Advocacy and opposition: an introduction to argumentation [Seventh edition, Pearson new international edition] 1292042125, 1269374508, 9781292042121, 9781269374507, 9781292055183, 1292055189

Citation preview

Pearson New International Edition Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation Karyn C. Rybacki Donald J. Rybacki Seventh Edition

Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk © Pearson Education Limited 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of any trademark in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark ownership rights in such trademarks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any affiliation with or endorsement of this book by such owners.

ISBN 10: 1-292-04212-5 ISBN 10: 1-269-37450-8 ISBN 13: 978-1-292-04212-1 ISBN 13: 978-1-269-37450-7

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States of America

P

E

A

R

S

O

N

C U

S T O

M

L

I

B

R

A

R Y

Table of Contents

1. What Is Argumentation? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

1

2. Where Do I Begin in Argumentation? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

23

3. What Am I Going to Argue About? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

37

4. How Do I Analyze Propositions? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

61

5. How Is a Unit of Argument Created? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

87

6. How Do I Prove My Argument? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

105

7. How Do I Reason with My Audience? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

133

8. What Should I Avoid? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

153

9. How Are Factual Propositions Argued? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

177

10. How Are Value Propositions Argued? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

205

Glossary Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

241

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game? Karyn Charles Rybacki/Donald Jay Rybacki

247

Index

257

I

This page intentionally left blank

What Is Argumentation?

I

n our society, much of our ordinary use of the term argument envisions two people engaged in interpersonal conflict. For example, we frequently say things such as, “Yesterday, Rhonda and Janice had a terrible argument” or “Those two are always arguing.” Argument thus becomes a synonym for verbal hostility. During the first class meeting, we ask students in our argumentation class to introduce themselves and tell us why they want to learn about argumentation. One student said he and his girlfriend were always arguing and he wanted to learn how to win these arguments. If, like this student, your definition of argument or having an argument is based on verbal hostility and escalating emotions, it is our intention to change your perception. In this text, we want to open your eyes to the cooperative uses of argumentation as a means of discovering knowledge and solving problems. The ability to argue, and the process of arguing, is essential to our existence as humans. We can imagine that in human prehistory our distant ancestors used the techniques of argumentation to discover how to hunt more productively, how to interpret seasonal signs, and how to regulate their social groupings. Some of their arguing most certainly included verbal hostility and escalating emotions, but humanity’s technological, social, and spiritual growth probably would not have come about if our only definition of argumentation was based on verbal hostility and escalating emotions. Advances in every field, from agriculture to communication technology, represent the uses of argumentation by those interested in these fields. The American tradition of argumentation emphasizes a debate over the two sides of an issue—a verbal competition. The two people, or sides, in a debate use the techniques of argumentation to convince someone, a judge or an audience, to accept one side over the other. The techniques of argumentation, developed from this tradition, are the means we use to justify our opinions and express them to others. Although argumentation as a debate between two sides is the legacy of our Eurocentric culture, there is increasing interest in how people from differing cultures From Chapter 1 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

1

What Is Argumentation?

use argumentation. Increasingly, we are coming to appreciate that there are other cultural perspectives on the uses of argumentation. Rather than conceptualizing argumentation as a competition in which one side must necessarily triumph over the other, Douglas Walton sees argumentation as “a collaboration, [the] constructive working out of disagreements by verbal interactions in order to resolve a conflict of opinions” (1992, p. xi). Native American (Coleman, 1997) and African (Moemeka, 1997) cultures, among others, emphasize the welfare of the community and employ techniques of argumentation as cooperative knowledge seeking rather than as a competition between individuals. The end sought is not that one person’s views should dominate, but that all members of the community should be allowed to contribute and reason together collaboratively. Scholars from many nations recognize that argumentation is the means used by individuals and communal groups to actually discover knowledge (Rowland, 1987). Andrew Azukaego Moemeka (1997) explains the philosophy behind the Afrocentric view, with its emphasis on communal knowledge. The rationale is the cultural belief (proven over centuries) that communal welfare immediately or eventually benefits all members of the community. This unspoken belief that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” helps keep alive the ties that bind individuals to the community. Subtly but firmly, it strengthens the feeling of oneness among people, underscoring the bonds of common purpose and of a common destiny. (p. 174)

Many cultures share this view that communally acquired and shared knowledge has great value. Feminists have also questioned the traditional approach to argumentation as a debate or contest on the basis that “conceptions of knowledge and truth that are accepted and articulated today have been shaped throughout history by the maledominated culture” (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986, p. 5). Feminists hold that male-generated theories of argument and reasoning lead to simplistic conclusions. Male-generated reasoning is incapable of accepting the possibility that there might be more than one way to perceive the essence of things or situations. Feminist thinking says that men use argumentation to make mono-causal position statements and tests of knowledge, whereas women engage in “conversation, a more inclusive technique, that invites all participants to share their experiences.” Women are “connected knowers” who “tend to fuse ideas and opinions rather than claiming one opinion is true and all others must therefore be false” (Rybacki & Rybacki, 2002, p. 210). According to feminist theory, the notion is not that men are incapable of being connected knowers, but that men and women are culturally conditioned to use reasoning and argumentation in different ways. So many scholars from so many diverse cultural backgrounds are investigating argumentation today that it is impossible to provide a simple answer to the question: What is argumentation? Our purpose in this text is to introduce you to some of the fundamental principles of argumentation that can be applied in a variety of cultural contexts, whether you understand argumentation as a verbal contest between two sides or a communal experience of connected knowing. The techniques of “advocacy” and “opposition” can also be profitably employed in a communal experience of discovering knowledge as easily as they are employed in a debate contest.

2

What Is Argumentation?

THE NATURE OF ARGUMENTATION All of us are consumers and creators of argument. Argumentation takes place all around us in messages designed to influence our beliefs and behaviors. Some of these messages will offer information and reasoning in their attempts to influence us. Some messages will target our emotions, hopes, fears, prejudices, or superstitions. Those we encounter—friends, family, teachers, employers, the mass media, advertisers, editorialists, and politicians—often embed their arguments in persuasive appeals as they attempt to influence us. We also author dozens of oral and written messages every day as we in turn attempt to influence the beliefs and behaviors of others. If you have ever asked a friend to loan you ten dollars, begged a teacher to let you turn in a paper a week after it was due, or researched and reported on the advantages and disadvantages of selling sweatshirts to raise money for social activities in your residence hall, you have used the techniques of argumentation. Some of your attempts at influence were no doubt aimed at the emotions of those you were trying to influence, but some of your efforts targeted your audience’s reasoning abilities as you employed the techniques of argumentation. Argumentation is a form of instrumental communication relying on reasoning and proof to influence belief or behavior through the use of spoken or written messages.

By examining this definition, we can begin to understand the purpose, targets, and methods of argumentation and the relationship of argumentation to persuasion. First, consider your definition of instrument. You may think of a musical instrument, a surgical instrument, or the instrument panel of an automobile. In this sense, instruments are tools or implements we use for doing something or understanding how something works. Now, think of an instrument as a set of concepts or ideas that allows you to accomplish something. Language is an instrument for communicating with others. Mathematics is an instrument for counting and measuring. Argumentation is an instrument for reasoning with others. Argumentation is a set of concepts or ideas, what we have been calling “techniques,” used to understand how we reason and how we convey reasons to others as we try to influence them. As with the instrument of language, we use argumentation to communicate with others. Argumentation is just a narrower set of concepts and ideas that focuses on how reasoning is used in communication. Human communication is multifaceted and includes everything from two people communicating interpersonally to the multimedia campaigns launched in support of presidential candidates. We use communication to express our feelings, ventilate our emotions, and acknowledge that others are present. We also use communication to ask for information, seek clarification, and participate in group meetings. Franz van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Francisca Snoeck Henkemans (1996) suggest that the “need for argumentation arises when opinions concerning this subject differ. . . . Arguing makes sense only if there is a listener or reader who entertains doubt about an opinion or has a diverging opinion” (p. 2). Not every instance of communication calls for the use of argumentation, because argumentation goes beyond simply reacting and responding to those around us. The techniques of argumentation require that we

3

What Is Argumentation?

pull information together, structure our ideas, and offer reasons for others to consider. Arguers are also persuaders. Persuasion is an attempt to move an audience to accept or identify with a particular point of view. Argumentation is the reasoning component of persuasion because “the very act of arguing involves an appeal, for better or worse, to the audience’s reasonableness” (van Eemeren et al., 1996, p. 4). The concept of reasonableness helps us understand the relationship between argumentation and persuasion. We offer arguments for the consideration of listeners or readers, our audience, in hopes of having some influence over them. Forms of instrumental communication that attempt to influence belief and behavior are acts of persuasion. In introducing the techniques of argumentation, we are also introducing a significant aspect of persuasion. What differentiates argumentation from persuasion—the larger form of instrumental communication—is that persuasion includes appeals based on both emotion and reason. Recall our earlier point that all of us are consumers and creators of messages intended to influence the belief and behavior of others and that these appeals might be directed toward emotion or reason. Some persuasive messages use appeals to both the emotions and reasoning. Other persuasive messages, however, depend more on eliciting an emotional response from the receiver than a rational one. Persuasion includes the study of the emotional properties of messages and how the psychological makeup of an audience plays a part in determining the extent to which they will, or will not, be influenced. The study of argumentation focuses on how proof and reasoning are used to appeal to the rational side of human nature. Although we will sometimes call attention to the use of emotional appeals, it is our primary purpose to introduce you to the techniques for effective argumentation—the rational subset of persuasion. Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo’s (1986) explanation of how persuasive messages are processed by their receivers helps us understand the role of argumentation as a subset of persuasion. Their Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) suggests that when you encounter a persuasive message and take time to actually process it, your processing will take one of two routes. If you take the central route, you are involved to a high degree. You find the message relevant and you are willing to supply some of your own experience to help make sense of it; you think about the message. What is important to you when you follow the central route is the quality of the arguments, the soundness of the reasoning, and the believability of the evidence. If you take the peripheral route instead, the message still has relevance for you, but “some simple cue in the persuasive context” (p. 3), such as the credibility of the message’s creator, serves as the basis for your involvement. The peripheral route of the ELM is a shortcut. Rather than taking the time to fully process the message, we seize on some cue from the message, context, or situation to do the thinking for us. The ELM’s central route is at the heart of argumentation as instrumental communication. Audience members are involved in a collaboration, thinking along with the arguer as they are guided through a series of reasons to reach a conclusion. The arguer places reasoning and evidence before the audience so they can see (or hear) how the proof of each point takes place. This is the “high involvement” of the ELM’s central route. Persuasion that takes this route is the “result of a person’s careful and thoughtful consideration of the true merits of the information presented” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 3).

4

What Is Argumentation?

If you find yourself following the peripheral route of the ELM, it is not necessarily “poor” thinking on your part. We use the peripheral route mostly “for purposes of efficiency—we cannot investigate thoroughly all the issues on which we must make decisions” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 193). As a college student, your decision about what to buy for breakfast is probably based on the peripheral cue of cost or taste. There is no need to spend time processing detailed messages about whether oatmeal or raisin bran is more nutritious. You have better things to do. The audience is an important variable in any communication situation, and the ELM is a theory about how audiences respond to messages. Audience motivation is a key element in whether the central or peripheral route is followed in processing a persuasive message. Argumentation makes demands on both the arguer and the audience. The ELM’s central route focuses on audience members’ expectations and willingness to participate. Audiences will be willing to take the central route with you when they perceive a compelling personal interest in what you have to say. Argumentation takes place in situations in which people disagree about something or do not know, but want to know, what something is. Argumentation is always characterized by controversy—either the controversy of opposing views or the controversy of what is the best answer. Controversies tend to stir up high involvement and the audience’s willingness to take the central route. Not everyone who hears or reads your argument will automatically have a compelling interest in the topic. But when people seek answers to questions and solutions to problems, they are usually willing to invest “the brainwork involved in participating in messages—exploring and evaluating arguments and evidence” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 194). A final characteristic of argumentation is that it is rule-governed communication behavior. Whenever we communicate, we engage in rule-governed behavior. One set of rules is found in the grammar of a language. In addition to the rules we learn in acquiring our native tongue, individual communication contexts have their own particular rules, which may be as broadly applicable as those that pertain to public speaking or as narrow as those that govern communication in a particular family. We learn these communication rules through formal instruction or through informally modeling the behavior of those around us. Because argumentation may occur in a variety of communication contexts, the rules for effective argumentation you will learn from this text will be appropriate in several contexts beyond the classroom.

THE NATURE OF THE AUDIENCE How will you know when you have followed the rules and succeeded in using proof and reasoning to influence belief or behavior? Who decides what “good” argumentation is? This is where the audience comes in. We want our views to reach others, so argumentation is always directed at this category of people we have been calling the audience. The audience for argumentation consists of one or more persons who are capable of being influenced, who may accept or reject, the arguer’s message.

5

What Is Argumentation?

From the earliest theories on how argumentation works to the social-scientific studies of today, one truism persists about arguers and their audiences: To succeed in argumentation, you must adapt your message to the people who make up your audience. In the end, argumentation is only as “good” as what the audience does with it. Quality in argumentation is determined by the people who make up the audience. How “good” your arguments have to be, to be deemed effective, is relative to the “quality of the audience that carries out the evaluation” (van Eemeren et al., 1996, p. 97). Without knowing anything about the individuals who comprise your audience, you can begin adapting your message to them based on the field of argument in which you are both functioning. In field theory, people acting together in any context with established rules of engagement under which arguments are created and presented (Toulmin, 1958; Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik, 1984) can be thought of as the general audience. Fields such as law have very rigid rules and if they are not followed a jury’s verdict may be overturned on a “technicality.” Rules of engagement specify the degree of precision that an audience demands in the evidence supporting arguments they hear or read. In scientific fields, these standards may be rigidly predetermined while in artistic fields they may be more open to interpretation by the arguers (Toulmin et al., 1984). How argumentation is concluded, its mode of resolution, is also part of the rules of engagement. In the deliberations of a legislative group, the goal is usually to produce a majority coalition voting for or against a piece of legislation. To be successful, you must understand the unique demands of the field in which you are arguing but also realize there can be lots of variation among the individuals who hear or read your message. This actual audience can be understood in terms of what else its members share, beyond the context in which argumentation takes place. Demographic characteristics such as age, sex, marital status, political affiliation, education, economic and professional status, ethnicity, cultural heritage, or religious beliefs may represent the basis for common bonds. Psychographic characteristics can reflect common bonds based on shared attitudes, values, beliefs, or emotional states. Lawyers prepare for trial by surveying individuals, selected at random from jury lists, about their prejudices, understanding of evidence, or beliefs about issues to determine how actual jurors might respond to various lines of argument. Political candidates survey voters to determine their understanding of issues, what they believe strongly, and what qualities a candidate must possess to obtain their vote. Given the right conditions, a particular demographic or psychographic characteristic can become the basis for a powerful bond, or create a serious barrier, between you and your actual audience. You can also characterize an audience in terms of its motive for using argumentation as an instrument for making decisions. First, the audience may consist of someone who reads or listens to argumentation to find the knowledge or the solution to a problem that comes from exploring and evaluating arguments and evidence. Second, the audience may function as a nominally impartial third party, or judge, who decides which arguer has made the better case. Third, the self may also be considered an audience for argumentation. We frequently engage in an internal dialogue, listing the pros and cons of accepting a particular belief or following some course of action.

6

What Is Argumentation?

