1. Structure, using sources, and stuff like that
Argument
Structure, using sources, and stuff like that

2. Toulmin Model
Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument

3. Toulmin Method
Claim
Reason
Data
Warrant
Qualifier
Rebuttal

4. Claim
The Claim is your thesis, the overall argument you are making.
Claim

5. Claim The United States should abolish the death penalty.
(Note: examples are chosen for expediency and should not be taken as an attempt to influence your views on any given topic.)

6. Reasons
Claim
Reason

7. Reasons
Reasons are the major supports that bolster your claim, the larger ideas that demonstrate why you are right, or why the opposing arguments should not be listened to.

8. Reasons The United States should abolish the death penalty because:
Death sentences are given disproportionately to racial minorities.
No deterrent effect has been proven.
Executing a criminal costs more than life imprisonment.
The discovery of innocent people on death row indicates that mistakes are sometimes made.

9. Data
Claim
Reason
Data

10. Data
Data is the information that demonstrates the validity of your Reasons. These may include:
Statistics
Examples
Testimony (anecdotal evidence, interviews with experts)
Experiments/surveys/etc
Logic
Emotional appeals

11. Data The United States should abolish the death penalty because:
Death sentences are given disproportionately to racial minorities.
According to Amnesty International USE, “In a 1990 report, the non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office found ‘a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty’” (emphasis original).
Amnesty International USA also reports that, “the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.”
They further quote a study by Yale University that reports that, “African- American defendants receive the death penalty at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victims are white.”
As you can see, this is where your sources will become a factor.

12. Qualifier
Claim
Reason
Data
Warrant
Qualifier
Rebuttal

13. Qualifier
Expresses degree of force or certainty, may make exception to claim.
Although it is understandable that families of victims want murderers to be executed,

14. Rebuttal Refutes counterarguments/qualifier.
Although it is understandable that families of victims want murderers to be executed, our justice system must adhere to a higher standard of behavior. Given the possibility of executing an innocent person, we should abolish the death penalty.

15. Warrant
Claim
Reason
Data
Warrant
Qualifier
Rebuttal

16. Warrant
An underlying assumption on which the claim rests, one that is usually not spelled out, but that the writer assumes her audience shares/accepts.
Values
Knowledge
Logical connections

17. Warrant The United States should abolish the death penalty because:
Death sentences are given disproportionately to racial minorities.
Warrant: racial injustice is wrong, and should be eliminated. Racial injustice that results in death is sufficiently bad that we must guard against it as vigilantly as possible.
The discovery of innocent people on death row indicates that mistakes are sometimes made.
Warrant: Blackstone’s Formulation (“better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer“).

18. Toulmin Method
Claim
Reason
Data
Warrant
Qualifier
Rebuttal