For and Against Discussion Essays (FADEs)

discuss

Learners working in English for Academic Purposes are not alone in needing the skills to write FADEs. They are also important in business, education, government and other fields where the ability logically and dispassionately to set out arguments for and against a proposal or situation is valued.
The social sciences, in particular, value written, balanced arguments.
For this reason, this guide is linked from both the EAP sections and the general skills and discourse indexes.

Exclusions

It is important to be clear about what FADEs are not. They are not:

Expositions
which require the writer to set out one side of an argument and attempt to persuade the reader of a point of view.
Reports
which require the writer to set out facts in logical stages with some discussion of each.
Problem-Solution texts
which require the writer to set out the problems and suggest solutions for each which are evaluated in terms of effectiveness, advantages and drawbacks.

Confusing the text types will bewilder learners.

Aims and Purposes

All texts have purposes. One definition of genre is that it contains texts which share the same cultural purposes. Discussion is no exception so we need to identify what exactly the purpose of a FADE is. We will start with this definition of purpose:

to look at more than one side of an issue: to explore various perspectives before coming to an informed decision
Butt et al, 2001:9

and unpack it a little:

more than one side ... various perspectives:
A common error in students' writing (and in some teaching) is to see dichotomies where none exists or even to invent them. Few important issues have only two sides and there are shades of opinion and many perspectives which need to be considered.
to explore:
This requires the writer to identify, discuss and exemplify a point of view, not simply state it.
an informed decision:
so not a simple statement of a point of view uninfluenced by facts and research. The coda (at the end of the essay) needs to refer to the facts that have been set out.

The result of bearing these three issues in mind is that an essay will impress the reader with the depth of thought that lies behind it and gets away from some people think X, some people think Y but I agree with Z.

Key skills

This guide is ordered as follows according to the key skills that are required. They cannot be taught in a single lesson.

Organisation
This involves the knowledge, some of it cultural, of the conventional staging of information in a FADE.
Structural and formal linguistic knowledge
This involves
1. using appropriate verbal processes
2. selecting appropriate tense structures
3. using lexis concerning the register
4. syntax and punctuation
Awareness of audience
This involves
1. knowing who will read the text
2. selecting an appropriate style (tenor)
3. content knowledge (field)

We'll take the sections one at a time.

Organisation: staging and content

The staging of a discussion in English (not necessarily in the languages of other cultures) is, on the face of it, quite simple. It comes in two basic options:

Structure 1	Structure 2

The first and last stages are common to both forms and, in fact, the last, the Coda, is often optional. The other stages are not.

A classic error is to mix the structures and, for example, start with structure 1 and give a bunch of arguments for and then confuse the reader by transitioning to structure 2 and mix the points up. That disconcerts, disorientates and displeases.

We can break all this down and exemplify what is meant. As an example, we will take a topic in a field in which there are few technical terms and special registers to be considered.

Identify the issue

Only at very low levels should this be a one-sentence section. It involves two parts and each should be properly refined and defined:

The particular topic of the essay needs, of course, to be stated clearly both in the title and the introductory paragraph but then the issue has to be set in its wider context and properly defined.
The importance of the issue has to be stated in general terms and then has to be further refined to set out what is meant by importance: to whom, in what circumstances, says who?

Here's an example of the introduction to a FADE of the pros and cons of allowing smoking in public spaces:

This essay concerns whether smoking should be allowed in public spaces and attempts to set out the arguments that have been proposed for and against permitting it. This is a social, legal and public health issue and in what follows these aspects of the subject will be taken in turn.
For the purposes of this essay, public spaces are defined as any areas outside private homes which are open to the public either free of charge or on payment of an entrance fee. It includes, therefore, open spaces, shops, bars, public houses, services and utilities such as airports and train stations as well as public roads and streets. Excluded from consideration are private spaces although consideration will be given to borderline cases such as hotel rooms, hostels, prisons and private vehicles.
Smoking is defined as the use of tobacco in pipes, cigarettes and cigars but excludes other, non-smoking ways of ingesting tobacco. Consideration will also be given to the recent development of e-cigarettes.
The issue is important for three reasons.
Firstly, there are public health concerns regarding the use of tobacco and its effects both on individuals and those around them. This includes the resources devoted to the care of those whose illnesses may have been caused or exacerbated by smoking.
Secondly, it is a social issue in which the rights of individuals need to be balanced against the rights of others and society as a whole.
Thirdly, it is a legal and ethical issue insofar as it concerns the extent to which the law should be used as a social engineering tool to encourage, enforce or prohibit the activities of individuals.

