College Writing Survival Kit
How to Compose a Short Answer: Claim, Grounds, Warrant
In college, there are a few assignments you can pretty much assume you will encounter in most
classes: essays, blue book tests, and short answer questions. Most of the time students are
pretty well educated on how to complete the first one and moderately informed about the
second one, but rarely instructed how to respond to a short answer question. This handout will
hopefully help you compose effective short answer responses that will earn you higher grades
and help you get more out of the subject matter your professor is trying to teach you.
To begin with, the short answer response is not an essay, so it will not contain an introductory
paragraph, body paragraph, and then a concluding paragraph. That is an essay not a short
answer response. There isn’t enough space or time for that when composing a short answer.
In essay terms, the short answer closely resembles a body paragraph, a single cluster of
information that conveys a main idea. The basic short answer response/body paragraph is
comprised of three things:
Claim, Grounds, Warrant
CLAIM
TOPIC SENTENCE. It is the first sentence and it conveys the main idea of the short answer
paragraph. It is a direct response to the short answer prompt/question. Let me repeat that: the
topic sentence directly answers the question. This sentence is the thesis/main idea of your
paragraph. (Note: If this is a body paragraph in a larger, traditional essay, this claim would
support the thesis).
Please read the following:
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/partopic.html
GROUNDS
EVIDENCE. This is the concrete/factual information that you are basing your argument on. If
you are using a text to analyze like piece of literature or documents from research, this would
be a direct quote from your one of your sources. If you are not using a textual source, this
would be an example.
Please read the following:
http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/evidence/
http://www.massasoit.mass.edu/academic_resource_center/wwlcenter/pdf/IntegratingQuotes
.pdf
WARRANT
ANALYSIS. This is where you use reasoned logic to explain how you came to your conclusions as
a result of the grounds you provided. This is the part where you explain your point to the
reader. Some students like to think of it as the opinion part because you are telling the reader
what you think, but you wouldn’t use the phrase “In my opinion.” “In my opinion” and “I
believe” are empty phrases that don’t mean anything really. If you are making a statement and
it comes from you, readers can pretty much figure out that it is your opinion and what you
believe.
CLAIMS (topic sentences) have two components:
TOPIC
ASSERTION
Cigarette vending machines
should be outlawed.
Arthur killed Daphne
in self-defense.
All students
should be required to take computer science.
In a traditional, formal essay, there is a main claim, the thesis, and several smaller claims, topic
sentences, that support the main claim. In a short answer response, the main claim is the only
claim because there are only one or two paragraphs that follow.
Modified from the following:
http://sharepoint.mvla.net/teachers/StevenK/Language%20and%20Comp%20AP/Documents/AP_Exam_Preparation/Persuasive_Writing_and_
the_Warrant.pdf
Next page…
CLAIM
Sally should be class president.
GROUNDS
She is an honors student.
WARRANT
Honor students, are intelligent, so she will be able to make good decisions for
the school.
CLAIM
King Phillip deserves no loyalty.
GROUNDS
He is considered a tyrant by his people and other countries.
WARRANT
Tyrants deserve no loyalty.
CLAIM
Conservation efforts have suffered because they are not profitable.
GROUNDS
This can be seen worldwide, especially in poorer countries like in
“Ecuador [that] abandoned a pioneering conservation plan in the Amazon that
attempted to raise funds from the international community instead of drilling
for oil in a pristine corner of the Yasuni national park” (Watts).
WARRANT
When countries are faced with choice between doing something about their
state of economic decline or deforestation, they often choose the option that
will provide the most immediate results. Both problems are serious to the
health of the country, however, improving a country’s financial woes by drilling
for oil, in the case of Ecuador, makes the majority of the population satisfied in
the quickest amount of time as deforestation continues.
CLAIM
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” uses diction in the beginning of
the story that foreshadows the narrator’s twisted state of mind.
GROUNDS
Luchresi characterizes the carnival upstairs as “supreme madness,” that
Fortunato’s palate is comparable to other “fools,” and that he is “afflicted”
with sickness (56).
WARRANT
Although the singular use of each word is not unique in and of itself, the
particular grouping of those words, especially toward the beginning of the
story, help the reader see what state of mind Luchresi is in from the very start.