Once you have developed your thesis statement, try to formulate your major sub-claims, preferably in sentence form. Your thesis statement and your subclaims will give you a rough outline of your essay. Think of a warrant as a conceptual bridge that establishes the connection between a claim and its evidence. It must have rained last night. The streets are wet this morning.
Wet streets are always a good sign of rain.
In an argument this simple, about a matter we know so well, the connection between the claim and the evidence is so obvious we would never state it. But in more complex arguments, the warrant must sometimes be made explicit to help your reader see the connection between your claims and your evidence. For example, in the 2000 debate over granting permanent normal trade relations to China, most arguments turned on the question of whether free trade accelerates movement toward accepting democratic principles. Because of the complexity and contentiousness of the debate, these warrants were frequently stated to help connect claims and evidence in a manner convincing to other participants. Of course, warrants can go wrong when there are larger issues of disagreement.