On the basis of an exemplary textual analysis, this paper shows that argumentative texts can be described as having a global problem-solving structure, and that in order to maintain this structure in translation, intersentence relations must be given careful attention. While the ‘problem-section’ inside such a structure is typically assertive in its illocutionary value, the ‘solution-section’ is typically directive. Such global characterizations are based on functional and hierarchical relations among sentences in the text. The author goes on to suggest that future translators be sensitized to such global structural features of each text-type they encounter, such that in attending to the translation of individual sentences, they do not alter the global structure of the text.