FORMATION OF ARGUMENT

 All writing has some kind of narrative

structure,
 it is an account or "story" of the issues that
you are writing about.
 Constructing the narrative can be a
problematic issue as there are many
directions to follow when you have identified
a specific topic and many ways in which you
could argue your case.
 The basic academic narrative is firstly
functional. This means it is used to
achieve some kind of descriptive,
discursive or analytical purpose (among
other purposes).

 Academic writing general follows a

variation on a particular pattern
 Claim: statement to be
justified/proven/upheld
 Thesis: positive statement or declaration
to be supported with reasons and evidence
 Premise: a statement or assumption that
is established before an argument is begun
 Grounds: the reasons, support, and
evidence to support your claim
 Warrant: a stated or unstated belief, rule,
or principle that underlies an argument
 Claims are supported with reasons. You
can usually state a reason as a “because
clause attached to a claim statement.
 A “because” clause attached to a claim is
an incomplete logical structure called an
enthymeme. To complete the logical
structure, the unstated assumptions must
be articulated.
 To serve as an effective starting point for
the argument, this unstated assumption
should be a belief, value, or principle
that the audience grants or allows.
A=B

B=C

Therefore,

A=C
 After-school
jobs are bad for teenagers
because they take away study time.

 Includes a claim with a reason expressed as a

“because” clause. To render this enthymeme
logically complete, you must supply an
unstated assumption or a warrant.
CLAIM: After-school jobs are bad
for teenagers.

REASON: Because they take away

study time

WARRANT: Loss of study time is bad.

 GROUNDS are the supporting evidence—data,
facts, statistics, testimony, or examples—that
cause you to make your claim. They are
collectively all the evidence you use to
support a reason.
 Grounds answers the question “How do you
know?”
 BACKING is the argument that supports the
warrant, or underlying assumption.
 In some cases, successful arguments require
just three components: a claim, a reason,
and grounds. However, if the audience
questions or doubts the warrant, the writer
needs to provide support for that argument.
 Grounds: (jobs take away study time)
data/evidence showing that after-school jobs
take away study time
 (exs. of teenagers who work late and don’t
study, statistics showing that teenagers with
jobs study less that those without jobs,
testimony from teachers that working
students study less that those with jobs)
 Argument showing why loss of study time is
bad (it leads to lower grades, to inadequate
preparation for college, to less enjoyment of
school, to lower self-image as a student,
etc.)
1. THE INTRODUCTION
2. THE NARRATION
3. THE CONFIRMATION
4. THE REFUTATION AND CONCESSION
5. THE SUMMATION
 THE INTRODUCTION
 warms up the audience
(with an analogy or parallel case, a personal statement)
 capture your audience’s interest
(quotation, a shocking statistic or by restating a problem or
controversy)
 establishes goodwill and rapport with the
readers
 announces the general theme or thesis of
the argument.
 set out your point of view for the argument
 THE NARRATION,
 summarizes relevant background material,
(background information, history, statistics)
 establish a context for your argument
(explain the situation to which your argument is responding)
 provides any information the audience needs to
know about the environment and circumstances that
produce the argument.
 set up the stakes-what’s at risk in this question.
(In academic writing, this often takes the form of a
literature review)

 THE CONFIRMATION
lays out in a logical order (usually strongest to
weakest or most obvious to most subtle)
 write the claims that support the thesis,
providing evidence for each claim.
 explain why you believe in your thesis
support by one by (bringing in facts, examples,
testimony, definitions, and so on.)
 a chain of reasoning
 THE REFUTATION
 looks at opposing viewpoints to the writer’s claims,
 anticipating objections from the audience, and
 allowing as much of the opposing viewpoints as possible
without weakening the thesis.

THE SUMMATION
 provides a strong conclusion,
amplifying the force of the argument,
 and showing the readers that this solution is the best at
meeting the circumstances.
 To standardize an argument is set it out in in the
standard form; “to set out its premises and
conclusion in clear, simple statements with premises
preceding the conclusion” (25).

In standardizing an argument we will assign an

identifier (a number, though it could just as well be
a letter or other symbol) to each statement so that
we can refer to specific statements efficiently.
It is a mistake to think that medical problems can be
treated solely by medication. That’s because medication
does not address psychological and lifestyle issues.
Medical problems are not purely biochemical. They
involve issues of attitude and way of life.

Standardized:
1. Medication does not address psychological and lifestyle
issues
2. Medical problems are not purely biochemical
3. Medical issues involve issues of attitude and way of life
Therefore,
4. Medical problems cannot be treated solely by
medication
 Each of the arguments that we have
standardized so far has the following
structure:

1 2 3

4
But not all arguments relate premises to
conclusions in this straightforward (independent)
way.
 Some arguments proceed in stages: A statement
that functions as a premise in one argument
becomes the conclusion to another.
 A subargument is a subordinate argument that is a
component of a larger argument (the “whole
argument”)
 In effect, you are asking your audience (a to
accept your premises as true and b) to accept that
your premises do in fact support your conclusion.
A subargument is useful, e.g., in establishing
premises that your audience might not already
accept.
A computer cannot cheat in a game, because
cheating requires deliberately breaking the rules in
order to win. A computer cannot deliberately break
the rules because it has no freedom of action.

1. A computer has no freedom of action, Thus,

2. A computer cannot deliberately break rules

3. Cheating requires deliberately breaking rules

Therefore,

4. A computer cannot cheat.

In this argument (as standardized) premises 2
and 3 directly support the conclusion, while
premise 1 supports premise 2 in a subargument.

This can be diagrammed as follows:

2
+ 3