Toulmin Method

    The Toulmin method, developed by Stephen Toulmin, is a form of argumentation that breaks the process of creating an effective argument into individual components that work together in strengthening an argument. These components include the claim, grounds, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, and backing. The most important parts are the claim, grounds, and warrant (I learned it as claim, data, warrant in high school; maybe that will sound familiar to some). The claim represents the stance on an argument that you are making and trying to convince others to agree with. The grounds are the evidence, or the "data", that support your argument. Without it, people have no reason to believe your claim. The warrant explains how your grounds support your claim. With this method, argumentation can be thought of the same way as many other types of writing; you start with a topic, provide an example, and explain how the example connects to your topic. Backing can be added to support your warrant and the qualifier eludes to other stances on the argument, which are addressed in the rebuttal. Acknowledging other possible stances will increase your credibility, making it more likely that listeners and readers will accept your argument. Understanding other sides of an argument is also crucial to having civil discussion on a topic that people have different stances on. 

Stephen Toulmin from The Guardian

    Much discussion online surrounding divisive topics such as politics have devolved to chaos. Arguments often lack structure or evidence that support them. People will make claims without providing any reason to believe them. In my experience, people frequently lack any grounds or rebuttal when arguing online. Especially around election day, the amount of statements I see on social media that fail to provide any sort of grounds is astonishing. Before people make a post online making some sort of claim, they should be doing actual research to see if they are correct. They may even change their mind in the process after becoming better informed. If anyone bothered to include actual grounds for their claims, then it would be easy to create a warrant and thus make a convincing contribution to online discussion. If people included rebuttals in their online arguments and considered other perspectives besides their own could be correct, then discussion of the topic would instantly become more civil. For example, instead of saying you favor a politician because of their view on the economy and everyone else is wrong, you can give examples of what specific policies you like while addressing how other views are valid.

An example of the application of the Toulmin method form Purdue

    Instead of using factual information, online argumentation is mostly fueled on pure emotion. People do not think before they post, and instead speak in a way that only reflects on how they feel at the time. This is perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks of online communication. It is too easy to quickly respond based on emotion without considering who you are talking to or who will see your post. We often forget that we are still speaking to actual people online since we are not seeing them face to face. Most people would never think of saying the things they say online to someone's face. If people were to use the Toulmin method when arguing online, it would force them to slow down and think about what they are about to say. Acquiring evidence to support their claim would replace the emotion they would have otherwise acted on and lead to a more structured argument.

From Reputation Defender

    It may be difficult, however, to directly apply the Toulmin method to online communication due to the sheer amount of information available on the internet. How do we know that information we find is factual? Would we just use sources that confirm our biases instead of considering other sources that could expand out views? Are people able to slow down and overcome their emotions when discussing a passionate topic when online communication is so quick and convenient? Perhaps a method that slows down our way of thinking and discussing is counterintuitive to the flow of the internet. Or perhaps, if we are able to sort through information to find what is credible and are able to critically analyze different points of view, it is possible we can facilitate a more civil flow of discussion online.