1. Defining Argumentation
Picture of a comic strip where a man states “No, your face is a logical fallacy.” The comic is titled Debate Strategy: Win arguments with ad hominem attacks.

2. Arguments and Argumentation
What is the difference between argumentation and an argument?
Argumentation is the communicative process of advancing, supporting, criticizing, and modifying claims so that appropriate decision makers, defined by relevant spheres, may grant or deny adherence.
An argument refers to a single claim with its support.

3. Elements of Argumentation: Communication Process
establishes a framework to evaluate competing claims (issues).
creates a forum in which individuals can voice their perspective on an issue.
provides a structured process for meaning-making and reason-giving.

4. Elements of Argumentation: Adherence
Adherence – informed support of others for a claim
Audience-centered argumentation
Argumentation is a social-interactive process whose purpose is critical decision making
Adherence
Informed: people who commit to claim are consciously aware of the reasons for doing so.
Support: people stand ready to act on your claims, not simply grant lip service.

5. Elements of Argumentation: Appropriate Decision Makers
Appropriate Decision Makers – those necessary to the ultimate implementation of an argumentative claim (grant or deny adherence)
Empowered to act on the claim (versus powerful)
Likely to act on the claim (versus ability to act)

6. Elements of Argumentation: Claims
Claim – a statement that you want others to accept and to act on (to grant their adherence). It may be linked to other claims that constitute a case
Subclaim – a claim used to justify another claim
Example:
All of the following statements are claims. How could they be articulated together to form a case?
Long Beach City College has waitlisted 15,000 students.
California Community Colleges are cutting courses in case of budget cuts.
Proposition 30 provides billions of dollars to state colleges and universities.
Without Prop 30, schools and colleges face $20 billion in budget cuts.
THAT MEANS
Less classes
More waitlists
Higher tuition
Proposition 30, officially titled Temporary Taxes to Fund Education, is a California ballot measure that was decided by California voters at the statewide election on November 6, The initiative is a measure to increase taxes to prevent US$6 billion cuts to the education budget for California state schools.
Summary Prepared by the State Attorney General:Increases personal income tax on annual earnings over $250,000 for seven years.
Increases sales and use tax by ¼ cent for four years.
Allocates temporary tax revenues 89% to K-12 schools and 11% to community colleges.
Bars use of funds for administrative costs, but provides local school governing boards discretion to decide, in open meetings and subject to annual audit, how funds are to be spent.
Guarantees funding for public safety services realigned from state to local governments.
Fiscal Impact from the Legislative Analyst's Office:
Additional state tax revenues of about $6 billion annually from through Smaller amounts of additional revenue would be available in , , and
These additional revenues would be available to fund programs in the state budget. Spending reductions of about $6 billion in , mainly to education programs, would not take effect.
Meaning of Voting Yes/No
A YES vote on this measure means:The state would increase personal income taxes on high-income taxpayers for seven years and sales taxes for four years. The new tax revenues would be available to fund programs in the state budget.
A NO vote on this measure means:The state would not increase personal income taxes or sales taxes. State spending reductions, primarily to education programs, would take effect in

7. Elements of Argumentation: Types of Claims
Factual claims
Affirm that something exist in the material world and can be observed
Value Claim
Asserts the quality of a person, place, thing, or idea
Policy Claim
A claim that tells someone or some agency how to behave or what should be done
FACTUAL CLAIM
Adherence to the claim is based on objective evidence from reliable sources
All make assertions about what is, was, or will be.
All can be identified by some variety of the verb “to be,” e.g., is, are, were, was, will be, have been, etc.
VALUE CLAIM
Adherence cannot be gained simply with objective data
For each, the criteria (best/worst, moral/immoral, ugly/beautiful) cannot be determined by objective measure.
Value claims contain a judgment that cannot be verified outside the criteria of a particular decision-making context.

8. Elements of Argumentation: Types of Claims, ctd.
Distinguishing Claims
A single subject may produce a variety of claims
California is facing a unique budget crisis.
The California budget crisis is a threat to community colleges.
California’s budget should be reformed.
A single statement can contain multiple claims
Example: California colleges are facing growing pressure and need to be saved through policy reform.
What are the claims embedded in this statement?
What are the problems with this statement?
A SINGLE SUBJECT MAY PRODUCE A VARIETY OF CLAIMS
Each requires different analysis and kinds of argumentative support

9. Elements of Argument: Issues
Is the paralleling of two opposing claims stated as a question
Claims versus Issues
Not all claims result in issues, but any claim may become an issue
Issues emerge when a claim is met with disagreement
Issues
Issues should always be stated in a hypothetical form allowing only two responses: yes or no.
For example, by asking “Should…, will…, does…, can…, is..”. Not by asking “who…, what…, when…, where…, why…, how…”.

