Relationship between the Claim, Data, Warrants, and Backing (notes)

Claim
The assertion I shall try to persuade you to accept as true with or without qualifiers. The types of claims are: statements of value, policy or ethics.

Data/Grounds
The facts and/or logical reasons that demonstrate the truth of my claim: legal data (such as laws, policies, regulations and codes); scientific data, such as findings obtained from mathematical calculations and laboratory experiments (keep in mind that experiments such as DNA testing and ballistics analyses, used to help solve crimes, are an inherent part of legal data and are often referred to as forensic data); testimonial or experiential data, which is based on firsthand experience (for example, eyewitness testimony and oral histories as gathered by anthropologists), scholarly or documentary data (that is, data obtained from secondary sources published in book or electronic form; and 5. Statistical data, which may be obtained firsthand (in which case it would be akin to but not identical with scientific data unless the statistics were derived from laboratory experiment instead of, say, opinion polls.)

Like claims or arguments, the data or grounds must be presented as accurately and as unambiguously as possible (White Billings 115).

Warrant
Assurance that the data are based on solid principles, thus contributing to the validity and trustworthiness of the claim. Toulmin states in The Uses of Argument, “warrants indicate the bearing of [the] conclusion of the data already produced” (98). “By ‘bearing’ Toulmin is referring to the need for readers to recognize and accept an appropriate direction in which takes shape from claim to data to warrant. Warrants remind us of the humanizing dimension of argument: An argument, no matter how ‘Heated,’ must always be principled rather than stem from vague or questionable motives” (White Billings 115).

The warrants parallel the three types of classical appeals: Logical or scientific warrants, ethical or forensic-based warrants, emotional or artistic-based warrants

Backing
Assurance that the warrant is sound

The Qualifier
Claims are rarely absolute, that is the claim may be valid in many circumstance but not necessarily in all. If that is the case, an arguer would want to qualify the claim so that her readers would understand how she is limiting its range.

Outline
1. What issue am I going to investigate? [Juvenile offenders]

2. What is my claim? [For example, should juveniles be sentences as adults?]

3. What grounds (data) can I produce that would authenticate my claim [Testimonials from psychologists, convicted juveniles, law enforcement, parents, advocates; statistic, laws]

4. What backing can I give to my warrant? [Example: The incarceration of youth is society’s admission of failure to protect and help the most vulnerable in society. Locking up youth has not significantly affected crime in California. Locking up kids does not decrease juvenile violence which is often connected to dysfunction in the child’s home, if the child has a home. Juveniles affected by substance abuse and poverty]

5. In light of challenging views, how will I need to qualify my claim, if at all? [Example: Is there ever an instance where a kid is clearly a danger to him or herself or others? If so, what should society do?]

6. What concluding reflections can I give to my argument? [Enhancements to laws in California, court deals that the child might not understand, parents recent immigrants, sexually exploited, runaways—who is most vulnerable to participating in illegal activities or is no one immune?]

7. Using the above information, what can I say in my opening paragraph that would best introduce my argument and engage my reader’s attentions?