From UVA Writing Center

The claim of a paper is basically what you think about a subject, and is usually the solution to the problem your introduction presents. It is the main point your paper will support with reasons and evidence.

A claim, or position on a subject, may be known from the outset, but most likely will require doing some research first. A student may know exactly how she feels about YouTube, but needs more information on mapping the Neanderthal genome before she can decide how she feels about it.

Contents 1 Claims and Problems 2 Types of Claims 2.1 Global vs. Local Claims 3 Basic Claim Checklist 4 Thoughtful Claims

Claims and Problems

One way forward with a claim is determining what kind of problem your claim is a solution to. Is it a pragmatic problem, leading to real-world, material consequences, or is it a conceptual problem that attempts to alter the opinion of the audience?

Types of Claims

• Claims of Policy: Something that should be done or avoided.
• Claims of Fact: What was, is, and shall be.
• Claims of Definition: An argument about how something should be defined or categorized.
• Claims of Value: Claims that assert something is right or wrong, good or bad.
  • These get a bit tricky because they often rest on assumed warrants.
    • A pragmatic values claim can imply that the audience should do something, but doesn't necessarily need to provide a solution because it rests on assumed shared values by the audience. Think political advocacy ads that legally aren't allowed to tell the audience to vote for a specific candidate, but imply just that by decrying the values of the opposition.
    • A conceptual values claim typically asks the audience to either approve or disapprove of a position, again based on assumed shared warrants. Again, political discourse makes for a good example; opinion-mongers, whether on television, radio or in newspaper columns, work to gain audience approval or disapproval of a position by enacting emotions derived from assumed values.
    • The problem with values claims: Values claims, whether pragmatic or conceptual, must still meet the demands of providing reasons backed by evidence, using logical warrants, and acknowledging and responding to alternative positions in a serious way. Values claims tend to gain their force by operating on the assumed shared values, definitions and beliefs; when a writer has to explain such positions through reasons and evidence, the writer is moving towards demonstrating rather than assuming those values.

Global vs. Local Claims

Claims and reasons are very similar, and can be easily confused. One way to think about the difference is to consider your main claim the global claim of your essay, and subordinate reasons supporting that global claim as local claims. A local claim is simply another way of looking at a reason. However, if your argument is going to be challenging for your audience to accept, you will need to explain your warrant, or the way your local claim connects back to your global claim.

Basic Claim Checklist

• Is it debatable? Can an imagined audience argue against your claim? A claim needs to be something that your audience may not necessarily accept. Here's a test: A claim is contestable if it can be rephrased to state the opposite of what the writer wants to claim. (The reversal test) This is called disproving a claim, and is a way of inviting the reader into a dialog with the text. A good claim opens the door for the possibility of being disproved; after all, why argue with a claim that assumes its audience can't contribute anything to the argument?

      Universal health care will help grow the U.S. economy.
      Universal health care will cripple the U.S. economy.

• Is it supportable with evidence? A claim like The ghosts of zebras can jump higher on Mars than on Earth is not a supportable claim because it cannot be proved through verifiable, testable evidence. A claim like Beagles have a sense of smell that is 10,000 times more acute than the human sense of smell can be shown with verifiable evidence.
• Is the claim reasonable? Does the claim make logical sense on its face? The narrator of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal claims that the way to solve the 18th C. starvation and overpopulation problem in Dublin, Ireland is to cook and eat children (it's satire presented as a sincere suggestion). This claim is presented as if it were reasonable, but it fails a few reasonability tests:
  • Is it feasible? (Not unless Dublin is a city of cannibals.)
  • Is it ethical? (Not unless you believe in mass murder.)
  • Is it prudent, or would it create more problems than it solves? (The parents of eaten children may just revolt in the streets.)
• Is the claim found in a well-structured problem statement? A claim should occur somewhere in the introduction of the paper. In general, until a writer can manage introductory rhetoric with facility, a claim should be what the problem statement leads up to - the solution to the problem posed in the problem statement.

Thoughtful Claims

A claim should demonstrate to the audience that the writer has given some serious thought to the issue at hand. U.S. elections procedures are not very good does not show as much thought as Because of the lack of standard voting mechanisms across the country and the lack of vote verification in many counties and states, the U.S. voting system is need need of serious reform.

• Is the claim conceptually rich? Does it display a serious consideration of concepts and ideas?
• Is the claim logically rich? Does it just state something, or does it map on to a more complex if-then or although-because rhetorical structure?
• Is the claim appropriately qualified? Are broad or unclear terms appropriately described or defined?
• Is the claim too broad?

      "The history of Russia's czars plays an important part on 20th C. Russian politics."  Too Broad
      "The historical domination of Russia's czars is echoed in Russia's handling of the Chechnya question."  More Specific