ENGL102 – Forming an Effective Argument: Claims, Grounds and Warrants
We will focus on the aspects of an effective argument as defined by logician Stephen Toulmin, beginning with the three most basic components: claims, grounds and warrants.
Claim – a claim is a debatable assertion about the nature of things (your thesis statement operates as your central claim). There are three types of claims: claims of fact, which assert what is factual and are empirically verifiable; claims of value, which represent moral or aesthetic judgments; and, claims of policy, which advocate or propose a course of action to be taken.
Grounds – the grounds provide the support or evidence for a claim. Grounds can be based in data, established on the grounds of the credibility of a source, or arrived at through analysis and reasoning.
Warrant – a warrant contains and traces the assumptions that connect the grounds to a claim, essentially explaining why and how the grounds provide support for the claim. Warrants may be based on ethos (authority of a source), logos (logical reasoning), or pathos (emotional appeals).
The need to identify claims and provide grounds and warrants works on a global level and a local level within an essay. Your thesis statement acts as the claim that will be supported and warranted throughout the essay; with that support, you will make additional, often smaller, claims that also require their own evidence and support.
Sample Arguments
Ronald Reagan’s likeness should be chiseled onto Mt. Rushmore, alongside Washington, Jefferson Lincoln and Roosevelt. Polls show Americans rank him with John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents of all time.
• Claim: policy: Ronald Reagan’s likeness should be chiseled onto Mt. Rushmore.
• Grounds: Polls show Americans rank him with JFK and Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents of all time.
• Warrant: value assumption: public popularity is a basis for determining whose face belongs on Mt. Rushmore.
How do you know WWE wrestling is fake?I’ll tell you how. You never see theresults printed in the Sports section ofthe newspaper.
• Claim: factual claim: WWE wrestling is fake.
• Grounds: The results are never reported in the Sports section of the newspaper.
• Warrant: argument from authority & sign reasoning: authority; newspapers only printthe results of legitimate sports. sign;newspaper coverage is a reliable sign of agenuine sport
Volatility in the stock marketwill probably persist for theforeseeable future. In a globaleconomy, changing circumstances anywhere in the world can create uncertainty.
• Claim: value/judgment:volatility in thestock market will probably persist for theforeseeable future.
• Grounds: In a global economy, changing circumstances anywhere in the world cancreate uncertainty.
• Warrant: cause-effect reasoning: political andeconomic uncertainties elsewhere producefluctuations in stock values in the U.S.
• Qualifier: probably
ENGL102 – Pushing the Argument Further: Backing, Qualifiers and Rebuttals
First, we talked about what I consider the three most basic and most important parts of an effective argument (using the terms and system set forth by Stephen Toulmin) – claims, grounds, and warrants.
When an assumption is unstated, it's called an implicit warrant; most often, an implicit warrant will rely on a generally accepted assumption. For example, in the Problem/Solution paper, you don’t need to state that one of the goals of a class is to teach students, and that part of your warrant could be implicit. Sometimes, however, the warrant may need to be stated because it is a powerful part of the argument. When the warrant is stated, it's called an explicit warrant.
When the explicit warrant is not broadly understood or broadly accepted, a writer may have to defend the warrant. The backing contains the “givens” that set up the theoretical basis for a warrant. Backing establishes the authority of the warrant; it is most easily thought of as the additional information that fully explains the connection the warrant is trying to make.
Claim – Juicy Fruit is the best-tasting gum.
Grounds - Consumer Reports survey compared the taste of Juicy Fruit with other types of gum.
Warrant - People trust research done by the Consumer Reports magazine.
Backing - Consumer Reports is not invested in the research. They do not care which gum tastes best. Consumer Reports uses research methods that are sound.
That last two pieces of Toulmin’s system for constructing or evaluating an argument deal with the nature of the claims you are trying to make: qualifiers and rebuttals. They establish boundaries of your claim, and, used properly, help insure that you aren’t claiming more than you can reasonably support and that you have considered all aspects of the issue.
A qualifier is a statement about how strong the claim is. The qualifier preserves or establishes the level of the argument’s tentativeness. It can apply to either claim or warrant, and should be made explicit and reasonable.
The qualifier can be as simple as a word choice; for example the difference between saying “students have no incentive under random grading” and “students have less incentive…”
A rebuttal is an exception to your claim. The rebuttal responds to perceived resistance to the argument. A good argument must acknowledge an opposing point of view in order to be considered complete.
For example, “While egalitarian grading may be appropriate for a graduate-level course, undergraduate students work better under the traditional system because they rely more on external motivation and incentives.”
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