Essay which shows toulmin method

Take a look at your favourite athlete. How often do you think they exercise and what types of exercise do you think they do? What about their body composition?

Look at your family or friends who exercise regularly, how is their weight, fitness level, body composition and overall health? But is it really necessary to exercise every day? The recommendation is to exercise for a total of minutes each week so what if a person exercises only on weekends but still totals the minutes?

Will they still get the same benefit? The answer to this is yes and no, it depends. If your aim is physical fitness and overall health and wellness, then yes. But if you have goals on losing weight or gaining muscle and endurance, this will take a significantly longer time if not done daily or more regularly. Yes, studies have been done on this too and they show that the outcome and the time it takes to achieve the desired result depends on how often exercising is done, for how long and the types of exercise done.

There is a wealth of information available on the different types of exercises, which is better for what body type and also for what desired result. Ultimately, the important point is that exercise should be incorporated into your lifestyle daily to maintain your overall health and this is the best starting point for any and all motives for exercising and attaining health. Many students enjoy writing a Toulmin essay because it forces you to reason, think critically and put forward a good argument.

If you are looking for Toulmin essay idea, here are some good topics you can try. Below, you will find some of the most popular questions asked by students when it comes to Toulmin essay writing. Just like most essays, your Toulmin model essay thesis statement must be done in the following way:.

Analysis of any argument using the Toulmin Method must also be objective in that after you have made your claim and supported it, you must then assess the flip side and look at any counterclaims and provide support for those. This allows you to write a strong and objective essay. Additionally, including the counterclaims and their relevant arguments allows the writer to appear more credible and knowledgeable.

The Toulmin proposal is an outline of how the essay is to be written. It provides a guide for writing the best possible Toulmin argumentative essay by asking questions like the following in an effort to ensure that all the relevant areas are covered and sufficient information is incorporated into the essay.

The three methods of argument structure have similarities as well as differences. When writing an argumentative essay, you may choose one of these methods and this is how you know which is the right one for you. Even if the reader is not fully convinced the writer is right, the evidence put forward should be solid enough that the reader will see the reasoning and consider the argument himself.

Need help with your Toulmin essay? Tweets by SolidEssay. Share this article: Tweet. Lawn space can gradually be shrunk and given over to heat and drought-resistant varieties of flowers, trees, shrubs, and groundcovers. These new plants can be bought with the money saved from not having to buy chemicals and water.

Choosing varieties that are perennial or that reseed themselves will also keep cost and maintenance to a minimum. With a little thought, planning, and creativity, we who live in Fort Collins can have beautiful landscapes that serve as restful retreats for ourselves and our families without the cost and the effort of trying to maintain an Eastern water-hungry lawn in the arid West.

Bormann, Herbert F. Redesigning the American Lawn. Bucks, Christine. Meyer, Scott. Our first step in the Toulmin Method is to identify the claim. In the case of this argument, the claim is stated in a very general way, then is elaborated on throughout the essay. Therefore, there is no particular point in the essay where the writer states her claim in full.

However, the general statement of the claim could be said to come at the beginning of paragraph 2, where the writer argues, "It is time for us to rethink our landscaping practices. Having identified and paraphrased the claim in paragraph 2 as, "It is time for us to rethink our landscaping practices," the next step in the Toulmin Method is to examine this claim to see if the writer uses any qualifiers--words like "some," "many," "most of the time," etc.

In this case, there are no such qualifiers. It can sometimes be damaging to an argument to omit qualifiers, particularly if there are also no exceptions provided.

It is up to you as a reader to determine whether the writer's unqualified claim is damaging to this particular argument. After looking for qualifying words in the claim, the next step is to determine what the writer considers to be the situations in which her claim doesn't apply.

In other words, it is necessary to identify any exceptions she makes to her claim. In her argument, although she does not mention explicitly any exceptional situations, her claim implies one. Collins, Colorado perhaps who are interested in landscaping. Then if we look at the introductory paragraph of the essay, we see that she has described two landscaping situations: one in her home state of Ohio, and one in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she now lives.

From all of this, we can assume that the writer intends for her argument to apply primarily to lawns in the West, and that by implication she excludes from her argument lawns in other parts of the country, where conditions are different.