Whether your audience is yourself or some other person, argumentation provides a framework for helping the audience decide whether changing or maintaining existing belief or behavior is more reasonable.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ARGUMENTATION The formal study of argumentation began in ancient Greece. Citizenship in the democracy of Athens required communication skills. Each male free-born citizen might be called on to serve the state in the deliberative process of the assembly or the judgmental process of the courts. He might also find himself acting as prosecutor or defense attorney, because the Greek judicial system required each party to the dispute to represent himself. The Greeks also engaged in public speaking on ceremonial occasions and in competition at events such as the Olympics. The study of rhetoric—communication skills necessary to fulfill these needs— was an important part of formal education. The foundations of argumentation, as we study it today, were laid in those ancient schools. Rhetoric was conceived as a humane discipline, grounded in choice, that was primarily designed to persuade or change the listener. The communicator’s purpose was to influence choice by developing meaningful probabilities, or arguments, in support of a claim that was being contested. Emphasis was placed on the claims that commonly appeared in legal cases, because so much speaking involved arguing one’s own case in court. One of the greatest of the Greek rhetoricians, Aristotle, viewed the practice of argumentation as central to human nature, “for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves, and to attack others” (Aristotle, n.d./1954, p. 19). Aristotle defined rhetoric as the ability to find, in a given situation, all the means of persuading an audience to believe a proposition. This involves more than just building workable arguments. The communicator is responsible for investigating everything the audience might be moved by—emotions, political beliefs, and those sources of information that were most respected. The responsible communicator would choose the most ethical, the most probably true, of all these available means of persuasion. Evolving from these ancient teachings, our understanding of how we reason has flowed from three theoretical perspectives. Joseph W. Wenzel (1990) identifies these perspectives as rhetoric, dialectic, and logic. We can think of these perspectives as three different approaches to doing argument, three different ways of understanding how argumentation functions as an instrument of communication. Each gives us a different focus on the structure and use of argumentation, and most importantly, each gives us a different understanding of what is meant by “good” argumentation. First, the rhetorical perspective explores how we use communication to influence or change others. Theories of rhetoric explain “how arguments are made and interpreted by people” (Wenzel, 1990, p. 15). Both the content and context of a message are important to the rhetorical perspective. Argumentation takes place in situations where people have choices to make, often when there are good reasons for making different choices. The rhetorical perspective on argumentation as an instrument of communication focuses on the arguer’s strategies for creating arguments and

7

What Is Argumentation?

adapting them to the audience by relating content to context. Rhetorically, argumentation is deemed “good” when it “effectively helps members of a social group solve problems or make decisions” (Wenzel, 1990, p. 12). Aristotle called rhetoric the “counterpart” of dialectic, by which he meant that both approaches could be used to arrive at an understanding about the truth, or probable truth, of some matter. Stephen R. Yarbrough (1999) says that Aristotle’s rhetoric was concerned with specific and concrete “problems having clearly defined parameters.” The arguer’s task from the rhetorical perspective “entailed convincing an audience to accept a definition of the parameters most congenial to proving” the arguer’s message (p. 16). Yarbrough indicates that the arguer’s work begins with defining or explaining the context in which arguments are set. Thus, the rhetorical perspective views the audience as decision makers for whom both the context in which argumentation takes place and the arguments themselves are significant factors. Second, the dialectical perspective explores the structure of conversations in which people offer and analyze reasons (Walton, 1992). Dialectic is a plan for interaction in which all sides of an issue or opinion are raised and resolved through discussion. The dialectical perspective on argumentation as an instrument of communication focuses on “principles and procedures” that encourage the give-andtake necessary for the critical study of a topic (Wenzel, 1990, p. 15). Dialectic can be used to address broad philosophical questions such as “What is a good life?” The dialectical perspective views individual arguments as parts of the many streams of thought that contribute to the completeness of an inquiry. In dialectic, the presence of a formal structure such as a forum, discussion, or dialogue is the key element of “good” argumentation, subsuming issues of both content and context. Dialectically, argumentation is deemed “good” when the system for arguing produces “the best possible discussions” (Wenzel, 1990, p. 12). As Aristotle’s counterpart of rhetoric, dialectic takes the form of asking and answering questions. The dialectical technique is said to produce opinions that are thoroughly tested by asking every possible question about them. Where rhetoric produces the uninterrupted exposition of a speech, dialectic produces a dialogue, a conversation. Plato’s dialogues typify the dialectical form. The process begins by defining terms, then analyzing all parts of the subject through a series of pro-andcon questions and responses, and finally synthesizing what has been learned to arrive at a plausible conclusion. The dialectical perspective on argumentation views the audience as active participants. No person, designated as “arguer,” stands apart from the audience, because the dialectical perspective promotes equality among participants. For dialectic to function successfully in making “good” arguments, each person fulfilling the role of audience–arguer–participant must be knowledgeable, have the capacity to reason, respect all other participants, and be open to the ideas of others. Participants in argumentation from the dialectical perspective may be the paramount users of the ELM’s central route, because each participates in the conversation and helps create arguments. Third, the logical perspective offers a series of formal rules for distinguishing sound arguments from unsound ones. From the logical perspective, an argument is thought of as a commodity or product to be tested by applying the rules

8

What Is Argumentation?

for determining what constitutes sound reasoning. The rules of “formal” logic convert ideas into mathematical symbols, making formal logic seem very remote from human communication. Logicians fixate on proving formal validity, that something is, or is not, absolutely true. They pay little attention to the actual reasoning as conveyed by the words of the arguer. The rules of formal logic are designed to remove the uncertainty that humans bring to situations in which there is a controversy over opinion or information. Although the logical perspective on argumentation derives principles of reasoning from formal logic, argumentation is described as “informal logic” because it does not lead to absolute conclusions. Logically, “a good argument is one in which a clearly stated claim is supported by acceptable, relevant and sufficient evidence” (Wenzel, 1990, p. 2). The logical perspective relies on the audience’s knowledge of, and ability to apply, logical patterns such as cause–effect or sign reasoning. The logical perspective emphasizes accuracy in both proof and reasoning. The audience is expected to be proficient in judging whether the logical development of arguments is “good” or “bad.” The logical perspective does not consider the context in which argumentation takes place. Its sole emphasis is on content, the use of proof and reasoning. Audiences operating from the logical perspective frequently act as nominally disinterested, third-party judges who determine which arguer has made the better case. Because the logical perspective focuses on specific standards for the use of proof and the formation of reasons, it may be somewhat easier for audience members to act as neutral, dispassionate judges. When you remove context from the argumentative equation, you can make argumentation seem more like the process of scientific discovery, devoid of the messiness of human emotions. The distinctions across the rhetorical, dialectical, and logical perspectives on argumentation are illustrated by examples from the legal field. So-called landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court commonly feature all three perspectives at work in a decision. Most frequently, the U.S. Supreme Court acts as an “appellate” court, meaning that it hears appeals on cases tried in lower courts and on decisions made by federal regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Acting in its appellate capacity, the U.S. Supreme Court functions as an audience of decision makers for those who appear before it. Members of the Court in turn function as arguers in expressing the supporting rationale for its majority and dissenting opinions. Because it is a rare occasion when all nine justices concur on a decision, or even on the specific reasons for reaching that decision, many of the Court’s decisions resemble a debate or dialogue on the issue as concurring and dissenting opinions are offered. The U.S. Supreme Court is especially concerned with preserving free speech and freedom of the press. The justices see their role as “jealously to guard against encroachment on First Amendment freedoms” (Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 298). In the case of the Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), the Court supported an FCC decision concerning “indecent speech.” A New York City radio station owned by the Pacifica Foundation aired a

9

What Is Argumentation?

twelve-minute monologue by humorist George Carlin, in the early afternoon, featuring his list of the seven “dirty words” you can never say on the public airwaves. The monologue aired on the FM station during part of a larger discussion about society’s attitude toward language. The station warned in advance that the recording included language that might offend listeners. Nevertheless, a man who apparently missed the warning heard a portion of the monologue while driving with his young son. He later wrote a complaint to the FCC, stating that, although he could understand the “record’s being sold for private use, I certainly cannot understand the broadcast of same over the air that, supposedly, you control.” (Zelezny, 2011, p. 474)

One of the FCC’s responsibilities is to oversee its licensees who must serve the public interest as required by the 1934 Communications Act, which stipulates that broadcast stations risk fines and loss of license if they air “indecent” programming. Responding to the complaint, the FCC reviewed Carlin’s monologue. The FCC said Carlin’s “dirty” words were indecent because they depicted sexual and excretory activities and organs in a patently offensive manner. The commission said the words were “obnoxious, gutter language” that were indecent because they “debased” and “brutalized” human beings “by reducing them to their bodily functions.” (Middleton, Trager, & Chamberlin, 2002, p. 370)

Pacifica appealed the FCC’s ruling through the federal court system; eventually, the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5 to 4 decision, the Court upheld the FCC’s ruling. A rhetorical perspective emphasizes how an arguer adapts content to fit the context in which argumentation takes place. In some cases, context becomes a central issue in argumentation, as happened in the Pacifica case. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the majority opinion, demonstrated how content and context are interrelated. As the Commission itself emphasized, its order was “issued in a specific factual context.” That approach is appropriate for courts as well as the Commission when regulation of indecency is at stake, for indecency is largely a function of context—it cannot be adequately judged in the abstract. (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 291)

Justice Stevens supported his point with reference to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ celebrated statement that “the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. . . . The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic” (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 292). Justice Stevens further developed the rhetorical perspective on context by addressing the problem of variations across contexts. The constitutional protection accorded to a communication containing such patently offensive sexual and excretory language need not be the same in every context. It is a characteristic of speech such as this that both its capacity to offend and its “social value” . . . vary with the circumstances. Words that are commonplace in one setting are shocking in another. (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 293)

Justice Stevens’s emphasis on understanding why the Carlin monologue might be shocking when encountered on radio in the company of one’s young child was at the heart of the majority’s decision.

10

What Is Argumentation?

From a rhetorical perspective, “good” argumentation helps members of a social group, in this instance members of the FCC and the broadcasters they regulate, make decisions about problems. The Pacifica case laid the groundwork for an understanding of how something may be “indecent” speech in a particular context that continues to shape FCC policy. “[I]n 2001, the FCC issued guidelines . . . [that] say a radio or television broadcast will be found indecent if, first, it describes sexual or excretory organs or activities and, second, it is patently offensive to an average viewer or listener” (Middleton et al., 2002, p. 373). FCC policy was “that fleeting, unscripted airings of otherwise indecent language or images would not be punished. . . . But in 2004 the commission changed course, saying that even fleeting, one-time use of vulgar words could be deemed illegally indecent, depending on context” (Zelezny, 2011, p. 481). From a dialectical perspective, emphasis is placed on argumentation as a dialogue or conversation in which all of the views on a controversy are brought up. U.S. Supreme Court decisions, particularly close ones such as the 5 to 4 Pacifica case, often have a dialectical quality as the give-and-take of judicial decision making unfolds in the Court’s statements of opinion. Concurring Justice John Paul Stevens and dissenting Justice William Brennan wrote opinions that address a dialectical question: What is the nature of indecent speech? In its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pacifica Foundation took issue with the FCC’s definition of indecency. The FCC had classified as “indecent”: [material that] describes or depicts, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs, at times of day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. (cited in Zelezny, 2011, p. 474)

Much of Justice Stevens’s concurring opinion is devoted to answering Pacifica’s issues with this definition from the majority’s perspective. Principally, “Pacifica contended that indecent language, like obscene language, must appeal to the prurient interest before it can be punished” (Middleton et al., 2002, p. 370). Justice Stevens argued that there is a distinction between “indecency” and “obscenity,” clarifying the distinction between the two terms. The plain language of the statute does not support Pacifica’s argument. The words “obscene, indecent, or profane” are written in the disjunctive [separated by commas], implying that each has a separate meaning. Prurient appeal is an element of the obscene, but the normal definition of “indecent” merely refers to nonconformance with accepted standards of morality. (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 290)

In First Amendment cases such as Pacifica, a big issue is that any restraint on free expression will necessarily lead to self-censorship by media and individuals, thus undermining freedom of speech. Justice William Brennan, writing for the dissenters, argued that the U.S. Supreme Court was attempting “to impose its notions of propriety on the whole of the American people” (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 295). Justice Brennan was particularly troubled by the semantic games over definitions he thought the concurring justices were playing.

11

What Is Argumentation?

Justice Brennan feared that the FCC’s overly broad definition of “indecent” would lead to de facto censorship and felt the Court should really think of “censorship” as a dirtier word than any Carlin had uttered. The rationales could justify the banning from radio of a myriad of literary works, novels, poems, and plays by the likes of Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Ben Johnson, Henry Fielding, Robert Burns, and Chaucer; they could support the suppression of a good deal of political speech, such as the Nixon tapes; and they could even provide the basis for imposing sanctions for the broadcast of certain portions of the Bible. (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 299)

From a dialectical perspective, “good” argumentation should produce wideranging discussions on controversies. The back-and-forth discussion over the definition of indecency is not the only example of the practice of dialectic to be found in the Pacifica case. The structure of legal argumentation and the presentation of concurring and dissenting opinions lend a distinctly dialectical flavor to U.S. Supreme Court cases. From a logical perspective, the emphasis is on standards of proof and reasoning. Much of what we think of as the law comes from case law, “the binding principles and rules that originate from . . . case-by-case judicial decisions” (Zelezny, 2011, p. 9). Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion demonstrates the use of case law and the logical perspective in legal argumentation, relative to one of the key issues: “the capacity of a radio broadcast to intrude into the unwilling listener’s home” (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 295). Justice Brennan used parallel case reasoning and compared the details of the Pacifica case to a similar incident. In 1971 the Court overturned the conviction of a war protester because the slogan on the back of his jacket—“F_ _ k the Draft”—did not constitute fighting words [one of the conditions for censorship]. In Cohen v. California, the Court said the slogan on Cohen’s jacket, which he wore through a California courthouse, was a constitutionally protected comment on the unpopular war the country was then waging in Vietnam. Cohen’s message did not constitute fighting words because it presented no immediate danger of a violent physical reaction in a face-to-face confrontation. No one, the Court said, could regard the words on Cohen’s jacket as “a direct personal insult.” (Zelezny, 2001, p. 45)

Justice Brennan compared what the Court ruled in the Cohen case to the specifics of Pacifica. [A]n individual’s actions in switching on and listening to communications transmitted over the public airways and directed to the public at large do not implicate fundamental privacy interests, even when engaged in within the home. Instead, because the radio is undeniably a public medium, these actions are more properly viewed as a decision to take part, if only as a listener, in an ongoing public discourse. . . . Although an individual’s decision to allow public radio communications into his home undoubtedly does not abrogate all of his privacy interests, the residual privacy interests he retains vis-à-vis the communication he voluntarily admits into his home are surely no greater than those of the people present in the corridor of the Los Angeles courthouse in Cohen who bore witness to the words “F_ _ k the Draft” emblazoned across Cohen’s jacket. (cited in Middleton & Chamberlin, 1995, p. 296)

12

What Is Argumentation?

From a logical perspective, “good” argumentation meets the standards of effective use of proof and reasoning. Justice Brennan’s dissent challenges the logical consistency of the conclusion reached by the majority in the Pacifica case on the basis that it is at odds with a decision reached in a previous, purportedly similar, case. Rhetoric, dialectic, and logic each contribute to argumentation’s ability to function as an instrument used to discover knowledge and influence belief or behavior. [R]hetoric helps us understand and evaluate arguing as a natural process of persuasive communication; dialectic helps us to understand and evaluate argumentation as a cooperative method for making critical decisions; and logic helps us to understand and evaluate arguments as products people create when they argue. (Wenzel, 1990, p. 9)

Viewing argumentation in this way, contemporary scholars are exploring argumentation as an instrument for critical thinking and discussion that leads to consensual decision making. Douglas Walton (1990, 1998) and Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1993) have paid particular attention to the possibilities offered by the dialectical perspective. For them, argumentation is an instrument of communication to the extent that it functions as a social dialogue in which people articulate their differences, open themselves up to the ideas of others, critically investigate each argument offered, and work cooperatively to find answers or solutions. From the dialectical perspective, arguers use the techniques of argumentation to learn from each other. It embodies the essence of the ELM’s central route, along which arguer and audience are completely engaged in the discussion. In this text, we emphasize a model of argument developed by the English logician Stephen Toulmin, whose ideas were embraced by rhetoricians in this country. When you argue, you make a series of statements using proof and reasoning to draw conclusions that develop and clarify the stand you take on an issue. For centuries, teachers and students of argumentation have struggled to find a way to put into words, to visualize on the page or screen, how human thinking in argumentative form takes place. Toulmin’s model gives us a verbal and visual structure for understanding how an argument is formed by putting proof and reasoning together and understanding how it might be interpreted by its audience. Regardless of whether your experience as a creator of arguments is influenced primarily by the rhetorical, dialectical, or logical perspective, your purpose will be to influence belief and behavior. Success or failure in that endeavor can carry real consequences for you as well as your audience. Because there is this potential for significant consequences, those who engage in argumentation must pay special attention to the ethical implications of the choices they make and encourage others to make.

