Argumentation Jun 2018 Open Access

Cochrane Review as a “Warranting Device” for Reasoning About Health

Sally Jackson University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ; Jodi Schneider University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

Contemporary reasoning about health is infused with the work products of experts, and expert reasoning about health itself is an active site for invention and design. Building on Toulmin’s largely undeveloped ideas on field-dependence, we argue that expert fields can develop new inference rules that, together with the backing they require, become accepted ways of drawing and defending conclusions. The new inference rules themselves function as warrants, and we introduce the term “warranting device” to refer to an assembly of the rule plus whatever material, procedural, and institutional resources are required to assure its dependability. We present a case study on the Cochrane Review, a new method for synthesizing evidence across large numbers of scientific studies. After reviewing the evolution and current structure of the device, we discuss the distinctive kinds of critical questions that may be raised around Cochrane Reviews, both within the expert field and beyond. Although Toulmin’s theory of field-dependence is often criticized for its relativism, we find that, as a matter of practical fact, field-specific warrants do not enjoy immunity from external critique. On the contrary, they can be opened to evaluation and critique from any interested perspective.

Journal
Argumentation
Published
2018-06-01
DOI
10.1007/s10503-017-9440-z
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
OA PDF Hybrid
Topics
argument assessment qualitative research
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (5)

  1. Wagemans (2016)
    Argumentative Patterns for Justifying Scientific Explanations
    Argumentation
  2. Jackson (2015)
    Design Thinking in Argumentation Theory and Practice
    Argumentation
  3. Mercier (2011)
    When Experts Argue: Explaining the Best and the Worst of Reasoning
    Argumentation
  4. Freeman (2005)
    Systematizing Toulmin’s Warrants: An Epistemic Approach
    Argumentation
  5. Hitchcock (2005)
    Good Reasoning on the Toulmin Model
    Argumentation
Also cites 38 works outside this index ↓
  1. Thomas Aagaard (2016)
    Aagaard, Thomas, Hans Lund, and Carsten Juhl. 2016. Optimizing literature search in systematic reviews: Are M…
    BMC Medical Research Methodology  ↗
  2. Howard Balshem (2011)
    Balshem, Howard, Mark Helfand, Holger J. Schünemann, Andrew D. Oxman, Regina Kunz, Jan Brozek, Gunn E. Vist, …
    Journal of Clinical Epidemiology  ↗
  3. Bermejo-Lugue, Lilian. 2006. Toulmin’s model of argument and the question of relativism. In Arguing on the To…
     ↗
  4. Lisa Bero (1995)
    Bero, Lisa, and Drummond Rennie. 1995. The Cochrane Collaboration: Preparing, maintaining, and disseminating …
    Journal of the American Medical Association  ↗
  5. Edwin G Boring (1954)
    Boring, Edwin G. 1954. The nature and history of experimental control. The American Journal of Psychology 67(…
    The American Journal of Psychology  ↗
  6. Austin Bradford Hill (1965)
    Hill, Austin Bradford. 1965. The environment and disease: Association or causation? Proceedings of the Royal …
    Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine  ↗
  7. Carlos Chesñevar (2006)
    Chesñevar, Carlos, Sanjay Modgil, Iyad Rahwan, Chris Reed, Guillermo Simari, Matthew South, Gerard Vreeswijk,…
    The Knowledge Engineering Review  ↗
  8. Harry M Collins (2007)
    Rethinking expertise
     ↗
  9. Harris M Cooper (1980)
    Cooper, Harris M., and Robert Rosenthal. 1980. Statistical versus traditional procedures for summarizing rese…
    Psychological Bulletin  ↗
  10. Vittorio Demicheli (2012)
    Demicheli, Vittorio, Alessandro Rivetti, Maria Grazia Debalini, and Carlo Di Pietrantonj. 2012. Vaccines for …
    Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews  ↗
  11. Kay Dickersin (2002)
    Dickersin, Kay, Eric Manheimer, Susan Wieland, Karen A. Robinson, Carol Lefebvre, and Steve McDonald. 2002. D…
    Evaluation and the Health Professions  ↗
  12. Kay Dickersin (1994)
    Dickersin, Kay, Roberta Scherer, and Carol Lefebvre. 1994. Identifying relevant studies for systematic review…
    British Medical Journal  ↗
  13. Tom Fawcett (2015)
    Fawcett, Tom. 2015. Mining the quantified self: Personal knowledge discovery as a challenge for data science.…
    Big Data  ↗
  14. Chantelle Garritty (2016)
    Garritty, Chantelle, Adrienne Stevens, Gerald Gartlehner, Valerie King, Chris Kamel, and Cochrane Rapid Revie…
    Systematic Reviews  ↗
  15. Gene V Glass (1976)
    Glass, Gene V. 1976. Primary, secondary, and meta-analysis of research. Educational Researcher 5(10): 3–8. do…
    Educational Researcher  ↗
  16. Maria J Grant (2009)
    Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. 2009. A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated…
