A Claims Analysis

Part I. Reading a Claim Critically

The first part of this assignment is an exercise of writing a commentary rather than a full-fledged analysis. Building on your understanding of the Chapter 2 and an exemplary commentary of Dokoupil (2013), you practice reading a claim critically, evaluating persuasiveness of the claim and its usages of the rhetorical elements.

Instructions

First, identify its grounds, warrants, and conclusions of the claim, “End Costly and Destructive War on Marijuana.” Under each heading of grounds, warrants, and conclusions, list the items you identified. Second, suppose that the author submits this piece to a national newspaper for a guest column and the editor of the OP/ED finds it interesting. But, the editor wants to trim the guest column down. Which part do you think the author should drop? Why? Here, you are evaluating the relative strength and weakness of elements of this particular claim. For the second part, a paragraph (100-200 words) will be enough to elaborate your thoughts.

To submit your assignment, use the Blackboard Learn—you can type it or attach a Word document. Your assignment will be evaluated by two criteria: accuracy and relevancy in the application of concepts. In other words, I will see if you identified elements of the claim precisely and if you applied concepts when applicable. The assignment will be graded and commented by June 26th.

Part II. Independent Claims Analysis

To complete this part of an assignment, you will be applying the concepts in Chapter 2 to analyze a claim of your interest (a single document not a set of claims presented by a movement). You can find a social problem claim from many places. Two most accessible sources are 1) websites of social movement organizations or advocacy groups; and 2) news outlets. When you choose a claim, make sure that you can identify (a) primary claims-maker(s) (especially when you use news outlets as your sources). Refer to the list of the annotated claims examples.

Instructions

First, summarize the claim, identifying the most important grounds, warrants, and conclusions. Second, analyze and evaluate how the claim might fare in the social problems marketplace. To do so, you might ask questions such as (but not limited to): What kind of cultural resources is the claim based upon? Is it a powerful resource? Is the claim piggybacking a more established claim? Does the claim challenge counterclaim(s)? Is it an effective challenge? Third, make at least one suggestion for how the claim can be modified to make it more effective.

These three aspects of an analysis should be integrated. In other words, I want to read an essay rather than a collection of bullet-pointed sentences. The length of the analysis should not exceed 1000 words. It should also be 12 point font, double-spaced, normal margins, and consistently formatted throughout. In your reference section, include a hyper-link to the source of a claim you analyzed. If you have a hard copy only, please scan the document and attach it to your submission.