ETHICAL STANDARDS FOR ARGUMENTATION Ethics is the term we use to indicate the moral choices a person makes regarding his or her behavior. Standards of ethics are devised in one of two ways. First, teleological ethics are based on the outcomes, or ends, of communicating—the purpose you achieve rather than the means you use to achieve it. Is the end you seek in using argumentation a worthwhile one? A standard of teleological ethics is

13

What Is Argumentation?

at work when we say, “We should do that which produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.” Second, deontological ethics is based on a set of absolutes, or rules of conduct, that differentiate between right and wrong. Making a moral choice in the context of deontological ethics is a matter of living up to the obligation to behave in the “right” way. The set of absolutes, often presented as a “code of ethics,” identifies “right” and “wrong” ways of behaving. Absolute standards of ethical behavior are found in religion and ideology or are codified in sets of beliefs that are found in the ethical code of the Public Relations Society of America or that of the National Association of Broadcasters. Because the audience for argumentation often lacks the time or resources to verify every statement made, the creators of arguments bear a heavy ethical burden: what is made to seem most probable or believable is most likely to gain acceptance. Like other forms of communication, argumentation can be used to advance the cause of good or evil. According to Richard L. Johannesen, Kathleen S. Valde, and Karen E. Whedbee (2008), ethical standards are an issue when communication behavior “could have significant impact on other persons, when the behavior involves conscious choice of means and ends, and when the behavior can be judged by standards of right and wrong” (p. 1). Like other forms of communication, argumentation is a matter of making conscious choices about what to say. In preparing argumentative messages, you will research a topic, decide which claims and proofs to offer, and choose how to arrange your materials for the greatest impact. Your audience will judge you and your end product as ethical or unethical on the basis of the choices you have made about the means and ends manifested in your argumentation. Of particular importance in our society is the cardinal virtue of freedom of thought and speech. Ethical communication behaviors protect freedom of thought and speech for arguers and respect those same freedoms for their audiences. Our society considers freedom of thought and speech to be universal truths that apply to all people at all times. We have begun, however, to question whether it is desirable, or even possible, to come up with such “one-size-fits-all” ethical standards. For much of human history, men and women were considered to have different virtues. Women were said to possess the “beautiful” virtues of modesty, neatness, good-heartedness, and a pleasant-looking form. Men were assigned the “noble” or “sublime” virtues of honor, justice, courage, and rationality. The most a woman could aspire to was to be attractive to, and good company for, the men in her life (McLaren, 2001). Women have struggled for centuries to overturn this male-generated mind-set that characterizes them as incapable of rational thought. Contemporary feminists have developed ethical views questioning the belief that rational thinking belongs to men alone, and feminists have offered feminist ethical principles that emphasize women’s experiences. Carol Gilligan (1982) says that women practice an ethic of care, derived from relationships and based on standards of compassion and nurturing. Susan Frank Parsons (2002) holds that we need an ethic of liberation. We need to liberate ourselves from the institutions and material conditions that construct the genders of male and female. Tillie Olsen and Gillian Michell (cited in Johannsen, et al., 2008, pp. 210–211) suggest that women are

14

What Is Argumentation?

forced to “tell it slant.” That is, women sometimes are forced to lie or use deception to survive in a sexist society. In such circumstances, feminists would argue that “lying” can be viewed as an ethical communication practice. Our purpose is not to suggest that one can engage in deception with impunity, but rather to point out that a one-size-fits-all set of ethical principles does not always work. There is not necessarily a common morality that applies to all people in all situations. Clifford Christians (1997) suggests that old standards of Euro-American Enlightenment ethics, absolutes about which behaviors are good and right, are no longer morally and intellectually defensible. “The only legitimate option is an ethics that is culturally inclusive rather than biased toward Western hegemony” (p. 5). How, then, is it possible to devise ethical standards for argumentation? Contemporary argumentation scholars suggest that rather than searching for some universal set of norms, we look instead at how people use argumentation and develop an ethics based on argumentation as it is practiced. Edmund Arens (1997) and Michael Traber (1997) indicate that there is one standard that seems common across all cultures—an orientation to telling the truth. Both one-on-one relationships and community structures are only “possible on the assumption that people are telling the truth, whereby mutual trust is possible.” Although truth and trust may be expressed in different ways across cultures and “telling it slant” may be understandable in certain circumstances, “truth-telling nevertheless remains the foundation on which relationships are maintained and cultivated” (Traber, 1997, p. 339). The importance of truth telling and trust is illustrated in the aftermath of the deceptions perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme wiped out the savings of thousands of retirees and the assets of many nonprofit foundations to the tune of $50 billion by promising them consistent market-beating returns. “Many of the alleged fraudster’s biggest investors—European industrialists, South American socialites, well-connected American business people—believed that getting Madoff to manage their money was like gaining admittance to a hoity-toity club . . . this alleged fraud is the sort of thing you can ordinarily get away with only if your victims are trusting friends and family” (Gross, 2009, p. 18). The dialectical perspective on argumentation has a strong ethical dimension. Participants in argumentation are obligated not to make “any moves which impede the communication proceedings.” There is a “Principle of Communication” that “is implemented by the maintenance of four standards: clarity, honesty, efficiency, and relevance” (van Eemeren et al., 1996, p. 12). Whether your approach to argumentation is based on the dialectical perspective of argumentation as conversation or the more traditional view that argumentation is verbal competition, these four standards will serve you well as the basis for ethical participation and as a means of facilitating truth telling.

Clarity In the eighteenth century, rhetorical theorists developed “the doctrine of perspicuity,” by which they meant a speaker or writer should strive for clearly expressed ideas. Today, we speak of the quality of “clarity” in speaking and writing. The main points you make in arguing should be easily comprehended by your audience.

15

What Is Argumentation?

Arguers have an ethical responsibility not to deceive their audiences or other arguers by using obscure or ambiguous language, confusing patterns of organization, or ideas encumbered by nonessential information or ideas. Clarity is a matter of both language choice and the arrangement of reasons and proof in the message. An audience decodes a message. Decoding is the interpretive process that audience members and other arguers use to come to an understanding of what you mean. Decoding is not necessarily a simple process; it is easy for a reader or listener to assign a different meaning or to completely misunderstand you. Therefore, the burden is on you, the arguer, to be clear, because the audience may resist, or completely botch, “decoding unless claims are presented clearly and made explicit” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 193). Choosing the most concrete or specific language and having a clear structure for your message increases the chances that your arguments will not be misinterpreted. As an ethical responsibility, clarity is related to honesty. When you present your arguments clearly, your audience will most likely form an impression of you as an honest person who does not attempt to conceal things from them.

Honesty The orientation toward truth telling is at the heart of honesty. Honesty is saying what you believe to be the truth of the matter. Ethical communication behavior demonstrates character, and a traditional component of good character is being truthful with your audience. To achieve honesty, you must know your subject thoroughly. An ethical arguer diligently researches the subject to discover, insofar as possible, what is probably true about it. Although no one expects you to learn everything about a given subject, ethical argumentation requires that you be well informed. You need to know the subject not only from your own point of view, but from opposing viewpoints as well. And you need to realize that probable truth may exist on both sides of a controversy. Issues in human affairs are seldom onesided. Indeed, we define something as a controversy when at least two conflicting views exist, each of which possesses elements of probable truth. Just because information does not fit your point of view does not mean it is a “lie.” Being honest also requires that you use facts and the opinions of others accurately. Remember that when you think through something you have witnessed, read, or heard, you filter the information through your own cognitive maps of experience. You decide how you will interpret reality. In deciding, you have the ability to distort or confuse the facts. Your ethical obligation is to avoid consciously distorting information to mislead your audience. What is wrong with some distortion, especially if it is done in pursuit of a worthy goal? Simply this: If you violate the trust an audience places in you by not being truthful with them, you risk not being considered credible in the future. Finally, beyond being honest in using facts and opinions, you should never fabricate information. Making up information is deceptive and unethical. With information available on almost any subject, a diligent exploration of print and electronic sources will yield what you need to prove your arguments. An orientation toward truth telling requires more than just being clear and honest. Your ethical obligations also extend to being a competent arguer who does not waste the time of others. Ultimately, your practice of clarity and honesty

16

What Is Argumentation?

in researching and preparing arguments will lead to the quality of producing efficient arguments.

Efficiency Efficiency as an ethical standard does not mean taking shortcuts or offering minimal proof and reasoning in making your point. Efficiency is the obligation to develop arguments that have the necessary rational power to make your point. The connection between efficiency and rational power can best be understood in terms of the ELM. In the ELM, “a better, stronger argument is one that engages audience members, one that they collaborate in creating, translating it into their own words, attempting to clarify what seems ambiguous” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 97), extending on what the arguer has said by adding their own experiences and knowledge. Involving the audience in the process of reasoning with you is key to efficient arguing. What results is a “well-made” argument. If your approach is to ramble, to include every bit of information you have discovered, or to fail to engage the audience, you will not have a well-made argument. The ethical standard of efficiency also addresses your competency as an arguer. Being efficient means being capable and competent and knowing how to do the task at hand. An ethical arguer uses sound reasoning in the form of logically sufficient arguments supported by facts and expert opinion. You are responsible for the form and content of all your communication, whether the end product is argumentation or something else, and the manner in which you discharge this responsibility is a reflection of your communication competence. Achieving the competency necessary to create efficient arguments comes from studying texts such as this one and then applying what you have learned. Although you do not need to be a slave to the rules, ethical argumentation requires that you know and be able to use them. Efficiency is a standard of ethics that ultimately means you do not waste your audience’s time by offering them a muddled or irrelevant message.

Relevance In their development of the ELM, Petty and Cacioppo (1986) thought that one variable, personal relevance, would have the greatest impact on the extent to which an audience member would follow the central route in processing a message. If an issue or idea does not relate to the listener’s or reader’s life, he or she will be less likely to augment or extend on messages by supplying personal experience or knowledge. The need to be relevant “underscores the importance of adapting arguments to the audience and how essential it is to point out the relevance of issues for those you seek to reach and influence” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 97). The standard of relevance recognizes that audience members select which messages they will attend to and which they will ignore. Audience members selectively expose themselves to messages that meet their needs. When people perceive that something is of use to them, they are more likely to extend themselves, to expend the psychic energy required to become involved in decoding messages about it.

17

What Is Argumentation?

The quality of relevance is especially important in a multicultural society. Although an orientation toward truth telling is a core value, we live in a society made up of many disparate cultures. Ethically, the goal is not to widen the culture gaps, but to find ways to bridge them while respecting cultural differences. An ethical arguer must have the welfare of the audience in mind. Arguments arise in resolving which policy is best, which course of action should be undertaken. A responsible arguer creates argumentative positions that emphasize what is relevant—common values and common goals—to people who may come from diverse cultures. “Ideological differences or a lack of shared beliefs and attitudes are serious barriers, but ones that can be breached by relevance, that is, if the recipients see a direct, personal use for the information provided now” (Campbell & Huxman, 2003, p. 190). You are ethically responsible for investigating the cultures of those in your audience or those who would be affected by your arguments so you can find ways to attempt to bridge these cultural gaps. As standards of ethics for argumentation, clarity, honesty, efficiency, and relevance are personal qualities that all ethical arguers cultivate in themselves. These are qualities you should strive to bring to the process of argumentation. Doing argumentation, the act of being involved in the process of argumentative discourse, also has certain standards for ethical participation.

Discourse Ethics Discourse ethics are not so much a set of norms for what constitutes “good” or “right” behavior, but rather they address the attitude one should bring to the process of engaging in argumentation. J. Vernon Jensen (1997) describes discourse ethics as the embodiment of the spirit of dialogue. “Dialogue here refers to a spirit, an attitude, a mind-set that is reflected by the techniques and behaviors, the verbal and nonverbal cues, of those who are interacting” (p. 32). Respecting the process of dialogue, and the people involved in it, is the ethical center of discourse ethics. As you will quickly discern, if discourse ethics are not observed, truth telling cannot be assumed. Advocates and opponents should not look on each other, or the people in their audiences, as “objects” or “things” if they are truly concerned about discourse ethics. Respect for the process of argumentation “implies showing a concern for possible consequences and employing honesty, directness, frankness, and spontaneity.” Conceptualizing participation in the process of argumentation as a dialogue “reflects authenticity, inclusion, and confirmation but avoids manipulation, pretense, self-centeredness, and defensiveness.” Jensen describes the ethical process as one in which “self-scrutiny of claims, motives, reasoning, and evidence is unhesitatingly entered into, and there is a willingness to admit error if it is demonstrated” (1997, p. 32). Johannesen et al. (2008) say that the spirit of dialogue “is characterized by such qualities as mutuality, open-heartedness, directness, honesty, spontaneity, frankness, lack of pretense, nonmanipulative intent, communion, intensity and love in the sense of responsibility of one human for another” (p. 52). Ultimately, these qualities of discourse ethics suggest that an ethical arguer respects the personhood of those involved in the process of argumentation. Traber (1997) tells us that our concerns about ethics and multiculturalism have “brought to the fore the realization that personhood transcends all cultures. . . . Personhood implies the capacity

18

What Is Argumentation?

of free choice, the ability to reflect and argue rationally, and the endowment of its inner and intrinsic worth” (p. 337). How can you maximize the potential to embody discourse ethics in your participation in the process of argumentation? Franz Van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (1992) combined the study of language and logic in the spirit of dialogue in what they called “pragma-dialectics.” They developed a code of conduct for practicing argumentative discourse, a set of guidelines for ethical participation in the process. “For example, you can ask someone to clarify their argument. You must clarify your argument if asked to do so. The rules of pragma-dialectics can also be used to evaluate encounters to determine why they failed to produce results” (Rybacki & Rybacki, 2009, p. 281). The great value of argumentation is that it provides a reliable means of arriving at the probable truth of something. Seldom in human affairs is there a definitive, absolutely right or wrong answer to a question or solution to a problem. We need argumentation to find the most plausible and probable answers and solutions. When we enter the world of probabilities, we open ourselves up to the risk that probable truth may reside with something that challenges our belief structure. Wayne Brockriede (1990) explains the risk in terms of how arguing may encourage personal growth: “When two persons engage in mutual confrontation so they can share a rational choice, they share the risks of what the confrontation may do to change their ideas, their selves, and their relationship with one another” (p. 7). In this way, argumentation can be a positive, healthy means of self-development. Argumentation does have its limitations, because it is practiced by fallible humans whose motives may not always be above reproach. We are especially at risk when it comes to our concept of time. Electronic communication has created a 24–7 mentality in which everything seems to happen in nanoseconds. Unfortunately, the process of argumentation is time-consuming. It takes time to marshal sufficient evidence to support a position and ensure its logical consistency. Dealing with the evidence and reasoning on which argumentation is based, a set of minimal standards, rules for sufficiency, is provided. As a creator of arguments, you should allow enough time to apply these standards rigorously in evaluating your own work. As a consumer of argumentation, you should be equally rigorous in using them. Test what you hear and read to ensure it is not emotive discourse masquerading as argumentation. As we end this chapter, we want to focus on the idea that argumentation is a process or a means of communication. Argumentation is not an end unto itself, but a means to achieve consensus or make a decision. In your use of the means of argumentation, you may not always achieve the ends you seek. Although we all want our argumentative efforts to succeed, the most important outcome of studying and practicing argumentation is that of learning the process—a good means of reasoning with others.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using argumentation as a means of influencing the belief and behavior of others. How will the advantages of argumentation improve your ability to communicate your views in a controversy? How will you overcome the limitations of argumentation?

19

What Is Argumentation?

2. Choose an editorial or opinion essay such as the “My Turn” pieces in Newsweek that you perceive to be an effective piece of argumentation and respond to the following questions: a. Why is this an example of argumentation? How is it instrumental communication? b. What resources of reasoning and proof are used to develop the author’s opinion? c. What evidence do you have that the author of the argument is fulfilling the ethical responsibilities of arguing? 3. Think about your most strongly held opinions. On what are these based, the central or peripheral route in the Elaboration Likelihood Model? Examine the sources of these beliefs for evidence of reasoning, emotions, prejudices, tradition, or authority figures. 4. Choose a current, widely discussed controversy. Find an editorial cartoon about the controversy as well as a fully developed opinion piece on the subject. Discuss how the cartoon is an example of the peripheral route of the Elaboration Likelihood Model and how the fully developed piece is an example of the central route. 5. Develop a code of ethical standards for your argumentation class. What will you consider to be ethical and unethical behaviors? How will your code accommodate cultural differences?

REFERENCES Arens, E. (1997). Discourse ethics and its relevance for communication and media ethics. In. C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 46–67). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Aristotle. (1954). The rhetoric. (R. Roberts, Trans.). New York: Modern Library. (Original work n. d.). Belenky, M. R., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. New York: Harper Collins Basic Books. Brockriede, W. E. (1990) Where is argument? In R. Trapp & J. Schuetz (Eds.), Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honor of Wayne Brockriede (pp. 4–8). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Campbell, K. K., & Huxman, S. S. (2003). The rhetorical act: Thinking, speaking and writing critically (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Christians, C. G. (1997). The ethics of being in a communication context. In. C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 3–23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coleman, C. L. (1997). Emergence values from American Indian discourse. In C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 194–207). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gross, D. (2009, January 12). Membership has its penalties. Newsweek, 153, 18. Jensen, J. V. (1997). Ethical issues in the communication process. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Johannesen, R. L., Valde, K. S., & Whedbee, K. E. (2003). Ethics in human communication (6th ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. McLaren, M. A. (2001). Feminist ethics: Care as a virtue. In P. D. Autels & J. Waugh (Eds.), Feminists doing ethics (pp. 101–117). Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. Middleton, K. R., & Chamberlain, B. F. (1995). Key cases in the law of public communication. White Plains, NY: Longman. Middleton, K. R., Trager, R., & Chamberlain, B. F. (2002). The law of public communication (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Moemeka, A. A. (1997). Community and self-respect as African values. In. C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 170–193). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

20

What Is Argumentation?

