Constructing Arguments: Different Types of Arguments and How to Make Them

When we say ‘argument’ in debating, we don’t mean the angry spat you had with your parents over what majors you should choose or the quarrel you had with your sibling over whose turn it is to do the chores. In everyday life, people widely use the terms ‘argument’ and ‘quarrel’ interchangeably. However, in debating, an argument is not a spat that occurs between people, rather it is a tool of critical thinking that is used for persuading others. Put very simply, an argument is a list of statements, which logically follow in an order that is meant to persuade others of your viewpoint. One of the statements in an argument is the conclusion and the others are the premises or assumptions of the argument. To give an argument is to provide a set of premises as reasons for accepting the conclusion. (E.g. Premise 1: Cats are soft and fluffy. Premise 2: I love soft and fluffy things. Conclusion: I love cats. Here, premises 1 and 2 are presented as reasons that when taken together, prove the conclusion to a reasonable degree of certainty.) 

STRUCTURE OF AN ARGUMENT: There’s a simple structure to any type of argument, which can be summed up by the acronym - ‘AREL’. Assertion: A statement/ claim/premise e.g. Smoking is bad. Reasoning: The statements that back up/provide reasons for why your assertion is true. E.g. Smoking is detrimental to people’s health. (Note: You should ideally have multiple reasons for why your assertion is true.) Evidence: According to the American Cancer society, every year, more than 480,000 people die in the U.S. due to tobacco-related diseases. Link- back: A concluding statement that ties back all your reasons and evidence back to the assertion. 

TYPES OF ARGUMENTS: In parliamentary debating, we generally use three types of arguments. 

a) Moral/Principled arguments: The aim of this type of argument is to convince the judges that a certain principle is very important to be preserved in the debate, and the side you’re supporting is the only one who can preserve it. This argument is also alternatively referred to as non consequentialist and therefore doesn’t depend on any sort of outcome. A few examples of principles to be run in debates are Reparations, Moral obligation, Bodily autonomy, Democracy, Self Defense, Right to Life, etc. 

How to run Principled arguments: 

One thing to note here is that you should always use well-known and universal principles to support your argument, because the whole point of this type of argument is to make your case seem intuitive to judges. So saying things like “incest is bad” is very intuitive and therefore easy for judges to believe whereas saying “Murder is okay” is very counter-intuitive and hard to believe.

 i) The first step while making a principled argument is to find a principle you want to run in the round. Choose any principle from the examples mentioned above or you can choose any other principle that’s not mentioned as well, as long as it is intuitive. Let’s take the motion, “This house believes that abortion should be allowed.” If I wish to defend the motion, and make a principled argument in its favor, I can choose the principle of Self Defense and say that ‘Abortion is a form of Self Defense’. 

ii) After choosing the principle, the next step is convincing the judges that your principle is intuitive by showing them that we allow people to access that principle in many instances in society. E.g. To continue our abortion example, this second step would require you to show that self defense is widely accepted in our legal systems, and therefore has societal legitimacy. 

iii) The third step involves explaining why the two things you equate together are similar. The way you can do this is by setting a few criteria for what constitutes self defense and then showing how your argument meets those criteria. E.g. To show why abortion and self defense are extremely similar, you should set up a few criteria for something to qualify as self defense. Criteria 1: A person is under a threat of grievous injury from someone else Criteria 2: The action you support is the only way for the person to defend themselves against that harm. Anything that meets both these criteria is self defense. You can then argue that a woman is in grave bodily danger from having a fetus inside her and abortion is the only way the woman can defend herself against this harm. Therefore, abortion is self defense. 

iv) The last step in your principled argument requires you to explain why this principle matters/is so important. E.g. You would have to show why self defense is incredibly important to preserve people’s bodily autonomy and right to life, which form the fundamental basis for civil society, our justice system etc. And a society where the right to self defense is not granted, is a really bad one. 

b) Cause-effect arguments: The whole idea here is to claim that a certain action will have certain implications. This type of argument is relatively easier than principled arguments and involves the following steps. 

1] Identify a proposed cause. 

2] Identify a proposed effect. 

3] Explain the proposed effect. 

4] Explain a causal link between the proposed cause and proposed effect. 

Let’s go back to our smoking example and take the motion, “This house would ban smoking”. We identified in the earlier example that smoking leads to bad health outcomes. So our proposed cause is smoking and the proposed effect is bad health. We then explain bad health as higher chances of certain types of cancer, lower life expectancy, etc. Finally, to conclude this argument, we have to explain how exactly smoking leads to those bad health outcomes. One way to do that would be to show how the carbon monoxide and tar in tobacco uniquely threatens our health. 

c) Effectiveness arguments: This type of argument is similar to the cause-effect argument in the sense that both arguments depend on certain outcomes being proven. The difference in the two types however is that while cause-effect arguments just prove how a certain thing A leads to outcome B, effectiveness arguments go one step further to give a solution to a problem. So in one way cause-effect arguments are a subset of effectiveness arguments. To make the distinction clearer, let’s look at the steps for effectiveness arguments. 

Step 1: Identify a problem 

Step 2: Explain how the problem is caused/omitted by the status quo 

Step 3: Propose a solution 

Step 4: Explain whether or not your solution will deal with the cause of the problem positively and will consequently solve the problem. 

E.g. In our THW ban smoking example, steps 1 and 2 would be where the cause effect argument stops. In that we prove how smoking is a problem that leads to a bad status quo. In steps 3 and 4, which are exclusive to effectiveness arguments, we prove how our proposed solution of banning smoking will make the status quo better by not allowing people to smoke and thereby improving health outcomes. To master all these types of arguments, make a comprehensive list of principles and practice making structured arguments using the steps given above. Constantly push yourself to make your reasoning seem as intuitive as possible to minimize attacks on your argument and maximize persuasiveness. 

I hope this was useful. Happy debating everyone!