0.5 Writing module three: five essential parts of argument  (Page 5/5)

Evaluate and revise reasons

Consider the specific needs and perspectives of your audience and select reasons that will connect to their priorities and motivations. Make sure that you provide ample reasons for each claim or subclaim you assert. Order your reasons in a way that is logical and compelling: Depending on your argument, you may want to lead with your best reason or save your strongest reason for last. Finally, ask yourself whether any essential evidence is missing from your discussion of the problem.

Think:

• Do your reasons make a strong case for the validity of your claim?
• Can you imagine other reasons that would appeal more strongly to your audience?

Assess and improve evidence

If there are authorities to appeal to, experts who agree, or compelling facts that support your argument, make sure you have included them in full. Whether you are speaking from experience, research, or reading, make sure to situate yourself firmly in your field. Create confidence in your authority and establish the trustworthiness of your account.

• Have you consulted reputable sources?
• Have you conducted your research and formatted your findings according to accepted standards?

Think:

• What does your audience need to know to appreciate the solution you propose?
• What makes it easy or difficult to accept?
• What further support might you offer?

Scrutinize your warrants

If you can’t articulate the connection between what you claim and why you believe the audience should accept your assertion, your readers probably can’t either! Good warrants often take the form of assumptions shared by individuals, communities or organizations. They stem from a shared culture, experience, or perspective. If understanding your claim means sharing a particular set of beliefs or establishing common ground with your reader, make sure your argument takes time to do so.

Think:

• Can your audience easily connect your claim to your reasons?
• Are your warrants shared? Explicit? Implied?
• What unspoken agreements do your conclusions depend upon?

Concede and explain

Gracefully acknowledge potential objections when it can produce trust and reinforce the fairness and authority of your perspective. Try to anticipate the difficulties that different types of readers might have with your evidence or reasoning

Think:

• Where are my readers most likely to object or feel unsettled?
• How can I concede potential problems while still advancing the authority of my claim?

Assessing and revising your argument

By way of conclusion, we can revisit the issue of method. LRS encourages thinking about the parts of argument in order to produce logic that is

• easy to understand, and
• easy to acknowledge or accept.

Argument structures comprehension by giving readers a framework within which to understand a given discussion. Argument supplies criteria for judgment, and connects reasons with claims through implicit or explicit warrants. Sometimes, crafting a good argument is as simple as asking yourself three basic questions:

• What do you want to say?
• Why should readers care?
• Why should readers agree?

When you set about answering these questions using the five parts of argument, you will hone introductions and thesis statements to make clear and precise claims, make relevant costs and benefits explicit, and connect reasons and evidence through shared and compelling warrants.

Examples taken or adapted from:

• Williams, J. (2005). Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. (8th ed.). New York: Pearson.
• Williams, J., Colomb, G. (2003). The Craft of Argument. (Concise ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.