Understand the Structure of a Claim

In Part 1 you learned to sort other people’s statements: what counts as evidence, how strong it is, and how to tell a real claim from an opinion. Now you turn the work around and start building a claim of your own. The first thing to see is that a claim you can defend is not one big statement, it has parts, and once you can see the parts, you can build them on purpose instead of hoping the whole thing holds together.

See the Three Parts of a Claim

When someone makes a point you find genuinely convincing, three things are almost always present, even if they are never named out loud. There is the point itself, the evidence underneath it, and the connection that shows why that evidence supports that point. Pull any one of the three away and the claim gets shaky.

We will give each part a plain name. The recommendation is the point you are asking someone to accept or the action you want them to take. The grounds are the evidence sitting underneath it, the checkable information you met in Part 1. The reasoning, sometimes called the link, is the sentence that explains why those grounds actually support that recommendation.

Keep in mind that these three parts are a lens for building and checking claims, not a rigid template every sentence must obey. Real claims often bundle the parts together in a single breath. The value of naming them is that when a claim feels weak, you can take it apart and see exactly which part is missing.

Start with the Recommendation

Every claim begins with the thing you actually want someone to accept. Name it plainly before anything else.

The recommendation is that point: a conclusion you are putting forward, or a course of action you are proposing. “Our running club should move the Saturday run to earlier in the morning” is a recommendation. So is “this program is working” or “we are spending more on groceries than we used to.” Notice that a recommendation, on its own, is just a statement. It is not yet convincing, and it is not meant to be. It is the destination you are going to support, not the support itself.

The mistake to avoid here is stopping at the recommendation and saying it louder when someone pushes back. A recommendation with nothing under it is exactly the bare assertion you learned to spot in Part 1. What turns it into a claim is what you put beneath it next.

Put the Grounds Underneath

Once you know what you are recommending, you need something to stand it on. That something is the grounds.

The grounds are the evidence that supports the recommendation, the information a listener could actually point to and check. This is where everything from Part 1 comes back into play: grounds can be data and measurements, direct observation, documented experience, or credible testimony, and they are only as strong as they score on relevance, reliability, coverage, and verifiability.

Take the running club. The recommendation is “move the Saturday run earlier.” The grounds might be two pieces of evidence: a month of logged start-time temperatures showing it is already above 25 degrees by 9 a.m., and a quick poll in which most members said they would come more often if the run started earlier. Those are checkable, relevant facts. They give the recommendation something to rest on besides the enthusiasm of whoever proposed it.

Add the Reasoning That Links Them

Here is the part most people skip, and skipping it is the most common reason a claim quietly falls apart. You can have a sensible recommendation and solid grounds and still leave a gap between them.

The reasoning, or the link, is the sentence that explains why the grounds support the recommendation. It answers the unspoken question “so what?” that a thoughtful listener asks between your evidence and your point. In the running club, the grounds are the temperatures and the poll, and the recommendation is to move the run earlier. The reasoning is what connects them: “running in cooler air is safer and more comfortable, and a time more members prefer will lift attendance, so an earlier start serves both the runners’ well-being and the club’s turnout.” Without that sentence, a listener has to guess why hot afternoons and a member poll should change the schedule. With it, the path from evidence to recommendation is closed.

Sometimes it feels obvious to you, because you already believe the recommendation. But the link is exactly the part a skeptic attacks first. Saying it out loud does two things: it lets your listener follow your path instead of guessing at it, and it forces you to check that the path is really there. Often the act of writing the reasoning reveals that your grounds do not support your recommendation as neatly as you assumed, and better to find that out yourself than have someone else find it for you.

See the Three Parts in One Diagram

It helps to see the shape laid out. Here is the running-club claim with each part in its place.

GROUNDS (evidence)
  - Logged start-time temperatures: above 25 degrees by 9 a.m. for a month
  - Member poll: most would attend more often with an earlier start
        |
        v
REASONING (the link / warrant)
  Cooler air is safer and more comfortable to run in, and a preferred
  time lifts attendance, so an earlier start serves both wellbeing and turnout.
        |
        v
RECOMMENDATION
  The club should move the Saturday run to earlier in the morning.

Read from the bottom up, it is a claim: here is what I recommend, here is the evidence, and here is why the evidence points that way. Read from the top down, it is a build order: gather grounds, work out the link, arrive at the recommendation. Either way, all three parts are present and visible, which is exactly what makes the claim something you can defend rather than just assert.

Break a Second Claim into Its Parts

One example can look like a lucky fit, so let us take the same three-part lens to a completely different decision and see it hold.

Imagine your apartment building has a single recycling bin that is overflowing by midweek, and you want to propose adding a second one. Here is the claim, taken apart.

• Recommendation: the building should add a second recycling bin;

• Grounds: photos you took on four separate Wednesdays showing the bin overflowing, plus the building manager’s own record of three complaints about recycling left on the floor this month;

• Reasoning (the link): an overflowing bin midweek means the current capacity is too small for how much the building recycles, and overflow creates mess and discourages people from recycling at all, so adding capacity directly fixes the cause.

Notice the same shape as the running club, on a totally unrelated topic. The recommendation names the action. The grounds are checkable evidence, a mix of your own observation and a documented record. The reasoning explains why this evidence supports this action, rather than leaving the listener to connect the dots. If a neighbor challenged the claim, you would now know exactly where to look: are the grounds solid, or is the link the weak point? That is the whole payoff of seeing a claim as three parts instead of one.

Let’s Recap!

• A claim you can defend has three parts: a recommendation, the grounds that support it, and the reasoning that links the two;

• The recommendation is the point you want accepted; on its own it is only an assertion until you support it;

• The grounds are the checkable evidence from Part 1, judged by relevance, reliability, coverage, and verifiability;

• The reasoning, technically the warrant, is the sentence explaining why the grounds support the recommendation, and it is the part most often skipped;

• Naming the three parts lets you build a claim on purpose and pinpoint exactly which part is weak when a claim does not hold.

Now that you can see the structure a claim needs, the next question is where its grounds come from. The next chapter shows you how to gather relevant evidence for a real decision, including the evidence that works against what you first believed.