10. Elements of Argumentation: Proposition
A claim that expresses the judgment that decision makers are asked to accept or reject.
Example: The USFG should reform its immigration policy.
Immigration is at an all time high (fact)
Immigration is the most important political issue facing the nation (value)
Our current policy is broken (fact)
Reform of immigration policy will improve our national security (future fact)
A claim that expresses
May be fact, value, or policy oriented.
Arguers’ claims are organized into systems of claims and subclaims to support propositions.

11. Elements of Argumentation: Support
Whatever communication (both words and objects) is necessary and available to secure adherence
Types of support
Examples, statistics and testimony.
Social values, universal rights, community norms
Credibility

12. Elements of Argumentation: Criticism
Argumentation involves criticism of claims (arguments) with the potential to modify them
Refutation can:
Offer better alternative explanations
Demonstrate negative consequences of adherence to a claim
Demonstrate the inadequacy of a claim’s support
Demonstrate how a claim’s support is inappropriate (rules of evidence)

13. Critical Decision Making
Definition: choices made on the basis of clearly articulated arguments that: have been held open to refutation and disagreement, stands up to criticism, remains open to further criticism, and changes to adapt to contexts and criteria.

14. Five Elements of Critical Decision Making

15. 1: Acknowledge Uncertainty
Uncertainty is pervasive
Outcomes are probable and predictable but never certain.
Uncertainty is characteristic of this modern world.
Language is ambiguous
Language is interpretive
Language is open to more than one meaning
Connotation vs. denotation
The future is uncertain
Making decisions invariably commits us to actions now to be carried out in the future.
Argumentation comes into play when you must choose
Choice involves uncertainty

16. 2: Analysis
Analysis is the internal dialogue used to evaluate, assess, and examine the context for argument.
Who are the authorized decision makers to whom I should appeal?
In what spheres are those decision makers located?
Spheres are:
Groups of people with
predictable patterns of communicative behaviors which
are used in the production and evaluation of arguments

17. Elements of Critical Decision Making: Public Sphere
Description
Printing press: created an arena where citizens could discuss issues of common concern.
Changes in gender: in the late 18th/early 19th century, common spaces became heterosocial, meaning both men and women had access to social space.
Communicative characteristics
Disregard of status
Domain of common concern
Inclusivity

18. Elements of Critical Decision Making: Private Sphere
Description
If the public sphere is the arena of common concern, the private sphere is associated with personal, familial, and domestic concerns.
Traditionally the sphere that concerns domestic issues; traditionally associated with women’s labor.
Communicative characteristic
Activity is spontaneous and negotiated through dialogue
Intersubjective and interpersonal in nature
Repetitive behavior (less chance for critical decision making).

19. Elements of Critical Decision Making: Technical Sphere
Description
Highly specialized realm of argument
Specialized knowledge and training
Communicative characteristics
Formal argumentative patterns
Field—special criteria for the appraisal of arguments in a particular sphere
Jargon—use of specialized language and knowledge

20. 3: Dialectic
Definition: dialectic describes the social dialogue in which people seek to come to understanding by opening themselves to the thinking of others with an in learning or changing.
Traditionally, dialectic was a back-and-forth argument between two characters
Dialectic is a key component of argument that allows arguers to identify and address weaknesses in their arguments.
Hegel’s dialectic
Thesis/antithesis
Synthesis
Putting an argument and its counterargument into dialogue allows the parties to see new solutions to old social problems.

21. 4: Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the ability to use all of the available means of persuasion to construct a persuasive argument.
At a technical level, rhetoric is concerned with invention.
Rhetoric provides arguers with a process for constructing an argument that pays attention audience and probability.
Logical invention (logos)
Develop a claim
Develop support for the claim
Logos
Artistic Proof
Inartistic Proof
Ethos
Pathos

22. 5: Critically Reflect
Definition: critical thinking is a type of reasonable, reflective that focuses on what you should do or believe.
Reflection: being self-aware of your own prejudices and perceptions
Openness: being open minded towards new perspectives
Toleration of uncertainty: know that uncertainty is pervasive, language is uncertain, and the future is uncertain.

23. Ted Talks