From UVA Writing Center

Claims state what you think, reasons explain why you think that, evidence shows how you know what you think is true, and warrants connect your reasons back to your claim. Acknowledgments'anticipate challenges/alternatives to your overall argument andresponses pose reasonable answers to those challenges. An argument that accepts such challenges and responds to them thoughtfully and reasonably will be fare more convincing than an argument that simply dismisses contradictions.

Acknowledgment and response takes some imagination and guts. It means putting yourself on the other side of the argument you are making and trying to predict any counters to your argument. Think of this in terms of a game: in chess, you try to anticipate your opponent's moves in order to achieve your goal, and if you fail to do so, you end up in either a stalemate or you lose. In sports, the same principle applies; coaches try to anticipate the opposition's strategies and counter those strategies by maneuvering players into specific positions. In combat sports like boxing, wrestling and the martial arts, one player must be ready to acknowledge and respond to the opponent's moves immediately, or risk getting scored on or knocked out. In writing arguments, you acknowledging and responding to alternative points of view strengthens your game, and can even broaden your understanding of the subject.

Contents 1 What Acknowledgments and Responses Can Do 2 Where to Put Acknowledgments and Responses 2.1 Questioning the Problem and Claim 2.2 Questioning the Support 2.3 Questioning Consistency

What Acknowledgments and Responses Can Do

• Raise new and differing claims, reasons and warrants. Sure there's a rampant werewolf problem in Charlottesville. But the werewolves cause less damage than the intoxicated undergrads, and they're thinning out the stray cat population.
• Show how an argument exists within a field of other arguments. Sure there's a rampant werewolf problem in Charlottesville. But nothing can be done about that until the vicious leprechaun problem is addressed, because they brought the werewolves.
• Give a nod towards possible concerns your audience may have with the argument. How do we know werewolves are causing all this trouble, and not vampires shapeshifting into regular wolves, or worse yet, berserker Vikings?
• Accept or reject acknowledged alternatives. Once the werewolves are done with the cats, they could start breaking into houses and garages, so the population still needs to be controlled. The leprechauns may back off if they see we can control the werewolf population. And if these really are Vikings, we can bait them with pickled herring and beer. If they're vampires, we're screwed.

Where to Put Acknowledgments and Responses

This is entirely dependent on how you wish to structure your paper. If you are responding to global concerns, you could acknowledge and respond to a possible concern either in the problem statement or the conclusion. If you are anticipating alternative views at the local level, with reasons or evidence, you may need to respond at the paragraph level. You may even need to do both. Below are some general checks on anticipating challenges to your argument; some of this will be familiar from other sections of the wiki.

Questioning the Problem and Claim

The first place where a reader may challenge your argument is with the problem you pose in your problem statement and the solution your claim presents. As noted elsewhere, some may not find the werewolf problem as presented to be such a problem. Perhaps some townspeople prefer the werewolves keeping intoxicated undergrads off the streets, and perhaps local farmers would rather have the werewolves hunting undergrads instead of their livestock.

Some questions to ask:

1. Why do you believe there is a problem?
2. Why do you phrase the problem in the way you do?
3. What kind of solution are you asking the reader to accept? (Is it pragmatic or conceptual?)
4. Is your claim limited and specific?
5. Why is your particular solution better than other possible solutions?
6. How do you know your solution won't be more problematic than the problem itself?

Questioning the Support

The next place where a reader will pick at your argument is with the reasons and evidence and how it supports your claim. You want to be sure your support is actually supporting the claim you set out, and doesn't imply some other claim.

Some questions to ask:

1. Is the evidence sufficient?
2. Is the evidence accurate?
3. Is the evidence precise?
4. Is the evidence current?
5. Is the evidence representative?
6. Does the evidence come from authoritative sources?
7. Is the warrant true?
8. Is the warrant too broad?
9. Does the stated or implied warrant apply to the reasons and claim?
10. Is the warrant appropriate to the particular argument?

Questioning Consistency

You don't want to start your argument with a claim about controlling the werewolf population in Charlottesville, and end up talking about getting rid of the leprechauns who made the werewolves in the first place. That would be an inconsistent argument, unless you state in your problem statement that the werewolf population needs to be controlled via the leprechauns.

One way you can risk losing consistency is if your warrant changes. If your argument presumes undergrads' right to bodily safety, you don't want to present a line or argument that gets into how undergrads drink too much in general and the other social problems that drinking gives rise to. That would make your reader think you had ulterior motives, and are using the werewolf issue to slyly drive in your pet prohibition issue.

If you're making a pragmatic claim, which asks your readers to do something, contradicting yourself can seem unfair. This is much like the Do as I say, not as I do argument.

If you're making a conceptual claim, which asks your readers to change how they think about something, contradicting yourself can seem sloppy or even dishonest. If you come off as sloppy, you lose readers' faith in your ability to present a good argument. If you come off as dishonest, you risk your readers rejecting the argument outright and suspecting you other nefarious intentions; no one likes to be lied to.