English for Academic and Professional Purposes

1
Writing a Position Paper

Week 0017 : Writing a Position Paper

This module entails a guide on the basic steps of writing
a position paper. Lesson 2 provides grammar lessons on the
kinds of Adjective Clause: the Restrictive and Non-
restrictive Clause .
Writing a position paper is one of the necessary skills
students must learn across the field. Academic and professional
writing provides you opportunity to engage in this form of
writing activity. Significantly, this form of writing requires you
to present a reasonable argument to invite the reader to look at
your points of view. In presenting your proposition, you may
use illustrations and examples to flesh out your argument.
Since you want to be sure you’ve accurately addressed both
sides or positions in an argument before concluding that one or
the other is the appropriate response, you may organize your
ideas the way you write a comparison/contrast essay. Your
premise and thesis will determine what the appropriate form or
forms will be for you. Your goal is to be effective in presenting
your position, so remember to be thorough, fair, and persuasive.

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

a. identify the components of position paper;

b. point out the concepts of a position paper; and,
c. differentiate restrictive and non-restrictive clause.

The Position Paper

A position paper is a composition that presents a strong claim
of your opinion with the aim of convincing the reader.
Evidence is the key element to ensure the validity of your
claims.

The position paper , sometimes called a point of view

paper, is a composition that requires you to make a
stand on an issue, present your claim and invite the
reader to consider your point of view.

Course Module
 Steps in Writing a Position Paper

1. Choose your topic

2. Conduct preliminary research
3. Challenge your own topic
4. Continue to collect supporting evidence
5. Create an outline

Table 1 : Format and sample of text

Format/ Outline of Components of a Position Sample text:

a Position Paper: Paper by outline:
I – Introduction  Introduce your topic
with background
information.
 Build up your thesis
sentence, which asserts
your position.
 For decades, the FDA has
required that warning labels
should be placed on certain
products that pose a threat
to public health.
 Fast food restaurants
are bad for our health.
 Fast food packages
should contain warning
labels.

II – Body 2. List possible objections to • Such labels would affect

your position.
A – The Counterclaim Summarize the counterclaims.
B – Assert your Provide supporting information
Claim for counterclaims
Refute the counterclaims
Give evidence for argument
profits of major corporations.
• Many people would see this
as overreaching government
control.
• Whose job is it to determine
which restaurants are bad?
Who draws the line?
• The program would be
costly.

3. Support and • It would be difficult and

acknowledgement of the
opposing points.
4. Explain that your position is
still the best one, despite the
strength of counter arguments.
expensive for any entity to
determine which restaurants
should adhere to the policy.
• The cost would be
countered by the
improvement of public health.
• Restaurants might improve
the standards of food if
warning labels were put into
place.
• One role of the government
is to
keep citizens safe.
• The government already
does this
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
3
Writing a Position Paper

with drugs and cigarettes.

III – Conclusion 5. Summarize your argument

and restate your position.
Provide a plan of action but do
not introduce new information.

For a better grasp of the sample of position paper and how

the writer present his claims, watch the video link found at
the reference. Read the article to analyze how the position
paper is organized.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

By S. Fred Singer |
The Great Global Warming Swindle
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has met its match: a
devastating documentary recently shown on British television,
which has now been viewed by millions of people on the
Internet. Despite its flamboyant title, The Great Global
Warming Swindle is based on sound science and interviews
with real climate scientists, including me. An Inconvenient
Truth, on the other hand, is mostly an emotional presentation
from a single politician.
The scientific arguments presented in The Great Global
Warming Swindle can be stated quite briefly:

1. There is no proof that the current warming is caused by the

rise of greenhouse gases from human activity. Ice core records
from the past 650,000 years show that temperature increases
have preceded—not resulted from—increases in CO2 by
hundreds of years, suggesting that the warming of the oceans
is an important source of the rise in atmospheric CO2. As the
dominant greenhouse gas, water vapor is far, far more
important than CO2. Dire predictions of future warming are
based almost entirely on computer climate models, yet these
models do not accurately understand the role or water vapor—
and, in any case, water vapor is not within our control. Plus,
computer models cannot account for the observed cooling of
much of the past century (1940–75), nor for the
observed patterns of warming—what we call the
“fingerprints.” For example, the Antarctic is cooling while
models predict warming. And where the models call for the
middle atmosphere to warm faster than the surface, the
observations show the exact opposite.

