Components of an Academic Argument

Introduction

Toulmin's scheme may seem complex--too many concepts, too many terms--but it is a powerfully creative and critical tool.  My experience has been that a student's writing improves when he/she commits himself/herself to understanding and using Toulmin's scheme.  Such students begin to use evidence effectively, and they write papers with greater sensitivity to audience.  Toulmin's scheme holds students accountable for every part of their arguments, forcing them to question the foundations (assumptions) that underlie their claims.

Although Toulmin's scheme may be difficult initially, the effort it takes to learn it will be beneficial to you in the future.  Think: you work hard in other courses to learn complex systems--accounting, biology, calculus, physics--and each of those disciplines has a terminology and a taxonomy that requires time to learn.  Hence, my enthymeme: if you work hard to learn difficult material in other courses, then you can work hard to learn Toulmin's scheme.

Explanation and Example

What is an enthymeme?  An enthymeme is a claim with grounds.  A claim is an assertion (a declaration or a statement) open to question.  In an argument a person states his/her position in the form of a claim, which functions as the thesis of the argument.  In other words, a claim is an answer to a topical question.  An example of a topical question is: who will be our next chairperson?  A relevant claim: we must not choose Stephen as our chairperson.  Grounds (reasons and evidence) support a claim.  Words such as because, thus, since, consequently and therefore underscore the logical connection between claims and grounds.  To expand the aforementioned example into a framework for an argument: we must not choose Stephen as our next chairperson because he is too bossy.  It is better to list multiple reasons and/or evidence in order to make your argument stronger and to divide your persuasive task into a series of more manageable tasks.  Thus, some other reasons: he is mean, lazy, dumb, et cetera.  I may select several of the traits (reasons) or all of them, depending on which will persuade my audience.  Each line of reasoning needs a distinct section in my argument.  Furthermore, I must provide evidence that he is bossy (et cetera), asking those who work with him to offer testimony about his bossiness (et cetera).  In other words, certain evidence must support each reason.

To render my enthymeme logically complete--that is, to begin to build an effective argument--I must provide an assumption (a warrant)--a general, hypothetical statement--linking the claim with the grounds.  An example of a warrant: bossy people are bad committee chairs.  Because a warrant is also debatable (is also a claim), I must provide backing--justifications (moral principles, testimony of experts, references to texts, or empirical justifications) for the statement.  Thus, I need to explain that bossy people tend to bring out the worst, rather than the best, in those around them; that bossy people tend not to ask advice; that bossy people make bad decisions; et cetera.

Stephen may have some supporters on the committee, so I must prepare for possible rebuttals of grounds (counterevidence of his cooperativeness and kindness, for examples) and/or backing (counterevidence of the necessity of a bossy person who can make decisions, for example).  After I address such rebuttals, I must qualify my claim, depending on its strength.  Words and phrases such as few, rarely, some, sometimes, in some cases, often, it is possible, perhaps, possibly, et cetera make claims more precise and honest.  With respect to my argument, I will qualify my warrant (claim) as follows.  In most circumstances bossy people are bad committee chairs.

Remember: you must rhetorically appeal to your audience--to inform them, to persuade them, and/or to motivate them.  Your argument needs to be logical, emotional and ethical.

Advice

Initially formulating a list of grounds will break your argumentative task into a series of more manageable subtasks.  The framework (working thesis) of an argument consists of a claim and at least one reason.  However, a sequence of reasons and/or evidence will make your working thesis more informative, persuasive and/or motivational.  Remember, though, that each line of reasoning will need a distinct section in an argument.

A warrant is an assumption (often regularly evident in essays but not in speeches) that links a claim with grounds.  A warrant is a principle, value or belief an audience shares with you, guaranteeing the soundness of your argument.  Although an audience may agree with your warrant, you must provide backing--specific information that supports your grounds, each item in your sequence of reasons and/or evidence.  There are some general principles for the persuasive use of data.  I suggest you apply the STAR criteria to your data: sufficiency (Is there enough evidence?), typicality (Are the data representative and typical--that is, not extreme?), accuracy (Are the data accurate and current?), and relevance (Are the data relevant to the claim?).  Writers and speakers have numerous options for the kinds of evidence they can use in an argument: data from personal experience; data from interviews, questionnaires and/or surveys; data from research; statistical data; and hypothetical examples, cases and/or scenarios.  Each kind of evidence has strengths and weaknesses.

Before you present an argument to an audience, you must consider how your audience may refute it.  An adversarial audience may challenge your grounds, backing or both.  After such considerations, you must qualify your claim to limit its force and to indicate the degree of its probable truth.  When you qualify your claim, you transform it from a working thesis into a thesis.  The qualifier will remind you that real-world arguments almost never completely prove a claim.  Add words such as likely and probably to modify the strength of your claim.

