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Toulmin Method

Stephen Toulmin was a contemporary philosopher who broke down the anatomy of an argument. His book, The Uses of Argument, identifies 6 key elements of an argument -- The primary elements include the Claim, Grounds, and Warrant; the secondary elements include the Backing, Qualifier, and Rebuttal. 

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/historical_perspectives_on_argumentation/images/20190305Toulmin4.jpg

Toulmin's concept that through analyzing these elements of an argument, you could analyze the overall logic of any argument. 

The CLAIM, also known as the assertion of proposition, is what you want your audience to believe. 
The GROUNDS, or evidence, is why your audience should believe your claim. Importantly, this is not an opinion.
The WARRANT, or inferential leaf, is how the audience is able to connect the grounds to the claim. 

These make up the primary elements of an argument and determine if an argument holds any weight whatsoever. The following is the secondary elements of an argument that provide further context and scrutiny.

The BACKING provides context and credibility to your warrant.
The QUALIFIER either limits or clarifies the claim and can make an argument harder to shoot down immediately.
The REBUTTAL is the anticipation of counterarguments. Many arguments can be based in just a sequence of rebuttals. 

These 6 elements can be used to effectively analyze the validity of any argument in a vacuum, but it does have its limitations when applied to real world scenarios. Arguments can naturally be intertwined with human elements like emotions -- sometimes emotions trump logic in arguments and this process doesn't account for that. The best way to take Toulmin's method and apply it to online communication is to keep the framework in the back of you mind when analyzing any arguments but also recognizes that nothing is fool proof and there will always be exceptions. 

There was a lot of good content in this weeks learning materials, but I also went out and found a short YouTube video produced by Texas A&M University that does a great job of succinctly describing the strengths and weaknesses of the Toulmin Method, check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWnEbMZ0IaA


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