Thank You For Arguing Chapter 14

                   One mistake that many arguers make is using false comparisons. An example of a false comparison would be something like saying, "fruits contain sugar, fruit is healthy, therefore all forms of sugar are healthy." Not only is this statement untrue, but it was made under a false comparison. This is called the all natural fallacy. The appeal to popularity makes another false comparison. An example of this would be, "If all of your friends jumped off of a bridge, why shouldn't you?" Reductio ad absurdum falsely compares a choice with just another absurd choice. The fallacy antecedent makes a false comparison in time. This would be like saying, "I haven't been in a plain crash, so I will never get in one." This closely relates to false analogy, which targets a certain group of something and claims that they are all the same. This would be like saying, "most rapists are men, therefore, all rapists are men and men are not to be trusted." Finally, the unit fallacy uses illegitimate math to make conclusions. For example, "Hate crimes dropped two percent last year, and four percent this year, therefore, hate crimes have dropped six percent in the last two years." All of these are terrible methods to use when defending your argument. Here are a few more methods to avoid if you want a strong argument: using bad examples, using ignorance as proof, using bad proof all together, reaching a ba conclusion, and having a disconnect between the proof and conclusion.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 13

                       When you are arguing by using logic as your defense,  then you are using logos. There are many tools that you can use when using logos, one of these being induction. Induction is argument by example, at least, when it is being used in rhetoric. It starts with a specific and moves to the general. It is the opposite of another type of logos argument, deduction. Deductive logic is interprets the circumstance through an existing belief. It applies a general principle to a particular  matter. Rhetorical deduction uses a commonplace to reach a conclusion, interpreting the circumstances through beliefs and values. Meanwhile, inductive logic uses the circumstance to form a belief. Inductive logic works best when you're not sure whether or not your audience shares a common place. There are three kind of examples to use in inductive logic: fact, comparison, and story.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 12

                                  Facts are something that can make or break you in an argument. If you have facts that can support your argument, then it is very wise to use them. However, if there are facts that can disprove your argument, it is wise to avoid them. Instead, there are a few tricks that you can use to distract from the fact that your facts do not hold up. For one, you can redefine your term. For example; if you are trying to prove a theory, and your audience points out that the definition of a theory is a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained, you could redefine the term and say that a theory is actually a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.This would prove your argument correct and would disprove your audience counter argument, even though they had a fact that would have disprove your argument. If that doesn't work however, you can argue that your opponent's argument is irrelevant or less important than yours. There are times that your audience actually unknowingly helps your argument out, and in these moments you can use this in your favor. If your opponents uses terms that actually favor you, use them to attack. Then, use terms that contrast with your opponent's terms to make them look bad.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 11

                                   Before you begin an argument, you must first figure our what your audience is thinking. You need to know their beliefs and values to know how to speak to them. The common sense of your audience is the beginning point of your argument. To shift people's point of view, you need to start from their position, not yours. This is known as spotting the common place. Common place is the viewpoint that your audience has in common. If you walked into a synagogue, then the common place between the audience would be that they all are Jewish. Therefore, you could not just start an argument by using science to back evolution, or else your audience would just shut you out. You would have to start out by talking about the Jewish religion and work it into your argument, and then talk about the science backing evolution. That way, you would have a much stronger chance of not losing your argument. Sometimes, the common place can be harder to spot. In most cases, your audience will continuously bring it up and try to talk about it. This is know as babbling, and is a great way to find an audience's commonplace.Another good common place spotter is rejection. When your audience turns you down, listen to the language it uses. Chances are, you will hear their common place. When you are sure that you know the audience's commonplace, try applying the common place label. To do this, simply apply the common place to some sort of ides, that way if anyone rejects it, they will seem like an outsider because it would be disagreeing with their common place.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 10

