Parts of an Argument
What are the parts of an argument?
An argument consists of five major parts:
Claims
Your claim serves as the main point of your report or paper and should have the sole purpose of influencing how the reader acts or thinks. Your audience should understand why the claim is necessary and develop their own opinion about it, regardless of whether they agree with it. Thats why its vital that you appropriately communicate why the claim is important by:
Well-developed claims typically have a narrow focus. Additionally, they often utilize words like “often,” “most” and “many” instead of words like “always” or “all.”
Reasons
Your reasons explain why you are making your claim and they can be experiential, ethical or logical. Though reasoning itself is important, it should be founded on evidence.
Evidence
In order to convince readers to adopt your point of view, you have to provide evidence that supports your claim. Evidence can come in the form of data or facts that enable you to interpret or analyze your reasons. Its important that you supply evidence that is appropriate for your specific audience and has a higher likelihood of convincing them of the validity of your claim. To accomplish this, you should familiarize yourself with your audiences general priorities and values.
Aside from choosing evidence that is compelling for your readers, you should also make sure that you are gathering reliable information from trustworthy and authoritative sources. Make sure that you provide enough evidence to convince your audience and appropriately cite your sources. Some additional strategies for finding and using evidence that support your claims include:
Warrants
Warrants are the assumptions, shared beliefs and justifying principles that connect your evidence to your reasoning. Though warrants are based on logic, whether spoken or unspoken, you still must provide sufficient evidence to connect your claim with the warrant. For example, you could make an argument like: “I need a new coat because its getting cold and mine is too big on me.” In this case, your warrant, or shared belief, is that when clothes no longer fit appropriately, they should be replaced.
Though this warrant is common sense for most people and is ample justification for your claim that you need a new coat, you still have to supply evidence that your coat is actually ineffective to convince your audience to support your claim. Supporting your warrant with evidence is important because even when an audience shares your warrant, they could disagree with the evidence you present.
Conversely, some might disagree with your claim because they dont share your warrant. For instance, members of your audience could believe that your coat should be altered to fit you better rather than replaced altogether.
Acknowledgment and response
An effective argument acknowledges opposing positions and responds to them. This can benefit your argument because it:
When introducing an opposing point of view, its imperative that you do so fairly and objectively so as to avoid misrepresentation. In addition to being an ethical strategy, this also helps you build trust with your readers. Once you present the opposing viewpoint, acknowledge the parts of the argument that seem valid. This could cause you to concede certain points, challenging you to find common ground and moderate your claim.
You should also state and respond to points that you feel are invalid. Support your counterpoints and refutations with evidence.
What is an argument?
When writing a report or paper, an argument simply refers to the statement of a viewpoint on a topic that is then supported with evidence. Crafting a strong argument allows you to develop documents that are both informative and compelling. Effectively developing an argument requires that you take a stance about a particular issue, introduce the topic in a way that establishes your viewpoint as reasonable and provide reasoning and evidence that supports your point of view.
How to craft an effective argument
To write a well-developed argument, follow these simple steps:
Example arguments
Here are some example excerpts from different parts of an argument that you can use to guide you as you craft your own:
Example of a claim
This claim is effective because it has a narrow focus on an issue that can be adequately addressed in a paper or report.
“Parents should be given guaranteed parental leave upon the birth or introduction of a new child.”
Example of a reason
In order to be effective, the reason for your argument should make an appeal that is experiential, ethical or logical. This reason clearly states the basis for the claim and hints at the fact that it is based on evidence.
“By giving them guaranteed parental leave, parents have more time to acclimate to their new role, responsibilities and lifestyle, which can have a positive impact on their professional performance.”
Example of evidence
Your evidence should support your argument while also being compelling and credible. In this example, the source has established authority in this area, making it a convincing bit of evidence.
“In 2016, the National Library of Medicine published a study that found that companies that offered extended and paid parental leave experienced lower employee turnover rates.”
FAQ
What are the 5 parts of an argument?
What are the 3 parts of an argument?
What are the 5 elements of a strong argument?
- Claim;
- Reason;
- Evidence;
- Warrant;
- Acknowledgement and Response.