Course Module
 The best evidence supporting natural causes of
temperature fluctuations are the changes in cloudiness, which
correspond strongly with regular variations in solar activity.
The current warming is likely part of a natural cycle of climate
warming and cooling that’s been traced back almost a million
years. It accounts for the Medieval Warm Period around 1100
A.D., when the Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops, and
the Little Ice Age, from about 1400 to 1850 A.D., which brought
severe winters and cold summers to Europe, with failed
harvests, starvation, disease, and general misery. Attempts
have been made to claim that the current warming is “unusual”
using spurious analysis of tree rings and other proxy data.
Advocates have tried to deny the existence of these historic
climate swings and claim that the current warming is
"unusual" by using spurious analysis of tree rings and other
proxy data, resulting in the famous “hockey–stick” temperature
graph. The hockey-stick graph has now been thoroughly
discredited.

2. If the cause of warming is mostly natural, then there is little

we can do about it. We cannot control the inconstant sun, the
likely origin of most climate variability. None of the schemes
for greenhouse gas reduction currently bandied about will do
any good; they are all irrelevant, useless, and wildly expensive:
 Control of CO2 emissions, whether by rationing or
elaborate cap–and–trade schemes
 Uneconomic “alternative” energy, such as ethanol and
the impractical “hydrogen economy”
 Massive installations of wind turbines and solar
collectors
 Proposed projects for the sequestration of CO2 from
smokestacks or even from the atmosphere.

Ironically, even if CO2 were responsible for the observed

warming trend, all these schemes
would be ineffective—unless we could persuade every nation,
including China, to cut fuel use
by 80 percent!

3. Finally, no one can show that a warmer climate would

produce negative impacts overall. The
much–feared rise in sea levels does not seem to depend on
short–term temperature changes, as the rate of sea–level
increases has been steady since the last ice age, 10,000 years
ago. In fact, many economists argue that the opposite is more
likely—that warming produces a net benefit, that it increases
incomes and standards of living. Why do we assume that the
present climate is the optimum? Surely, the chance of this
must be vanishingly small, and the economic history of past
climate warmings bear this out.
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
5
Writing a Position Paper

But the main message of The Great Global Warming Swindle is

much broader. Why should we devote our scarce resources to
what is essentially a non–problem, and ignore the real
problems the world faces: hunger, disease, denial of human
rights—not to mention the threats of terrorism and nuclear
wars? And are we really prepared to deal with natural
disasters; pandemics that can wipe out most of the human
race, or even the impact of an asteroid, such as the one that
wiped out the dinosaurs? Yet politicians and the elites
throughout much of the world prefer to squander our limited
resources to fashionable issues, rather than concentrate on
real problems. Just consider the scary predictions emanating
from supposedly responsible world figures: the chief scientist
of Great Britain tells us that unless we insulate our houses and
use more efficient light bulbs, the Antarctic will be the only
habitable continent by 2100, with a few surviving breeding
couples propagating the human race. Seriously! I imagine that
in the not–too–distant future all the hype will have died down,
particularly if the climate should decide to cool—as it did
during much of the past century; we should take note here that
it has not warmed since 1998. Future generations will look
back on the current madness and wonder what it was all about.
They will have movies like An Inconvenient Truth and
documentaries like The Great Global Warming Swindle to
remind them.

Course Module
  A position paper should have both a premise and a thesis. A premise is
what a writer bases his or her thesis on.

 Be careful not to assert a self-evident as a truth that is wholly

subjective.
 Deductive and inductive lapses happen frequently.
 Consider your audience, voice, and tone in the paper. Particularly if you’re
arguing a controversial topic, there will be strong possibility of venturing
into an area where emotions run high and logic gets trampled.
Acknowledge the opposing argument and attempt to address what is most
compelling and troublesome in that position.
 Avoid using first and second person:
 First person (ex. Pronoun “I”) may be acceptable if there is a useful
anecdote you can offer from your own experience.
 Second person implies that your reader has become either the
target or the accomplice of the writer, neither of which ought to be
the case.
 The tone should not become condescending, superior, or otherwise
degrading to the reader or any opposition group.
 Words like “obviously,” “of course,” “surely,” “without a doubt,” and
so on, are almost always an indication either of the irrational or the
unreasonable.
 Be sure that you convince and do not offend.