This is a rather sophisticated introduction written by a competent user of English and learners are unlikely to be able to produce writing of this sort without a good deal of help and teaching. However, such a text may serve as a model for learners to encourage them to say more than just what the essay is about and to define their terms from the outset. A check-list is helpful for this:

State the topic
What sort if issue is it?
1. organisational
2. political
3. social
4. public health
5. financial
6. legal
7. economic
8. industrial
  etc.
What terms do you need to define?
Give two reasons why the issue is important.

Given such a list, even learners at lower levels can begin to develop an introduction that is more than a title.

Arguments

These lie at the core of the essay and should be carefully constructed. If the introduction has successfully previewed the areas into which the arguments fall, organisation becomes significantly easier.
The most important issue here is to avoid what has been termed spaghetti writing characterised by rambling sentences, short unconnected points or a stream-of-consciousness approach. Good advice is to confine each argument to four paragraphs:

the issue and examples
the argument
the evaluation of the strength of the argument
the evaluation of any weaknesses in the argument

The damage to health that smoking causes is no longer seriously debated by health professionals and other experts. It has been shown in numerous well-conducted studies that smoking tobacco has a range of detrimental effects including but not limited to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, reduced fertility and damage to unborn babies.
For this reason, there are many who argue that an absolute ban on smoking in public spaces is required to protect individuals from the effects of smoking. Banning smoking, it is argued, will reduce the amount people smoke, encourage abstinence and reduce the costs to the health care services as well as improving the population's overall fitness.
This is a strong point because the costs to individuals and society can be readily estimated and the potential health benefits of a non-smoking society are also quantifiable in terms of health service, insurance and other costs.
However, this argument relies on the assumption that it is society's right and duty to protect individuals from their own actions. Extended logically, the argument might just as well apply to banning dangerous sports, such as mountaineering or solo yachting, boxing and even horse riding, rugby, judo and other contact sports, all of which cause thousands of deaths and injuries worldwide every year and all of which people take part in voluntarily despite the risks. These activities, too, involve costs for health services and the emergency services whose members own safety may be put at risk rescuing others from the results of their own choices of recreational activities.

Again, only advanced learners are likely to be able to produce such a sophisticated text but, as before, such texts can be used as models to develop their own writing.

State the field in which the argument lies (financial, health, social, legal etc.)
State the argument clearly
State the argument's strength
State the argument's weakness

Coda

A coda may be defined as a concluding remark. The word conclude, of course, also implies arriving at an opinion by deduction (not just stating a view) so the section needs attention.

Here, the job of the writer is to draw the reader' attention to the points which need to be emphasised and convince them that a just and fair conclusion has been arrived at by weighing the facts and arguments that have been identified.
It comes in four parts:

Identification of the main issue
Identification of difficulties
Reiteration of the strongest points
Statement of view

Here's an example to treat in the same way as the previous ones. It's more than can be expected of all but the strongest students but would serve as a model.

Whether smoking should be banned in all public spaces is by no means an easy issue to determine.
Firstly, there is a tension between the public and private spheres regarding the extent to which the rights of smokers may be subordinated to the rights of others to breath clean air.
Secondly, there is the issue of social costs and how far only one type of potentially dangerous voluntary activity should be controlled because of the costs that may be involved to society as a whole.
Thirdly, there is the ethical issue of how far the law should be involved in the private decisions and choices of individuals.
Arguments on both sides have merits and there are many intermediate points of view that lie between no control at all and an outright, universal ban.
On balance, it seems that the costs to society and to the health of its members are more important than the respect we owe to allowing individuals to make informed choices concerning their own lives. Smoking is not an activity which only affects the smoker. Others are affected by the degradation of their surroundings, damage to their own health and costs to society as a whole to which all taxpayers contribute.
A reasonable position to take, advocated here, is to limit smoking in circumstances which most affect non-smokers but to allow individuals to make choices in other settings.
This will mean banning smoking in enclosed public spaces such as shops, bars, cafés, cinemas, theatres and so on but permitting it in private spaces and in the open air where the risk of damage caused to others is either voluntarily run or negligible.