                                   When using pathos, there are times in which an audience's angry emotional response can be more intense than you had anticipated. In such cases, use a passive voice. A passive voice is redirecting an audience's anger away from someones, and implying that the action happened on its own. However, using a passive voice can sometimes be seen as lying or talking down to your audience. In order to prevent any more anger, it is important to use a comforting voice. This can also be known as a cognitive ease. It is the act of keeping your audience in an easy, docile, instinctive state, and can help to counter or prevent anger. To achieve comfort, keep things simple, empower your audience,  and try to get them to smile. If you can, get your audience to laugh by using humor. Laughter is a wonderful calming device, and it can enhance your ethos if you use it properly. Urbane humor plays off a word or a part of speech. Wit is situational humor. Facetious humor is joke telling, a relatively ineffective form of persuasion. Banter, the humor of snappy answers, works best in rhetorical defense. It uses concession to throw the opponent's argument back at them. And lastly, you can calm an individual's emotion in advance by overplaying it yourself. This works especially well when you skrew up and want to prevent the wrath f your audience. This method is known as backfire.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 9

                              Emotion comes from experience and expectation. Experience is what your audience believes has happened, while expectation is what your audience believes will happen in the future. The more vividly you give the audience the sensation of an experience, the greater the emotions that arouse. The manipulation of these emotions is known as pathos, one of the ways to persuade an audience in an argument. If you want to have you audience on your side of an opinion, it is vital to recreate an experience for them so that they can relate and understand your point of view. If you said to your audience that they shouldn't like your grandmother because she says rude things, they probably would not care. After all, they do not know what kind of rude things that she says, how often she says them, or even what you would classify as rude. However, if you told your audience that you have seen her use multiple racist, homophobic, and Islamophobic centered slurs and insults, they would be much more inclined to agree that she is not very kind and they would not like her, which is what you wanted them to do. Another way to use experience and expectation is through storytelling. Storytelling is a well told narrative that gives the audience a virtual experience, especially if it calls on their own past experiences, and if you tell it in the first person. Using tools like the volume control in your voice and using simple terms and words can really help make the storytelling more relate able and understood by your audience.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 8

                  In a successful argument, it is important to make the audience feel as if they are winning. This lowers their defenses, making it much easier and more effective to persuade them. One way of doing this is by acting as if the choice you advocate hurts you personally. This method makes the audience think that you are making some sort of sacrifice for their benefit. For example, "I am willing to give you 25% off on these new shoes, even though I could get into a real run in with my boss for it, but only if you order now and pay full shipping." Now, the audience feels as if they have won some grand prize, even though this was your intention all along. Another way to trick your audience is to convince them that you don't have any tricks at all. If you allow yourself to be seen as a real human being, people will sympathize with yo much more. If you act cocky and over confident, people will assume that you are trying to cheat them out of something. And lastly, you can trick your audience by coming to a "reluctant conclusion." This is when you act as if you reached your conclusion only because of an overwhelming sense of righteousness, therefore tricking the audience into thinking that they have persuded you when really it was the other way around.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 7

                 

                              We, as an audience, are always looking for practical wisdom when listening to someone. Therefore, when attempting to persuade an audience, you need to have practical wisdom. The audience should consider you a sensible person, as well as knowledgeable in your particular craft. If you want to be an actor, it is better to have an acting degree verses a degree in law. Having practical wisdom implies that you have common sense in your craft and that you can get things done. It helps your audience trust that you know what you are talking about.To help prove you practical wisdom, be sure to bring up your experience and prove to your audience why you are qualified. In other words, just show off your experience. It is also important to note that, i an argument, there will be times in which you will need to take the highroad and take the middle coarse. What does this mean exactly? It mean that sometimes there is no way to fully win an argument and receive everything that you were hoping to gain. Instead, you must make a compromise that you and your audience can agree on for you to both walk away happy. For example, say you wanted to distribute you and your partner's store's profits 70/30 because you worked harder, but they want the profits to be split 50/50 because you own the same amount of the store. You know that your partner isn't going to accept your offer s the argument continues, but you do not think that 50/50 is fair. Therefore, you offer to split the profits 60/40, and your partner agrees. Neither one of you gt exactly what you wanted, but you each of you leave happy. This middle course is sometimes the best way to end an argument without destroying relationships and allowing each party member to feel satisfied.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 6

