The Toulmin Model

The Toulmin Model is a method of analyzing argument from the book The Uses of Argument by British Philosopher Stephen Toulmin. This model will help readers determine the arguments presented by a writer or speaker, as well as the complexity of argument. This is a tool that one can use to evaluate arguments- both those read or seen and those one will write.

Basic Toulmin Template to Use:

Because ____(data as support)____, therefore/so (claim) , since (warrant) .

·  Claim: an assertion

·  Data/Support: data used as evidence, reasons or grounds for the claim

·  Warrant: expresses the assumption necessarily shared by the speaker and the audience.

Advanced Toulmin Template to Use:

Because ____(data as support)____, therefore/so (claim with or without qualifier) , since (warrant) , because or on account of (backing) , unless (reservation).

·  Backing: consists of further assurances or data without which the warrant lacks authority.

·  Qualifier: when used (“usually,” “probably,” “in most cases,” “most likely”) restricts the use of the claim and limits its range, indicating the degree of strength delivered by the warrant.

·  Reservation: explains the terms and conditions necessitated by the qualifier.

·  Rebuttal: gives voice to objections, providing the conditions that might refute or rebut the warranted claim.

Example:

It is raining, so I should take my umbrella, since it would keep me dry because it is made of waterproof material, unless it has a hole in it.

·  Claim: I should take my umbrella

·  Data/Support: it is raining

·  Warrant: it will keep me dry.

·  Backing: umbrella is made of waterproof material

·  Reservation: unless there is a hole in it.

Excerpt from an Argument / Write the Toulmin Model
For instance, when Sarah Palin recently mangled the word ``repudiate'' (she kept saying ``refudiate'') she was roundly ridiculed because it fit neatly into an existing narrative: Palin's a dummy. Granted, it's a narrative she herself created and has helped maintain, beginning with bungling a softball question (what do you read?) from Katie Couric in 2008.
Still, it's worth noting that when President Obama mispronounced the word ``corpsman'' (``corpse-man,'' he said) some months back, it received much less notice. That's because there is no narrative that says Obama's a dummy. To the contrary, he's generally regarded, whatever one thinks of his politics, as a pretty sharp customer. So he got a break Palin did not.
-Leonard Pitts, Jr.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
But this is worse: that someday, sometime, you will be somewhere, maybe on a day like today--a berm overlooking a pond in Vermont, the lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. Maybe something bad will have happened: you will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something you wanted to succeed at very much. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for that core to sustain you. If you have been perfect all your life, and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where your core ought to be. Don't take that chance. Begin to say no to the Greek chorus that thinks it knows the parameters of a happy life when all it knows is the homogenization of human experience. Listen to that small voice from inside you, that tells you to go another way. George Eliot wrote, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." It is never too early, either. And it will make all the difference in the world. Take it from someone who has left the backpack full of bricks far behind. Every day feels light as a feather.
-Anna Quindlen
But this bullet had no innocence, did not
wish anyone well, you can’t tell us otherwise
by naming it mildly, this bullet was never the friend
of life, should not be granted immunity
by soft saying—friendly fire, straying death-eye,
why have we given the wrong weight to what we do?
-Naomi Shihab Nye