Writing Arguments
Dr. Gary Cale
What is an Argument?
• First of all, what it is not. It is not a fight.
Although you may, and probably should, feel
passionate about your topic, arguments are
supposed to be intellectual activities not dog
fights.
• However, an argument does involve two
opposing points of view. This means that you
must include the opposing side, even if only
briefly.
Elements of an Argument
According to Toulmin, arguments are composed
of three main elements:
• Claims
• Data/Evidence
• Warrants
Claims
Definition: A claim states your position on the issue you have
chosen to write about. It answers the questions: What point
will your paper try to make? and What belief or opinion will
you be defending?
•A good claim is not obvious. Why bother proving a point
nobody could disagree with?
•A good claim is engaging. Consider your audience's attention
span and make interesting claims which point out new ideas:
teach the reader something new.
•A good claim is not overly vague. Attacking enormous issues
whole leads only to generalizations and vague assertions; refrain
from making a book-size claim.
Claims
• A good claim is logical; it emerges from a reasonable
consideration of evidence. (Note: this does not mean that
evidence has only one logical interpretation. Reasonable
people often disagree.)
• A good claim is debatable. Claims that are purely factual and
claims that are only opinion fail this requirement. You cannot
argue matters of taste: e.g. Coca-Cola tastes better than PepsiCola.
• A good claim typically uses subordinate clauses. Simple
sentences rarely comprehend enough complexity to do justice
to a well-conceived opinion.
Claim Exercise
Which of the following sentences make(s) a good claim?
•Teachers are posed with many problems today.
•Polls show that today more minorities own businesses than ever
before.
•We must strive with every ounce of our national vigor to ensure
that America has a bright future and that truth and justice will
abide with us forever.
•Ophelia is my favorite character in Hamlet because she is the
most interesting.
•Though they seem innocuous, Hollywood movies are partially
responsible for reinforcing cultural stereotypes in America.
Data/Evidence
Definition: the evidence which you cite to support your
claim. Like a lawyer presenting evidence to a jury, you must
support your claim with facts; an unsupported claim is merely an
assertion.
Data can include the following:
•Facts or statistics: objectively determined data about your topic.
(Note: just what constitutes "objective" may be open to debate.)
•Expert opinion: the media and our essays are full of learned
opinions which you should cite frequently, both to support your
argument and to disagree with. Authors must be quoted and
properly cited in your paper.
Data/Evidence
• Personal anecdotes: the most difficult kind of data to use well,
for doing so requires a persuasive argument that your own
experience is universally applicable and is not unique to you.
Personal experience can, however, help bring an argument to
life.
Warrant
Definition: the warrant interprets the data and shows how it
supports your claim.
The warrant, in other words, explains why the data proves the
claim. In trials, lawyers for opposing sides often agree on the data
but hotly dispute the warrants. (And a defense attorney's failure
to offer strong warrants may result in a warrant for the
defendant's arrest.) A philosopher would say that the warrant
helps to answer the question, "What else must be true for this
proposition to hold?"
Warrant
•A good warrant will be a reasonable interpretation of facts.
•A good warrant will not make illogical interpretive leaps.
•A good warrant will not assume more than the evidence
supports.
•A good warrant may consider and respond to possible counterarguments.
Warrant Exercise
Find warrants which will interpret the data to support the claim in
the following passages:
Claim: President Obama should be applauded for his policies on
minority-owned businesses.
Data: The NYT reports that more minorities own businesses
today than ever before.
Warrant:
Claim: Any American can grow up to be the President.
Data: Joe Blow came from a poor town in a poor state to become
president.
Warrant:
Warrant Exercise
Find warrants which will interpret the data to support the claim in
the following passage:
Claim: The school system itself promotes racial tension in its effort
to provide America's children with a good education.
Data: There's a lot of racial tension in many schools these days.
Warrant:
Now, go back and attack the warrants you have just
formulated. How might the data be interpreted in ways that do not
support the claims?
Did you find the claims to be problematic? The data?
Three Appeals to Audience
While there's no infallible formula for winning over every reader
in every circumstance, you should learn how and when to use
three fundamental argumentative appeals. According to Aristotle,
a person who wants to convince another may appeal to that
person's reason (logos), ethics (ethos), or emotion (pathos).