Details

A general word refers to a group or class such as book or car.  Within those two classes are specific words.  In other words, a specific word is a member of a class.  For example, whereas book is general, novel is specific, and romantic novel is more specific.  Car is general; sports car is specific; Corvette is more specific; red Corvette is even more specific.

Words and their classes may be either general or specific, depending on their contexts.  If we compare book to nonfiction, nonfiction is specific, but if we compare nonfiction to biography, nonfiction is general.  Thus, a word may be general in one context but specific in another context.

One of the most important tasks a writer or speaker has is to capture details.  There are two ways to describe anything: with generalizations and with specifics.  It is impossible to write or speak about anything without making some general observations.  However, you will want to include both types of description.  The specifics may be sensory details and/or explicit objective details such as size, shape and color.  Specific details make one's writing more powerful, grounding the work in particular physical and emotional contexts.  Specific details can come from a writer's or speaker's experiences, memories or imagination.  With respect to experience, memory and imagination, writers and speakers use everyday details of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, not simply to record the events, places and times in their discourses, but also to make the events, places and times real for their audiences.

Notice the use of objective and sensory details in the following passage by Maya Angelou:
          The amount and variety of foods would have found approval
          on the menu of a Roman epicure.  Pans of fried chicken,
          covered with dishtowels, sat under benches next to a
          mountain of potato salad crammed with hard-boiled eggs.
          Whole rust-red sticks of bologna were clothed in cheese-
          cloth.  Homemade pickles and chow-chow, and baked country
          hams, aromatic with cloves and pineapples, vied for
          prominence.  Our steady customers had ordered cold
          watermelons, so Bailey and I chugged the striped-green fruit
          into the Coca-Cola box and filled all the tubs with ice as well
          as the big black wash pot that Momma used to boil her
          laundry.  Now they too lay sweating in the happy afternoon
          air.  The summer picnic gave ladies a chance to show off their
          baking hands.  On the barbecue pit, chickens and spareribs
          sputtered in their own fat and a sauce whose recipe was
          guarded in the family like a scandalous affair.  However, in
          the ecumenical light of the summer picnic every true baking
          artist could reveal her prize to the delight and criticism of the
          town.  Orange sponge cakes and dark brown mounds dripping
          Hershey's chocolate stood layer to layer with ice-white
          coconuts and light brown caramels.  Pound cakes sagged with
          their buttery weight and small children could no more resist
          licking the icings than their mothers could avoid slapping the
          sticky fingers.*
Maya Angelou easily could have written that the picnic was full of meat, accompaniments, fruit and sweets.  But to make the picnic more real, she includes such details as "a mountain of potato salad" (size), "Whole rust-red sticks of bologna" (shape), "Orange sponge cakes and dark mounds dripping Hershey's chocolate" (color), "the big black wash pot that Momma used to boil her laundry" (sight), "On the barbecue pit, chickens and spareribs sputtered in their own fat" (sound), "baked country hams, aromatic with cloves and pineapples" (smell), "Pound cakes sagged with their buttery weight" (taste), and "cold watermelons" (touch).

In academic and professional discourse, details are known as backing.  Backing is grounds in detail, grounds being reasons and/or evidence.  A thesis is a claim with grounds.  An example: I need to work this summer so that I can buy a new car.  The claim is "I need to work this summer," and the grounds is "so that I can buy a new car."  Let us suppose my parents disagree with me.  To convince them that I indeed need a new car, I must provide backing.  I tell them my car has over 150,000 miles, has been repaired 6 times in the past year, and has no air conditioner.  Such details not only make my argument more complete, but they help make my car more real.  You now know I own a rattletrap.

To create details, writers and speakers ask questions.  The journalistic questions--who, what, when, where, why and how--help writers and speakers generate information.  Such information, however, tends to be general.  To generate specific information, ask questions about the answers: what kinds of meat, accompaniments, fruit and sweets; what kind of rattletrap? 

Exercises 

Make the following categories more specific so that I will know exactly what to purchase when I go to the grocer: meat, dairy product, produce.

When a person is angry, sad or happy, you know he/she is such because his/her body language, facial expressions, diction, tone, et cetera reveal his/her mood.  He/she does not wear a sign that says "I'm angry," "I'm sad," or "I'm happy."  Successful writers do not use such labels because they are abstract in that everyone has a different conception of those emotions.  Everyone reacts differently to anger, sadness and happiness.  When you describe someone's mood, you must reveal his/her body language, facial expressions, diction, tone, et cetera so that the reader can envision the person as a unique individual.  Describe a boyfriend's or girlfriend's reaction when you told him/her that you no longer wanted to be his/her companion.
_______________________________________________________
          *Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (New York: Bantam, 1993) 115-16.