Ralph Beliveau

media and argument

ORDOES UNDERSTANDING MEDIA HAVE TO BE PAINFUL?
Are we what we watch?
or
Do we watch what we are?
September 7th, 2016

BUILDING ARGUMENTS

BUILDING ARGUMENTS

BUILDING ARGUMENTS

After you have constructed a thesis statement, which

contains a reason, you will need to present evidence
in support of that thesis.

In fact, while your thesis is the heart of your

argument, most of your space will be devoted to
supporting that thesis with evidence.
Building an argument generally involves five
interrelated elements.

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
1.

The Claim -- What you want your readers to

believe
The Reason - Why you want your readers to
believe that.

2. The Evidence -- What you will use to support the

claim?

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
3. The Warrant -- A general principle that explains why
you think your evidence is relevant to your claim
4. Acknowledgment and Response -- Qualifications
which make your claim and evidence more precise

How do these elements fit together? Let's look at

the relationship of the individual elements before
proceeding to join them altogether.

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
You

must always state your claim, reason, and

your supporting evidence explicitly; without one
the others are either pointless evidence, an
ungrounded opinion, or an unsupported reason.

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
But most evidence - reason - claim relationships are
not so simple.
They require two further elements: a warrant and
acknowledgements/responses.
A warrant is a general principal that serves as a bridge
between your claim and your evidence -- it explains
how your evidence is both accurate and relevant to
your claim.

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
Warrant = Janus, or Jekyll & Hyde
A warrant is a general principal that serves as a bridge
between your claim
and your evidence
it explains how your evidence
is both accurate and relevant to
your claim.

BUILDING ARGUMENTS
Warrant = Janus, or Jekyll & Hyde
A warrant is a way of tapping into the assumptions
that the audience makes about
the argument

Often unstated, or assumed

(Note: always a good place to
look to attack the argument!)

Ralph Beliveau
Williams Dream Worlds
ORconsumption is not just for tubercular patients anymore.
We often hear the argument concerning the 'tragedy of commons'; about how goods and
services become inefficient if they are open for all to exploit and use. However, there is
also the other side; 'the tragedy of markets' when every bid of knowledge and creative
expression become privatised. We need to get the balance right and the current trend in
IPR legislation does not seem to do that.
In the Shadow of the Intellectual Property Right (IPR) System By Dr Birgitte Andersen
Published Monday, 12 September, 2005 - 16:39

September 10, 2012

The Lesson of things

Things

= recent products of scientific and

technical innovation, revolutionizing daily
life

Lesson

= the social benefit of this

unprecedented material and intellectual
progress

Williams theory
Where

do her opinions come from?

Where does her knowledge come from?
She has a belief about how the world
works
Based on her experiences, or reason, or
research
Presented as a truth

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS
1.

The Claim -- What you want your readers

to believe
The reason Why you want them to believe
2.

The Evidence -- What you will use to

support the claim

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS
1. The Claim -- What she wants you to believe:
The 1900 exposition incarnates a conjunction
between imaginative desires and material ones,
between dreams and commerce, between events of
collective consciousness and economic fact.

OR
Where would we find the sale of material culture to
a mass public? In the Expositions that connected
desire to commodities.

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS

1. The Claim The 1900 exposition incarnates a

conjunction between imaginative desires and
material ones, between dreams and commerce,
between events of collective consciousness and
economic fact.
The Reason
Explains how out imaginations got so thoroughly
tied to the word of material consumer goods

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS
2. The Evidence -- What you will use to support the
claim
The school of trocadero; reproductions of vastly
different places and styles were heaped together,
portable, fragmented
Representing a kind of consumer imperialism
Merchandising appeals to the fantasies of the
consumer
Reveriesdreams and desiresare passed off as
realities

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS
3. The Warrant -- A general principle that explains
why you think your evidence is relevant to your
claim; What general principle must I believe before
I can agree that your evidence supports your
claim?

WARRANTS in History: analysis of historical

situations (like the 1900 exposition) can help to
explain the conditions of our current culture (like the
relationship between desire and consumerism)

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS
3. The Warrant -- A general principle that explains
why you think your evidence is relevant to your
claim; What general principle must I believe before
I can agree that your evidence supports your
claim?

WARRANTS=PATHOS
Assumes that there is some desire to understand
the source of consumer fetishism, and a desire to
limit it (not celebrate it)

WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS

4. Acknowledgment and Response -- Recognitions and

answers to queries which make your claim and evidence
more precise

These arguments work for industrialized, colonializing cultures

where the marketplace elides efforts in education, strong
moral controls over desire, etc