AP® English Language and Composition · Big Idea 2
3.C Concession: Granting Part of the Other Side (CLE-1.AB)
Concession is admitting that an opposing point has real merit, while keeping your own claim standing. Done well, it narrows what you're defending instead of abandoning it.
A concession gives ground on purpose. A writer can concede scope (the claim only holds in some cases, not all), circumstances (a situation where the argument doesn't apply), or the limits of their own evidence (it covers less than it seems to). None of these moves touch the actual claim. They just mark its edges honestly, which is why readers trust a writer more after a good concession, not less. Refusing to admit any weakness reads as either naive or dishonest, and readers notice.
The trick is telling a concession apart from a surrender. Conceding a cost or a limitation means saying 'this is true, and my claim survives it anyway.' A writer defending a school phone ban can admit that parents lose the ability to reach their kids during the day. That's a real cost, but the claim was never that the ban is costless. It was that the benefits outweigh the costs, so admitting one cost leaves the actual argument untouched. The claim shrinks a little at the edges and gets harder to attack in the middle.
Concession turns dangerous when a writer gives up something their own evidence secretly needs. If an argument rests on a statistic, like a crime-rate drop pulled from city records, and the writer then concedes that the city's records are unreliable, that isn't a harmless edge. It knocks out the floor the claim stands on. This is why concession sits next to counterargument and rebuttal: a writer has to concede only what costs nothing essential, then rebut or refute whatever actually threatens the claim.
Key terms
- Concession
- An admission that part of an opposing position has merit, made without giving up one's own claim.
- Scope
- How broadly a claim is meant to apply, which a concession can narrow.
- Counterargument
- A position opposing the writer's claim that the writer addresses directly.
- Rebuttal
- A response that answers a counterargument without necessarily disproving it outright.
- Refutation
- A response that shows a counterargument is actually wrong or unsupported.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does a concession give ground on scope, on circumstances, or on the limits of one's own case?
- Worked exampleWalk me through conceding that phone bans frustrate parents while still arguing the ban should stand.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't conceding a point the same as abandoning the claim you came to defend?
- Going furtherWhat happens when a writer concedes something their own evidence quietly depends on?
Check yourself
End of topic.