Assignment 1: Argument Mapping

Demonstration Exercises

1. Obtain an online or hard copy of the international affairs section of a newspaper. Identify and describe as many modes of argument as you can. Would you expect to find different modes of argument in academic journals than in newspapers? Explain.

2. Read the letters to the editor in a newspaper, magazine, or online bulletin board or blog. Find as many examples of formal and informal fallacies as you can. A variation of this exercise is to break into groups to complete the assignment.

3. Read Case 8.1 (Pros and Cons of Balkan Intervention), which is drawn from an editorial in the Los Angeles Times. Use the argument mapping procedures presented in this chapter to analyze the pros and cons (or strengths and weaknesses) of the recommendation that the United States should not intervene in the Balkans. In doing this exercise, either display the elements of argument with Microsoft Draw or use Rationale 2, the special computer program for mapping the structure of policy arguments.

4. Write a one-page analysis in which you assess the overall plausibility of the claim “the conflict in Bosnia is somebody else’s trouble. The United States should not intervene militarily.” Hand in a printed copy of your argument map.

5. Below is an argument map in which the warrants, backings, objections, rebuttals, and qualifiers have been scrambled. 58 Rearrange the elements to make a persuasive argument and counter-argument. Study Case 8.2 as an example.