Writing Arguments

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Writing Arguments
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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.

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Elements of an Argument

• According to Toulmin, arguments are composed of
  three main elements
• Claims
• Data/Evidence
• Warrants

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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.

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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
  Pepsi-Cola.
• A good claim is typically hypotactic (i.e., it
  uses subordinate clauses).  Simple sentences
  rarely comprehend enough complexity to do justice
  to a well-conceived opinion.

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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.
• On a piece of paper, please explain why these
  claims are good or bad. Show this to your teacher
  as evidence that you have completed this much of
  the online workshop.

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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.

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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
  objectively grasped and is not unique to you.
  Personal experience can, however, help bring an
  argument to life.

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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?"

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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 counter-arguments.

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Warrant Exercise

• Find warrants which will interpret the data to
  support the claim in the following passages
• Claim President XYZ 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
• Write down all possible warrants and show your
  teacher your work.

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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
• Write down all possible warrants and show your
  teacher your work.Now, go back and attack the
  warrant 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? Show your teacher your work.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
• Feelings
• Distraction from the Argument
• Misinformation
• Generalization
• Irrelevant Connections

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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

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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.

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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 societys 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Logical Fallacies

• Irrelevant Connections Some writers 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.

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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.

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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, thats 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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Refutation of Counter-Arguments

• In classical arguments, after the claim came the
  refutation of the oppositions arguments or what
  is called the counter-arguments. You do not
  necessarily have to refute the oppositions
  arguments in a separate section however,
  sometimes this works. Most writers interweave the
  counter-arguments with the authors arguments. In
  any case, you must fairly examine and refute the
  oppositions 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.

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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 importanta strategy
  that creates a natural buildsometimes 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.

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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.

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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)
Toulmins argumentative structure, 2) strong
argumentative strategies (and especially logical
fallacies), and 3) a coherent form or structure
of the essay.