If we think of these three appeals as independent and of the writer
as choosing just one, however, we miss the point. The writer's job
is to weave the various appeals into a single convincing
argument. As you continue to expand and develop your ideas,
look for ways of combining the three appeals to create a sound,
balanced argument.
Three Appeals: Reason
Much of the clear thinking we do in our everyday lives follows
logical principles, but in a less formal and systematic way than
the thinking of a research scientist. And for most occasions this
informal reasoning is adequate. Briefly, informal reasoning
requires clearly linking your general claims with concrete,
specific data.
When our thinking begins with specifics and moves toward a
generalization, we are moving inductively. So, for instance, if you
ate several hard, green apples and then draw the general
conclusion that all hard, green apples are sour, you would be
using inductive reasoning. Of course, if you only ate a couple
green apples before you reached your conclusion, you might be
over-generalizing. But more on logical fallacies later.
Three Appeals: Reason
Reasoning that moves in the opposite direction (from general to
specific) is called deductive reasoning. Here, you take a general
principle that you know to be true and use it to understand a specific
situation. For instance, you may know from experience that as a
general rule bad weather reduces business at the golf course. You
may also learn that today's weather will be cold and rainy. From
these two pieces of knowledge, you can produce a third, more
specific piece: Business at the golf course will be slow today.
Determine what is missing in this example: Bill never turns in his
assignments, so he'll fail the course.
Write down what is missing and show your teacher your work.
Three Appeals: Ethics
No matter how solid your reasoning, your audience may not
accept your argument unless they're also convinced that you're a
person of wisdom, honesty, and good will. If you misrepresent
the evidence, misunderstand the implications of your own value
structure, or seek to hurt some individual or group, you can
expect to alienate your readers. The best way to put ethical appeal
in your writing is to build a strong, healthy relationship with your
readers. Convince them that they can trust you to be fair, honest,
well-informed, and well-intentioned. Then, having established
that trust, don't betray it.
Three Appeals: Emotion
Many people believe that emotional appeals by their very nature
subvert reason and are therefore better left to TV hucksters than
to writers who want their ideas taken seriously. Because this
common view has some validity, emotional appeals must be used
with restraint and discretion, or they may prove
counterproductive. Nevertheless, while an argument founded
mostly on feelings and emotions may be superficial and biased,
an argument that is carefully reasoned and honestly presented
probably won't be hurt by a bit of pathos. In fact, it may be
helped.
Three Appeals: Emotion
One way to build pathos is to illustrate or dramatize an idea. This
may involve little more than folding short descriptive and
narrative examples into the argument. Are you arguing that your
city needs to take stiffer measures against drunk drivers? Why not
find a place to include a description of the face of a child who
was injured in an accident caused by drinking? Or you might
want to tell the story of a driver who caused several accidents
because the individual's license was never revoked. Including
such narrative and descriptive passages can help readers feel the
urgency of your proposition so that it gets beyond the level of
abstract intellectual speculation and becomes a matter of
immediate human concern.
Logical Fallacies
When you attempt to employ logic to support claims in your
papers, your reasoning is sometimes weakened because you are
presenting fallacious arguments. It is important for you to be able
to identify and eliminate fallacies in your writing. Although we
do not have time to go into detail on logical fallacies, I do want to
touch on some of the ones I see all the time in and out of the
school setting.
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Feelings
Distraction from the Argument
Misinformation
Generalization
Irrelevant Connections
Logical Fallacies
Logical fallacies weaken your arguments. Every writer needs to
become adept at spotting his/her fallacies. Every citizen must
become adept at spotting logical fallacies in the words of those in
authority.
Logical fallacies can be broken down into five categories:
• Feelings
• Distraction from the Argument
• Misinformation
• Generalization
• Irrelevant Connections
Logical Fallacies
Feelings: Quite often, writers appeal to their audiences' feelings
to attract attention to and elicit agreement with their ideas.
Although this can be effective, manipulating audience feelings is
not employing logic, and it does not make a writer's argument
stronger. Logical thinking never involves feelings.
• Appeal to Force: The writer threatens the audience, explicitly
or implicitly, with negative consequences if the claim is not
believed.
Ex: If you do not believe in God, you will go to hell.
Logical Fallacies
• Appeal to Pity: The writer begs for the approval of the
claim; the audience may agree because they feel sorry for the
arguer.