Parsons, S. F. (2002). The ethics of gender. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag. Rowland, R. C. (1987). On defining argument. Philosophy and rhetoric, 20, 140–159. Rybacki, K. C., & Rybacki, D. J. (2002). Communication criticism: Approaches and genres (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson. Rybacki, K. C., & Rybacki, D. J. (2009). Rhetorical exigency, strategy, and argumentation. In W. F. Eadie (Ed.), 21st century communication: A reference handbook (Volume 1, pp. 275–282). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. London: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., & Janik, A. (1984). An introduction to reasoning. (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Traber, M. (1997). Conclusion: An ethics of communication worthy of human beings. In. C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 327–343). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (1993). Argumentation, communication, and fallacies: A pragma-dialectical perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., & Henkemans, F. S. (1996). Fundamentals of argumentation theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Walton, D. N. (1990). Practical reasoning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Walton, D. N. (1992). Plausible argument in everyday conversation. Albany: University of New York Press. Walton, D. N. (1998). The new dialectic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Wenzel, J. W. (1990). Three perspectives on argumentation: Rhetoric, dialectic logic. In R. Trapp & J. Schuetz (Eds.), Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honor of Wayne Brockriede (pp. 9–26). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Yarbrough, S. R. (1999). After rhetoric: The study of discourse beyond language and culture. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Zelezny, J. D. (2001). Communication law (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Zelezny, J. D. (2011). Communication law (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

21

This page intentionally left blank

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

From Chapter 2 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

23

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

A

rgumentation is instrumental communication. It is used to influence the beliefs and behaviors of others. Principles of argumentation have evolved over time, and the practice of good argumentation requires that arguers maintain ethical standards appropriate to their society. This information alone, however, is not enough to begin the process of arguing. As with any rule-governed behavior, there are certain first principles, or conventions, you must know as a prerequisite to participating. We want you to think of arguing as participating in a process that leads to ethical and effective uses of reasoning and proof. To understand how people get involved in the process, it is helpful to extend our characterization of argumentation as instrumental communication. Frans van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, and Tjark Kruiger (1987) offer such an extension by explaining common characteristics of the process: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

Argumentation is a social activity. Argumentation is an intellectual activity. Argumentation is a verbal activity. Argumentation is opinion stating, justifying, or refuting. Argumentation is directed toward an audience.

Social, intellectual, and verbal activity directed toward an audience suggest that argumentation takes place in a particular kind of context. Moreover, that argumentation involves intellectual and verbal activity suggests the content of communication may be influenced, even constrained, by the context in which it takes place. Opinion stating, justifying, and refuting suggest that behavior within this communication context involves people enacting fairly specific roles governed by expectations or rules. If you have had other courses in communication, you probably found the three preceding statements fairly unremarkable. The existence of a context that influences the content of communication and involves role-bound, rule-bound

24

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

behavior on the part of communicators is hardly unique to argumentation. What is unique about argumentation is the way in which context, content, roles, and rules play out.

FIELDS OF ARGUMENTATION Argumentation takes place in the context of a field that contains the arguer, a subject of controversy, and an audience. A field of argumentation is a social or professional context in which people argue to make decisions or build a body of knowledge. Stephen Toulmin (1958) uses “field” as a metaphor for the figurative territory in which arguers and audiences function. A field of argumentation is much like an academic discipline such as history or biology. Theories, examples, and interpretations in each academic discipline have evolved over time as successive historians and biologists contributed to their field’s body of knowledge and formed opinions based on research about what something means in the historical or biological context. Each field has certain elements that are field dependent. These elements are particular to that field alone. Definitions and terminology, a field’s jargon that may be incomprehensible to anyone outside the field, are field-dependent uses of language. Each field may also have its own standards for the rigor expected in proof and reasoning, for what constitutes “sound” argumentation, and for what “makes sense.” Standards for proof and reasoning can also be field dependent, because historians and biologists, for example, discover information and create knowledge in different ways. To understand this aspect of field dependency, think about how the historian and the biologist approach doing research in their respective fields. A question that exists in many different fields, the answer to which is dependent on each field’s subject matter, is: What constitutes a sufficient number of cases upon which to base generalizations? (Lyne, 1990). A historian might be able to develop effective arguments using as few as a half dozen cases or instances of the impact of railroads on the development of the western frontier to draw a general conclusion about the importance of railroads. A biologist, on the other hand, would be considered irresponsible for drawing a conclusion about cell behavior based on the study of only six cells. We cannot provide you with an all-purpose list of everything that might be dependent in every particular field because one does not exist. To participate in argumentation, you must be knowledgeable not only regarding a field’s subject matter but also about any special, field-dependent requirements for arguing in it. Through research you will discover information about subject matter directly and begin to discover, directly or indirectly, elements of a field that make arguing in it unique. Not all elements of argumentation are dependent on a particular field’s subject matter. Some elements, such as the basic mental structures of human reasoning and the tests we apply to determine the quality of information used to prove arguments, do not typically change as we move from field to field. These elements of argumentation are field invariant. The historian and the biologist both use the same understanding of the reasoning process—that a generalization, for example, is made by examining instances of something and drawing a conclusion based on what those instances have in common. Both

25

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

fields also share an understanding that good cases, on which a valid generalization can be based, are representative of all existing cases. The only substantive, field-dependent difference in how history and biology approach generalizing concerns how many cases are considered sufficient to support a generalization. Why is it important to your understanding of argumentation to know the distinction between field-dependent and field-invariant elements? We all potentially participate in argumentation in several different fields. As a student, for example, you may be taking courses from four different departments, which means you must be able to function in the context of those fields. If each course requires you to write a term paper, analyze case studies, or make comparisons on essay tests, you will be participating in argumentation in four different fields. You must know the field-dependent requirements. Are any special terms or language used? What quality of proof is required? What unique restrictions or expectations exist in each field? You need to know the answers to be successful as an instrumental communicator in each of your classes. To successfully participate in argumentation, it is also important to understand the field-invariant elements of argumentation. For instance, there are some field-invariant rules for language use. Whether you are writing for a history or a biology professor, both will expect you to know how to spell, use appropriate sentence structure, and organize a term paper according to a standard system for term paper writing. There are also field-invariant rules for the major forms of reasoning that apply across all disciplines, as suggested in our comparison of history and biology. Fields are not static. A field is always in the process of evolving as new people and new ideas modify it and add to its body of knowledge. You should be alert for shifts that might have taken place. Something that was field invariant may become field dependent, as often happens in the sciences when new subspecialties emerge. Equally, some things that were field dependent in the past may become field invariant in the future. Once the province of the hard sciences, the scientific method has become ubiquitous with the emergence of the soft, or social, sciences. Fields are inhabited by people whose ideas and experiences give them shape. We can characterize the roles of these participants in argumentation and the rules under which they participate. Those who favor change and those who oppose it assume roles that carry with them responsibilities that must be fulfilled during the process. We use the term advocate to refer to the person who communicates to encourage a change in belief or behavior. The term opponent identifies the person who acts to discourage the change supported by the advocate. The opponent plays the role of spokesperson for the existing beliefs and behaviors in a field. Using sports as an analogy, the advocate plays offense, the opponent plays defense. The conventions of presumption, burden of proof, and prima facie case development identify the playing field and obligate those who play on it to fulfill certain rule-based responsibilities.

PRESUMPTION To begin the process of argumentation, you must identify the beliefs and behaviors that a field presently favors. All argumentation takes place over a piece of figurative ground occupied by existing institutions, ideas, laws, policies, and customs.

26

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

This figurative ground represents the way things are at present. Presumption is the term that specifies who occupies this ground at the beginning of the controversy. Historically, the concept of presumption has reflected one of two viewpoints: artificial or natural. The concept of artificial presumption in the legal system demonstrates how presumption is influenced by a field. In the American legal system, every defendant is presumed innocent until the probability of his or her guilt can be demonstrated by the state, in the case of criminal law, or by the plaintiff, in the case of civil law. This presumption of innocence is termed artificial because it is the result of argumentative ground having been assigned arbitrarily to one side in the dispute because of a field-accepted belief. The Constitution and the accumulated experience of those in the field of law create a field-dependent presumption in favor of “innocent until proven guilty.” So powerful is this presumption in the American psyche that it often carries over into other fields, as when someone is accused of wrongdoing or malfeasance that is not necessarily a criminal or civil violation of the law. An assumption of innocence here is an artificial kind of presumption; law and custom could just as easily have assigned presumption as the French do: The accused is guilty until he or she proves the probability of innocence. All fields have their own institutions, ideas, rules, policies, and customs that have been established as the field developed. These elements are often what defines one field as unique from others. We can say that these elements create an order for what is typical, or natural, for that field. Each field has its own natural order, and participants in that field usually consider its institutions, ideas, rules, policies, or customs effective and deserving of continuation until someone shows them good and sufficient reasons to change. Natural presumption derives from the observation of the natural order of whatever field we find ourselves in at a given time. When an advocate challenges a belief or behavior that is the consequence of something in the natural order of a field—an institution, idea, rule, policy, common practice, custom, value, or interpretation of reality—presumption automatically rests with the belief or behavior being challenged. This presumption in favor of the natural order is automatic, because a field’s natural order is a product of the development over time of things that work for that field. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a bit of folk wisdom that neatly expresses the concept of natural presumption. Our understanding of natural presumption is drawn from the work of Anglican Archbishop Richard Whately (1828/2010). In discussing presumption, he used the analogy of a company of soldiers inside a fortress. Change would require these troops to march out to meet the enemy; natural presumption would suggest that they remain secure inside their fortress rather than venture out onto an unknown battlefield. Because natural presumption reflects accepted practices in a given field, the natural order of things in the military field suggests that troops do not normally abandon a secure position in favor of an open field. They leave it up to the opposing force to attack their fortified position. Pragmatically, presumption can serve as a decision rule for determining how the audience will respond to a proposal for change if its advocate fails to offer them good and sufficient reasons for making the change. Because presumption tells us what the audience presently views as adequate and deserving of continuation, if

27

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

good and sufficient reasons are not given, the audience will usually reject a proposal for change. Whately was particularly concerned that those who argue realize what presumption means in preparing an argumentative case. He urged arguers to begin by knowing where presumption lies and to point out who has the burden of proving the change is reasonable and who has the benefit of endorsing the accepted institutions, ideas, rules, policies, and customs in a field. Thus, the convention of presumption helps us understand the responsibilities of the advocate and opponent roles in argumentation. Presumption is a communication convention with implications for audience analysis. Whately also identified that for which the audience holds deference as a source of presumption. The persons, practices, ideas, or sources of information the audience accepts can be regarded as presumptively occupying the figurative ground. Whether we think of a large field, such as the “American system of democracy,” or a narrower field, such as the “genre of horror fiction,” those who make up that field tend to favor the existing practices and ideas of the field. They defer to the field’s institutions, authorities, opinion leaders, and body of knowledge, all of which has evolved over time (Bruce, 1993). The deference those in a field have for that which constitutes it is a natural presumption. People in a field compose the audience for a proposal to change belief or behavior in it. Knowing those things, especially those sources of information and expert opinion, that the audience has deference for is the best way to discover what will provide a basis for good and sufficient reasons for them to favor or oppose change. J. Michael Sproule (1976) suggests a series of questions to ask in using natural presumption as an audience analysis device. The arguer is advised to ask such questions as: (1) to what groups do members of the audience belong? (2) to what sources of information (persons, books, groups) do audience members accord deference? (3) what is the popular and unpopular opinion on a particular subject? (4) what information on a subject might hold the advantage of novelty? Such queries would assist the [arguer] in selecting arguments and evidence best fitted to persuading persons on a given subject. (p. 128)

There is a final perspective from which we may consider the convention of presumption. Usually applied to argumentation as a process for seeking knowledge, presumption can be thought of as a hypothesis to be tested. When people engage in argumentation because their goal is to explore some new idea or reevaluate an old one, to define the boundaries of a concept, or to determine whether something is or is not accurate, they phrase a proposal and test it. The result is argumentation about whether to believe or not believe something (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Jackson, & Jacobs, 1993; Walton, 1992). Argumentation to test hypotheses uses an artificial presumption. “Presumption comes into play where there is an issue or question that is open in the sense that the relevant, available evidence does not resolve the issue one way or another with sufficient weight to close discussion of the issue” (Walton, 1992, p. 42). The issue or question is phrased as a hypothesis, although we will use the label proposition. The hypothesis is given provisional, artificial acceptance, and then argumentation takes place to determine whether that acceptance should continue or should be rejected. Those who participate in such hypothesis testing argumentation may take the traditional roles of advocate and opponent, in which one side

28

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

supports the accuracy of the proposition and the other denies it. A hypothesis may also be tested by using a format for argumentation in which all participants play the roles of both advocate and opponent. You may recognize this form of argumentation from your experience in science or social science courses. The scientific method is a logical system for testing a hypothesis, often through a study or an experiment. A social scientist proposes that the lyrics in country-western music are more likely to contain negative characterizations of marriage and fidelity than the lyrics of any other form of popular music. She states the hypothesis: country-western lyrics suggest negative images of marriage and fidelity to listeners. She then assembles evidence by studying the content of lyrics in country-western and non-country-western songs and publishes her research in a social science journal. Our first social scientist has initiated an argument about the content, and likely impact on listeners, of the lyrics of country-western songs. Another social scientist reads the article and believes it misrepresents the meaning of these lyrics. He analyzes them and finds that the lyrics are more likely to suggest positive characterizations, and he publishes his findings. Both researchers may continue their debate over the hypothesis, analyzing more songs and publishing their findings. They may also choose to work together to determine whether the hypothesis is accurate by conducting a laboratory or field experiment to determine how countrywestern fans characterize these lyrics. The debate tournaments that high school and college students participate in provide another venue for hypothesis testing. A debate topic is selected for the school year, and students participate in contests to advocate or oppose the hypothetical statement or proposition. The testing of the hypothesis occurs as affirmative (advocate) and negative (opponent) teams argue back and forth, with a judge (audience) evaluating the strength of arguments, quality of evidence, and soundness of reasoning. In tournament debate, testing the hypothesis of the debate topic relies on artificial presumption. Presumption is automatically granted to the negative team at the beginning of each debate, and the affirmative team has the burden of proving the presumption should be overturned. Whichever team is most successful in convincing the judge that its test of the hypothesis is most accurate “wins” the debate. Whether artificial or natural, presumption grants initial possession of the figurative ground to the person fulfilling the role of opponent. The opponent represents an existing institution, idea, law or rule, policy, practice, or custom and is responsible for denying that good and sufficient reasons exist to change it. We assume that what exists should be maintained unless good reasons surface to change it. Presumption simply describes what exists without making any kind of judgment about its worth or effectiveness. Consider the following description: The existing curriculum at Northern State University involves courses which are mostly worth four credit-hours, although a few one-, two-, and three-credit courses exist. Student schedules and faculty teaching loads are designed around the four-credit-hoursper-course system. Some faculty and students would like to have the system converted to a three-credit standard.

In this case, presumption states that a system of four-credit courses exists and functions at Northern State University. Presumption does not suggest this is necessarily good for learning or teaching, just that it is present and that in the field of

29

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

Northern State University no one presently sees any reason to change it. Controversy over the credit-hour system would revolve around the efforts of advocates to present a series of good reasons for changing the system and the efforts of opponents who, using the benefit of presumption that the four-credit standard has worked, defend the policy on the basis of its successful functioning. In argumentation, the importance of the convention of presumption lies in the responsibility it places upon the advocate. Because advocates do not have the benefit of presumption, which favors no change, they must show good and sufficient reasons why we can no longer rely on those beliefs or behaviors that are afforded presumption because they presently exist. We may summarize presumption in the following principles: 1. The term presumption describes a situation that currently exists and points out a prevailing order. 2. The opponent initially occupies the figurative ground over which the argument will be contested. 3. Presumption is a decision rule that determines what the advocate must prove in testing the proposition as a hypothesis. 4. Presumption identifies what sources of information and expert opinion constitutes good and sufficient reasons for accepting or rejecting a proposed change in belief or behavior. 5. Presumption only describes; it does not judge the value or lack of value of the existing beliefs, institutions, ideas, laws or rule, policies, or customs presently occupying the ground.

