Chapter 9, Public Communication

° Pick one concept from the assigned reading that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.
In chapter 9, I found The Toulmin Model not only interesting, but useful. According to Stephen Toulmin, there are six parts to an argument when wanting to convince our audience. These six parts are claim, qualifier, data, warrant, backing, and rebuttal or reservation.
“The claim is what the speaker wishes the audience to accept,” (Trenholm, p.265). Think about it this way; if you don’t get your audience to accept the idea you are presenting at the opening of your speech; how will you keep them engaged or even get them to consider your point. At this point your audience has either accepted your claim or not, if it is the latter, you have failed. I believe you must hook them!
“The qualifier indicates the strength of the claim,” (Trenholm, p. 265). I look at the qualifier as an incidence report of your claim, kind of letting your audience know the strength of your claim.
The qualifier is immediately followed by data. Data supports your claim and without data you will loose your audience and possibly your credibility. Data doesn’t always seal your claim; you must present a clear relationship between data and your claim.

Happy Blogging:)