Ex: I cannot get a job because the public education system
failed me; I have to steal to survive. It is society's fault, not
mine. (Actually, it might be society’s fault.)
• Appeal to Gallery: The writer uses emotive language that will
produce a desired effect on a group or "gallery" of readers. By
appealing to the fears or interests of the audience, the writer
hopes to gain approval.
Ex: Same-sex marriage must be prohibited, or the family
structure as we know it will collapse.
Logical Fallacies
Distraction from the Argument: This type of fallacy often happens
when writers do not have strong support for their
claims. Distraction is also used if the opposition's view is strong
and logical; then, writers have a tendency to attack the context
instead of the argument.
• Attacking the Speaker (Ad Hominem): The writer reduces the
credibility of the opposition by attacking them personally for who
they are and not for what they say. The validity of logical reasoning
does not depend on the morality of the speaker.
Ex: Oprah Winfrey's diet advice is useless; she has had problems
with maintaining her weight for most of her life, bouncing back and
forth between being overweight and slender.
Logical Fallacies
•Shifted Burden of Proof: The writer challenges those with an
opposing view to defend their arguments; this puts the writer in a
position in which s/he can deny the opposition's assertions.
Ex: The author writes that animals shouldn't be killed because they
can feel pain, but he doesn't prove that they can. For his argument to
persuade me, he has to give me positive empirical evidence of animals'
ability to feel pain.
•Straw Man: The writer does not attack the argument that the
opposition sets forth. The arguer may attack one of the opposition's
points as if it were the whole argument, distort what the opposition is
attempting to express, or exaggerate the opposition's argument to the
point of satirizing it.
Ex: Al Gore's support of the discussion of sexual orientation issues
on ELLEN is dangerous: he advocates the exposure of children to
sexually explicit materials, which is wrong.
Logical Fallacies
Misinformation: Sometimes, writers present questionable or
ambiguous reasons to sustain their arguments. A logical
demonstration of a belief, however, must be conclusive and
convincing to be effective; any doubtful premises leads the
audience to believe that the conclusion is weak.
• From Ignorance: The writer's argument is simply that the
point has not been proven otherwise. The fact that the
counterclaim has not been proven does not make a claim
correct.
Ex: I believe in God because no one can prove
that a god doesn't exist.
Logical Fallacies
• False Cause: The writer points out as the cause of an event
something that is not the actual cause, or the writer has
insufficient evidence for making a causal link. If the identified
cause is not the real cause, nothing assures that the point of
discussion is true.
Ex: Because the Iranians have nuclear weapons, we should
attack them to protect ourselves.
• Questionable Premises: The writer's reasons for holding a
belief are not as obvious to the audience as they are to the writer,
and the writer does not back up the claim with enough
support. This fallacy also occurs when the writer introduces an
unsupported value judgment.
Ex: All judges are fair-minded individuals; therefore, Judge Ito
is fair in his decisions.
Logical Fallacies
Generalization: Some writers stereotype and generalize their
ideas to make a powerful statement. Writers must avoid
generalizations because once an exception is found, the argument
is discredited.
•Popularity: The writer bases the argument on the belief that if an
idea is held by a large group of people, it is true.
Ex: Millions of people are Marxists, so Marxist economic and
political theories are correct.
Logical Fallacies
•Particular Experiences: The writer makes a rule out of
particular experiences to support the claim. As soon as an
exception to the derived rule is found, the rule fails to support the
argument.
Ex: All Greek food causes illness; when I traveled through
Greece, I got food poisoning.
•Property in the Whole: The writer makes a claim based on the
belief that a whole always possesses the characteristics of its
parts, which is often untrue. Although this belief is sometimes
acceptable, it is not universally applicable, so the appropriateness
of using this idea must be determined on a case by case basis.
Ex: Since many of the students at St. Cloud State University
get A's, St. Cloud State must be a top-rated school.
Logical Fallacies
•False Alternative: The writer only presents some of the
alternatives for solving a problem when more possibilities exist
because the writer assumes that the list of alternatives created is
exhaustive.
Ex: In the United States, one can vote for either Democrats or
Republicans
Logical Fallacies
Irrelevant Connections: Some writer’s arguments fail not
because of the information given, but because of the types of
connections established between parts of the argument.
•Consecutive Relation: The writer assumes that because two
events occur consecutively or concurrently, they are causally
related.