BURDEN OF PROOF Once presumption has been determined, an advocate must discover and provide good and sufficient reasons to support a change in belief or behavior. It is the responsibility of the person performing the role of advocate to provide these reasons in order to fulfill the burden of proof. Presumption describes the preoccupation of ground in argumentation by the opponent; the burden of proof is the obligation of the advocate to contest the ground by offering arguments that are logically sufficient to challenge presumption. The process of argumentation is much like a balancing scale. Arguing is a shifting or transferring of the weight of evidence and reasoning from one side to the other (Walton, 1988). The audience for argumentation is part of the balancing mechanism, as it may shift its support from opponent to advocate, or advocate to opponent as each side’s arguments are presented. The scale is finally tipped when the audience decides to accept or reject the proposed change based on which side’s evidence and reasoning ultimately have more weight. To fully understand what the burden of proof involves, recall that presumption describes what exists without passing judgment on it. The advocate, in fulfilling the burden of proof, both passes judgment on and criticizes present belief or behavior and recommends a new belief or behavior. He or she begins by specifying or naming what it is that should not continue—the existing belief or behavior awarded preoccupation of the ground by presumption. To fulfill the obligation of burden of proof, the advocate must demonstrate why whatever presently occupies the disputed

30

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

figurative ground should not continue to do so. The content and scope of the burden of proof are specified by the statement of the proposition argued. The burden of proof may be thought of as the obligation of the complaining party in a dispute. In civil law, this obligation would be identified with the responsibility of the plaintiff to proceed first and make a case against the defendant, proving the complaint by a preponderance of evidence. If you were dissatisfied with an automobile you had purchased and decided to sue the dealership, as the plaintiff you would have to demonstrate through the introduction of evidence and testimony that you had been harmed or damaged in some way as a result of the dealer’s actions. In criminal law, the state acts as advocate and must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the crime. This constitutes the state’s burden of proof. In a controversy, the burden of proof always falls on the party who would lose if the complaint were rejected or if a settlement did not occur. In the case of your suing the auto dealer, as the person bringing the complaint, you would lose if you could not demonstrate that you had been harmed or if you could not prove the harm was a consequence of the dealer’s actions. In the example of criminal law, the presumption of innocence means that if the prosecution was unable to demonstrate the guilt of the accused at a sufficiently high level of probability, the state’s case would be lost. In some fields, the requirements for the burden of proof may not always be as clear as they appear in legal argumentation. This is why audience analysis to determine presumption can be useful. It will help you discover exactly what your audience expects you to prove. If you were a student advocate addressing a Northern State University policy-making body made up of faculty and administrators, you might determine that their attitudes favored maintaining the four-credit-hour standard because faculty would be expected to undertake additional course preparation and demand a salary increase for the extra work load. You would have to show that the greater good to students, obtained from changing to a three-credithour standard, would justify the salary increase or the increased faculty workload. Sometimes you have to make an educated guess regarding how much proof is sufficient to fulfill your burden to support change. Those who already support the change will require a simple affirmation of their beliefs; they require proof that confirms change is good and shows them how to change. An uncommitted audience may be open to the change but may require substantial reasoning and information to see that change is a good idea. An unbelieving audience may resist the change no matter what proof is presented but may sometimes be reached by your demonstrating that there are areas upon which agreement can be achieved. The latter is a common practice in labor–management negotiations and diplomatic relations. How many arguments are necessary and how much proof must support them depend on an audience’s expectations and degree of commitment. The burden of proof is the logical opposite of presumption. We may summarize the burden of proof in the following principles: 1. The advocate has the responsibility to make a case of good and sufficient reasons for change. This is the burden of proof. 2. In fulfilling the burden of proof, present beliefs and behaviors described by presumption are judged and evaluated on the basis of the available evidence, and an alternative pattern of thought or action is proposed.

31

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

How do you know when you have fulfilled your burden of proof? The advocate’s responsibility to fulfill the burden of proof is discharged when a prima facie case is presented.

THE PRIMA FACIE CASE To overcome the presumption that a belief or behavior is adequate and deserving of continuation, the advocate must present a fully developed case strong enough to justify a change unless successfully challenged by countering arguments. Literally, a prima facie case is one that “at first sight” or “on the face of it” is sufficient to justify changing belief or behavior. A prima facie case causes us to suspend our reliance on presumption as a guide for belief or behavior. This suspension of presumption will either be temporary, if valid countering arguments are provided, or permanent, if the opponent is unable to establish a reason to continue to rely on the original presumption. Because the dispute would be lost if a prima facie case were not presented to fulfill the burden of proof and suspend presumption, the advocate normally initiates the argument by speaking or writing first. This initial presentation must be prima facie and sufficient to support the proposal for a change in belief or behavior. The legal system once again provides an example to clarify the concept. To establish the guilt of a person accused of a felony, the prosecution must present an indictment of this individual that suspends the artificial presumption of innocence. This presentation must constitute a prima facie case. Suppose Ralph is accused of auto theft. A prima facie case would consist, at the very least, of evidence and testimony supporting the following arguments: An automobile was reported missing from the dealer’s lot. Subsequent to receiving this report, the city police apprehended Ralph with the vehicle in question in his possession. Ralph’s possession of the automobile was unlawful. He had not purchased it, nor had he received consent of any dealer representative to take it for a test drive. Proving these three arguments would constitute a prima facie indictment of Ralph for grand theft auto. The presumption of Ralph’s innocence would be suspended until his attorney had mounted a successful defense. The defense attorney would have the responsibility of attempting to reestablish the presumption of Ralph’s innocence by attacking the truth of one or more of these arguments or by introducing argumentation that demonstrated extenuating circumstances mitigating Ralph’s guilt. The advocate is responsible for developing a topical prima facie case. In the field of an argumentation class or tournament debate, the advocate and her or his opponent agree to a proposition that identifies the broad, general topic to be argued. In ordinary conversations, and in the argumentation that takes place in some fields, it is easy to drift from topic to topic. When you want to make a specific case for or against some proposed change, this is not a desirable quality. Sticking to the topic you agreed to argue, the proposition, prevents the audience from becoming confused about the issues. If you had agreed to argue about changing Northern State University’s credithour system, the proposition might be stated as: Northern State University should

32

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

adopt the three-credit-hour course as the university standard. In providing a prima facie case, the advocate would not contest the amount a student pays per credit hour or the manner in which fees are collected, because these issues are clearly outside the bounds of the proposition. Tuition constitutes a different topic requiring a different proposition and has as much relevance to a discussion of the credit-hour system at Northern as unpaid parking tickets would have to Ralph’s guilt or innocence on the auto theft charge. In addition to being topical, a prima facie case for a proposition of value or policy must demonstrate inherency. Argumentation is used to decide whether change is justified. To justify change, the advocate must examine both the deficiencies in existing beliefs or behaviors and the reason for their existence. Inherency is concerned with the nature of cause. Advocates propose changes in belief or behavior to remedy problems or to fulfill the need for knowledge. They must identify what causes the problem or the need for knowledge and demonstrate that the nature of the cause is such that it can only be overcome by a change in belief or behavior. We generally assume that if a problem’s cause cannot be found, we cannot determine how best to remedy it, and if there is nothing to stimulate a quest for more knowledge, we will not pursue it. If an advocate cannot identify cause, he or she cannot develop a logically complete argument. Thus, inherency is a crucial part of an advocate’s prima facie case. If the advocate fails to identify a cause for a problem or cause as a reason to seek knowledge, it will be impossible to determine if there is a good reason to change our belief or behavior. Inherency establishes that the problem exists as a direct result of existing belief or behavior. If cause is found in behaviors that operationalize these beliefs, inherency is termed structural. If the cause is found in the beliefs of a field, inherency is said to be attitudinal. Finding the cause establishes that a problem or need exists as a direct result of existing belief or behavior. If the cause is found in the institutions, laws or rules, policies, and sometimes the customs of a field, inherency is structural. This is the easier type of inherency to find through research because structures are typically recorded or codified in constitutions, handbooks, court cases, legislation, and rules of conduct. But not all structures are recorded. Unwritten customs and standard practices may evolve in a field over time, and new members of the field must learn them through experience. For example, rituals and superstitions believed to bring good luck in the athletic field are seldom recorded or talked about, but they exist with a very potent force for those in athletics. Structural inherency results when fields adopt formal or informal systems that operationalize a strong or widely held belief. Institutions, laws or rules, policies, practices, and customs are the fabric that allow members of a field to engage in the activities that typify it. Structural inherency argues that a problem’s cause is found in the behavior these formal and informal systems require of people. In searching for inherent causes, the advocate examines institutions, laws or rules, policies, practices, and customs to see if their presence or absence is what has caused a problem or need. Inherency is attitudinal when the cause of a problem or need results from beliefs, ideas, or values that are central to a field. Attitudinal inherency is usually found in the articulated opinions, feelings, or emotional reactions of the people who compose a field. Attitudinal inherency may be more difficult to find through research because we do not always verbalize beliefs, ideas, or values. More difficult

33

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

does not mean impossible to find. In meeting your ethical obligation to do research, you can find many of these beliefs, ideas, or values by examining published mission statements, ethical codes, or survey research results and by interviewing, or reading essays by, opinion leaders in a given field. Attitudinal inherency can be a powerful barrier to changing belief or behavior, even when many in a field deem such a change necessary. To illustrate the power of attitudes, consider the following examples. The opinion that women are less capable of mastering mathematics than men can keep women from pursuing careers in many scientific fields. The view that college athletes are dumb jocks who receive preferential treatment can make them exiles in the classroom. Emotional reactions to the seeming unfairness of the tax system has led some to cheat on their taxes. Attitudes are often difficult to identify, but they play a powerful role in causing us to accept something as true or false, to value one thing over another, or to act or refuse to act in a certain way. In our example of argumentation concerning Northern State University, if the principal reason we have for wanting to change Northern’s credit-hour system is that the present system is (1) too restrictive of a student’s options in choosing courses or (2) does not get maximum productivity from staff and facilities, we would be citing problems that are built-in features of the existing four-credit-hour system. Inherency in this case is structural; the problem is caused by the fourcredit-hour policy. This policy has been in effect for a number of years and is considered deserving of continuation by Northern’s policy makers. Faculty members’ belief that a three-credit-hour system would increase their workload also serves as an inherent barrier to change. If faculty members prefer the four-credit-hour system, they have little or no inclination to change it. The problems with the system perceived by student advocates could only be solved by implementing a change that the existing power structure is ambivalent toward putting in place. The role of faculty attitude in preventing change illustrates that it is possible for structural and attitudinal inherency to be present at the same time. It is a characteristic of controversy that there may be several causes for a problem’s existence. To solve a problem, however, it is necessary to remove its prime cause. The advocate and opponent, in examining existing beliefs and behaviors, frequently disagree over whose explanation most clearly represents the probable truth about what causes a problem or need to exist. Conceptually, inherency is important in determining whether a prima facie case has been presented because it forces arguers to examine the reasons why things exist and to explore whether they will correct themselves by the natural processes of change. We may summarize the concept of prima facie argument with the following principles: 1. The advocate has the responsibility of presenting a prima facie case, which at face value justifies a change in belief or behavior. 2. The form and content of the arguments offered determine the face value of an advocate’s case. 3. A prima facie case must be both topical and inherent. 4. Presentation of a prima facie case causes the suspension of presumption unless it is successfully challenged.

34

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

The question may still remain: How do you know when you have discharged your responsibilities as an advocate regarding the burden of proof? How will you know what to oppose if you are the opponent? The content and scope of the burden of proof are determined by the wording of the proposition that expresses the change in belief or behavior the advocate proposes. Further, what constitutes a prima facie case can be determined by the use of certain field-invariant stock questions that can be applied to propositions in any field. Early theories of rhetoric developed a series of questions that were crucial in legal proceedings. These questions established the content and scope of the burden of proof for legal propositions. They are similar to the questions the prosecutor considered in preparing the case against Ralph. For fields of argument other than law, similar sets of questions exist. They are commonly referred to as stock issues, the questions that listeners or readers want answered before they will accept the advocate’s arguments as sufficient to warrant a change in belief or behavior. These questions focus the controversy and are naturally derived from the proposition being argued. This chapter has covered conventions, roles, rules, and responsibilities that shape participation in the process of argumentation. These conventions establish the figurative ground over which argumentation takes place and some of the rules arguers must follow for argumentation to be logically complete. An advocate, as the person seeking a change in belief or behavior, must prove the case to overcome presumption, which artificially or naturally favors no change. The playing field of argumentation is regulated by the rule that advocates and opponents must not deviate too far from the topic. In making a prima facie case for change, the advocate must prove that an inherent cause exists that serves as a good reason to make a change in belief or behavior. The opponent has the benefit of the presumption that existing elements in a field are considered adequate by the field and deserve continuation in the absence of a prima facie case for changing them.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Discuss what the three different views of presumption mean to the roles of advocate and opponent in argumentation. Should we always assign the roles before determining presumption? In which communication contexts might you use the view that presumption rests with existing institutions? In which would it be appropriate to discover the beliefs of an audience? Which fields make extensive use of hypothesis testing as a form of argumentation? 2. Choose an ongoing controversy such as the rights of smokers versus nonsmokers, abortion versus right to life, environmental protection versus the need for employment. Which side in the controversy has presumption? Which has the burden of proving that change should occur? 3. Scholars often argue over whether or not a proposed theory has accuracy or legitimacy in their field. Two theories of communication—fantasy theme analysis and the narrative paradigm—are examples of such argumentation. Choose one of the following debates for examination: a. Advocate: Ernest G. Bormann (1972, December). Fantasy and rhetorical vision: The rhetorical criticism of social reality. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58, 396–407. Opponent: G. P. Mohrman (1982, May). An Essay on Fantasy Theme Criticism. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 68, 109–132.

35

Where Do I Begin in Argumentation?

b. Advocate: Walter R. Fisher (1985, December). The narrative paradigm: An elaboration. Communication Monographs, 52, 347–367. Opponent: Robert C. Rowland (1987, September). Narrative: Mode of discourse or paradigm? Communication Monographs, 56, 264–275. How does the advocate identify presumption in the field of communication? Does he or she present good and sufficient reasons for accepting the proposed theory of communication? How does the opponent deny the accuracy of the theory? Are his or her reasons effective enough to cause you as the reader to reject the accuracy of the proposed theory? 4. Find an editorial from a current newspaper or magazine that you believe is intended to alter behavior. Analyze it in terms of the following: a. What is the locus of presumption? b. How does the arguer fulfill the burden of proof? c. In your opinion, has the arguer succeeded in creating a prima facie case? d. Assume that you will be the opponent and indicate what you might argue in response.

REFERENCES Bruce, D. R. (1993). Argumentation and the reconstitution of desire: A Lacanian mediation of presumption and ideology. In R. E. McKerrow (Ed.), Argument and the postmodern challenge: Proceedings of the eighth SCA/AFA conference on argumentation (pp. 113–118). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Lyne, J. R. (1990). Argument in the human sciences. In R. Trapp & J. Schuetz (Eds.), Perspectives on argumentation: Essays in honor of Wayne Brockriede (pp. 178–189). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Sproule, J. M. (1976). The psychological burden of proof: On the evolutionary development of Richard Whately’s theory of presumption. Communication Monographs, 43, 115–129. Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. London: Cambridge University Press. van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., Jackson, S., & Jacobs, S. (1993). Reconstructing argumentative discourse. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. van Eemeren, F. H., Grootendorst, R., & Kruiger, T. (1987). Handbook of argumentation theory: A critical survey of classical backgrounds and modern studies. Providence, RI: Foris Publications. Walton, D. N. (1988). Burden of proof. Argumentation, 2, 233–254. Walton, D. N. (1992). Plausible argument in everyday conversation. Albany: State University of New York Press. Whately, R. (1828/2010). Elements of rhetoric (Douglas Ehninger, Ed.). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

36

What Am I Going to Argue About?

A

rgumentation always takes place over a figurative piece of ground in a given field and its limits are defined by a proposition stating a change in belief or behavior. A clearly stated proposition is crucial to establishing the responsibilities of advocate and opponent in the process of argumentation. In this chapter, we define propositions, present three classifications of propositions, and offer guidelines for phrasing propositions and defining their terms.

THE NATURE OF PROPOSITIONS The proposition identifies the limits of the topic of argument, places the burden of proof on the advocate, and gives presumption to the opponent. Propositions are formed about controversies in a field. A controversy is a dispute or difference of opinion about something. In any field, several controversies may be occurring at the same time. For instance, Alison Alexander and Janice Hanson (2005) identified a series of controversies in the field of mass communication, which included: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏 䊏 䊏

Are American values shaped by the mass media? Is television harmful to children? Does the media’s emphasis on body image affect men as much as it does women? Does entertainment television programming perpetuate stereotypes of African Americans? Has negative political advertising harmed the American political process? Are American news media politically biased? Should the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) do more to police the public airwaves?

Note that each of these controversies is phrased as a question. In referring to a controversy, we often use the phrase, “the question before us is. . . .” This signals a lack of agreement, that there is no universally accepted answer to the issues posed by the question.

From Chapter 3 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

37

What Am I Going to Argue About?

Because controversies commonly occur over questions of “what happened,” “what judgment shall I make in this situation,” or “what is the best course of action to follow,” the boundaries of a given controversy must be identified so that both advocate and opponent know how these boundaries shape the argumentative ground. The proposition statement serves as the beginning point for the process of argumentation. The proposition is a statement that identifies the argumentative ground and points to a change in belief or behavior.

The proposition defines the locus of disagreement in a controversy. This locus of disagreement is the clash of positions—the point at which your position diverges from someone else’s position. Suppose that as you read the questions identifying controversies in the field of mass media, you found yourself thinking about the connection between television and children. Also suppose that the question about whether television is harmful to children stirred up childhood memories of many positive experiences you had with television, such as learning to count with Sesame Street and learning to be polite to others with Mr. Rogers. Now suppose the person who sits next to you in class has a four-year-old daughter. As he read the same question, he flashed on his daughter’s favorite cartoon in which the characters frequently say rude things to one another. He begins to form the position that some television programs may be harmful to children. You could both voice your experiences with television, exchanging viewpoints with each other. If, however, you wanted to convince the members of your class that your position is the better answer to the question “Is television harmful to children?” you need to find a way to state the locus of your disagreement so that the audience knows what the two of you are arguing about. This is why the process of argumentation begins with a proposition. Because argumentation is a communication process used to influence an audience, propositions are phrased in terms of a change in belief or behavior, stating the locus of disagreement and whether that disagreement is over a proposed change in belief or behavior. To argue effectively in ways that will offer sound reasons to your audience, state the controversy in a way that readily identifies what the argument is. By identifying the locus of disagreement in the form of a proposition, you will be able to fulfill three objectives for effective argumentation.