Structural and formal linguistic knowledge: the language of discussion

In what follows, we will draw on the examples already given to see what linguistic issues underlie the ability to construct a FADE.
As it is unlikely that the ability to write a discussion is something you would teach to lower-level learners, we shall assume from the outset that the learners can competently produce acceptable syntax, control most of the tense structures of English, can make passive and active voice sentences and use a range of conjunction.
We shall not assume that they are familiar with complex pre- and post-modification or the large range of discoursal features that are needed in a FADE.

Modified phrases: the components of clauses

Here's one short paragraph from the example used above:

The first sentence in this section is, structurally, about as simple as we get in English and akin to, for example:
The book is published
because it consists of a subject, a copular verb and an attribute. The fact that the attribute is a participle so the sentence is also analysable as a passive is actually not very important. It breaks down like this:

Subject noun phrase	Copular verb / auxiliary verb phrase	Adjective / verb phrase
The book	is	published

and we can do exactly the same to the longer, apparently more complex sentence, like this:

Subject noun phrase	Copular verb / auxiliary verb phrase + modification	Adjective / verb phrase
The damage to health that smoking causes	is no longer	seriously debated by health professionals and other experts

A feature of many academic texts and of FADEs in particular is that noun, verb and adjective phrases often contain a good deal of pre- and post-modification to make the expression of the data more concise and accessible. We can of course, avoid most of this with shorter, less informative sentences and could produce a paragraph such as:

Smoking causes damage to health. The damage used to be debated. The damage is not debated now. Health professionals do not debate this. Other experts do not debate this.

but the outcome is clumsy and inefficient.

A primary teaching aim is to focus, therefore, on how pre- and post-modification of items is achieved in English. There are guides to modification elsewhere on this site so the point will not be discussed at length here. See the links to related guides at the end.

However, to teach this kind of structure is not as hard as it may seem. We can start with something easy, like this and proceed as suggested:

Homework is useful
Add a relative clause to say what sort of homework:
Homework which is set by the teacher is useful
Add an adverb and another verb to make a phrase:
Homework which is usually set and marked by the teacher is useful
Add an adjective phrase for the subject:
Subject-related homework which is usually set and marked by the teacher is useful
Add a prepositional phrase to say who benefits:
Subject-related homework which is usually set and marked by the teacher is useful for school children
Now add a conjunction and another clause to say why this is true:
Subject-related homework which is usually set and marked by the teacher is useful for school children because it helps them to learn

Once learners get the hang of doing this to simple and undemanding sentences, they can revisit their own writing to see how to compress more data into each clause and make the writing more sophisticated and interesting as well as densely informative.

Clause conjunction: the components of sentences

Once complexity is built into clauses, we can move on to how clauses are connected to make complex and compound sentences.
Here is another example taken from the texts we have already used:

Firstly, there is a tension between the public and private spheres regarding the extent to which the rights of smokers may be subordinated to the rights of others to breath clean air.
Secondly, there is the issue of social costs and how far only one type of potentially dangerous voluntary activity should be controlled because of the costs that may be involved to society as a whole.

There are three systems at work here: prepositional links, conjunctions and conjuncts and they need to be handled separately.

Prepositional links:
a tension between the public and private spheres regarding the extent
Prepositions often function as linkers. Other examples are:
    A discussion concerning the policy
    The decision was made in keeping with the policy
    The people acted according to the policy
    The debated relating to the issue of policy
    Matters pertaining to government policy
etc.
Learners need teaching and lots of practice in deploying less familiar linking prepositions to enhance their writing. Some to consider are:
according to, against, ahead of, alongside, apropos, bar, barring, concerning, considering, despite, excluding, failing, following, in keeping with, in place of, notwithstanding, other than, pertaining to, regarding, thanks to, throughout, unlike, versus, via
Teaching in the area involves the same kinds of procedures one might use to teach any form of linking device. For example:

Join the parts on the left using some of the prepositions on the right
The current debate	the advisability of tonsillectomies	concerning regarding thanks to following pertaining to in place of other than
The government's proposal to the unions	wages and productivity in the car industry
The success of the project	the professional manner it was conducted
The outcome of the enquiry	the excessive cost overruns