    Health Information & Libraries Journal  ↗
  17. Gordon H Guyatt (2011)
    Guyatt, Gordon H., Andrew D. Oxman, Holger J. Schünemann, Peter Tugwell, and Andre Knottnerus. 2011. GRADE gu…
    Journal of Clinical Epidemiology  ↗
  18. Larry V Hedges (1986)
    Hedges, Larry V. 1986. Issues in meta-analysis. Review of Research in Education 13: 353–398. doi: …
    Review of Research in Education  ↗
  19. Hitchcock, David. 2003. Toulmin’s warrants. In Anyone who has a view: Theoretical contributions to the study …
     ↗
  20. Jackson, Sally. 2015a. Deference, distrust, and delegation: Three design hypotheses. In Reflections on theore…
     ↗
  21. Michelle M Kazmer (2014)
    Kazmer, Michelle M., Liza A. Mia, Juliann Cortese Lustria, Gary Burnett, Ji-Hyun Kim, Jinxuan Ma, and Jeana F…
    Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology  ↗
  22. William M Keith (2008)
    Keith, William M., and David E. Beard. 2008. Toulmin’s rhetorical logic: What’s the warrant for warrants? Phi…
    Philosophy and Rhetoric  ↗
  23. Sara Khangura (2012)
    Khangura, Sara, Kristin Konnyu, Rob Cushman, Jeremy Grimshaw, and David Moher. 2012. Evidence summaries: The …
    Systematic Reviews  ↗
  24. Carol Lefebvre (2013)
    Lefebvre, Carol, L. Julie Glanville, Susan Wieland, Bernadette Coles, and Alison L. Weightman. 2013. Methodol…
    Systematic Reviews  ↗
  25. Stephan Lewandowsky (2016)
    Lewandowsky, Stephan, and Dorothy Bishop. 2016. Research integrity: Don’t let transparency damage science. Na…
    Nature  ↗
  26. Medical Research Council (1948)
    Medical Research Council. 1948. Streptomycin treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. British Medical Journal 2(4…
    British Medical Journal  ↗
  27. Hugo Mercier (2011)
    Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber. 2011. Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral…
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences  ↗
  28. David Moher (2015)
    Moher, David, Lesley Stewart, and Paul Shekelle. 2015. All in the family: Systematic reviews, rapid reviews, …
    Systematic Reviews  ↗
  29. Daniel J O’Keefe (1999)
    O’Keefe, Daniel J. 1999. Variability of persuasive message effects: Meta-analytic evidence and implications. …
    Document Design  ↗
  30. J Eric Oliver (2014)
    Oliver, J.Eric, and Thomas Wood. 2014. Medical conspiracy theories and health behaviors in the United States.…
    JAMA Internal Medicine  ↗
  31. Trevor J Pinch (1984)
    Pinch, Trevor J., and Wiebe E. Bijker. 1984. The social construction of facts and artefacts: Or how the socio…
    Social Studies of Science  ↗
  32. Julie Polisena (2015)
    Polisena, Julie, Chantelle Garritty, Chris Kamel, Adrienne Stevens, and Ahmed M. Abou-Setta. 2015. Rapid revi…
    Systematic Reviews  ↗
  33. Anneliese Synnot (2016)
    Synnot, Anneliese, Russell L. Gruen, David Menon, Ewout W. Steyerberg, Andras Buki, Wilco C. Peul, Julian H. …
    Journal of Neurotrauma  ↗
  34. Kristen Underhill (2007)
    Underhill, Kristen, Paul Montgomery, and Don Operario. 2007. Sexual abstinence only programmes to prevent HIV…
    BMJ (British Medical Journal)  ↗
  35. Douglas Walton (2008)
    Argumentation schemes
     ↗
  36. Young, Diony. 1990. Review of Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth Edited by Iain Chalmers, Murray Enki…
     ↗
  37. Zarefsky, David. 1982. Persistent questions in the theory of argument fields. Journal of the American Forensi…
     ↗
  38. Marcel Zwahlen (2008)
    Zwahlen, Marcel, Andrew Renehan, and Matthias Egger. 2008. Meta-analysis in medical research: potentials and …
    Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 11 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Argumentation Aug 2025
    Informal Formative Assessment in Argumentation-Based Science Education: A Micro-Analytic Investigation of Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices ↗
    Metin Sardag; Gultekin Cakmakci
    discourse analysis writing pedagogy argument assessment professional writing empirical research qualitative research
  2. Philosophy & Rhetoric Nov 2020
    Rhetoric and Demagoguery ↗
    Fielding Montgomery
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument assessment qualitative research gender and writing public rhetoric
  3. Argumentation Dec 2017
    Laypeople’s Evaluation of Arguments: Are Criteria for Argument Quality Scheme-Specific? ↗
    Peter Jan Schellens; Ester Šorm; Rian Timmers; Hans Hoeken
    argument assessment qualitative research
  4. Writing Center Journal 2014
    Questioning in Writing Center Conferences ↗
    Isabelle Thompson; Jo Mackiewicz
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis teacher development argument collaborative writing assessment writing centers peer tutoring qualitative research
  5. Rhetoric Society Quarterly Oct 2012
    Colin Powell's Speech to the UN: A Discourse Analytic Study of Reconstituted<i>Ethos</i> ↗
    Martha S. Cheng
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument assessment qualitative research