Selecting Terms for Definition The first objective is to define the key terms that describe the argumentative ground. We phrase the locus of disagreement as a proposition so that important words and phrases that may need clarification are made more obvious to arguers and their audiences. One question frequently arises: What do the advocate and opponent mean when they use particular words or phrases? The proposition provides a semantic framework for argument and allows the advocate and opponent to make interpretations of its key words and phrases. This interpretation is absolutely essential to effective case construction because language use is a complex human activity. Kenneth Burke (1966) described a fundamental property of being human as our proclivity to use and misuse symbols. He said that we use symbols to create

38

What Am I Going to Argue About?

complex systems and, in turn, we make symbols using a complex process. Wordsymbols are our verbal system for assigning meaning to the objects, processes, ideas, and experiences we encounter. The nature of human-symbol use underscores the importance of selecting key terms and phrases in a proposition for definition. Beyond the ability to exchange information with one another, we use language to identify, categorize, and organize objects, processes, ideas, and experiences. This is the denotative function of language use. We also use language to react to what happens around us, to make judgments, and to express our feelings. This is the connotative function of language use. A given word or phrase can function both denotatively and connotatively for individuals in an audience. In communication, language is said to act as a terministic screen; choosing a particular word sets limits, directs attention a certain way, or creates a feeling based on the symbol chosen. For example, if every reference to people in general used mankind, men, he, or manpower, your word choices all function as a male terministic screen. Your audience may perceive that you view the world as male dominated and feel that only men are important. Terministic screens are a product of the connotative dimension of language, and, at a minimum, you would be guilty of using sexist language. Further complicating the nature of language is that the assignment of meaning to a word is arbitrary. A “word” is a set of visual or auditory markings we assign to symbolize something. There is no necessary or direct connection between the word-symbol we have for something and the thing itself. You are reading these observations on the nature of language in the object that users of English identify with the word-symbol “book.” There is no reason for calling this object a “book.” Users of English could just as easily have agreed to call this object a “blomp” or a “krub.” The word-symbol we use for something, and the meaning we assign that word-symbol, are a matter of our experience of a thing and the word-symbol we assign to it. The only connection between our word-symbol “book,” and the object you are reading, is the ancient Teutonic word-symbol for the bark of the beech tree, “boc.” This language is a source for many English word-symbols and beech bark was a common material literate ancient Teutons wrote upon. Let’s examine a sample proposition for argumentation and the key words and phrases that need interpretation to clarify its argumentative ground: The federal government should significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media in the United States. This is a proposition for what is called “policy argumentation,” but the objective of selecting key words and phrases for definition also applies to propositions for other kinds of argumentation. The advocate has a burden of proof to fulfill by developing a prima facie case. She begins to build this case by selecting the key words and phrases that she will use to communicate her interpretation of the figurative ground. For this proposition, she selects three key phrases to interpret the figurative ground as she wants her audience to understand it: (1) federal government, (2) significantly strengthen the regulation of, and (3) mass media. The advocate has several options for defining these terms. The meaning she assigns to them conveys her interpretation of the figurative ground and what her burden of proof includes. Although the opponent does not begin the process of definition, he too should select key words and phrases for definition. He wants the audience to view the figurative ground from his perspective. The opponent has the option of

39

What Am I Going to Argue About?

using the advocate’s definitions or providing his own. In some instances, one of the first points of clash between advocate and opponent is over what meanings should be given to key words and phrases. Some instances of argumentation are wholly a disagreement over what meaning should be assigned to something. Once terms have been selected for definition, they must be defined in a way that clarifies the interpretation of the figurative ground. Later in this chapter, we offer some guidelines for determining which terms to define and techniques for defining them.

Specifying Direction of Change The arguers’ second objective is to identify the locus of disagreement with a proposition sentence and to specify what belief or behavior the advocate wants to change. If the arguers and their audience do not know what the locus of disagreement is, the potential for confusion is immense. Stating this locus of disagreement, along with clarifying the meaning of key words and phrases, can help avoid confusion. Also, by identifying the change sought, the proposition identifies both the advocate’s burden of proof and the sort of presumption the opponent may use to deny that this change is good or necessary. Using the sample proposition, assume the advocate has offered these definitions: federal government—the FCC significantly strengthen the regulation of—impose a specific code of decency standards for entertainment and sports programming mass media—broadcast, cable, and satellite radio and television These definitions suggest that the locus of disagreement will be over what constitutes “decency” in radio and television programming. The advocate’s arguments will have to further clarify what she means by “a specific code of decency standards,” but the disputed territory in the argumentative ground is beginning to take shape. The advocate wants her audience to accept the necessity of having the FCC empowered to do more to clean up the public airwaves. The opponent has the benefit of presumption that the FCC and, possibly, other elements of the federal government are presently doing a good job of maintaining standards of decency in radio and television. Even without these definitions, the proposition points to the kind of change the advocate is expected to support. Stating that the federal government should significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media in the United States points the advocate in the direction of greater control. The proposition identifies the agency for change the advocate must employ—some aspect of the federal government. It identifies the type of change—significantly strengthen regulation. It points to the target of change—American mass media. Change is also specified when the proposition is one of fact or value. The direction of change specified in a proposition of fact is one of movement toward accepting that something is true, acceptable, or probable. Propositions of fact may also assert movement toward a new understanding of, or perspective on, something. A fact proposition asserting that mass media play a significant role in shaping the values of Americans asks the audience to orient their thinking about American mass media toward the belief that there is a significant relationship

40

What Am I Going to Argue About?

between media consumption and American value structures. In a value proposition, such as American entertainment television programming is morally deficient, the direction of change involves the advocate’s evaluation of television on the basis of some standard of morality that she must specify. In both of these propositions, the audience is asked to make a mental commitment to a belief offered by the advocate’s interpretation of the proposition’s figurative ground. As with the policy proposition, even before definitions for key words and phrases are supplied, fact and value propositions set general boundaries for the figurative ground and direction of change toward which the advocate asks the audience to move. Fact Mass media play a significant role in shaping the values of Americans. Direction of Change: The probability that a significant connection exists between mass media and the values we hold; the accuracy of the assertion that mass media are a significant source of our values. Benefit of Presumption: Whatever link might exist between mass media and our values is not significant; other, presently agreed-upon sources of our values are more accurately described as being significant sources of our values. Value American entertainment television programming is morally deficient. Direction of Change: Acceptance of the belief that entertainment television programming does not measure up to a specified standard of morality. Benefit of Presumption: Depends upon the audience’s knowledge of and beliefs about the moral standards depicted in programming. Value clash will be over what moral figurative ground is most appropriate for evaluating the entertainment programming delivered by television. Our sample fact, value, and policy propositions are flexible enough to allow both advocate and opponent opportunities for interpreting the figurative ground. This characteristic—flexibility—is often found in propositions used for argumentation class work and competitive intercollegiate debate. Flexibility may not always be present in propositions in other academic contexts and across many fields. Fact propositions, for example, dominate the legal field. A jury is asked to accept or reject the factual proposition that the defendant has violated a particular law or statute. As a student, you may find yourself placed in the position of advocating value propositions when you tell your parents “a study abroad experience would benefit me” or “a summer internship will increase my value to a prospective employer.” In business, policy propositions shape decision making when a company contemplates moving production facilities to another country.

Identifying Key Issues The arguers’ third objective in framing a proposition is to aid the advocate and opponent in the identification of key issues. For now, it is sufficient to say that

41

What Am I Going to Argue About?

issues are central questions suggested by the wording of the proposition and the definitions provided for key terms. “An issue is an inherent and vital question within a proposition: inherent because it exists inseparably and inevitably within the proposition, and vital because it is crucial or essential to the meaning of the proposition” (Mills, 1968, p. 96). Issues become the contested points in argumentation, the areas of disagreement between advocate and opponent, the internal structure or framework for argumentation. Earlier, we offered this policy proposition: The federal government should significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media in the United States. We also provided possible definitions for the key terms: federal government—the FCC significantly strengthen the regulation of—impose a specific code of decency standards for entertainment and sports programming mass media—broadcast, cable, and satellite radio and television Our broad proposition has now come to mean something more specific: The FCC should place restrictions on the transmission of indecent words and actions via broadcast, cable or satellite radio and television in sports and entertainment programs. If the opponent accepts these definitions as reasonable, argumentation can proceed on the issues that derive from the narrowed proposition. These issues become the advocate’s burden of proof. What might these issues be? They are questions that a reasonable person might seek the answer to before accepting the change in the FCC’s role in regulating what we hear and see on radio and television. What language and action found in sports and entertainment programs constitute indecent content? Does sports and entertainment programming on radio and television contain significant amounts of indecent content? Does some significant harm result from media transmission of indecent content? What are reasonable standards of decency for sports and entertainment programming? Would there be specific advantages or benefits from imposing decency standards on sports and entertainment programming on radio and television? Is the way the FCC presently regulates language use and behavior in radio and television programming inadequate? Is the FCC the best government agency to monitor and regulate decency for radio and television? What might the consequences be, in terms of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and a free press, if the FCC is further empowered to monitor and regulate decency? These questions represent some of the issues that would give shape and structure to the process of argumentation over the figurative ground of this policy proposition. By locating areas of disagreement, potential and actual, the arguers clarify for each other, and their audience, specific aspects of belief or behavior that are contested. Issues, which sharpen the locus of disagreement, constitute the audience’s basis for deciding whether to change or maintain their current position on the contested ground.

42

What Am I Going to Argue About?

Selecting key terms for definition, specifying the direction of change the advocate seeks, and identifying key issues are necessary objectives achieved by having a proposition sentence that establishes the figurative ground at the outset, because they guide you in your management of the figurative ground for argumentation. “Somebody should do something” or “that’s just wrong” will not serve as effective guides for meeting your responsibilities as an advocate or opponent. Equally, making a snap judgment about what to do or what to believe can lead to poor decision making when you are the audience for another’s arguments. Good, effective argumentation begins with a clear answer to this chapter’s title question: What am I going to argue about?

Summary of the Nature of Propositions 1. The proposition specifies the scope of the controversy by setting up the boundaries for the figurative ground over which argumentation takes place. Defining key terms in the proposition helps to clarify these boundaries. 2. The proposition states the advocate’s goal, asserting the change in belief or behavior for which the audience’s assent is sought. 3. The proposition delineates the advocate’s responsibilities for the burden of proof, the opponent’s opportunities resulting from the identification of presumption, and it suggests potential issues that constitute the figurative ground for argumentation.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF PROPOSITIONS We classify propositions according to the end an advocate seeks, a change in either belief or behavior. There are three common classes of propositions: fact, value, and policy. These classes correspond to common sources of controversy: (1) disputes over what happened, what is happening, or what will happen; (2) disputes asserting something to be good or bad, right or wrong, effective or ineffective; and (3) disputes over what should or should not be done.

Propositions of Fact Factual propositions seek to alter our beliefs. They assert that relationships between things exist, that there are appropriate interpretations of the observable world, or what is found in a quest for knowledge. Consider the proposition: The lyrics of country-western music convey negative images of marriage and fidelity. This proposition asserts a relationship between the word-symbols in lyrics from this music genre and potential attitudes its listeners may develop as a result of listening to this music. We may not accept the probable truth of this proposition without further explanation. Proof of the asserted relationship would require analysis of the lyrics of country-western songs to determine if such negative images exist in them. Propositions of fact are further classified in terms of time frame—whether the change in belief is about the past, present, or future. Past Fact The American entertainment media were an adjunct of the military during World War II. Life evolved naturally from existing conditions on earth.

43

What Am I Going to Argue About?

Present Fact The American mass media are relatively free from government regulation compared to media in other countries. Illegal immigration deprives U.S. citizens of jobs. Future Fact New technology will make the present system of broadcast regulation irrelevant by 2020. Most large species of wildlife will cease to exist outside zoos and game preserves in the next decade. In each of these factual propositions, the controversy concerns the relationship between something and what we are asked to believe about it. All factual propositions have the structural pattern of “something was/is/will be . . . something.” To determine the truth of the relationship in the case of past or present factual propositions, the process is similar: Discover what is required to establish the probable truth or the statement and proceed to verify it. Propositions of future fact depend on discovering the probability that something will occur in the future.

Propositions of Value Value propositions attempt to alter belief by examining our subjective reactions to things and our opinions of them. The proposition of value establishes a judgmental standard or set of standards and applies them to the subject of the value proposition sentence. Value propositions take one of two forms. A singular value proposition is a straightforward evaluation of something based on a standard of judgment the advocate supplies. A comparative value proposition suggests that two things are measured or contrasted to determine which of them is more “valuable” in a given context or situation. Singular Value Reality television programming sacrifices quality for Nielsen ratings. Comparative Value The rights of endangered animal species are more important than the rights of indigenous human populations. Sentence structure is particularly important in understanding how the value proposition sets up the figurative ground for argumentation. The subject of the value proposition is the value object. The value object is the thing being evaluated. It names some idea, person, action, agency, tradition, practice, or custom that exists or is proposed. In singular value propositions, the value object is relatively easy to locate— reality television programming—in our example, and often requires definition. The sentence structure of a comparative value proposition can make determining the value object a bit trickier. In our example, the “thing” being evaluated by the advocate is the abstract concept of rights, modified by two descriptors: endangered animal species and indigenous human populations. In our example of a comparative value proposition, the advocate and opponent have a two-part value object, the

44

What Am I Going to Argue About?

rights of endangered animals and the rights of indigenous humans. This two-part structure for a value object is typical of comparative value propositions, and the advocate will want to define what she means by a right. The opponent may have his own ideas about what constitutes a right. In value propositions, whether singular or comparative, there is a second term or set of terms essential to the figurative ground and making value judgments. The value judgment term, found in the predicate of the proposition, serves as the source of criteria used to evaluate the value object. An important part of the advocate’s burden of proof is to define the value judgment term in such a way that it provides reasonable, appropriate standards of evaluation. In our singular value proposition, the value judgment term is quality. The advocate will define quality to produce specific criteria she will use to evaluate how reality television programming fails to meet her standards for quality television programs and, in so doing, fulfill her burden of proof. The opponent is free to use these same criteria or to define quality in terms of his own standards in defending reality programming. In our comparative value example, presumption suggests that when it comes to whose rights take precedence, we currently believe that the rights of people who live in an area are of greater importance than those of any endangered species who share the area with them. The value judgment term is more important, and the advocate defines this term to produce the criteria she will use in fulfilling her burden to prove that animal rights are more important than those of people in certain situations. The opponent may use her criteria or supply his own as he argues for presumption favoring people over animals. For both advocate and opponent, it is important to determine which words in the proposition represent the value object and make the value judgment in their proposition’s figurative ground.

Propositions of Policy Whereas fact and value propositions are aimed at altering beliefs, policy propositions recommend a change in behavior or create a call to action. They suggest that something should be done. Recall the series of controversies we identified earlier in the field of mass media. Many of these controversies suggest problems that need remedies. The policy proposition is common in most fields. It is characterized by the word should, which suggests that something ought to be done, not necessarily that it will be done. The word “should” requires that the advocate indicate the direction of change she supports and prove that it is “necessary,” “desirable,” and “viable” in meeting her burden of proof. It may have occurred to you that the words “necessary,” “desirable,” and “viable” suggest making value judgments about something. That is one of the secrets to successfully advocating or opposing policy propositions: A prima facie case in policy argumentation is developed through a series of fact and value subpropositions. These subpropositions function as the main points of case construction as the advocate (1) uses factual main points to establish a rationale for believing problems exist, (2) evaluates existing policies to determine what causes these problems, and (3) demonstrates why her proposal is the superior policy option. The opponent uses factual main points to

45

What Am I Going to Argue About?

encourage the audience to believe problems do not exist, uses evaluative main points to characterize the strengths of existing policies, and uses value judgments to demonstrate the weaknesses of the advocate’s proposal. Policy propositions are commonly used as the topics for academic debates in argumentation classes and intercollegiate debate competition, although some divisions of intercollegiate debate use fact and value propositions. Academic debate typically takes the form of hypothesis testing. Consider the following examples of policy propositions that have served as the national topic for intercollegiate debate competition. What aspects of fact and value do you find in these policy propositions? Resolved: That the federal government should guarantee an opportunity for higher education to all qualified high school graduates. Resolved: That greater controls should be imposed on the gathering and utilization of information about United States citizens by government agencies. Resolved: That the Commander-in-Chief power of the United States President should be substantially controlled. Each proposition suggests issues that presently are of great concern to many Americans, so it may surprise you to learn that some of these propositions are several decades old. To see the entire list, and the year in which each was the national topic, go to www.wfu.edu/NDT/HistoricalLists/topics.html. The topics selected for intercollegiate debate competition have all considered significant and highly complex political, economic, and social issues. If you were advocating or opposing one of these propositions, you would need to do a thorough examination of underlying factual and judgmental issues to make your case. The policy propositions for academic argumentation are phrased to offer students some flexibility for interpreting them. Recall that in academic argumentation your role is usually that of hypothesis tester. The goal is to evaluate which side, advocate (affirmative) or opponent (negative), does the better job of testing the hypothesis. Policy propositions used in other contexts may be more focused and specific.