Conjunction
should be controlled because of the costs
contains a simple subordinating conjunction and subordination is a key way to link ideas and make more complex, denser sentences. The choice of subordinator is often constrained by genre and for a FADE, the most usual will be those which signal cause and effect, contingency and contrast. Here the example is because but other, more sophisticated and unusual conjunctions to consider teaching include:
albeit, as long as, assuming (that), consequently, considering (that), even though, hence, insofar as, lest, provided, providing (that), supposing (that), thus, unless, whereas, whilst, yet
Teaching in the area involves the same kinds of procedures one might use to teach any form of linking device. For example:

Join the parts on the left using some of the conjunctions on the right
The current debate is important	ample time for it needs to be given	as long as unless hence so whereas yet
The assumption is that this is harmless	people use the material responsibly
The success of the project	depends on the commitment of the government
This will not be harmful	there are excessive costs

Conjuncts
Confusing conjuncts with conjunctions is a major source of error for learners trying to write formally. They are superficially attractive because their use is often a sign of sophisticated writing but they need to be handled with some care. Errors such as:
    *The problem is severe moreover it is difficult to solve
    *The problem is severe. Although it is not difficult to solve.
are common outcomes of confusing conjunct with conjunction.
Examples of conjunct use from above are:
    Secondly, there is the issue of social costs
    On balance, it seems that
    For this reason, there are many
    However, this argument relies on
Conjuncts expressing the following concepts are frequently needed in FADEs:

addition: additionally, further, furthermore, in addition, moreover.
exemplification: a case in point is, as an example, as an illustration, e.g., for example, such as.
enumeration: at the outset, finally, firstly etc., in the first instance, initially, primarily, subsequently.
result: as a consequence, consequently, for this / that reason, hence, in consequence, in view of that, thus.
contrast: otherwise, on the other hand, as a matter of fact, conversely, in contrast, at any rate, nonetheless, yet.
equating: alternatively, by the same token, correspondingly, equally, i.e., likewise, namely, similarly.
summation: concisely, in conclusion, in sum, to sum up.
Any of these categories can form the foundation for a lesson.
A similar teaching / practice idea is:

Use one of the conjuncts on the right to introduce the second sentence
The current debate is important.	ample time for it needs to be given.	Accordingly Nevertheless Nonetheless Primarily In view of that On the other hand
The assumption is that this is harmless.	there are still significant causes for concern.
The scheme has many advantages.	it depends on the commitment of the government
The picture is complicated by a number of factors	there are the excessive costs to consider

It should be emphasised that teaching this kind of idea linking should precede the demand for learners to produce fully finished essays.

Verbs, verbal processes and tenses

Here we are on simpler ground.

The following sorts of verbal processes are common to many differently focused FADEs.

Existential:
These are almost always introduced by it or there followed by a simple copular verb. They are easy enough to deploy but learners often need help in noticing the need for them. For example, from the texts above:
    there are many who argue that an absolute ban on smoking in public spaces is required
    it seems that the costs to society and to the health of its members are more important
    It has been shown in numerous well-conducted studies that
Relational:
As the name suggests, these verbal processes link two items. Examples from above include:
    areas outside private homes which are open to the public
    points of view that lie between no control at all and an outright, universal ban
    costs to society and to the health of its members are more important than
    Arguments on both sides have merits
Setting up relationships between ideas is central to the role of writing a good FADE.
Material and behavioural processes:
These refer either to how people or things act. Example from above include:
    The damage to health that smoking causes
    the law should be used as a social engineering tool
    illnesses may have been caused or exacerbated by smoking
    banning smoking in enclosed public spaces
Which verbs learners will need will depend greatly on the topic under discussion, of course. That they will need to deploy verbs relating to material and behavioural processes is not in doubt.
Projecting:
These refer to what people believe or say and are central. Examples from above include:
    no longer seriously debated
    there are many who argue that
    Smoking is defined as

Tense use is also predictably simple.

Almost all the verbs in the examples given above are in the present simple because the discussion involves a current situation. Occasionally, the present perfect may be used to refer to a previous event that has significant present consequences, as in, for example:
It has been shown in numerous well-conducted studies that
Otherwise, the simple present is conventionally used throughout.