Once you have identified and examined the claim for qualifiers and exceptions , the next step in the Toulmin Method is to identify and examine the reasons which support this claim. In the case of this essay, two of the reasons are given in the same breath as the general claim "It is time for us to rethink our landscaping practices" in the second paragraph. The sentence which follows this claim is, "In our arid Western climate and poor soil, the traditional lawn takes too much water, time, and harmful chemicals to maintain," and it implies two of the three reasons that the writer will address in the essay.

The third reason the writer will address is this: Maintaining the traditional lawn is unnecessary, since varieties of grass that are more appropriate to the West and "less hungry and thirsty," as the writer says in paragraph 14 are readily available.

Click on the reasons below to see where they occur in the example argument. In reading on from paragraph 2 to paragraph 3 of the essay, we see that the first reason the writer addresses is the question of harm. At the beginning of paragraph 3, she broaches this question in the following way: "In Fort Collins, we must use herbicides when growing these foreign turfs. We have identified Reason One as "In Fort Collins, we must use herbicides [which, by implication, are harmful] when growing these foreign turfs [like Kentucky bluegrass].

When examining this reason, it is first necessary to ask the question, "Is it relevant to the claim it attempts to support? After determining that Reason One is indeed relevant to the argument's claim, we may go on to determine whether or not it is effective or "good". In other words, does the reason invoke a value that most people most importantly, you as a reader can believe in and accept? In this case, the reason, having to do with the danger of herbicides to the environment and to people, invokes the reader's fear and distaste of such harm.

This may or may not seem like an effective reason to you, and if it doesn't, then this is something to remember when you complete your analysis of this argument. However, we might predict that most readers would probably feel some kind of fear or distaste for the kinds of harm that the writer refers to, thus making this an effective reason. In providing a bridge from Reason One to Reason Two, the writer draws on what we will here call Reason Three, paraphrasable as follows: Maintaining the traditional lawn is unnecessary, since varieties of grass that are more appropriate to the West are readily available.

After she demonstrates that herbicides are dangerous, the writer shows that this danger is unnecessary, given the existence of buffalo grass and other varieties "that are more resistant to pests, disease, and weeds and better suited to the West" paragraph 5. She then lists some of the merits of buffalo grass, which are 1 its appropriateness to our region and 2 the fact that it is almost maintenance-free, and therefore economical. This leads the writer directly into her second reason, which has to do with cost.

The writer's second reason, having to do with the cost of traditional landscaping in terms of money and time, is developed in paragraphs For the sake of simplicity, we will paraphrase Reason Two in the following way: "Traditional landscaping is costly in terms of both time and money. With the exception of these two sentences, the majority of the argument in paragraphs is given to providing evidence to support these statements, as well as in paragraph 8 mentioning the cost of having one's lawn professionally cared for.

We have identified Reason Two as in paraphrased form "Traditional landscaping is costly in terms of both time and money. After determining that Reason Two is indeed relevant to the argument's claim, we may go on to determine whether or not it is effective or "good".

In this case, the reason, having to do with the cost in terms of both money and time of maintaining traditional landscaping, invokes the value the reader places on money and time. However, we might predict that most readers would probably be compelled by an argument that proposes economy of both money and time. We could argue, therefore, that this is an effective reason.

In providing a bridge from Reason Two having to do with various costs of traditional landscaping to Reason Three having to do with the availability of alternative varieties of grasses which are more suited to the West , the writer decides to deal with an objection she anticipates from her audience: "So how come we never hear about these alternative varieties of grasses and their benefits?

As mentioned previously, we might paraphrase the writer's third reason in the following way: Maintaining the traditional lawn is unnecessary, since varieties of grass that are more appropriate to the West are readily available. Although she directly addresses the "availability" question only toward the end of her essay in paragraphs , she refers to alternative varieties of grasses in several areas of the essay.

For example, In Paragraph 5: "Varieties of grass that are more resistant to pests, disease, and weeds and better suited to the West make this risk unnecessary. In paragraphs , however, the writer claims that these alternative varieties do exist and are available to Fort Collins residents, and she offers evidence to back this up.

We have identified Reason Three as in paraphrased form "Maintaining the traditional lawn is unnecessary, since varieties of grass that are more appropriate to the West are readily available.

