Toulmin Method

 Key Components of the Toulmin Method:

• Claim

• The claim looks at your own opinion based on the information you have gathered on the topic

• There are 3 types of claims

1. Fact

2. Value

3. Policy

• This is what you want your audience to believe!

• Grounds

• The grounds (evidence) provides basis on what you are augmenting

• This is why the audience should believe what your claim says!

• Warrant

• The warrant helps to how the grounds is reasonable for the audience to make the connection from grounds to claim

• This is how the audience connects the grounds and claim!

• Backing

• The backing gives evidence to establish there is reliability in the warrant

• Qualifier

• The qualifier shows the degree of force that the arguer believes the claim posses

• Rebuttal

• The rebuttal is added to the claim to limit and indicate that circumstances under which they may not be valid

Using the Toulmin method in online discussion can be really helpful. It gives you reliability in your stance. This could also be a helpful method to use in online communication when emailing and reaching out to businesses. You could use it to highlight your strong suits for job opportunities, argue your opinion to policymakers, and share your critiques on products. This method shows that you put critical thought into your position on the topic you are arguing for. 

The Toulmin method could be a limitation to an argumentative discussion in online communications as well. When you are sharing your opinion in a social media posts or critiquing in the comment section the Toulmin method may be too much information for this type of audience. This type of argumentative writing may get you into trouble if too much emotion is behind your claim. This makes it much harder to argue your position and establish reliability.