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Blog Post 3: Chapter Four


In the beginning of chapter four of the Nature of Argumentation, the authors introduced a modification of Stephen Toulmin’s model for a better understanding about the parts of an argument and their interrelationships (73). The standard pattern of Toulmin’s model includes six factors: claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier and rebuttal/reservation (74). Here I will explain each of these factors and apply these six factors in my real life experience. First of all, an argument always starts with a claim, which states the idea for which people are looking for adherence. For example, I used to bring up a claim of “I should seriously consider getting a cat”, and it is the final goal of my argument and following reasoning. Second, there are grounds aim to offer prime source to support the claim in order to convince decision maker. In my case, the grounds could be a fact that cats can help reduce stress. But the grounds could hardly let the decision maker to grant adherence to the claim, so a third part, warrant, is needed for connecting the grounds to the claim. Therefore, to strengthen my claim of getting a cat, I could add a warrant that everyone has stress and it has been a more serious problem for both individual and the society. The fourth factor is backing, which plays the role of any support that provides more specific data for the grounds or warrant. In my case, I back up my grounds by finding some research online that there exist supportive data showing a positive correlation between having a cat and the decrease of anxiety in experiments. The fifth factor, qualifier, is included in some claims and is used for indicating the expression of the confidence in the claim. Here I use “seriously consider” in my claim and it reflects the extent to which I am willing to be responsible for the claim. The last factor is rebuttal/reservation. Putting a rebuttal is a chance for you to make your claim more more reasonable since you bring up questioned parts before opponents. So I could further add a rebuttal in my claim by saying that unless you believe that you are not stressful or you just dislike cats. In general, Toulmin’s model helps evaluate an intact and strong argument, and it is useful for us to understand the reasoning processes. But we should notice that not all arguments follow the whole model, and we should be flexible when it comes to analyzing an argument. 


Comments

  1. YiwanningOctober 2, 2018 at 5:50 PM

    Hey Yujia
    I had a lot of fun reading your post, I love your examples as a cat lover!
    I would like to make my own example which pair with yours, it will be cool to do it!

    Claim:I should seriously consider looking for a boyfriend.
    ground is: Having a boyfriend will efficiently develop my eloquence.
    Warrant: Everyone should develop their eloquence, because you never know when you will get into a serious fight, and you definitely don't want to lose it.
    Backing: From my research, every long-term relationship couple will fight with each other 3 times a week. And having fights occasionally can efficiently practice people's skill of making more rigorous claim, having the ability to strike back in a wrathful mood, as well as making critical decision.
    Qualifier: I add "seriously" in my claim too.
    Rebuttal: Unless you have a high profession of debates, or you just don't like boys.

    ReplyDelete

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