Analysis and Practice of Argumentative Writing [ LROM1321 ]

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As for all the courses available for students in ROM, ROGE or LAFR, excellent working knowledge of French is required, both in reading and writing. As far as the argumentative writing is concerned, no specific prerequisite is required.

The theoretical principles of the argumentative analysis of the speech: her foundations rhetorics, logical and pragmatic, her approach and its privileged objects;
The analysis of argued papers: interpretation of political, advertising, literary, scientific speech, the report of Master's degree);
The practice of argued papers: the essay, the problem of research...

In the term of the training, the student will have to be able:
- To analyze finely the driving argumentative locatable in heterogeneous discursive kinds : political, advertising, literary, scientific speech (the work of the end of cycle, the report of Master's degree);
- To produce a relevant argued paper: an essay, an argument concerning the problem of research held for the report of Master's degree;
- To know and to clarify the main concepts appropriate for the argumentative analysis of the speech.

' In the June session, assessment will comprise the following:
1) Continuous assessment (10 marks):
-    A written piece composed during the semester (4 marks)
-    A timed piece written during part of the final class for the semester (6 marks)
2) Assessment in the June exam session (10 marks): a four-hour written exam.
 
' In the September session, assessment will comprise the following: a two-hour and a four-hour written exam.

The course, overseen by Professor D. Zanone, comprises six two-hour sessions and one three-hour session. Each session deals with a specific aspect of the writing under discussion: the teacher will present a theory concerning that aspect and encourage the students to apply it on the basis of examples. The challenge is for each student to reflect upon the text's reasoning from the point of view of the reader (assessing the discursive strategies in critical texts) and of the author (attempting to write reasoned texts based upon guidelines).
The practical tasks, supervised by Mrs Stéphanie Delneste, research and teaching assistant, comprise ten sessions lasting one and a half hours each and deal with the students' theses. On the basis of a corpus of various theses, the students will first be encouraged to identify the discursive indicators peculiar to this kind of reasoned text. Equipped with these references, they will then gradually be encouraged to write a thesis, firstly at home and subsequently during the exam.
Please note: attendance at the practical sessions is mandatory. Any unexplained absence and/or failure to deliver work (both for the course and the practical sessions) will disadvantage students in their continuous assessment.

The course overseen by Mr Zanone deals mainly with reasoning within the literary field, considering it both by reading (studying critical articles available on iCampus) and writing (literary thesis, commentary, essay).
The practical sessions supervised by Mrs Delneste will be devoted to discursive analysis and thesis practice.

A bibliography will be available on iCampus before the semester begins. The articles used during the sessions will also be made available there. The Ruth Amossy text, L'Argumentation dans le discours (Paris, Armand Colin, 2012), is recommended as a reference work.

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