Passive-voice clauses serve to distance the writer from the topic by implying that it is the action that is important, not who did it and that is conventionally how the tone of FADEs is achieved. For example, from above:
    public spaces are defined as
not:
    I am defining ...
    voluntary activity should be controlled
not:
    The state should control
etc.
There are many more examples and if you use a model text as a teaching tool, it is worth taking the time to notice the frequency and effect of the structures.

Modal auxiliary verbs are used sparingly and generally confined to their function as hedging tactics or to express degrees of certainty. For example:
Banning smoking, it is argued, will reduce
a predictive use.
whose illnesses may have been caused
a hedging use.
Occasionally, usually hedged, modal auxiliary verbs of obligation are used but almost never ones which express absolute obligation (deontic modality, in the trade). For example in

Whether smoking should be banned in all public spaces is by no means an easy issue to determine.
Firstly, there is a tension between the public and private spheres regarding the extent to which the rights of smokers may be subordinated to the rights of others to breath clean air.
Secondly, there is the issue of social costs and how far only one type of potentially dangerous voluntary activity should be controlled because of the costs that may be involved to society as a whole.
Thirdly, there is the ethical issue of how far the law should be involved in the private decisions and choices of individuals.

all the uses are putative rather than expressing obligation per se.
Modality in FADE writing is usually focused on the likelihood of a proposition being true. That is epistemic modality and there is a link below which will take you to a guide.

Circumstances

Circumstances refer to concepts such as location in time or space, contingency, cause, matter, means and angle. Many of these, including contingency, matter, angle and cause have been considered above under conjunction and prepositional links.
However, the discussion would not be complete without some consideration of how adverbials and prepositional phrases in particular are used in a FADE. Here are some key examples:

Location: refers to both time and place. In a FADE, the topic will normally determine which are most relevant. Above, the focus is on circumstances of place and exemplified by, for example:
    areas outside private homes
    individuals and those around them
    in other settings
    in enclosed public spaces
    in private spaces
    in the open air
Extent: refer to concepts concerning how far, how long, how often etc. There are examples in the texts above:
    regarding the extent
    in circumstances which most affect non-smokers
    how far the law should be involved
Because a FADE is written to be tentative and discursive rather than persuasive, verbs are often tempered by an expression of limitation on the extent of their application.

Paragraph structure and theme-rheme connections

There is a guide, linked below, to how theme-rheme structures are achieved in writing. Here it will be enough to consider two aspects only and we'll take this paragraph as the example:

On balance, it seems that the costs to society and to the health of its members are more important than the respect we owe to allowing individuals to make informed choices concerning their own lives. Smoking is not an activity which only affects the smoker. Others are affected by the degradation of their surroundings, damage to their own health and costs to society as a whole to which all taxpayers contribute.:

The topic sentence
It is not invariably the case that every paragraph in a well-written FADE will begin with a topic sentence to alert the reader to its contents but that is the way most texts work and, for novice writers in particular, a safe way to proceed.
In our example, the first two word of the first sentence, the conjunct, to give it its proper name, tell the reader what this paragraph will do: sum up and conclude.
The theme and the rheme
The theme of the first sentence is the subject of the verb (excluding the hedging in it seems). That subject is:
    the costs to society and to the health of its members
and its rheme, which follows is
    are more important than the respect we owe to allowing individuals to make informed choices concerning their own lives
The reference to individuals is taken up as the theme of the next sentence with
    Smoking is not an activity which only affects the smoker
and that rheme, only affects the smoker, becomes the theme of the next sentence with:
    Others are affected
and so the coherence of the whole paragraph is maintained.

Simple approaches to teaching in this area involve:

Recognition, noticing and analysis using cut-up paragraphs for re-sorting, jumbled sentences for re-ordering and so on. The aim is to get learners to notice how topic sentences are used in the first instance.
Giving learners paragraphs without topic sentences and getting them to compose something suitable.
Analysing theme-rheme structures by tracing connections, underlining links and so on.
Getting learners to write short paragraphs of their own and analysing them to see how (and whether) the theme-rheme links are working.