                            When arguing, you need to have a virtue or a cause. This is so your audience can believe you and share your values. For example, you cannot just talk about dogs and have no real purpose or point. If you did, then your audience could not share any sort of connection with you. You must have a cause to obtain this. For example, instead of just talking about dogs, how about talking about how many need adopting because they are dying of starvation out on the streets? This would connect with your audience and help them to share your beliefs and values.You must also know your craft in order to appear to know the right thing to do on every occasion. Even if you talk about the homeless dogs needing adoption, if someone asks you a question about how you plan on getting the dogs off the streets or where you plan on putting them, and you do not have a proper answer, you will just come off as dumb and unprepared. You need to know all of the answers to any potential questions if you want to win your audience over. Also, show off your experience! If you have been taking care of dogs for 30+ years and understand the need for more adoptions, flaunt it. You want people to know what you know, allowing you to gain their trust. After all, would you want a plumber fixing your pipes who just stated last Thursday? Or do you want one who has been in the trade for over half of her lifetime ago? And if someone can brag for you, let them. Show your audience that people like you and are willing to take a stand for you.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 5

                           When in an argument, one commonly used method is ethos. Ethos is the use of character or position of power to sway your audience. This method is a great example of "survival of the fittest", as it displays that if one radiates a sense of authority, then they are much more likely to be taken seriously and have their point put across. The act of putting on this sense of authority is known a decorum. Everybody uses decorum to some degree in their every day life. after all, you would not expect to prove a point to your boss with a sloppy haircut and sweatpants, no matter how right you were. Decorum can also be in the way we talk, too. Many people use political correctness to show respect and to seem much more scholarly. This is the key to getting people to like you, which happens to be the name of this chapter. You must give off a sense power and kindness if you want people to like and, in return, listen to what you have to say and take your point seriously in an argument. If you show that you respect a person and that you do not mess around, you will also give off a sense of stability and trust to your audience.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 4

                          In any persuasive argument, there are three tactics available to use to win your audience over. These three tactics are known as ethos, pathos, and logos. The ethos tactic is an argument by character in which someone's position of authority is used to sway the audience. For example, "You must listen to me and do as I say because I am your boss." Pathos is an argument by emotion in which you connect with the audience's emotions to sway them into agreeing with you. For example, "If you do not donate to the animal shelter, an innocent puppy is going to die." Logos is an argument by logic in which you use facts and figures to prove yourself right. For example, "In professional soccer, women are paid four times less as men, even though they have preformed much better in past games. Therefore, the wage gap should be abolished." Pathos has been noted by being one of the more effective argument strategies. With pathos, you can align yourself with your audience and make them feel for you, ultimately forcing them to agree with you or else they will feel very guilty.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 3

                            What you wish to gain from an argument is known as your personal goals. However, your audience has goals too. Therefore, it is very important to ask yourself, "what is the issue of this moment that is starting this argument?" Any issue that it could possibly be will fall into one of these categories: blame, values, or choices. Blame is a category that focuses on past events such as, "she STOLE my purse", or, "I NEEDED help and you WEREN'T there". Values are a category that focuses on present events such as, "Should abortion be legal". Choices are a category that focuses on future events such as, "WHEN can I have my car back". Knowing the issue at hand and what tense it is in can give you a key advantage in winning the argument and knowing how to confront the problem.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 2

          

                There are two types of arguments: arguments meant to solve a problem where the opponents work together, and arguments meant for the opponents to attack each other, other known as fights. This is what separates a healthy argument with an infirm one. Many, if not most, healthy arguments have qualities of seduction involved in them that can help the combatants to see eye to eye and end on a happy note. However, whether seduction was used or not, to succeed in an argument, you mus persuade your audience. If you or your audience resolves to using physical violence or obscure dialect (i.e. screaming, yelling, e.t.c.), it is no longer classified as an argument, it is classified as a fight. Arguments must be done skillfully and patiently with the object to achieve, not to win. When the object is to win, then you are fighting, not arguing.

Thank You For Arguing Chapter 1

                Throughout history, people have been studying the science of arguing. This concept is known as 'rhetoric' . Masters of this concept are capable of persuading anyone into seeing their point of view and gaining something by the end of an argument. This has lead to many great writers, such as Shakespeare, to use the art of the rhetoric in their works and making it a staple in any advanced literature. The purpose of this book is to teach the reader how to master the rhetorical tricks and become a great speaker. Throughout history, people have been studying the science of arguing. This concept is known as 'rhetoric' . Masters of this concept are capable of persuading anyone into seeing their point of view and gaining something by the end of an argument. This has lead to many great writers, such as Shakespeare, to use the art of the rhetoric in their works and making it a staple in any advanced literature. The purpose of this book is to teach the reader how to master the rhetorical tricks and become a great speaker.