Eight argument components

Hopefully, you'll find each of the argument components intuitive as we explore them, and you'll think, "I've seen that before! I see that all the time!"

However, in going through each component in isolation, it's possible you'll start to get confused about how they fit together, so here's a quick visual preview all on one page.

It doesn't matter if you don't understand every detail right now. We'll explain everything in the rest of this lesson and review this visualisation again at the end.

1. ISSUE

Every argument begins with an issue: a contested question or problem that needs to be resolved.

2. CLAIM

To resolve the issue, we make a claim, which is the answer or conclusion we want the audience to accept.

3. REASON

To get our audience to agree with our conclusion, we provide a reason, which is a because statement that justifies our claim.

It needs to be causally linked to the claim.

(CORE ARGUMENT)

Taken together, a claim plus a reason is the smallest possible argument, what we call a core argument: this solution because this reason.

4. EVIDENCE

Sometimes, a core argument is all you need to convince an audience.

However, most of the time you need to provide evidence: facts, data, and other material that are connected through reasoning to support the core argument.

MULTIPLE PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Usually, we'd provide more than one piece of evidence to support an argument.

And evidence can come from many sources and take many forms: lived experience, research reports, data & charts, and so on.

5. LIMITS

The world is complicated, and it's impossible to know everything for certain, so in complex arguments we often limit the scope and certainty of different parts of the argument.

We might do this to make our argument a smaller target for attackers or we might do it in order to be more honest and accurate.

6. REBUTTAL

Because arguments are about contested issues, they are subject to dispute. Counter-claims and evidence that challenge an argument are called rebuttals.

A well-crafted argument will often anticipate objections either by limiting its scope and certainty or by pre-emptively addressing the rebuttals and providing counter-rebuttals).

7. ASSUMPTIONS

If everything is potentially a contested claim, how do we establish a ground truth?

Since we can't include every fact or respond to every objection, we eventually have to make some assumptions.

What key facts do the audience need to believe, and what values do they need to hold, for our reasoning to make sense?

These assumptions exist whether or not the argument mentions them!

8. BACKING

In case you hadn't noticed, our assumptions are also claims, which means they have their own unstated evidence that supports the assumptions.

We call this assumed evidence backing.

(CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS)

While the assumptions and backing behind an argument might be invisible and unstated, they are there—which means they can be exposed and challenged.

Often this is one of the key lines of attack in an argument: exposing faulty or problematic assumptions, attacking their backing, and suggesting alternatives.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

That's argument structure in a nutshell!

Here's a simplified diagram that lists the components without showing how they fan out in a coral-like structure in actual arguments.