Every research paper has a paragraph that begins Some may argue that… and ends three sentences later, having argued with nobody. It is there because the rubric says the paper must "address counterarguments." It addresses one. It picks the weakest objection available, states it limply, and knocks it down.
Meanwhile there is a real objection — one you found in the reading, or thought of yourself at 1 a.m., or heard from a friend — and the paper does not mention it. You are hoping the marker will not think of it either.
They will. Markers read for exactly that. And here is the thing that makes the hope unnecessary: the objection you would rather ignore is almost always the most interesting thing you could put in the paper. A paper that meets its strongest objection is a paper with a reason to exist. The method for meeting it fits on a card.
Why the weak objection gets chosen
Because it is safe. The weak objection has an answer you already know, so writing the paragraph costs nothing and risks nothing. The strong objection might not have an answer, and if you write it down you will have to find out.
Cards change this in one specific way: a counterpoint card is not a paragraph. Writing it commits you to nothing. It is a card, it can sit beside the claim it attacks, and it can be answered, narrowed, or conceded later — or the claim can be. You can write the objection down without deciding what to do about it. That is the whole trick, and it is why the strong objection gets written on cards and does not get written in drafts.
Step 1: Write the objection as well as its best advocate would
Take the claim it attacks. On a new card — a different color if you have them — write the objection as a full sentence, as strongly and fairly as the smartest person who disagrees with you would put it.
Not some may argue the count was fair. Rather: The count was witnessed by two magistrates from the opposing party, both of whom signed the return, and neither of whom ever alleged fraud.
If you cannot state it that well, you do not understand it yet, and you are not ready to answer it. Go back to the source that raised it. If no source raised it — if it is your own 1 a.m. doubt — write it anyway, and mark it as yours. Your own doubts are the best objections you will get, because they are the ones the paper's logic produced.
Put the card beside the claim. It is now visible, which is most of the battle.
Step 2: Put the evidence for the objection under it
The objection is a claim too, and a claim has evidence. Find it. The magistrates' signatures are on the return (S4). Their silence afterward is in the county records (S9). Put those cards under the objection, exactly as you would under your own claim.
Two things happen. First, you discover how strong the objection really is: it may have one thin card under it, or four solid ones. Second, you discover whether your claim's evidence and the objection's evidence overlap. When the same card supports both, the card does not decide the question, and you need something that does.
Step 3: Choose one of three answers
Every objection, once it is fairly stated with its evidence, gets exactly one of three responses. Cards make it possible to try each before committing.
Answer it. You have evidence the objection does not account for. The magistrates signed, but the tally sheets they signed were not the ones counted — S6 shows the substitution. Write the answer as a new claim card, with its evidence, and place it after the objection. The paper now goes: claim, objection at full strength, answer with evidence. This is the strongest shape a paragraph can have.
Narrow the claim. The objection is right about part of what you said. The count in the county seat was fair; the counts in the three outlying parishes were not. Rewrite the claim card narrower — the outlying parish counts were rigged — and the objection no longer touches it. This feels like retreat. It is not. A narrower claim you can support is worth more than a wider one you cannot, and the narrowing usually produces a better paper, because the interesting question was never was the vote rigged but where, and why there.
Concede it. The objection is right and you cannot answer it. Say so, in the paper, in one sentence, and say what your argument still holds without that claim. Then remove the claim from the row. This is the answer students most fear and it is the one markers most respect, because it is the one that shows you were reading for the truth and not for support.
Cards let you try all three on the table before writing any of them. Narrow the claim card and see whether the row still adds up to the thesis. Remove it and see. Write the answer and see whether its evidence is real. None of this costs a paragraph.
What you must not do
Do not answer a weaker version. If the objection is that two magistrates signed and never complained, the answer is not some observers were partisan. Answer the objection on the card, in its own words.
Do not bury it. An objection stated in the last paragraph, after the conclusion, is an objection the writer hoped to sneak past. Put it where the claim is.
Do not answer it with volume. Four more cards supporting your claim do not answer an objection; they restate the claim. An answer is evidence the objection did not account for, or a reason the objection's evidence does not show what it seems to.
Where the objection goes in the paper
Beside the claim it attacks, not in a separate "counterarguments" section. A section of objections at the end is a list of things the paper failed to consider until page seven. An objection beside its claim is a paper thinking.
The shape of the paragraph pair is: the claim, with its evidence. The objection, stated fairly, with its evidence. The answer — or the narrowing, or the concession. Then a bridge to the next claim. Your row of cards already has this shape if you have been placing counterpoint cards beside claims, so the draft follows the row.
The objection to the thesis
The strongest objection may not attack a claim. It may attack the thesis — even granting all of this, the merchants' distrust came from the railway's own conduct, not the canal's — and no single claim can answer it. That objection gets a card at the top of the row, beside the thesis, and its answer is the order of your claims: the sequence that shows the distrust was there before the railway did anything. Guide 6 is about ordering for exactly this reason.
If the objection to the thesis cannot be answered by any order, it is telling you the thesis is wrong. Better to learn that from a card than from a marker.
Doing this in software
Software that works from cards usually has a link that says this card contradicts that one, and the counterpoint sits beside its claim the way it does on the table. Some software will notice a counterpoint that nothing answers — a counterpoint with no answers, qualifies or contradicts link back into it — and point it out when you ask for a check on the structure. That is the software noticing the shape, not judging the argument. Whether the answer is good, whether the concession is honest, whether the narrowing is a dodge: those are yours.
Everything here works with a pack of paper cards. Leyden & Beam does the same steps on screen, keeps every order you try, and never writes a word for you.
Start your 14-day trial