A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007
Establish the relevance of your reasons
Planning your argument
Part I. Research and writing: from planning to production
Even experienced researchers find this last element of argument hard to grasp, harder to use, and even harder to explain. It is called a warrant. You add a warrant to your argument when you think a reader might reject your claim not because a reason supporting it is factually wrong or is based on insufficient evidence, but because it's irrelevant and so doesn't count as a reason at all.
For example, imagine a researcher writes this:
The Alamo stories spread quicklyclaim because in 1836 this country wasn't yet a confident player on the world stage.reason
Imagine that she suspects that her readers will likely object, It's true that the Alamo stories spread quickly and that in 1836 this country wasn't a confident player on the world stage. But I don't see how not being confident is relevant to the story spreading quickly. The writer can't respond simply by offering more evidence that this country was not a confident player on the world stage or that the stories in fact spread quickly: her reader already accepts both as true. Instead, she has to explain the relevance of that reason—why its truth supports the truth of her claim.
To do that, she needs a warrant. Warrants are very difficult to grasp, but anyone writing a research argument must understand how they work, because readers so often object that while they might agree that a researcher's reason may be true or his evidence accurate, nevertheless, they disagree with his claim because the reason is irrelevant to that claim or the evidence is irrelevant to its reason.
HOW A WARRANT WORKS IN A CASUAL CONVERSATION. Suppose you make this little argument to a new friend from a faraway land:
It's 5° below zeroreason so you should wear a hat.claim
To most of us, the reason seems obviously to support the claim and so needs no explanation of its relevance. But suppose your friend asks this odd question:
So what if it is 5° below? Why does that mean I should wear a hat?
That question challenges not the truth of the reason (it is 5° below), but its relevance to the claim (you should wear a hat). You might think it odd that anyone would ask that question, but you could answer with a general principle:
Well, when it's cold, people should dress warmly.
That sentence is a warrant. It states a general principle based on our experience in the world: when a certain general condition exists (it's cold), we're justified in saying that a certain general consequence regularly follows (people should dress warmly). We think that the general warrant justifies our specific claim that our friend should wear a hat on the basis of our specific reason that it's 5° below, because we're reasoning according to this principle of logic: if a general condition and its consequence are true, then specific instances of it must also be true.
In more detail, it works like this (warning: what follows may sound like a lesson in logic 101):
In the warrant, the general condition is it's cold. It regularly leads us to draw a general consequence: people should dress warmly. We state that as a true and general principle, When it's cold, people should dress warmly.
The specific reason, it's 5° below, is a valid instance of the general condition it's cold.
The specific claim, you should wear a hat, is a valid instance of the general consequence, people should dress warmly.
Since the general principle stated in the warrant is true and the reason and claim are valid instances of it, we're “warranted” to assert as true and valid the claim, wear a hat.
But now suppose six months later you visit your friend and he says this:
It's above 80° tonight,reason so wear a long-sleeved shirt.claim
That might baffle you: How could the reason (it's above 80°) be relevant to the claim (wear a long-sleeved shirt)? You might imagine this general principle as a warrant:
When it's a warm night, people should dress warmly.
But that isn't true. And if you think the warrant isn't true, you'll deny that the reason supports the claim, because it's irrelevant to it.
But suppose your friend adds this:
Around here, when it's a warm night, you should protect your arms from insect bites.
Now the argument would make sense, but only if you believe all this:
The warrant is true (when it's a warm night, you should protect your arms from insect bites).
The reason is true (it's above 80° tonight).
The reason is a valid instance of the general condition (80° is a valid in stance of being warm).
The claim is a valid instance of the general consequence (wearing a long-sleeved shirt is a valid instance of protecting your arms from insect bites).
No unstated limitations or exceptions apply (a cold snap didn't kill all insects the night before, the person can't use insect repellant instead, and so on).
If you believe all that, then you should accept the argument that when it's 80° at night, it's a good idea to wear a long-sleeved shirt, at least at that time and place.
We all know countless such principles, and we learn more every day. If we didn't, we couldn't make our way through our daily lives. In fact, we express our folk wisdom in the form of warrants, but we call them proverbs: When the cat's away, the mice will play. Out of sight, out of mind. Cold hands, warm heart.
