According to philosopher Stephen Toulmin’s framework for analyzing arguments, most arguments contain common features: a claim or claims, reasons for the claim, assumptions (whether stated or unstated) that underlie the argument, evidence (facts, authoritative opinion, examples, statistics, and so on), and qualifiers that limit the claim in some way. In the following discussion, we will examine each of these elements in more detail. The figure below shows how these elements might be applied to an argument about sex education.

Elements Of A Sample Toulmin Argument