter 18) and essay outlining (Chapter 19), with one variance; you must include your proposed claims and counter claims in your proposed paragraph structures. What follows is a generic model for a discursive essay. The following Chapter 27 will examine this in further details.

Sample Discursive Essay Outline 

The paragraphs are continuous; the dot-points are only meant to indicate content.

Introduction

• Thesis statement
• Essay outline (including 3 controlling ideas)

Body Paragraphs X 3 (Elaboration and evidence will be more than one sentence, though the topic, claim and counter claim should be succinct)

• T opic sentence, including 1/3 controlling ideas (the topic remains the same throughout the entire essay; it is the controlling idea that changes)
• A claim/assertion about the controlling idea
• E laboration – more information about the claim
• E vidence -academic research (Don’t forget to tell the reader how / why the evidence supports the claim. Be explicit in your E valuation rather than assuming the connection is obvious to the reader)
• A counter claim (remember it must be COUNTER to the claim you made, not about something different)
• E laboration – more information about the counter claim
• E vidence – academic research (Don’t forget to tell the reader how / why the evidence supports the claim. Be explicit in your E valuation rather than assuming the connection is obvious to the reader)
• Concluding sentence – L inks back to the topic and/or the next controlling idea in the following paragraph

Mirror the introduction. The essay outline should have stated the plan for the essay – “This essay will discuss…”, therefore the conclusion should identify that this has been fulfilled, “This essay has discussed…”, plus summarise the controlling ideas and key arguments. ONLY draw tentative conclusions BOTH for and against, allowing the reader to make up their own mind about the topic. Also remember to re-state the thesis in the conclusion. If it is part of the marking criteria, you should also include a recommendation or prediction about the future use or cost/benefit of the chosen topic/concept.

A word of warning, many students fall into the generic realm of stating that there should be further research on their topic or in the field of study. This is a gross statement of the obvious as all academia is ongoing. Try to be more practical with your recommendations and also think about who would instigate them and where the funding might come from.

This chapter gives an overview of what a discursive essay is and a few things to consider when choosing your topic. It also provides a generic outline for a discursive essay structure. The following chapter examines the structure in further detail.

• Inez, S. M. (2018, September 10). What is a discursive essay, and how do you write a good one? Kibin. ↵
• Hale, A., & Basides, H. (2013). The keys to academic English. Palgrave ↵

researched, reliable, written by academics and published by reputable publishers; often, but not always peer reviewed

assertion, maintain as fact

The term ‘claim’ simply refers to the first position or argument you put forward (whether for or against), and ‘counter-claim’ is the alternate position or argument.

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• Leaving Cert. English (Higher) 2020: Paper 1 Section II Composing
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Preparation

Throughout your Leaving Certificate studies, be curious in all of your subjects. Read widely and write regularly. General knowledge, regular reading and regular writing will make you an interesting, articulate and quick-thinking student — three attributes that are necessary in responding to Leaving Certificate English papers.

Do not adhere to one style or one particular genre. Write in a variety of language categories:

• Information

Take care with your penmanship. Your writing must be legible, and good handwriting will create a good first impression.

If you have built up a number of good written pieces, keep them for reference. You may well be able to utilise some of your ideas and techniques in the actual examination.

Read carefully what your English teacher writes about your written work. Re-write your work to improve it and learn from your mistakes.

This essay is worth a quarter of your entire marks for this examination. Its importance cannot be overestimated!

In the examination you should spend approximately one hour and twenty minutes on this section.

Remember you will be marked under the following criteria:

• Clarity of purpose (30%)
• Coherence of delivery (30%)
• Efficiency of language use (30%)
• Mechanics (10%).

1. Write a personal essay in which you reflect on what you are proud of in your life.

• This title gives you the opportunity to take several different approaches but remember it must be a personal account. Your ideas should be at the heart of the essay.
• A personal essay should have a degree of personal reflection. You should not just tell a story or present a few anecdotes. You must personally reflect.
• Consider what you are proud of in your life. Some ideas you might consider include:
• Your achievements
• Your friends
• Your school
• Charity events
• How you make people feel?
• Your ability to rise above difficulties and/or conflicts.

2. Write a feature article, suitable for publication in a popular magazine, offering some ideas for new inventions and discoveries you think would improve your life or make the world a better place. Your article may be serious or humorous or both.

• This is a feature article for a popular magazine. It should have a headline and sub-headings, if needed.
• You can take a humorous or serious approach or both.
• Your article should offer ideas on new inventions or discoveries that would improve life or make the world better. Be prepared to justify your ideas.

3. Write a short story, in which a crime or mystery is solved, that begins with a dramatic arrival. You may set your short story in any era and may choose to include or not include the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

• You must write a short story. You can take a variety of approaches but generally, all short stories have a beginning, middle and end, have at least one character, and have some sense of tension, climax, and resolution.
• Ask yourself questions to create ideas:
• You must have a crime or mystery solved in your story.
• You may include Sherlock Holmes as a character in your story. Text Two could provide you with inspiration.
• Beware of creating an over-long time-line. You have limited space and time. It would be impossible to cover a character’s entire life in 2-4 A4 pages.
• Try to have only 1-3 main characters.
• You have a long time to write this essay. Re-read what you have written quickly to check it for mistakes.
• Create atmosphere and images for the reader — it will improve your writing.

4. Write a discursive essay about our changing relationship with machines and the rise of artificial intelligence.

• This is a discursive essay. You need to discuss what you think symbolises the values held by people of your age today.
• Ensure that you have strong views and that your essay is lively and interesting to read.
• Consider our changing relationship with machines and the rise of artificial intelligence. Some possible points to consider include:
• Tasks are done quicker.
• Machine/robots do the jobs humans do not want to do.
• Robots are taking over the jobs of humans.
• Are humans becoming redundant?
• A.I. can improve many things for humanity.

5. Write a short story which features the three characters that appear on the magazine cover on Page 7 of the examination paper. You are free to write the story in any genre you choose.

• See the notes on short story writing above.
• Look carefully at the image on Page 7. What does it suggest to you? You must feature three characters from the cover in your story.

6. Write a speech in which you argue for or against the motion: Contemporary Irish society is both tolerant and progressive.

• Consider the following rhetorical devices:
• Reaching out to and directly addressing the audience.
• Rhetorical questions
• Vivid and contrasting imagery.
• Ensure that you show that it is a public speech from the start of the task. The examiner must know that you understand the genre.
• Thank your audience for their time and attention at the end of the speech.
• This is a debate speech and, as a result, has certain structures, such as addressing the chairperson, adjudicators, etc.
• Choose which side you are going to argue for and write your speech accordingly.
• Think about Irish society. Is it tolerant and progressive? You may consider some of the following:
• Recent gay marriage referendum
• Adoption rights
• Influence of the church
• The way the state treats refugees
• Changes in Irish life and values over the last fifty years.

7. Write a personal essay in which you celebrate friendship, and reflect on how you have been influenced by the unique and diverse personalities of your friends.

• Consider your friends. How have they helped you throughout your life? How have they influenced you?
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