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How do I formulate an argument?

The structure of an argument

When deciding whether to agree with or reject something, arguments play a key role. Whether a decision moves in one direction or the other depends on the persuasiveness and the number of arguments.

An argument essentially consists of two parts:

  • Thesis: (claim) The statement of an assumption that is being discussed.
  • Reasoning: Facts or objective statements that support the assumption.

Example A

  1. Thesis: It would be beneficial for students if they were allowed to take a part-time job in the afternoon.
  2. Reasoning: This way they earn their own money and learn how to handle it responsibly.

The thesis states the topic (part-time job) and the direction (beneficial/harmful, good/bad), while the reasoning is the actual core of the argument, as it provides the decisive element.

Reviewing and evaluating arguments

Both your own arguments and those of other participants must be reviewed and evaluated. Evaluations form the basis for weighing arguments and therefore also for deciding whether a rule should apply or not. – But how does one arrive at a fair and well-founded evaluation?

Logical validity of arguments

If an argument appears nonsensical, arbitrary, or even contradictory despite genuine efforts to understand it, participants are justified in questioning it.

Example D

Part-time jobs are additional commitments and have a negative effect on completing homework.

Why, one might think, should part-time jobs have a negative effect? This could simply be an unsupported claim with no evidence. One could just as easily argue the opposite.

To demonstrate that an argument is valid, a logical proof can be provided. It must be shown that the argument is composed of premises whose validity no one would question. The premises in the example above could be:

Example E

  1. Additional commitments, such as part-time jobs, take up time.
  2. Completing homework takes up time.
  3. The afternoon is only 4–6 hours long.
  4. You cannot complete homework if you have no time.
  5. Recovering from work takes up time.
  6. The quality of homework suffers when you are already exhausted.

If one agrees with the validity of each of these premises, one must also agree with the argument, because the argument is simply a combination (conclusion) of these premises into a new statement. In theory, arguments could also be formulated so that the premises are listed individually and explicitly linked to form a conclusion.

Example F

If one acknowledges that part-time jobs take up time, and that ... and ... and ... , it follows that part-time jobs have a negative effect on homework.

While this form of expression is suitable for clarifying the logical validity of a statement, a significant disadvantage is that it greatly reduces readability. Clarity and comprehensibility of an argument are more important than demonstrating its logical validity, especially when the validity is not being questioned at all. If it should become necessary to demonstrate logical validity, this can also be done in a supplementary explanatory text.

Fact-based arguments

So-called fact-based arguments refer to scientific research findings or statistics, which are cited with a reference to the source. The argument should quote the source as directly as possible and must not be taken out of context. The cited scientific work should reflect the current state of research and should ideally not be controversially debated.

The source reference should include the author, title, page number, publisher, and year of publication.

Example G

»As a result of a series of shocks and structural challenges, the German economy has been in recession over the past two years. There are massive investment needs with regard to the maintenance and modernisation of public infrastructure, as well as in the context of decarbonisation and economic and supply security.«

30th Federal Subsidy Report 2023–2026, p. 5. Federal Ministry of Finance, version: 10 September 2025.

Articles or statistics from magazines or daily newspapers are problematic as sources, since the facts presented often only highlight individual prominent events and may give a distorted picture of reality. The statistics provided may be based on surveys or studies that are neither verifiable nor representative.

Opinions

Personal opinion is given little space in argumentation. The purpose of argumentation is precisely to change opinions through well-founded, objective arguments. In the argumentation software RulesFinder, neither problems nor rules and arguments are directly linked to their author as a person. – So if the words "I, my, me" appear in an argument, no one will know who "I" refers to. Arguments belong to everyone collectively and can also be edited and improved by all authorised participants. This is intentional, in order to give priority to objectivity over personal preferences and ways of thinking.

Sources: studienkreis.de