Awareness of audience: tenor, register and style

Short-term, the goal of learners' writing is probably for some kind of assessment purpose, either of their language skills or their subject knowledge and ability to construct rational arguments.
The target audience is often, therefore, a single teacher or tutor rather than the audience one imagines for most essays in non-educational settings which may be somewhat wider.
However, a long-term objective is to apply the skills learned in real-world settings for true communicative purposes.
Possible audiences include, therefore:

a teacher or tutor
colleagues
higher management
policy makers
readers of newspaper or magazine articles
readers of technical or trade journals
readers of academic journals
website visitors to serious sites
website visitors to blog sites (although few of these contain argued discussion, normally being just unsupported bluster)

and more.

The nature of the audience will determine a number of issues and can affect the choice of lexis as well as the choice of grammatical structures. For example:

Lexical choice: In the examples above we find phrases such as
a range of detrimental effects
which might, when formality is less of an issue be rendered as
    lots of nasty effects
We also have
    allowing individuals to make informed choices
which less formally could be rephrased
    letting people make up their own minds
Cohesive devices: The discussion of these above focused on some more formal, less frequently encountered linking devices but less formal texts may, for example, replace:
    pertaining to with about or of
    notwithstanding with however or but
    hence with so
    whereas with but
    providing with if
    furthermore with to boot
    a case in point with for instance
    conversely with on the other hand
and so on.
By the way, many of these elements are now referred to as discourse markers, a term which properly used refers to how speakers manage conversation, and we have avoided its use here as it has lost all utility in proper analysis.
Grammar: There are numerous examples of the use of the passive and hedging modal expressions which may appear less frequently in texts addressed to a more familiar audience requiring less distancing or formality.
For example, we may replace:
    it has been shown with we have found out
    it may be considered with we should think about
   it can be argued with it seems reasonable that
etc.

Teaching in this area: eating the elephant

Writing well in this genre is not achievable overnight or in a lesson or two.
Teaching demands consistency in planning and delivery over a series of lessons with sensible and achievable tasks to be accomplished along the way.
You may decide, based on your reading, the nature of the learners and your own propensities, to adopt a product, process or genre approach to teaching writing skills but whichever approach you take, you will almost certainly have to find or compose model texts which can be drawn on for examples of the language that needs to be used. There are examples which you are welcome to use above.
An outline syllabus might appear something like:

Lesson series	Language foci
Focus on the purpose of FADE writing. Focus on general structure and staging Practising (based on an analysed model) writing the introduction which identifies the area, sets it in context and explains its importance Focusing on how arguments are presented, exemplified and evaluated Focusing on summing up and writing a coda	Pre- and post-modification of a range of phrase types: noun and verb phrases in particular Relative clauses Discourse features including prepositional links, conjunctions and conjuncts Verbal processes Tense use: present simple and perfect Passive constructions Modality

This is by no means a simple syllabus to design because, although the general structure of FADE writing can be explained and exemplified quickly and will lead naturally to some level of coherence, achieving cohesion involves weaving together the seven issues identified on the right into a series of lesson focusing on the elements on the left.

Related guides
the EAP index	which contains links to associated areas such as reporting verbs, modality and hedging in academic writing
teaching writing	use this guide if terms such as product vs. process vs. genre approaches to teaching writing are important to you. It is the essentials-only guide to the area.
writing a narrative	for a similar guide to another popular genre concerning relating experiences
theme and rheme	for more about cohesion is maintained using connections of ideas
modification overview	this guide briefly considers the main types of modification and has links to other, more detailed areas
circumstances	for a functional way of seeing adverbials and prepositional phrases
style and register	for more consideration of how these connected concepts are developed in writing
verb types and clause structures	for a guide to the six main clause structures in English
epistemic modality	a guide to this type of modality which is particular important in FADE writing
skills	the in-service skills index for links to more areas

References:
Butt, D, Fahey, R, Feez, S, Spinks, S and Yallop, C, 2001, Using Functional Grammar: an explorer's guide. Sydney: NCELTR
Burns, A, 2001, Genre-based Approaches to Writing, in Candlin, C and Mercer, N (Eds.), English Language Teaching in its Social Context. Abingdon, UK: Routledge
Halliday, M, 1994, An introduction to functional grammar: 2nd edition. London: Edward Arnold
Tribble C, 1997, Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press