Ex: I believe in supernatural beings because every time I drive
past the cemetery where my grandmother is buried, a light on my
dashboard flashes. Her spirit causes this because it never
happens otherwise.
Logical Fallacies
•Slippery Slope: The writer bases the claim on the assumption
that if a particular event occurs, so will other undesirable
events. However, there are no reasons to believe that the
subsequent events will occur. This fallacy is usually caused by
fear.
Ex: If we put limits on the right to bear arms, soon all of our
Constitutionally-given rights will be taken away.
•Two Wrongs Make a Right: The writer defends an action on
the grounds that someone else has done something similar.
Ex: Residents of St. Cloud should not have to recycle plastics
because those who live in Waite Park are not required to.
Logical Fallacies
• Circular Reasoning: The writer defends the claim by using the
conclusion as one of the premises to support the conclusion.
Ex: God exists because the Bible says so. The Bible is a
reliable source because it is the word of God.
Okay, that’s enough of that. Please now go through your own
papers and look for logical fallacies. Show your teacher what you
have found. I am willing to bet that you have any number of
fallacies present. Use this material as evidence that you have
completed this portion of the online workshop.
Form of an Argument
Arguments take many forms depending on the audience and
purpose. In general, however, they have six parts:
• Introduction or Lead
• The Back Story
• Claim or Proposition
• Refutation of Counter-Arguments
• Reasons
• Conclusions
Form: The Lead
In the lead, you will draw your reader into the argument, build
common ground, establish your tone and style, and establish
your credentials. You will probably clarify why the issue is
important. In other words, you will be building ethos.
(You will also give us a very good idea where we are heading in
your paper. See the workshop on Writing Good Leads for more
information.)
Form: The Back Story
In this section you will the story behind the argument and provide
any necessary background as well as clarify the issue by
explaining the situational context. Always characterize the issue
in terms that are favorable to your point of view.
Form: The Claim
Soon after the lead and the back story (remember, depending on
the issue and audience knowledge, you may not have to include
much back story), you must state your claim. A claim is, of
course, an arguable opinion. Most writers, especially if they are
arguing about a complex issue will also provide readers with an
organizing statement, a road map of sorts to show the reader
where they are going.
For example, sentence two is an organizing statement.
Although MTV programmers argue that Beavis and Butthead are nothing
more than cartoon characters, they are actually dangerous role models. They
promote cynical nihilism, violent misogyny, and the bankrupt morality of
situational ethics.
Refutation of Counter-Arguments
In classical arguments, after the claim came the refutation of the
opposition’s arguments or what is called the counter-arguments. You
do not necessarily have to refute the opposition’s arguments in a
separate section; however, sometimes this works. Most writers
interweave the counter-arguments with the author’s arguments. In
any case, you must fairly examine and refute the opposition’s
arguments the best you can. Sometimes this means merely
acknowledging that other opinions exist or conceding that they have
valid points. More often, though, it means systematically destroying
the other sides’ arguments via superior examples and reason. This
means, of course, that you must know what the other side thinks;
you cannot just know your side.
Form: Your Reasons
In this, the largest section of your paper, you will develop and
support your own case. You must rely primarily on reason, using
facts, examples, expert testimony or authority, statistics, and so
on. You must also determine how you will disclose your points.
Although many of us have been taught to go from least to most
important—a strategy that creates a natural build—sometimes
starting with your second most important point, then moving to
points of lesser importance, before delivering your best point, the
knockout punch, works best. This way you start strong, bury your
weakest points in the middle, and end with your best idea. You
end on a high note.
Form: Conclusions
Whatever you do, end strongly. You must finish with conviction.
After all, if you aren't convinced, why should your reader be?
You might end with an amplification (ringing conclusion), a
review of your main points, a reference to something in your
introduction, or a plea for action. You might also want to invite
and facilitate defections from the opposition.
Now What?
Now it is time for you to apply all this theory to your own work.
If you are working on an argumentative (or even persuasive)
paper, you should closely examine your paper for 1) Toulmin’s
argumentative structure, 2) strong argumentative strategies (and
especially logical fallacies), and 3) a coherent form or structure of
the essay.
Show your teacher how you have utilized the material in this
workshop so that you can receive 1.5 hours of credit. Print out
this last page as proof that you finished the online Argumentation
workshop.
Good luck and happy arguing!