Summary of the Classification of Propositions 1. Propositions of fact assert a relationship between things or between persons and things; with the exception of propositions of future fact, the advocate’s burden of proof is to prove by direct verification that the asserted relationship is probable. 2. Propositions of value make a singular evaluation of something or compare two things to determine which is of greater value in a given context; the advocate’s burden is to prove the evaluation probable through the application of criteria. 3. Propositions of policy assert that a course of action or behavior should be taken; the advocate’s burden is to prove that the policy change is reasonable by using subpropositions of fact and value in creating a prima facie case for the policy.

PHRASING THE PROPOSITION When you phrase your proposition, choose language that will clearly establish the argumentative ground. The importance of wording a proposition cannot be overemphasized. Clear phrasing is needed to provide a meaningful basis for the

46

What Am I Going to Argue About?

process that follows. A failure in proposition wording is an invitation to misunderstanding and poor analysis of its component issues (Ziegelmueller, Kay, & Dause, 1990). First, the proposition should be phrased as a clear statement of the change in belief or behavior the advocate seeks. Failure to clearly state the proposed change confuses the assignment of presumption and the scope of the burden of proof. Consider the problem with phrasing in this proposition: Something should be done about strikes by professional athletes. This proposition fails to meet the first rule for effectively phrasing a proposition. “Something” is vague, and determining the burden of proof and presumption is very difficult. “Something” could involve taking steps to restrict the athletes’ right to strike by imposing a federal ban on strikes by professional athletes, but it also could involve restricting the owners’ right to use replacement players during a strike. If the idea of arguing this subject is to consider the viability of a policy of arbitration that does not disrupt the professional sports season, a more appropriate wording for this proposition would be: An independent labor relations board for professional sports contract negotiations should be created to arbitrate all labor–management disputes. The second rule to observe in phrasing a proposition is that a proposition should be phrased as a simple-declarative sentence. A simple sentence expresses one complete thought. Its structure is subject–verb–object and it has one central idea. A declarative sentence makes an assertion: “something is something” or “something should be something.” A simple-declarative sentence makes an assertion that something is a fact, something is valued in a certain way, or some action should be taken. Your proposition should always be a straightforward assertion of a fact, value, or policy. It should never have a dependent modifying clause attached to it. If you violate this rule, you once again create potential problems for assigning presumption and burden of proof. Let’s see what happens when more than one central idea is included in a proposition. An independent board should be created to arbitrate all labor–management disputes and to mandate the use of video replay in professional sports. This is no longer a single assertion of policy. It now contains two separate topics, related only to the extent that both deal with professional sports. A proposition with more than one central idea saddles the advocate with separate burdens of proof for each idea—mandatory use of video replay, along with labor–management disputes—and the opponent now finds himself with two separate areas of presumption to defend. Both topics certainly represent important controversies in the field of professional sports, but trying to focus on both in one argumentative exchange unnecessarily complicates the process. Phrasing the proposition as a simple-declarative sentence facilitates and improves the process of analysis. As an arguer breaks down a proposition into its component issues, he or she looks for questions that are central to it. If the proposition contains multiple central ideas, identifying issues becomes more difficult and establishing an internally consistent argumentative position may prove impossible. Attaching a dependent (subordinate) clause to the proposition sentence can also create problems. The structure of the simple-declarative sentence, subject–verb–object, conveys a sense absoluteness. It is natural inclination to want to attach a dependent clause that modifies, sets limits, or provides descriptions for our declarative sentences. Resist this temptation in phrasing the propositions or you may end up with something like this: An independent labor relations

47

What Am I Going to Argue About?

board for professional sports contract negotiations, made up of people with no involvement in professional sports, should be created to arbitrate all labor–management disputes. Why is attaching this clause a bad idea? Adding this clause limits interpretive options for both advocate and opponent by indicating who may serve on this labor relations board. Although it may turn out to be a good idea, analysis and research may also suggest that experience with some aspect of professional sports would be beneficial. Determining the specific provisions for who serves on this board is part of the advocate’s burden of proof. She needs some flexibility in making those determinations. The opponent’s thinking may also be hampered. He may be led to think only about the drawbacks of board members having “no involvement in professional sports” and neglect consideration of the broader implications of compulsory arbitration. A dependent clause attached to the object of the proposition can also create problems. An independent labor relations board for professional sports contract negotiations should be created to arbitrate all labor–management disputes, such as the 2004–2005 strike by National Hockey League players that ended the season before it could even begin. At first glance, this modifying clause may seem like a good idea because it provides an example of labor–management strife in professional sports. This modifier also has the potential to limit thinking. It leads both advocate and opponent to focus on the rare instance of a season-ending strike. Any modifier that limits thinking or directs research efforts too narrowly may be problematic. Phrasing the proposition is your starting point in the process of case development. It is desirable and necessary to start with a topic sentence that clearly specifies the direction of change the advocate seeks and gives the advocate and opponent enough specificity to enable them to identify key issues, but it must allow room for analysis and critical thinking. Ideas about limits, examples, and other modifiers that come to you while you are phrasing the proposition should be recorded and saved. These ideas may turn into issues, areas for research, details for a policy proposal, definitions for key terms, and the like. Avoid attaching them to your proposition at the outset. Propositions for class activities and competitive debate help develop skills and test ideas. In intercollegiate competitive debate, the same proposition is used for the entire academic year and is argued by thousands of debaters. These propositions need to be flexible enough to allow many people to argue them. When argumentation is used to seek knowledge, the proposition is a provisional statement of belief about the nature of things. The idea of controversy is artificially induced to encourage open-mindedness in seeking knowledge. A starting point with limitations and exceptions attached to it closes off certain channels of thought. Even the more narrow applications of argumentation, such as the public-policy making that takes place in city government, benefits from flexible starting points. The final rule for phrasing propositions is that a proposition should be phrased in neutral terms. The wording should favor neither side in a controversy. The advocate might be tempted to express her feelings by using emotive language: An independent labor relations board should set the terms of contract settlements between greedy owners of professional sports teams and overpaid players. Emotive language contains value judgments. These judgments should be

48

What Am I Going to Argue About?

saved for the development of arguments about the proposition. In academic argumentation, we strive to phrase the proposition neutrally so that advocates and opponents have equal opportunity to interpret facts and make value judgments based on research and reasoning. Phrasing the proposition with emotionally loaded language undermines that sense of equal opportunity. In other contexts, neutral language is equally desirable so that the linguistic deck is not stacked against one side or the other.

Summary of Rules for Phrasing Propositions 1. Propositions should be phrased to indicate the direction of change in belief or behavior the advocate is responsible for supporting. 2. Propositions should be phrased as a simple-declarative sentence containing one central idea. 3. Propositions should be phrased in neutral language so that neither advocate nor opponent are given an unfair advantage.

DEFINING THE KEY TERMS People normally do not make changes in belief or behavior until someone gives them good and sufficient reasons for doing so. Because she seeks change, the advocate has the initial responsibility for defining terms and providing these reasons. The key terms in the proposition are defined to locate issues and to help the audience understand what the arguers mean in their use of these terms. Once you have phrased the proposition appropriately, select the key terms that you believe need clarification and then formulate definitions. The definition of a key term may become a contested part of the advocate’s argumentation. The opponent may want the audience to understand a key term from his perspective. Both advocate and opponent should be familiar with the rules and techniques for defining terms. The need to define a key term, and disputes over how a term should best be understood, also apply to key terms in the statement of issues. The advice provided here can be used for all your definitional needs. To meet those needs, we provide some general rules for defining terms, categories of terms that require definition, and techniques for defining. When asked to define a term, most of us are likely to head for a print or online dictionary. These “standard” dictionaries are useful, but using a standard dictionary can also pose a problem when one is seeking the best way to define a key term.

The Dictionary Problem As stated earlier, the meaning assigned to a word-symbol is arbitrary. What a word or phrase means is based on people’s experience and their common usage of it. A standard dictionary does not tell us the real meaning of anything; it just lists the conventions of agreement among users of the language. A standard dictionary can provide some useful information. It will tell you the “part of speech,” such as noun, verb, or adjective, the word is most commonly used for. You can also discover the historical origin of the word, its etymology. And, you can find the range of conventional meanings that people have assigned to it. Using the proposition of fact, viral

49

What Am I Going to Argue About?

video has significantly changed our concept of celebrity, let’s explore what we can and cannot achieve using a standard Webster’s Unabridged dictionary. Two key terms in this proposition need to be defined to help identify issues and to clarify the contested ground: viral video and celebrity. Our Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged, is from 1983, and the term, viral video does not appear in it. Looking up each word, we found viral, “involving a virus,” and video, “of, or used in television” neither of which are very helpful. However, a very specific explanation viral video is provided by Time’s Lev Grossman. One by one, then hundreds by hundreds, people started downloading the video, e-mailing it, linking to it, sharing it, copying it and reuploading it . . . the little video went viral—it multiplied and reproduced and spread out of control on the Internet like a virus. (2006, p. 64)

Viral video is a new term created to refer to the practice of digitizing a video file and posting it somewhere on the World Wide Web or spamming it through email. Standard dictionaries, even the newest unabridged ones, cannot keep up with all of the new terms, especially those spawned by the latest developments in computer technology. Search the news media or publications that are field specific. Will a standard dictionary be of more help in defining our second key term, celebrity? First, we tried two online dictionaries. famous person: somebody who is famous during his or her own lifetime; fame: the state of being famous (Encarta) a person who has a high degree of recognition by the general population; a famous person; fame; renown; the quality of being a celebrity (Wiktionary) Our Webster’s Unabridged tells us that common usage for celebrity is: fame; renown; the distinction of honor publicly bestowed on one because of noted character or exploits; a famous or well-publicized person (p. 290) Webster’s also tells us that the historical origin of celebrity comes from two Latin terms, celebritas, meaning a multitude or fame and celeber, meaning frequented, populous, and fame. Because our proposition of fact asserts that the concept of celebrity has changed as a result of using the Web to spread a video clip similar to the way a viral illness is spread, standard usage and the etymology of celebrity might serve our definitional needs. Remember, however, that we also want the definition of key terms to help us identify issues. What would happen if we looked for a definition of celebrity from a more field-specific source? We turned to cultural studies scholar Graeme Turner’s work, Understanding Celebrity. Turner defines celebrity as: a genre of representation and a discursive effect; it is a commodity traded by the promotions, publicity, and media industries that produce these representations and their effects; and it is a cultural formation that has a social function. . . . (2004, p. 9)

We may want to paraphrase Turner’s definition for presentation to our audience, but we can find several issues suggested by this definition from the field perspective of cultural studies: 䊏 䊏

50

Celebrity is the generic system of exhibiting people. A celebrity is a commodity that is both created and traded by the promotions, publicity, and media industries.

What Am I Going to Argue About?

䊏 䊏 䊏

Celebrity can be understood as an “industry” that exists to produce celebrities. Celebrities are created from elements of a culture. Celebrity has a social function.

We may not necessarily use all of these issues, but notice how this field-specific definition helps generate potential issues we could use to argue whether or not the phenomenon of viral video should cause us to change our thinking about what constitutes a celebrity in our culture with its technology for instantly spreading images. A standard dictionary, whether print or electronic, would not have given us this kind of head start on analysis. There is one feature of standard dictionary definitions that you may find useful. A standard dictionary, especially an unabridged one, provides a list of synonyms for words, usually at the end of an entry. Defining the value judgment term in a value proposition must be done in such a way that your definition provides the criteria you will apply to the value object. Value judgment terms are frequently vague, abstract concepts. They also have strong emotive, connotative properties. Field-specific dictionaries and other sources may not instantly lead you to recognizing potential criteria. An unabridged dictionary or a synonym finder can be useful for parsing one of these value judgment terms. Earlier we gave you this example of a value proposition: Reality television programming sacrifices quality for Nielsen ratings. The value judgment term is quality. What constitutes quality television programming is often a matter of personal taste. Criteria discovery and criteria development are methods for turning the value judgment term into the specific criteria used to evaluate the value object. This chapter gives you a few tips for using a standard dictionary to aid in defining the value judgment term. One technique for developing criteria is to use synonyms. A synonym finder can give you an extensive list of words with similar usage. We looked up quality in J. J. Rodale’s The Synonym Finder (1978, p. 971) and found dozens of synonyms. From Rodale’s synonym list, these terms fit our personal notions of quality television programming: distinction virtue

kind tone

Notice that these synonyms for quality are themselves abstract concepts that suggest emotive properties. They do give us some ideas for parsing our value judgment term to develop specific, concrete criteria for evaluating television programs. A quality television program achieves distinction when it is affirmed by parents and educators. A quality television program demonstrates virtue through the actions of its characters. A quality television program is one in which the characters are kind to one another, and they engage in acts of kindness. A quality television program has a tone of respect for people and ideas. Arguers are obligated to make clear exactly what they mean when they use a particular word or phrase. Knowing the limitations and uses of standard dictionaries can help you find definitions for the key terms in your proposition. There are additional guides to defining terms that we cover in the remainder of this chapter.

51

What Am I Going to Argue About?

Rules of Definition The Inclusionary Rule. Phrase definitions in such a way that they include things that appropriately fall under the term. Recall our policy proposition: The federal government should significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media in the United States. The advocate defined mass media as “broadcast, cable, and satellite radio and television.” Radio and television are generally recognized as two forms of mass media. This definition automatically rules out print media and other forms of electronic media. If both advocate and opponent agree that radio and television constitute a suitable definition of mass media, there is no problem. The advocate, however, should be prepared to defend narrowing the definition of mass media to exclude magazines and newspapers if her definition is questioned by the opponent because they are also forms of mass media. The Exclusionary Rule. Phrase definitions to exclude those things not appropriate to terms (just the opposite of the inclusionary rule). Your definition should not be so broad as to include things that do not properly fall into the category of the term. For instance, defining mass media as “communication” would include interpersonal and intrapersonal communication, types of communication not aimed at a mass audience. Although the advocate and opponent may both be interested in what constitutes “decent” communication in our culture, the proposition they are arguing focuses their consideration on mass media. The language and behavior individuals engage in interpersonally is excluded from their proposition. The Adaptation Rule. Phrase definitions so that the meanings are appropriate to the proposition’s figurative ground. Definitions need to make sense to the audience and the field in which you are arguing. Concerned parent and educator groups, people in the mass media, and legislative bodies represent potential audiences for argumentation about the regulation of the mass media. Although you can define the federal government using the names of the FCC’s chairperson and members, it probably would not make much sense to people in at least one of these potential audiences to use such a definition if you are arguing about things the FCC ought to regulate. Likewise, mass media might be defined in terms of technical specifications for the transmission of radio and television signals, but this definition may not be appropriate for much of the figurative ground for arguments about significantly strengthening federal regulation of decency. The Neutrality Rule. Phrase definitions to avoid unnecessary emotionality. We have already suggested that your choice of terms for phrasing propositions should avoid emotionally laden language. The same is true for defining key terms from a proposition. It would be inappropriate to define the federal government as “a group of nearsighted reactionaries more concerned with protecting industry profits than promoting the public good” or to define mass media as “the purveyors of vulgar language and soft core pornography over the nation’s airwaves.” Definitions should be descriptive of the term defined, not your feelings about it. In arguing the actual issues of your case, you will have ample opportunity to make criticisms, evaluations, interpretations, and the like through proof and reasoning that will make your feelings very explicit.

52

What Am I Going to Argue About?

The Clarity Rule. Phrase definitions so that they will be understood more readily than the terms they define. To define federal government as “that central government, commonly known as the United States government, to which the fifty states have agreed to subordinate certain powers as specified in the U.S. Constitution” does little to improve our understanding of the figurative ground for arguing the pros and cons of increasing federal regulation of the mass media. Definitions that use a term itself as part of the definition are both unclear and circular. The problem of cloudy definitions is common, especially as arguers grapple with the jargon and “insider” meanings of a field. In some fields, especially those that involve rapid technological change, not everyone will be comfortable with the jargon. You are part of the field of “higher education.” Do you know what a “helicopter parent” is? In college-administrator speak, this is a parent who “hovers over” every aspect of his or her child’s college experience, especially during his or her freshman year.

Summary of Rules of Definition 1. Inclusionary Rule: Phrase definitions to include that which appropriately falls within the scope of the term’s meaning. 2. Exclusionary Rule: Phrase definitions to exclude that which does not fall appropriately within the scope of the term’s meaning. 3. Adaptation Rule: Phrase definitions to fit the field and the audience’s range of understanding and experience. 4. Neutrality Rule: Phrase definitions with emotionally neutral language. 5. Clarity Rule: Definitions should make the meaning of the term more clear, not less, and should avoid circularity.

