ated guess or opinion, not a simple fact. It is something debatable: "Men have walked on the moon" is a fact, but "People will walk on Venus in the next ten years" is an opinion. Anything that reasonably can be debated is an argument. A simple argument paper usually presents a debatable opinion and then offers supports in favor of it, or sometimes an argument paper will discuss both sides of an issue and then give good reasons for choosing one side over the other. For example, a paper about space flight might argue that humans should not spend large sums of money in sending people into space. The paper might then argue that three good reasons this is true is that there are many poor on our planet, on whom our resources should be spent, that space flight is not as enlightening for humankind as increasing literacy or cultural awareness, and that most of he money being spent on space is for military purposes, which is useless. Another type of argument paper might ask the main idea as a question: "Should the human race spend large sums of money to send people into space?" Then it might argue both sides thoroughly and, finally, choose one side and give strong reasons why this side is best.

A typical argument paper often has what is called a "thesis" structure. It starts with an introduction that offers an interesting opening--a quotation, perhaps, or an interesting story, a statement of the main argument, and sometimes a list of the several reasons (often