HOW A WARRANT WORKS IN AN ACADEMIC ARGUMENT. Here is a more scholarly example, but it works in the same way:
Encyclopedias must not have been widely owned in early nineteenth century America,claim because wills rarely mentioned them.reason
Assume the reason is true: there is lots of evidence that encyclopedias were in fact rarely mentioned in early nineteenth-century wills. Even so, a reader might wonder why that statement is relevant to the claim: You may be right that most such wills didn't mention encyclopedias, but so what? I don't see how that is relevant to your claim that few people owned one. If a writer expects that question, he must anticipate it by offering a warrant, a general principle that shows how his reason is relevant to his claim.
That warrant might be stated like this:
When a valued object wasn't mentioned in early nineteenth-century wills, it usually wasn't part of the estate.warrant Wills at that time rarely mentioned encyclopedias,reason so few people must have owned one.claim
We would accept the claim as sound if and only if we believe the following:
The warrant is true.
The reason is both true and a valid instance of the general condition of the warrant (encyclopedias were instances of valued objects).
The claim is a valid instance of the general consequence of the warrant (not owning an encyclopedia is a valid instance of something valuable not being part of an estate).
And if the researcher feared that a reader might doubt any of those conditions, she would have to make an argument supporting it.
But that's not the end of the problem: is the warrant true always and without exception? Readers might wonder whether in some parts of the country wills mentioned only land and buildings, or whether few people made wills in the first place. If the writer thought that readers might wonder about such qualifications, she would have to make yet another argument showing that those exceptions don't apply.
Now you can see why we so rarely settle arguments about complex issues: even when we agree on the evidence, we can still disagree over how to reason about it.
TESTING THE RELEVANCE OF A REASON TO A CLAIM. To test the relevance of a reason to a claim, construct a warrant that bridges them. First, state the reason and claim, in that order. Here's the original reason and claim from the beginning of this section:
In 1836, this country wasn't a confident player on the world stage,reason so the Alamo stories spread quickly.claim
Now construct a general principle that includes that reason and claim. Warrants come in all sorts of forms, but the most convenient is the When—then pattern. This warrant “covers” the reason and claim.
When a country lacks confidence, it quickly embraces stories of heroic military events.
We can formally represent those relationships as in figure 5.1.
To accept that claim, readers must accept the following:
The warrant is true.
The specific reason is true.
The specific reason is a valid instance of the general condition side of the warrant.
The specific claim is a valid instance of the general consequence side of the warrant.
No limiting conditions keep the warrant from applying.
If the writer thought that readers might deny the truth of that warrant or reason, she would have to make an argument supporting it. If she thought they might think the reason or claim wasn't a valid instance of the warrant, she'd have to make yet another argument that it was.
As you gain experience, you'll learn to check arguments in your head, but until then you might try to sketch out warrants for your most debatable reasons. After you test a warrant, add it to your storyboard where you think readers will need it. If you need to support a warrant with an argument, outline it there.
WHY WARRANTS ARE ESPECIALLY DIFFICULT FOR RESEARCHERS NEW TO A FIELD. If you're new in a field, you may find warrants difficult for these reasons:
Advanced researchers rarely spell out their principles of reasoning because they know their colleagues take them for granted. New researchers must figure them out on their own. (It's like hearing someone say, “Wear a long-sleeved shirt because it's above 80° tonight.”)
Warrants typically have exceptions that experts also take for granted and therefore rarely state, forcing new researchers to figure them out, as well.
Experts also know when not to state an obvious warrant or its limitations, one more thing new researchers must learn on their own. For example, if an expert wrote It's early June, so we can expect that we'll soon pay more for gasoline, he wouldn't state the obvious warrant: When summer approaches, gas prices rise.
If you offer a well-known but rarely stated warrant, you'll seem condescending or naïve. But if you fail to state one that readers need, you'll seem illogical. The trick is learning when readers need one and when they don't. That takes time.
So don't be dismayed if warrants seem confusing; they're difficult even for experienced writers. But knowing about them should encourage you to ask this crucial question: in addition to the truth of your reasons and evidence, will your readers see their relevance to your claim? If they might not, you must make an argument demonstrating it.