Chapter 17

Strategies for Argumentation and Persuasion

In this chapter you learn about strategies of argument and persuasion. In simple language arguments is reason or reasons offered in proof, to induce belief, or convince the mind; reasoning expressed in words; as, an argument about, concerning, or regarding a proposition, for or in favor of it, or against it. An argument consists of two or more statements that include one conclusion and at least one reason that support it. In a persuasive argument you are trying to get a person (your reader or listener) to think or feel a certain way or to act on something. In order to build a persuasive argument, there are some necessary steps to take. First you must prepare your argument. You need to gather evidence and ideas that support your argument and develop reasoning. You must make and qualify your claim by drawing conclusions based on the evidence that you gathered. You need to add qualifiers into your argument. Giving some examples listed in the chapter like, typically, sometimes, almost and often should be used. So, stay clear of words like, all, best, never or worst. And avoid obvious or unsupported claims as well. Next need to support your claim. To support your claim you will need evidence. A few examples of evidence that you can use would be observations, statistics, analogies, and predictions. Make sure all of your evidence is accurate, complete, relevant, current, authoritative and appealing. This way you make a good strategy fir argument.