: Where to put counter-examples within a 5-paragraph essay? I am tutoring some students in the very basics of writing a 5-paragraph essay to present an argument, in preparation for more advanced

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I am learning this in Language Arts right now. I am in sixth grade, and we are writing 5 paragraph argumentative essays. I believe the counterargument should be in the 4th paragraph, and then you give more pros that will outnumber the cons, so the reader is convinced.

We usually use three prongs, to make our writing more organized. So if you do it this way, you can introduce your third reason in your fourth paragraph, and THEN provide a counterargument.

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I believe (and notice) that the most effective location is just before the Conclusion, if the alternate opinions are elaborative and has a measure of being the devil's advocate.

However, in abstracts of scientific papers, I notice that alternative opinions or theses are often placed after the declaration of the thesis. That has the intention to, as a respected scientist should, fore-warn readers that the thesis at hand is but one of multiple possibilities, or that the thesis is complementary or supplementary to other opinions - so that the thesis at hand should be taken in consideration with, or compared against, all the other theses mentioned.

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In my humble opinion, it's a good idea in a persuasive essay to at least acknowledge counter-arguments. If you simply ignore counter-arguments, and a reader is aware of them, his response is likely to be, "Well, he just completely ignored the fact that X."

As Paul Clayton says, if you give the pro, then the con, then with no rebuttal or reply to the con you give your conclusion, it can make the argument look weak or disconnected. It can come across as, "Here is my argument, here is why my argument is flawed, but I'm just going to ignore the flaws and stick to my original thesis." When I am writing a persuasive essay, I don't end with counter-examples. I may end with counter-examples followed by rebuttals. More often, I start with the position I disagree with, then show why it's wrong, then give my conclusion. But there are many ways to structure an essay.

The shorter an essay the less time you're going to spend on rebuttals. In a 5-paragraph essay I might well skip rebuttals as there's just no time to get into them.

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I think there are a couple of equally valid ways that it could be done, depending on how they chose to structure their argument.

Thesis
Supporting Argument
Supporting Example
Counterexample
Conclusion

Is perfectly fine. However I don't see that there is anything wrong with:

Thesis
Supporting Argument
Counterexample
Merciless destruction of counterexample
Conclusion

Or even:

Thesis
Counterexample
Why the counterexample is fair.
Why the original thesis is better.
Conclusion

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It depends on what the "point" of the essay is, and how it's set up in the intro/thesis.

If the goal of the essay is to argue "dogs make great pets," then there shouldn't be a counter-argument at all.

If the goal is to present both sides of a point, then the intro needs to say that, and I would suggest Para 2 is the Pro, Para 3 is the Con, and maybe Para 4 discusses which is stronger or has more weight. At the moment your two-pro/one-con feels lopsided.

In any case, I would certainly put pro arguments before con arguments, so you're heading in the right direction.

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