Argumentation: Basic Argument Structure

In philosophy, an argument is a thesis supported by reasons. This is often explained through a very obvious example like this one:

Socrates is a man

men are mortal

therefore Socrates is mortal

…Or written in a purely abstract, headache-causing form, like this:

q → p

q

∴ p

In debating, the approach to an argument is similar, but tends to be more understandable and practical. Efficient argumentation is not just about making the logic work — it is about communicating arguments to our audience in an efficient way, relaying all the necessary information.

A “debate” argument will have the following structure:

1. Statement
2. Explanation
3. Examples
4. Impact

To help students understand what an argument is, let’s develop an argument in opposition to a debate motion, or a certain proposal. To make things as clear as possible, we will use a classic debate motion with a rather intense topic. This helps students without debating experience recognize the opposing views implied by the motion. Our motion reads, “We support capital punishment”.

Statement

Suppose we were randomly selected to provide arguments for the side Opposition under the motion “We support capital punishment”. One such opposing argument could start with the following statement: “Death sentence is irreversible, which can lead to horrific injustice.”

This is the thesis of the argument, the core idea. The statement is what the argument is about. This should be a sentence and not just a word or a phrase. This part of the argument is often overlooked because when we are speaking, it often seems obvious to us what our point is. But, and students need to know this, there are two issues with this:

1. The audience might not understand us — it is much easier to follow a speaker when you know what they are trying to say,
2. The speaker themselves might not truly understand the argument, even though they think they do (»I know it, I just cannot explain it«); the ability to express the point in one sentence is a good test of whether they do.

All of this is true for written arguments as well.

Explanation

This is the point at which we explain the statement of the argument, and show why we believe it is true. All explanation has the following basic form:

premise, therefore, conclusion.

This is usually, of course, more complicated. There are many different premises that can lead to intermediary conclusions. Premises are assumed — we always have to assume something. In order to make our argument stronger, we can make sure that our assumptions are as basic and as universal as possible. The path from premise to conclusion is through natural logic. In usual communication, we are not employing deductive mathematical logic, we are using everyday logic, but this does not mean that it is less valuable: as long as we do not commit logical fallacies, we are alright.

In our case, we first stated that one reason to oppose capital punishment is that it is irreversible, which can lead to horrific injustice. Now we need to explain, in a logical and reasoned manner, why this is true. One way to do this is to use the why-chain method - in other words, to ask ourselves why each claim we make is true or important until we reach a common-sense explanation for our initial statement. Have the students try to provide a reasonable explanation for our initial statement.

Here is an example:

“Capital punishment or the death sentence implies the taking of a human life, which is, of course, absolutely irreversible. (Why does this matter?) Because capital punishment is irreversible, introducing it carries the great risk of executing a human being who could, if the court process was found lacking or additional evidence surfaced, be found not guilty otherwise. (Why does this matter?) Sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system. (Why does this matter?) Each human life is unique, and taking one mistakenly is the greatest injustice we cannot risk.”

Examples

We use examples — statistics, case studies, historical facts, even hypothetical scenarios or personal anecdotes — for two main purposes:

1. Evidence: this makes our explanation seem more believable by confirming that our conclusions, in fact, manifest in real life;
2. Illustration: we can also use examples as a way to make our logic, our explanation more understandable and more intuitive — the same way a teacher uses examples while explaining the theory.

These different kinds of examples we can use to underline our explanation have different “strengths” - while describing a hypothetical scenario (“Imagine if the Pope introduced capital punishment in the Vatican!”) or introducing personal anecdotes (“I’ll have you know that my great-great-great-great uncle was a guillotine technician during the French Revolution, and he did NOT have the time of his life!”) can be a useful way to illustrate a concept or make our arguments more lively, they don’t really constitute reasonable evidence that proves our explanation makes sense in general. This is why we (also) need to provide historical, statistical, scientific, and other robust evidence for our claims. Have the students try to provide some colloquial or concrete examples. If you have the time, let them use the internet for research.

Many examples outline the risk of injustice inherent to the death penalty. Amnesty International records over two thousand death sentences globally each year. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the United States, one of the five countries with the highest number of yearly executions, at least 190 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, raising the question of how many innocent people failed to be exonerated in time. A 2024 study by a group of American researchers provides a conservative estimate for the rate of false conviction in the US of 4.1%.

Impact

“Impact” is just another word for the consequences of the argument. Suppose our argument is true: so what? What does it mean for the wider context in which it is employed? The impact is the part of the argument where we connect the argument to the debate topic and explain why it matters for our discussion.

Following our explanation listed above, here is a way to go about presenting the impact of our developing argument in the context of the motion:

“This is in stark contrast to the life sentence, which can be reversed, provided appropriate court processes and the necessary evidence are available, allowing us to deliver justice instead of irreversible injustice. “

Example argument:

Statement: Death sentence is irreversible, which can lead to horrific injustice.

Explanation: Capital punishment or the death sentence implies the taking of a human life, which is, of course, absolutely irreversible. Because capital punishment is irreversible, introducing it carries the great risk of executing a human being who could, if the court process was found lacking or additional evidence surfaced, be found not guilty otherwise. Sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system. Each human life is unique, and taking one mistakenly is the greatest injustice we cannot risk.

Example: Amnesty International records over two thousand death sentences globally each year. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the United States, one of the five countries with the highest number of yearly executions, at least 190 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973, raising the question of how many innocent people failed to be exonerated in time. A 2024 study by a group of American researchers provides a conservative estimate for the rate of false conviction in the US of 4.1%.

Impact: This is in stark contrast to the life sentence, which can be reversed, provided appropriate court processes and the necessary evidence are available, allowing us to deliver justice instead of irreversible injustice.

Divide the students into smaller groups (groups of 2-4 students) and give them a proposition or a claim (in other words, a debate motion). Ask them to construct one argument per group. You can let them decide whether they want to support or oppose the claim (for younger students or your first time working on argument building) or randomly assign the sides (this is how it’s done in debate clubs and competitions). Give them 5 minutes to prepare — they will always want more, but 5 minutes will be good enough for a start. If they are struggling, give them five more minutes and go around the groups, helping where needed.

Once the time is up, have each group present their argument (30 to 60 seconds per argument) and discuss the arguments with the class.

Go through the exercise-presentation-discussion cycle a few times. You can have your students build more arguments for the same side and motion, have groups switch sides, or give them a new motion with every new cycle.

Sample debate topics:

BEGINNERS

• Underaged persons should be banned from using social media.
• Everyone should watch the news daily.
• We would ban homework.
• We support capital punishment.

INTERMEDIATE

• Media outlets should not report on the private lives of politicians.
• Surrogacy should be legal.
• Unpaid internships should be banned.
• Underaged persons should be banned from using social media.

ADVANCED

• Governments should limit media reporting on terrorist atrocities.
• Democratic states should not own or run media organisations.
• We should limit free speech to combat populism.
• We should legalise international commercial surrogacy.

The groups present their arguments (30.60 seconds each) to the rest of the class. The teacher moderates the discussion about the strong points and weaknesses of each argument, and/or the difficulties students had with the exercise.

PLEASE NOTE - NOW REPEAT THE CYCLE OF EXERCISE AND PRESENTING

• What was the most convincing part of the argument we just heard?
• How could we make the argument more convincing/ stronger?
• What was the easiest or most difficult to come up with - the statement, the explanation, providing examples, or defining the impact of the argument?