Toulmin analysis of the connection between behavioral problems during your teenage years with adulthood can be broken down into many different areas. The claim itself is the fact that there is a connection between behavioral issues during one's teenage years to poor outcome during adulthood. The study was published in the British Medical Journal, but the qualifier of the study is from a national survey of health and development done by the Medical Research Council. The reality is that we know that, granted, poor behavior can lead to a poor outcome. This is warranted. The grounds from the study are based on the fact that researchers have long believed that there is a connection between teenage behavioral issues and a poor adulthood. Numerous amounts of data were acquired from the study.The study called for the observation of more than 3500 people, which started with the initial observation around the age of 13 or 15. Problematic behaviors included disobedience, lying, restlessness, daydreaming during school, and poor behavior towards discipline. The researchers included evidence like this to show that indeed there just might be a connection with the two. Most of this data was also backed up when even those that were studied that showed even mild behavioral issues also had a poor outcome during adulthood. More than 1000 of these adolescents who showed this less severe behavioral issues increased the likelihood of divorce, alcohol abuse, and overall life adversity. The use of Toulmin analysis helps us better understand what is being researched or studied by breaking things down to specific details.
To read more about the article go to: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/09/adolescent.behavior/index.html
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It's a bit hard to evaluate the use of the Toulmin model here, since the parts aren't identified as clearly as they could be. For instance, you state that the "claim itself is a fact." Toulmin would say that claims are usually backed up by facts--they are not themselves facts at the time they're being argued for. Saying the claim is that "there is a connection" becomes clearer once reads the whole blog post, but could be stated better initially. I'm not sure you're using grounds, qualifier, or warrant correctly above.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good grasp of the content and argument of the article, but here's a beginning of a Toulmin analysis:
Claim: Teenage behavioral issues are a positive indicator for adult problems
(we know this because)
Data: [all of the data collected through observation]
Warrant: truths about behavior can be found through observation of small groups of people, behavioral and other problems and can be accurately identified and categorized
Grounds for Data: the quality of the research methodology followed, the appropriateness of the test subjects, etc.