Clauses - Restrictive and Nonrestrictive

Setting the Context.
The sentences below are taken from the article , The Great
Global Warming Swindle. Read and analyze the function of
the clauses.
 The best evidence supporting natural causes of temperature
fluctuations are the changes in cloudiness, which correspond
strongly with regular variations in solar activity. The current
warming is likely part of a natural cycle of climate warming and
cooling that’s been traced back almost a million years.

Restrictive Clauses Nonrestrictive Clauses

- limit the possible meaning of a preceding - tell you something about a preceding subject,
subject. but they do not limit, or restrict, the meaning of
that subject.

Examples
1. The suspect in the lineup who has red hair 1. The suspect in the lineup, who owns a red
committed the crime. car, c
committed the crime.
When choosing between "that" and "which," use "that" to introduce a restrictive clause and
"which" to introduce a nonrestrictive clause. Although some writers use "which" to introduce a
restrictive clause, the traditional practice is to use "that" to introduce a restrictive clause and
"which" to introduce a nonrestrictive clause. When writing a restrictive clause, do not place a
 English for Academic and Professional Purposes
7
Writing a Position Paper

comma before "that." When writing a nonrestrictive clause, do place a comma before "which."

1. The store honored the complaints that were 1. The store honored the complaints, which
less were
than 60 days old. less than 60 days old.
Place proper punctuation around nonrestrictive clauses, but do not place punctuation around
restrictive clauses. When a nonrestrictive clause appears in the middle of a sentence, place commas
around it. When a nonrestrictive clause appears at the end of a sentence, place a comma before it
and a period after it. Do not punctuate restrictive clauses.

Non – restrictive Clause

Restrictive Clause

Example: Example :
1. The boat that sailed on October 25 is 1. The 1964 Ford Mustang, which
the propelled
one to which we referred in the Lee Iacocca to the top of the
contract. automobile
industry, is now considered a classic.
2. The credit card is in my wallet, which
you can find in the kitchen drawer.

Glossary
Assert - to state with assurance, confidence, or force; state strongly or positively
Counterclaim - a claim set up in opposition to another.
Point of view - comes from the Latin word, “punctum visus”, which literally
means point sight, suggesting it’s where you point your sight. A point of view in a
discussion, an argument, or nonfiction writing is an opinion, the way you think
about a subject.
Position Paper - a formal, usually detailed written statement regarding a single
issue, that articulates a position, or a viewpoint that recommends a particular
course of action.
Proposition - the act of offering or suggesting something to be considered,
accepted, adopted, or done.
Refutation - is simply disproving an opposing argument. It is an important
rhetorical skill because it is frequently the hinge point as to whether or not a
writer or speaker successfully persuades the audience.

References and Supplementary Materials

Books
Celce – Murcia, M. and Larsen Freeman, D. (200). An ESL/ EFL Teacher’s
Course. 2nd Edition. Singapore. Heinle .
Course Module
 Dapat, JR, O( 2013) Applied English for Academic and Professional Services.
Manila , Philippines. JFS Publishing
Online Supplementary Reading Materials
Easy Steps to Write a Position Paper
https://letterpile.com/writing/How-to-Write-a-Position-Paper-which-
argues-a-claim. Retrieved on 11 June 2017

How to Write a Position Paper

http://www.xavier.edu/library/students/documents/position_paper.pdf
Retrieved 11 June 2017

What is a Counter Argument?- Definition & Examples

Study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-counterargument-definition-
examples-quiz.html.

Online Instructional Videos

The Great Global Warming Swindle
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=Great+Glo
bal+warming+Swindle+by+S.+Fred+Singer#id=2&vid=2b81280452e1c1ee9
a41b21b4223ee79 &action= click. Retrieved June 7, 2017

Position Statement: Definition & Examples

http://study.com/academy/lesson/position-statement-definition-
examples.html. Retrieved 26 July 2017