Choosing Your Move
IntroducedPick the move your evidence can pay for
- Deciding to address a counterargument is one decision; deciding how is another.
- Refute if you have evidence that demonstrates invalidity. Rebut if you have a contrasting perspective. Concede if you have neither.
- The commonest exam mistake is attempting a refutation on rebuttal-grade evidence.
You cannot refute a claim by giving it a stern look; the evidence has to do the work.
You have a contrasting perspective but no evidence of invalidity. The right move is to...
A rebuttal proposes invalidity; attempting a refutation without evidence is the commonest exam mistake.
Conceding is the strongest move you can always afford
- A concession costs the claim you gave up and nothing else.
- It buys credibility, and the reader who reads your next paragraph now believes you weigh things.
- Acknowledging a limitation of your own argument is a concession that costs no ground at all.
A concession costs only the ____ you gave up.
And it buys credibility with the reader who reads your next paragraph.
Signal the move with a transition
- Transitions introduce counterarguments and tell the reader which move is coming.
- Admittedly / it is true that signal a concession; however / yet signal the turn back.
- A counterargument with no signal reads as the writer changing their mind.
The turn after a concession may re-argue exactly what was conceded.
That withdraws the concession — turn on different ground and make the turn narrower.
The turn must be narrower than the concession. If you concede that costs are high and then turn by claiming costs are not really high, you have withdrawn the concession — and a reader who saw it given will see it taken back. Turn on a different ground from the one you gave up.
Choose the qualifying move for the situation
Concede, rebut and refute admit different amounts, and the choice is evidence-driven.
Put the concede-then-turn structure in order.
Naming the objection first is what makes the concession read as judgement rather than retreat.
Concede-then-turn
- The safest structure: name the strongest objection, concede exactly what is true in it, then turn.
- The turn must be narrower than the concession, or you have taken back what you gave.
- "The cost objection is right; what it does not reach is the case for the second year."
Match each piece of evidence to the move it can pay for.
Attempting a move your evidence cannot pay for is what a reader notices.
Check what you actually did
- Find your counterargument paragraph and name your own move: concede, rebut or refute.
- If you cannot name it, the reader cannot either.
- If you named refute, point at the evidence — if you cannot, it was a rebuttal, and should be worded as one.
Concede: "The first-year cost is high — the objection is right about that." Turn: "What it does not reach is the second year, where the same programme costs a third as much." The concession stands; the turn happens somewhere else.
Match the move to your evidence: refute only with evidence that demonstrates invalidity, rebut with a contrasting perspective, concede when you have neither — and a concession costs only the claim you gave up. Signal every move with a transition, and make the turn narrower than the concession.