Warrants in Advertisement

Warrants
Generate the principle
Time: 20 minutes +
 
Collect advertisements from a variety of magazines, in order to represent a range of intended audiences (a sample of magazines: Newsweek, Martha Stewart Living, Rolling Stone, Fortune, Cosmo, Ebony, The Utne Reader). It might be especially interesting to bring in advertisements for similar products from different magazines, or for similar products from magazines of different eras.

Ask students to identify the claim, reasons/evidence, and warrants from different advertisements. Talk about why advertisers might rely on different arguments for different audiences.

(For example, in the old "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" Virginia Slims ads, the claim is, "You should smoke Virginia Slims." The evidence is, The warrant is, "Liberated women smoke/smoking is a sign of independence.")
 
Variation: Ask students to bring in the advertisements.