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ENG 1020 | VanKirk

Anatomy of an Argument
So you have amassed many sources through research. After reading some of them, you have
made up your mind about what you might argue for the Research Argument phase. Forming a
well-written argument is a technique that I suspect you’ve not had experience learning before.
So… here it is.

First, it’s important to know that an argument is based on a claim. We discussed earlier the five
different kinds of claims you can have: proposal, causal, definition, value, and rebuttal. The
trouble is, you can’t just state a claim and expect
people to believe you.

Question: How do you make people believe your claim?


Answer: You have to support it with evidence.
Evidence is anything you might situate in relation to
your claim to support it. A counterargument is when
you use a claim’s evidence to combat a competing
claim. However, it’s not enough to just plop evidence
down into your paper. You need to show your reader
how the evidence does in fact support your claim. This
is called a warrant. Warrants, in other words, are issues
of “common sense.” For instance, common sense says
that when a person falls, she will, under ordinary
circumstances, try to break her fall with her arms.

Warrants are in turn supported by backing. Backing are


studies or findings that hold a warrant to be true. So, to
continue with the previous warrant example, studies of
the brain that show reaction times to stress (the fall) and responses to that stress, could be the
backing for that warrant.

Finally, we have what’s called a qualification, which is an acknowledgement that other


possibilities might exist under different conditions. Again, returning to the earlier warrant
example of the fall, the qualification is “under ordinary circumstances.” Under what other
circumstances might a person not use her arms to help break her fall?

When formatting your argument, use the diagram to the right to help you remember the
structure and order of a strong argument.
ENG 1020 | VanKirk

(Not) Guilty?
Let’s say we have a bit of a mystery on our hands.
As seen in the image on the left, a woman is
accused of murdering a man. Let’s look at the
event.

The woman, Jane, returns home with her new


husband George after a night out at the bar. As
they climbed the steps of their house to go to bed
for the night, Jane says George fell down the steps
as he followed Jane up the steps. According to
Jane, it was the fall that killed him. What Jane does
not tell the investigators, but the investigators
learn after some detective work, is that George just took out a massive life insurance policy on
himself with Jane as the beneficiary.

Here is a list of some other observations:


— George’s body was found with a bruise around his wrist
— Jane’s body showed no sign of injury
— The second floor window was left open
— Jane had not appeared to be crying when the investigators arrived to the crime scene
— George’s blood-alcohol content was .158—way past the legal limit of .08
— Jane is missing an earring. When asked, she seemed surprised that it was missing. “I
suppose I must have left it at the bar,” she tells investigators.
— There is a set of footprints in the house that matches neither Jane nor George’s
footwear.

Using the evidence presented here to support it, let’s create an argument. Feel free to ask me
(Austin) for more information.

1. What is our claim? Should we qualify it?

2. What evidence do we have to support this claim?

3. What warrants do we have for these claims?

4. What might be a backing for one of our warrants? Where might we look?

5. What are some counterarguments? How might we combat them?

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