Warrants

Warrants

• Warrants: Warrants are the underlying assumptions or principles that connect your reasons to your claim. They explain why your reasons are relevant and how they support your argument.  

• Recognising Warrants: Warrants in literary research are often implicit, but you can recognise them by asking yourself, "How does this reason support my claim?" or "What assumptions am I making about the text or its context?"

• Testing Warrants: Test your warrants by considering whether they are reasonable, limited in scope, and relevant to your field of study. Also, consider whether there are alternative warrants that might be more appropriate for your argument.  

• Challenging Warrants: You can challenge warrants in literary research by questioning their underlying assumptions, offering alternative interpretations, or providing counterexamples from the text or other sources.  

• Stating Warrants: You may need to state your warrants explicitly if your audience is unfamiliar with them or might challenge your reasoning. This helps to clarify your argument and ensure that your audience understands your logic.  

Example:

In my analysis of Klara and the Sun, I might argue that Klara's limited understanding of human emotions, as an AF, leads her to make unique and insightful observations about human behaviour.  The underlying warrant here might be that those who lack full understanding of social norms and emotional complexities can sometimes offer fresh perspectives and insights. To test this warrant, I would consider whether it is reasonable to assume that Klara's outsider status grants her a unique perspective, whether this perspective is limited by her artificiality, and whether similar warrants have been used in other analyses of AI characters in literature.  If my audience might challenge this warrant, I would need to provide further support and explanation, perhaps by drawing on relevant literary theory or critical interpretations of similar works.

Preparation Activity: Warrants

Reading: Chapter 8: Warrants

Instructions:

1. Review Your Argument: Revisit the detailed outline of your argument from the previous week's homework, including your claim, reasons, and evidence.

2. Identify Warrants: For each reason, identify the underlying warrant that connects it to your main claim. If you have already explicitly stated warrants in your argument, analyse those. Otherwise, try to articulate the implicit warrants that are operating in your reasoning.

3. Test Your Warrants: Evaluate your warrants using the criteria outlined in Chapter 8:

   1. Reasonableness: Is the warrant a generally accepted principle or assumption in your field?

   2. Scope: Is the warrant appropriately limited in its scope? Are there any exceptions or qualifications you need to consider?

   3. Competing Warrants: Are there any competing warrants that might challenge or undermine your reasoning?

   4. Field Appropriateness: Is the warrant appropriate for your field of study and the type of argument you are making?

   5. Coverage: Does the warrant effectively cover the connection between your reason and claim?

4. Explain and Refine: Explain your analysis of each warrant and how it contributes to the logic and persuasiveness of your argument. Based on your evaluation, refine your warrants, reasons, or claim if necessary to strengthen your argument.

5. Submission: A revised outline of your argument, including explicit statements of your warrants and explanations of how they connect your reasons to your claim.

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Class Outline: Warrants

Objectives:

• Guide students to identify and articulate the warrants operating in their research arguments.

• Familiarise students with the criteria for evaluating the reasonableness and relevance of warrants.

• Foster critical thinking and discussion around testing and refining warrants to strengthen arguments.

Activities:

1. Recap: Briefly review the concept of evidence and its role in supporting reasons and claims.

2. Introduction: Introduce the concept of warrants as the underlying principles that connect reasons to claims. Discuss different types of warrants and how they function in research arguments.  

3. Identifying Warrants: Provide students with examples of research arguments and have them work individually or in pairs to identify the explicit or implicit warrants.

4. Discussion: Discuss the identified warrants and how they contribute to the logic of the arguments.

5. Testing Warrants: Provide students with a set of warrants and have them evaluate them using the criteria outlined in Chapter 8.

6. Discussion: Discuss the evaluation of the warrants and how different warrants can lead to different interpretations or conclusions.

7. Wrap-up: Summarise key takeaways from the session, emphasising the importance of identifying, testing, and refining warrants to construct strong and persuasive research arguments.

Reading for Next Week: Chapter 10: Planning and Drafting