It also claims a solution, convincing its audience of the validity of that solution with evidence and reasons that it will accept. Now you can begin to imagine what it will take to convince your audience. What evidence, methods, or models do they expect?
What conventions must you follow to win approval? The questions that lead to your topic, broadly conceived, also steer you toward what The Craft of Argument formalizes in the five parts of argument. Your claim is your main point. It should either be clearly conceptual seeking to change how we think or clearly pragmatic seeking to change how we act.
Claims should, by definition, require good reasons. Audiences should be able to disagree with your claim and, by extension, to be convinced and converted by your evidence. Most arguers know from experience that reasons and evidence help to convince audiences. In the simplest terms, reasons answer the question: "Why are you making that claim?
When stating reasons, always be aware of your audience. You will need to choose the reasons that support your evidence that are also the most likely to convince your specific readers or listeners.
Knowing the general values and priorities of your readers will help you to determine what they will count as compelling reasons.
Knowing what kind of arguments and evidence they will expect from you will guide you in choosing reasons that meet those expectations. Tailor your appeal to the specific needs and acknowledged concerns of your reading community, because arguments are always audience specific.
Evidence should be reliable and based upon authoritative and trustworthy research and sources. It should be appropriately cited, and ample enough to convince.
Evidence should also be designed to appeal to your target audience's values and priorities. The words reason and evidence are much more familiar to most students of written and oral argument than the term warrant. But reasons and evidence are most powerful when they are utilized within the structure of argument we have been discussing. To be convincing, the reasons and evidence you present in support of your claim need to be connected through warrants.
Warrants express a general belief or principle in a way that influences or explains our judgments in specific cases. Take, for example, the old saying: "Measure twice, cut once".
Expressing as it does a general belief or principle — that when you take the time to do a thing properly, you don't make mistakes — the saying provides a viable warrant for an argument like:. Warrants express justifying principles, shared beliefs, or general assumptions. They are the spoken or unspoken logic that connects your reasons to your evidence.
Warrants take many forms, but Williams and Colomb emphasize that they always have or imply two parts:. Warrants often take the form: Whenever X, then Y. For example, take the commonly held belief expressed by the old saying "When it rains, it pours". The same sentiment and set of assumptions could be described by the general truism "If one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong". Whether implied or explicit, and whether it takes the form of a general observation or a cultural belief, a warrant states a broader principle that can be applied in a particular case to justify the thinking behind an argument.
We want to say that although in the beginning we had good reasons to think that the argument is a good one, later on we discover that it wasn't a good argument to begin with. In other words, the argument doesn't change from being a good argument to a bad argument. It is just that we change our mind about whether the argument is a good one in light of new information.
We think there are are reasons for preferring this way of describing the situation, and it is quite a natural way of speaking. So there are actually two ways to use the term "good argument". We have adopted one usage here and it is fine if you want to use it differently. We think the ordinary meaning of the term is not precise enough to dictate a particular usage.
What is important is to know very clearly how you are using it and what the consequences are as a result. Introduction A What is an argument? The standard format A Validity A Soundness A Valid patterns A Validity and relevance A Hidden Assumptions A Inductive Reasoning A Good Arguments A Argument mapping A Analogical Arguments A More valid patterns A Arguing with other people Quote of the page Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.
Popular pages What is critical thinking? What is logic? Hardest logic puzzle ever Free miniguide What is an argument? Knights and knaves puzzles Logic puzzles What is a good argument? Improving critical thinking Analogical arguments.
What is a good argument? Criterion 1 : A good argument must have true premises This means that if we have an argument with one or more false premises, then it is not a good argument. Criterion 2 : A good argument must be either valid or strong Is validity a necessary condition for a good argument? Example: All whales are mammals. All mammals are warm-blooded. Thanks to the wonderful lecturers and the great community of Good course 01 Jul, Excellent course, move at your o It is better than I expected 14 Sep, Very useful, clear and fun 17 Oct, It is also fun as lecturers make funny comments and jokes related Easy to understa Thanks for this wonderful course.
I enjoyed it very much and I learned a lot too. Best regards,. The presenters were very engaging and clear communicators — We now have all the ingredients to be able to tell when arguments are good or bad. Want to keep learning? This content is taken from The University of Auckland online course,. If there is a purple elephant in the hall, then I am a giant turkey.
Then the argument is sound, and is, therefore, good. Otherwise, you may have a non-deductive argument, in which case the argument is either strong or weak. When the argument is weak, the argument is bad. You could say that the premises fail to provide support for the conclusion altogether. Firstly, the argument has false premises. In this case, the argument is not cogent.
Game over, the argument is bad. For example:. If you smoke pot, even only once in your life, you are very likely to start using heroin. You do smoke pot, and therefore, you will probably start using heroin. Then the argument is cogent, and is, therefore, good.
Therefore, probably, humans are causing global warming. If you are a confident driver and have never been in an accident, then driving over the speed limit is not dangerous for you or others. Including this relevant information thus avoids the problem of one-sided arguments. Despite the importance of doing so, some may find it difficult to immediately think of possible objections to their arguments.
The writing center at the University of North Carolina has three suggestions :. Research the topic. Different sources will have different perspectives on the issue. Talk with someone else about your argument. Meeting with your professor or talking to people in your class is a great way to find out possible objections to your argument. Imagine a hypothetical person who denies all of your premises and conclusion. Arguing with this person will enable you to defend your argument against objections.
Alternatively, it could also enable you to adapt your stance to accomodate such critics. Failing to do so is a logical fallacy known as constructing a " strawman. Addressing counterarguments and objections often takes one of the following forms when writing. At the most basic level, addressing these concerns means offering reasons to prefer your own argument to other ones. Addressing objections can involve different types of responses.
One could claim that, despite the truth of an objection, one's own argument should still be preferred. Alternatively, one can specifically argue against the cogency truth or validity of a counterargument. The Third Characteristic: Logical Validity.
An argument is valid only if it is not possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. In the above example of a good argument, it is not possible for both of the premises that if it is raining, the ground is wet; and that it is raining to be true and the conclusion the ground is wet to be false.
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