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Crafting Strong Arguments: Steps to Effective Claims and Support

This guide explores the essential components of making a logical argument, including how to form a strong claim, present supporting evidence, and establish relevant warrants. It highlights the importance of knowing your audience, your material, and your argument. Key principles for constructing effective claims involve ensuring they are substantial, contestable, and specific. Practical pointers on evidence accuracy, precision, sufficiency, and authority are examined. Enhance your argumentative skills to present clearer, more persuasive messages in both papers and sermons.

Samuel
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Crafting Strong Arguments: Steps to Effective Claims and Support

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  1. Making Good Arguments How to make a claim and support it

  2. The problem with many sermons/papers is not that they are illogical but that they are Sub-logical.

  3. Why Argue? • 1. An argument is often an attempt to find out which views are better than others. Some conclusions can be supported by good reasons; others cannot. • 2. An argument is the way in which we defend the views that we believe can be supported.

  4. All arguments must have: • A Claim-What you want your readers to believe • Evidence-The grounds on which your readers should believe your claim Claim Evidence

  5. Warrants: The Warrant is- • The warrant of an argument is the general principle that bridges the claim and its supporting evidence. • The warrant answers questions not about whether the evidence is accurate but about whether it is relevant to your claim. • The warrant is the bridge between the claim and the evidence.

  6. Warrant Claim Evidence

  7. Qualifications: • Qualifications limit the certainty of your conclusions. • They use such words as may, unless or some.

  8. Warrant Claim Evidence Qualifications

  9. Making Strong Claims • Your claim must be substantive-if the claim is not substantive then why argue about it? • Your claim must be contestable-if your claim is self-evident there is no need to argue about it. • Your claim must be specific-an unspecific claim will result in an incoherent argument.

  10. What is the problem with these claims? • I will examine the book of Ephesians. • The book of Ephesians will be examined in an effort to prove that Paul uses the phrase “rulers and powers” as an indicator of demonic activity. • The book of Matthew speaks about Jesus. • The book of Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, leading his people from exile.

  11. Problems • The book of Jeremiah was written before 70 A.D. • The LXX version of the book of Jeremiah shows that some first century Jews still believed that they were in exile. • The Bible is a book Christians read in church. • 87% of Christian churches read the Bible in Sunday morning worship.

  12. Good Evidence Must Be: • Accurate-you must do all within your power to make sure that you use your sources accurately. • Precise-your evidence should be as precise as the field will allow. • Sufficient-do you need more evidence in order to prove your point?

  13. Good Evidence Must Be (Cont.): • Representative-be careful about small samples. • Authoritative-A quotation from a grade school Bible teacher will not be as helpful as one from a well known scholar. • Clear-if your readers/hearers cannot understand your evidence you may as well not have any.

  14. Practical pointers for Papers/Sermons • Know your Audience • 1. Know the presuppositions that your audience brings to the discourse. • 2. Know the expectations that your audience brings to the discourse. • 3. Know the limits that your audience brings to the discourse. These may be limits of language, knowledge, interest, etc.

  15. Practical Pointers • Know Yourself • 1. Know your limits-don’t try to do more than you are capable of doing. • 2. Know your abilities-don’t be satisfied doing less than you are capable of doing.

  16. Practical Pointers • Know your material • 1. Know what has been written. It may be that you are disproving something that has not been believed for the last one hundred years. • 2. Be prepared to read purely for background information.

  17. Practical Pointers • Know your argument. • 1. Start from reliable premises. • 2. Use definite, specific, concrete language. • 3. Avoid loaded language. • 4. Stick to one meaning for each term.

  18. Practical Pointers • Know your question or topic • 1. Examine the argument from all sides (as much as is possible). • 2. Question each argument’s premises. • 3. Revise and rethink arguments as they emerge. This will take TIME! • 4. Explain the counter-evidence.

  19. Helpful Works • The Craft of Research by Booth, Colomb and Williams • Come Let Us Reason by Geisler and Brooks (Edited by Professor Beisner) • Logic by Clark • A Rulebook for Arguments by Weston

  20. At the end of the day remember: “One of the highest complements that can be paid to you in the church is to be mistaken for the janitor.” • M. J. Harris

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