A piece of argument

[Xinfu]

-He is a very prominent linguist, who has put forward a piece of argument. He thinks that dogs can wiggle their tails mainly because...

Do you think we can say the red words? Or have I to change it to AN argument or argumentS?

[wrholt]

In this context the words 'a piece of argument' do not sound natural to me. I prefer 'an argument'.

[Xinfu]

THank you~

But in what situation can we say a piece of argument?

[wrholt]

I have done some more investigation: specifically, I used Google to search for the phrase "a piece of argument", then I examined some of the results to see how the phrase was used.

Based on my investigation, I must concede that "a piece of argument" is acceptable in your context.

[Xinfu]

Thank you~

But the problem is, your words are authoritative enough as a native speaker; while Google contains many expressions not used by native speakers. May I ask, what made you change you mind?

[wrholt]

That's why I examined some of the results, rather than just looking to see whether there were results. I wanted to evaluate the quality of the writing in the articles that included the expression. There were enough examples of quailty writing that included the phrase 'a piece of argument' in a way that made sense that I was convinced that the expression is valid.

Some of those articles discuss writing, rhetoric and argument, which are topics about which I rarely read, and I am not very familiar with the accepted ways that experts write for other experts about these topics.

This does not necessarily mean that 'a piece of argument' is the best way to express your idea in your context. It seems that 'a piece of argument' typically refers to a specific document, such as a paper or a recording of an oral presentation. If you want to talk about the idea, rather than the document that present the idea, then something else may be better: 'an argument, a thesis, a theory".

[Xinfu]

Thank you~