Argument is an effective means to persuade someone; or is a technique to convince people in favour of your opinion. Being an art, it has specific techniques and structure. Basically, argument is formed by using reasons, premises and conclusions. Through this piece of writing, I’m going to explain difference between statement and claim because it is the claim that qualify as reasons, premises and conclusions in the process of forming arguments.
Statement : meaning and examples
Usually, statement is a specific sentence that are used to express something as declaration. In short, a sentence that declare something is called statement. Statement that may be either true or false.
Sentence, on the other hand, is a grammatical unit with subject and predicate. It has complete sense of meaning. It may be declarative, Interrogative, negative or exclamatory.
As I stated earlier that statement is a specific sentence that declare something that could be either true or false. It may include one or more than one sentence.
Tiger is a carnivorous animal. He hunts other herbivores. Nowadays, tiger is classified as endangered species. These all sentences are both statements and sentences. Because all are declaration of tiger.
Is tiger a carnivorous animal? Wow! Tiger is so beautiful. These are not statement because they are not declaring something but raising questions. Therefore, they are sentences having complete sense of meaning but not statement.
So, to be called statement, certain criteria or conditions need to be fulfilled. Now, let’s know what does “claim” mean.
Claim: meaning and examples
So far we have learned that all statements are sentences but not all sentences qualify as statement. I described certain conditions that needs to be fulfilled to be called as statement.
In the same line, not all the statements are claim but every claim is a statement. Now, let’s reflect on the definition of statement. It is a specific sentence that is used to declare something that could be either true or false. It means that statement are used to declare something. It is a complete sense of expression. But it doesn’t claim or assert something to be true.
Conditions for claim
Therefore, to be qualified as claim, statement should be assertive as well. It should clearly assert something to be true. Because, being a fundamental and basic units of argument structure, it requires supportive reasons and evidences. Obviously, statement that claims something that needs to be proved by facts and supportive reasons.
Climate change is a product of carbon dioxide emission. This is an example of sentence, statement and claim.
This declarative sentence has a complete meaning. It declares something. And it claims something to be true. If it claims something to be true, it should be proved by supportive reasons and evidences. Whenever you express a claim, it invites demand for support.
In nutshell, all claims are statements and all statements are sentences but not all sentences are statements but some.
Conventional power plants are the biggest source of carbon emission.
Frequencies of cyclones are on the rise in the tropical Asia Pacific region.
Poor will be the first victim of climate change.
Inflation will not come down unless government increases adequate supply.
Types and examples of claims
Number, place and time
On the basis of different value in terms of numbers, claims are classified as:
All,
Some,
Few.
These words are used to indicate definite numbers. On the other hand, scope is used for place and time.
Claims through place
All players are well disciplined.
Some players are seniors.
Few players are new comers.
These are claims having different scope in terms of numbers. Now let’s see scope of place and time.
India is a victim of terrorism in the world.
Sahara desert is sparsely populated region in the African continent.
Equatorial forests are largely confined in the Amazon basin of Brazil.
Claims through time
In the ancient time, there were hardly any trading relations among major civilization.
Medieval history is well known for feudal system of governments in Europe.
/This is all about the difference between Statement and claim. These are the claims that play the role of supporting reasons, premises, and conclusions in the structure of argument. No doubt, argument is a beautiful art. Presenting an argument/Basic thinking process
https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/files/2021/07/notes_on_claims_112_paper1.pdf