Homework help for writing assignment

610: communicating for career success

WRITING OR PRESENTING A PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS ARGUMENT

The simple template on the next page helps you organize a problem diagnosis argument. The focus of this type of argument is defining a problem and identifying and proving its causes. You should first define the problem you are diagnosing. If you don’t do that, your argument of causes will not be persuasive because the audience won’t know what you are diagnosing (and you may not be certain of that either!) Sometimes you and members of your audience may disagree on what the problem is. In that situation, you may have to argue your problem definition.

Your diagnosis identifies the major causes of the problem and then proves each one with evidence. The proof shows how each cause contributes to the problem. Arrange the causes in order of importance, from most important to least.

How do you identify causes in a situation and compile evidence about them? You should use whatever specialized analytical tools are available that are relevant to the situation. For example, there are a large number of business disciplines that have concepts, frameworks, and quantitative tools that can be used to investigate the causes of a problem. Leadership has a variety of models and concepts that can be helpful for a diagnosis of why a transition from one leader to another was disastrous for the organization. When applied to relevant situations, specialized analytical tools help you see and understand things you would miss if you were only using intuition or past experience.

Problem Diagnosis Argument Template

Definition of problem

Summary of major causes

Argument

Cause 1

a.

b.

c.

Cause 2

a.

b.

c.

Cause 3

a.

b.

c.

Action Steps (actions to mitigate the problem)

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Note: the choice of three pieces of evidence per cause is arbitrary–up to a point. You will likely have more than three pieces of evidence to prove a cause. However, one or two pieces of evidence could be too few to be persuasive.
Note: the three action steps are arbitrary. The number of action steps depends on the nature of the problem and time needed to solve it.