Notes to accompany Booth, Colomb and Williams, The Craft of Research, Chapter 11
David Limbaugh's ariticle, "A Week in the Culture War," is available here (opens in new window).
Example #1: From Limbaugh's seventh paragraph:
"No student is being forced to say the Pledge, much less the words 'under God.' This isn't a case of the government imposing Christian values on vulnerable children."
| General Circumstance leads to | General consequence |
| If students are not being forced to say words, | they are not being coerced (or are not having values imposed on them) |
| Since students are not being forced to say the words "under God" in the Pledge | they are not being coerced (or having Christian values imposed on them) |
| Specific Circumstance lets us infer | Specific Consequence |
Note here that the warrant is unstated. If he stated the warrant, it would lead him to be vulnerable to attack. For an example of someone who would attack Limbaugh's unstated warrant, see Steve Spence's argument in the Delaware Politics and Law Review, available online here. The relevant paragraph reads as follows:
While most schools do not require students to recite the pledge, they are required to stand silently and listen every day to a proclamation they may not believe in. While many may say that not reciting the pledge is enough to appease a person in conflict with saying the words 'under God,' Justice O'Connor put it simply when discussing endorsement and coercion in Lynch, "It sends a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, and are favored members of the political community." This is particularly true in school age children, who, in an effort to fit in and conform to the majority, may recite the pledge against their will in order to avoid ridicule or exclusion.
If you're simply writing an editorial piece and not trying to write for a research community (friendly but critical readers), then perhaps you don't need to state your warrants in order to fulfill your objectives. If you're interested in persuading your readers that your argument is a good one, however, you should attempt to find unstated warrants that might be problematic from the perspective of your readers.
Example #2: From Limbaugh's penultimate paragraph:
"The secularists also reserve their energy and passion for promoting such high-minded ideals as the open and unfettered dissemination of Internet pornography. The ACLU is apparently concerned that any efforts to protect the innocence of our children from the oppressive bombardment of Internet smut is merely the first step on that slippery slope that will eventually lead to the evaporation of our liberties."
| General Circumstance leads to | General consequence |
| If groups argue against a law that is intended to restrict the dissemination of something, | they support the dissemination of that thing. |
| Since the ACLU is challenging laws that are intended to restrict children's access to online pornography, | the ACLU supports the "open and unfettered dissemination" of internet pornography. |
| Specific Circumstance lets us infer | Specific Consequence |
Limbaugh has not stated his warrant. The first sentence may be nothing more than a sarcastic aside, but let's take it as a claim. A friendly but critical reader might say, "there are lots of reason to challenge laws that restrict pornography, reasons that don't require you to be in favor of such a thing as 'unfettered dissemination.' Imagine that Congress passed a law that tried to ban pornography by banning all access to the internet. Surely one could challenge that law without supporting the dissemination of internet porn." In fact, the ACLU and other groups (such as librarians) will often argue that laws that attempt to restrict internet porn are not carefully drawn and will restrict more than simply access to pornography.