After determining that Reason Three is indeed relevant to the argument's claim, we may go on to determine whether or not it is effective or "good". In this case, the reason, which challenges the necessity of traditional landscaping methods and grasses when alternative ones more appropriate to the West are readily available, invokes the value the reader places on convenience and common sense.

However, we might predict that most readers would probably be motivated by a desire to do something that "makes sense" if it is convenient to do so. Therefore, we might judge this to be an effective reason.

Once you have identified and examined the reasons supporting the claim in an argument, your next step is to examine the evidence which, in turn, supports those reasons. The writer's first reason has to do with the danger of using herbicides. In support of this reason in paragraphs 3 and 4 , she offers several pieces of evidence:.

We must first ask ourselves, "Is this evidence sufficient? Our second step is to ask ourselves, "Is this evidence credible? In this case, where the writer uses what seems to be a credible source Bormann, Balmori, and Geballe's Redesigning the American Lawn , as well as fairly commonplace, believable personal experience, we could argue that she uses credible evidence.

Our third step is to ask ourselves, "Is this evidence accurate? In this case, there seems to be no reason to question the accuracy of the evidence given, simply because it doesn't appear unrealistic or outlandish, and it has already been shown to be reasonably credible. Sometimes, however, you might suspect that the evidence offered in support of a reason is inaccurate, and that can be an excellent way to challenge an argument. The writer's second reason has to do with the cost of traditional landscaping in terms of money and time, and it is supported in paragraphs with several pieces of evidence:.

The writer's third reason has to do with the availability of alternative varieties of grasses which are more suited to the West. As mentioned previously, this reason is referred to throughout the essay, but it is treated most directly in paragraphs Here is some of the evidence, given in different parts of the essay in support of the availability of alternative grasses:. When writing an argument, writers must anticipate any objections their audience might use to challenge that argument.

In other words, they have to make sure, to the best of their ability, that they don't leave room for their audience to pull a card out of one of the levels of their "house of cards" thereby causing the whole structure of the argument to tumble down. In this argument, the writer has addressed two possible oppositional arguments, one having to do with availability of information on alternative grasses, and one having to do with the cost of switching to alternative landscaping.

In paragraphs , the writer responds to this hypothetical objection, pointing out the biases of the lawn care industry and directing her audience toward less biased sources of information or rather, those which are likely to give information about alternative varieties of grasses and means of landscaping. Remember, too, that rebuttal evidence must be examined just like any other evidence. In other words, we have to judge whether or not the evidence offered in the rebuttal is valid in terms of sufficiency, credibility, and accuracy.

In this case, we might notice that the writer gives no real evidence that the lawn care industry is biased, but we might also decide that such a thing is common sense, and therefore is well-argued. However, if we were looking for a way to call this reasoning into question, we might want to point out that the writer lacks evidence in this area. In paragraph 14, the writer anticipates that her audience might be concerned about the expense of switching from traditional to alternative landscaping.

In forming her rebuttal to this second objection, the writer refers back to arguments she made in paragraph 6 about "the cost saved on water and maintenance. In this case, we will remember that she has already supported her argument about "the cost saved on water and maintenance. However, if we were looking for a way to call her reasoning into question, we might want to point out that the writer lacks evidence on these last two points.

After completing this Toulmin Analysis of the essay, "Landscaping that Makes Sense for the West," it is our task to determine how to "interpret" the results. In other words, how do we take what we have discovered about the argument through analysis and translate it into a formal response to that argument? The first step in drawing conclusions is to collect the results of our analysis. In the case of our sample argument, we have determined that the writer's reasons and much of her evidence are quite strong.

Some of her evidence is not as documentable as other evidence, and we could examine her claim for lack of qualifications and her rebuttal evidence more closely, but for the most part, our responses at the various levels of this analysis have been positive.

The first question you might ask yourself when "interpreting" the results of your analysis is a very general and emotionally-based question: Does this argument appeal to me? If it does appeal, then why and how does it appeal? In other words, how do the responses we made about the claim, reasons, evidence, etc. It is only the case that smoking in public places, therefore, should be banned.

For starters, you may want to know more about Toulmin arguments , how to write a Toulmin argument , or Rogerian arguments. Labels: Miscellaneous. Newer Post Older Post Home.