Hello! I am Katie Koenig, a fourth year Political Science and Creative Writing major. Today I will be talking about the Toulmin Model and applying it to a Vox article about tree-planting initiatives.
The concept that I am interested in talking more about is the Toulmin Model and using the Toulmin Model to argue topics. Throughout my time at Ohio State, I have used this model without realizing that I was using it. In some of the philosophy classes that I have taken, I have used a modified version of the Toulmin Model to make arguments and to support my claims. The claim is one of the most difficult aspects to create for me. Coming up with the central assertion, or the thesis, for the argument has been rather difficult to me because I often make claims that are either too narrow or too broad for my argument to be successful. The grounds of the Toulmin Model are often not much of an issue for me to determine because I spend a significant amount of time thinking of my claim that I have a justification for my claim rather easily. One of the most difficult struggles that I find with writing the grounds is effectively putting down the grounds on the paper. The warrant is rather like the grounds for me. Finding the connection between the grounds and the claim is not very difficult if the work is put in place when coming up with the claim. The backing of an argument are specific examples used to support the claims being made. I personally enjoy finding the backing for arguments because they help to further strengthen my arguments and I feel more accomplished with the more backing I find for my claim. In political science specifically, I use backing to help strengthen my arguments being made. The qualifier, like the backing of an argument, helps to further strengthen arguments and adds complexity to the argument. Finally, the rebuttal in the Toulmin model is different than rebuttals I have previously seen. As discussed in class, the rebuttal for the Toulmin Model acts as more of a call to action rather than a rebuttal. Although I have used rebuttals previously in my arguments in the way that the Toulmin Model presents, I had never before known that the name of this was the ‘rebuttal’.
The Toulmin Model is very useful in analyzing and more thoroughly understanding articles relating to sustainability. Specifically, I will be using the Toulmin Model to analyze and further understand the article posted by Vox titled “the Surprising Downsides to planting Trillions of Trees”. The claim made in this article is that planting lots of trees is not the most efficient method to helping combat climate change. Further, Benji Jones justifies his claim by saying that at times large tree-planting initiatives have led to more deforestation rather than helping to decrease forestation. The warrant being made for this argument is that because deforestation sometimes occurs during large tree-planting initiatives, planting many trees is not the most efficient way to combat climate change. The backing that Jones uses is that 3 months after planting the tree saplings, up to 90% of the saplings had died for a multitude of reasons. Some of these reasons include that there was not enough rainfall, the trees were not planted at the right time, and/or the saplings were trampled if they were planted in areas where animals commonly graze. The qualifier used for this argument is used when talking about the push to plant trees. The article writes that company’s initiatives to plant trees has increased nearly threefold in the tropics alone. By adding this ‘nearly’ the article is adding complexity to the argument. Finally, the rebuttal of the article calls for more tree-growing initiatives rather than tree-planting initiatives. Further, the rebuttal calls for programs that monitor the trees for more than two-years to ensure that the trees being planted can grow and thrive.
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22679378/tree-planting-forest-restoration-climate-solutions