Terms Needing Definition Five categories of terms usually require definition: equivocal, vague, technical, new, and coined terms. As an advocate, you define terms so that both the opponent and audience have a clear idea of what you mean. How you define key terms shapes the issues and arguments that make up your case and helps you meet your burden of proof. As an opponent, you also define terms so that the advocate and audience will know your meanings. More importantly as an opponent, you may want to contest the advocate’s definitions of key terms and provide your own version of their meaning. Equivocal terms have two or more equally correct meanings. Many common words in the English language have more than one common-use meaning. Consider the word bridge. Arguments in the fields of music, engineering, and dentistry may be about bridges, but each field has a distinctly different meaning for the term. Also consider the word enemy. We normally think of an enemy as a foe, someone who is hostile, an unfriendly agent. Can enemy be defined as something more positive? For many years, a foreign-policy maxim, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” has been used to define relationships with groups and individuals that do not measure up to certain standards, but are perceived as useful allies because of who they oppose. This definition of enemies as friends has begun to carry over into interpersonal and professional relationships. Sometimes the context in

53

What Am I Going to Argue About?

which a term is being used will help determine which meaning best fits, but you cannot always rely on context as a guide. When you encounter an equivocal term, make clear the meaning you want people to assign to it. Vague terms, also called “ambiguous” terms, have shades of meaning; they lack clear-cut definitions, so that each person is free to supply his or her own meaning. Consider the phrase freedom of speech, which can have as many meanings as there are political views. Some terms, such as democracy, can be both equivocal and vague. There are different versions of democracy, such as a “democratic people’s republic” and a “Jeffersonian democracy.” Even when Americans use the term, what constitutes a democracy is subject to a great deal of variation. Earlier we talked about the terms that express value judgments and how these are frequently abstractions with emotive connotations. What does the term good or inferior mean to you? Value terms, terms of ideology, and terms that express attitudes are often vague. You need to define vague terms clearly so that you specify the interpretation you want the audience to give them. Technical terms include jargon or specialized terms that belong to a particular field or profession. Every field has its own specialized jargon, but certain fields seem to have an abundance of technical terminology. Many controversies are over issues in medicine, energy production, computer technology, and other technical fields. Understanding technical terminology and jargon is necessary to understanding the issues and figurative ground of these fields. We often ask audiences to make decisions about issues and problems in fields that require knowledge of technical terminology. Exact definitions of a term, such as bioeugenics, is necessary for meaningful argumentation and good decision making to occur. Terms with a limited or specialized meaning should also be defined. Even within a field, not everyone will know all of the specialized terminology. When we are unsure of a term’s meaning, the natural inclination is to guess at meaning from context or supply what we think the meaning should be based on our own experiences. Have you pinged someone lately? If you did not know that “pinged” is jargon for contacting someone via e-mail or instant messaging, you might conjure up all sorts of possibilities. Providing definitions that clarify insider jargon is especially important when concepts are stated as acronyms. An HMO is a health maintenance organization, a form of PPGP, prepaid group practice, not to be confused with HBO, a premium cable television service and PPG, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. E-mail and instant messaging have added a new wrinkle to the jargon problem. New terms are additions to the language, words or phrases that do not exist in the common vocabulary. These words may begin as jargon in a particular field and then spread to other fields and general use. Bernie Madoff’s fraud is referred to as a Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant who got people to invest millions of dollars from 1919 to 1920 by promising 50% profits in 90 days. “Ponzi schemes—in which a swindler touts outsize returns . . . and creates the illusion of solvency by paying off early investors with capital raised from later entrants” (Altman, 2009, p. 18), did not originate with Charles Ponzi, but his name has been linked to this type of scam for almost a century thanks to the once new term used to describe. Coined terms are those invented when a convenient term does not already exist. Many coined terms are shorthand for complex ideas. Infobia is the fear

54

What Am I Going to Argue About?

you will discard some bit of information that will later turn out to be useful. Charitainment is the merger of charity and entertainment. It refers to the involvement of high-profile celebrities in good works, such as Brad Pitt’s project for building environmentally friendly, low-cost housing for residents of New Orleans who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina or George Clooney’s efforts on behalf of African famine victims. Agritainment is the merger of agriculture and entertainment, referring to tourist attractions and festivals that center on farming culture. Coined terms are also created to describe developments in an evocative manner. Oprahtization was coined to describe how Americans use talk shows, such as “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” as a source of information and opinions. It is used in such contexts as “the Oprahtization of American politics” to describe the extensive use of radio and television talk shows by political candidates. A person influenced by this form of Oprahitization is characterized as part of the telectorate (half television viewer and half voter). Coined terms often become part of standard usage; television was a coined term long ago.

Summary of Terms Needing Definition 1. Equivocal terms have two or more equally correct meanings. 2. Vague (also called “ambiguous”) terms lack a clear-cut meaning or have shades of meaning. 3. Technical terms are the jargon or specialized language of a field or profession. 4. New terms are recent additions that are not part of the common vocabulary. 5. Coined terms are invented terms, often an amalgam of existing words, or evocative expressions.

How to Define Terms Key terms, whether from the proposition or other statements you make during argumentation, are defined to clarify meaning. Your objective in defining key terms is to name the properties that set your preferred meaning apart from all other potential meanings your audience might assign to the term. In talking about phrasing propositions and guidelines for selecting and defining terms, we have already given you some ideas for how to define terms. In this section, we identify specific methods for defining that are particularly useful. Definition by Synonym. Terms may be defined by using a synonym—a more familiar word similar to the term in both denotative and connotative meaning. This is how standard dictionaries typically define terms. For the term celebrity, our Webster’s Unabridged (1984, p. 290) gave us these synonyms: fame, honor, glory, reputation, distinction, and renown. Earlier we discussed using a synonym finder to help define the value judgment term in a value proposition. Synonym finders will usually give you a more extensive list of synonyms than a standard dictionary. Our synonym finder (Rodale, 1978, p. 154) gave some additional options for celebrity: personage, notable, and dignitary. It also provided an extensive list of more connotative synonyms, including big shot, lion, star, superstar, and from the French, grand fromage (big cheese).

55

What Am I Going to Argue About?

Definition by Authority. We have mentioned using “field-specific” sources for definitions that will be appropriate to the field in which you are arguing. One option for finding a field-specific definition is to use an authoritative definition from a source in the field of your topic. Scholarly studies, textbooks, research reports, and a variety of publications relevant to a field can all provide authoritative definitions. Searching through the literature in a field can be time-consuming, so you may want to turn to a field-specific or specialized dictionary or encyclopedia. You will find a variety of specialized dictionaries for scientific fields such as the Dictionary of Genetics and the Dictionary of Virology. Many publishing houses offer well-known specialty dictionaries, including the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, The Cambridge Dictionary of Space Technology, Black’s Law Dictionary, and The Blackwell Dictionary of Political Science. Such dictionaries are compiled by experts in the field and are reliable sources for field-specific definitions. Even the federal government creates fieldspecific dictionaries such as the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Along with dictionaries (which usually have shorter entries), a wide variety of field-specific and topical encyclopedias provide definitions and background information. If you were working on a proposition concerning mass media, you might find the Encyclopedia of New Media: An Essential Reference to Communication and Technology helpful. Definition by Example. Terms may be defined by providing a relevant example to explain how something is to be understood. Explaining something by providing an example is a common technique in textbooks, including this one. When you define by example, you clarify meaning by giving a concrete, representative instance of the term. In the proposition on strengthening media regulation, the scope of “regulation” was narrowed to the idea of a specific code of decency standards. The most efficient way to clarify what the advocate means by decency might be to provide some examples. Two well-known examples were the stimulus for Congress and the FCC to consider the need to cleanse the airwaves. Live awards broadcasts, during which celebrities make off-the-cuff remarks, are a venue for profanity. During the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, U2’s lead singer Bono proclaimed, “this is really, really f__cking brilliant.” Later in 2003, Paris Hilton and Nicole Riche dropped “f__k” and “s__t” into their banter several times during the Billboard Music Awards. In response to complaints about both instances, the FCC initially decided that using “f_ _k” or other profanity as an insult or an adjective was not “indecent use” under their Pacifica ruling. (Cascerceri, 2003; Morast, 2003; and Zelezny, 2011). As part of the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed a song-and-dance number that scandalized many viewers. Timberlake grabbed the bodice of Jackson’s costume, exposing her breast in what was subsequently called a “wardrobe malfunction” as millions of American families watched the live broadcast. (Nikolai, 2004; Sanders, 2004; and Zelezny, 2011)

These two examples demonstrate important aspects of defining by example: behavioral definition and definition by negation. When you are trying to define a concept such as “indecency,” which involves specific behaviors, providing examples of those behaviors is an effective technique. There are also instances when the clearest way to explain what something is will be to explain what it is not. Although it would be possible to provide examples of people behaving “decently,”

56

What Am I Going to Argue About?

it is more efficient and clearer to explain decency in terms of “indecent” behavior. When you are searching for the best examples, especially for vague concepts, consider using examples of behavior or negative examples. Definition by Function. Terms may be defined by the function an object, instrument, agency, or concept performs. Definition by function tells us how something works. For the proposition, the federal government should significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media in the United States, the advocate specifies that the FCC is the appropriate agency of the federal government for media regulation. She clarifies this further by providing a functional definition of the FCC as the federal agency responsible for making and enforcing rules governing the operation of the broadcast system in the United States; this is the FCC’s function as part of the federal government. Defining by function can be particularly useful when you need to define an abstract concept. The term theory is a good example of such abstraction. Our Webster’s (1984, p. 1893) defines theory as “an idea or mental plan of the way to do something.” A clearer definition would give the audience more functional information about this “mental plan” as in this definition of theory: A theory begins by observing phenomena and then organizing concepts/variables to explain what is observed. A theory organizes by isolating a set of relevant concepts/variables and specifying how they are related to one another. Organizing is an explanation of a phenomenon; it tells us why things occur regularly. Models, or visual depictions of relationships, are often used to illustrate the organization/explanation of theories. A theory allows for predictions; we anticipate what outcomes and effects will occur. Gravity predicts that if we throw a ball into the air, it will hit the ground and that the higher we throw the ball, the harder it will hit the ground. (Heath & Coombs, 2006, p. 198)

Definition by Operation. When you want to clarify the meaning of a term by explaining it as the result of a series of steps, you might use an operational definition. Operational definitions are similar to functional ones in that they can be used to explain how something works. They differ in that an operational definition focuses on how you want the audience to understand the meaning you stipulate for the term. An operational definition makes obvious your intention to assign a particular meaning to a term through a series of steps or parts. Operational definitions are most frequently used to define the policy term in a policy proposition. In defining what significantly strengthen the regulation of mass media means, a dozen different advocates could come up with a dozen different versions of what a policy of regulation should be. Our advocate wants her audience and opponent to know exactly what she means by “impose a specific code of decency standards,” so she would operationally define the policy of regulatory practices that she proposes having the FCC employ in monitoring the media. This operational definition specifies the policy she argues should be put in place.

Summary of How to Define Terms 1. Definition by Synonym: Using a denotatively or connotatively more familiar term. 2. Definition by Authority: Using a field-specific definition or a definition by a source deemed reputable by the audience.

57

What Am I Going to Argue About?

3. Definition by Example: Providing a concrete, representative instance of something; negative and behavioral examples can be effective in some situations. 4. Definition by Function: Explaining what an object, instrument, agency or concept is by telling how it works. 5. Definition by Operation: Explaining how something is to be understood in terms of its steps or parts, most frequently used to define the policy term of a policy proposition.

Definitional Arguments We define terms to clarify meaning. The advocate and opponent do not always agree about how the argumentative ground should be defined. When there is disagreement over how a term should be defined, your definition is simply a claim that must be proven. As we have suggested in this chapter, many terms do not have a single, absolute definition. You need to be prepared to defend your definition as being the most appropriate or effective one for defining the argumentative ground. An argument from definition specifies how something should be classified or understood. To prove that your definition is the most appropriate or effective, you must provide a clear explanation of the contested term—make sure your definition really does clarify meaning. You must also demonstrate that your definition draws from a source of knowledge common to the field in which you are arguing. For instance, if you are defining a term by example, will your audience be familiar with the example? Will it make sense to them? An example that is far removed from the audience’s experience can be problematic, and a barrier to their understanding what you mean. We have repeatedly referred to using field-specific sources to define terms. A primary reason is that the appropriateness of such a definition to the given field will be self-evident. It would be difficult to prove that a definition from a standard dictionary fits the terms particular to that field better than definitions that come from sources in the field. We titled this chapter “What Am I Going to Argue About?” because conventional wisdom suggests that before you jump into argumentation, it is a good idea to have some sense of what you are arguing about first. The proposition states the central idea of the controversy, identifies potential issues, and establishes the field in which the argumentative ground is set. Sometimes, as with competitive debate, you are given a proposition phrased by someone else. More frequently, it is up to you to come up with the actual wording of the proposition. At this stage in the process, consider your phrasing as preliminary. Propositions do not just spring forth. They grow out of situations, events, and people’s experiences. As you research the topic, think about the issues and then begin preparing your arguments. You may want to revisit the way you have phrased the proposition. This chapter has provided you with the principles of propositions; their function in argumentation; their classification as fact, value, and policy; phrasing them appropriately; and defining their key terms. The proposition sets boundaries for the argumentative ground and serves as the topic or thesis sentence for speaking or writing. Propositions are accepted or rejected by the audience on the basis of whether the advocate makes a prima facie case for them, or whether the opponent

58

What Am I Going to Argue About?

offers effective counterarguments and a defense of existing beliefs or behaviors as worth maintaining. The next step in the process of arguing is learning how to analyze the proposition to determine which specific issues you will argue.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Examine the following propositions. Identify the kinds of propositions—fact, value, and policy—represented. Be prepared to discuss how each example does or does not meet the rules for wording propositions suggested in this chapter. Energy a. Renewable energy sources are preferable to fossil fuels. b. By 2020, the United States will run short of fossil fuels. c. The federal government should implement an accelerated program of conversion to renewable energy sources. Ecology a. The present system of environmental protection creates toxic waste dumps. b. The United States should significantly improve its environmental protection policy. c. The protection of the environment ought to take precedence over the expansion of industrial production. Law Enforcement a. The judicial system should reform the system of juvenile and family courts. b. Crimes by juveniles are the most serious crimes against persons. c. The American judicial system unfairly favors the juvenile offender over the victim. Foreign Policy a. United States foreign policy commitments overextend the federal budget. b. United States foreign policy commitments ought to reflect the American belief in the principle of democratic government. c. The United States should substantially reduce foreign aid to nations that fail to protect the rights of their citizens. Education a. The quality of education in American public schools ought to be the nation’s first priority. b. The education of college professors does not place sufficient emphasis on teaching techniques. c. The Department of Education should create and maintain a core curriculum for all public schools. 2. Taking the propositions in Activity 1, imagine you are listening to an advocate’s speech on each topic. As a member of the audience, identify what words or phrases in each proposition you feel would need to be defined. 3. Select a topic area that you might like to investigate in greater depth in completing future assignments. Formulate specific fact, value, and policy propositions that the topic area suggests to you. Search the reference section of the library for possible sources within the field of the topic that provide definitions of key terms in your propositions. Compare these definitions to those in standard dictionaries and discuss the similarities and differences between them. What are the advantages of using specialized sources to define key terms in your propositions?

59

What Am I Going to Argue About?

REFERENCES Alexander, A., & Hanson, J. (Eds.) (2005). Taking sides: Mass media and society (8th ed.). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill. Altman, A. (2009, January 19). A brief history of: Ponzi schemes. Time, 173, 18. Burke, K. (1966). Language as symbolic action. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cascerceri, D. (2003, December 19). The blue tube. The Intelligencer (Philadelphia, PA). Retrieved from www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer.html. Encarta. Dictionary. Retrieved from http://Encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/celebrity.html. Grossman, L. (2006, April 24). How to get famous in 30 seconds. Time, 167, 64–66. Heath, R. L., & Coombs, W. T. (2006). Today’s public relations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. McKechnie, J. L. (Ed.). (1983). Webster’s new twentieth century dictionary unabridged (2nd ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. Mills, G. E. (1968). Reason in controversy (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Morast, R. (2003, December 23). Groups fear flood of dirty words on TV. Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD). Retrieved from http://www.argusleader.com/. Nikolai, G. (2004, February 18). Now what? Rockford Register Star (IL). Retrieved from http://www.rrstar.com/. Rodale, J. J. (1978). The synonym finder. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press. Sanders, J. (2004, February 15). Commentary. San Francisco Chronicle (CA). Retrieved from http://www.sfgate.com/. Turner, G. (2004) Understanding celebrity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wiktionary. Celebrity. Retrieved from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Celebrity. Zelezny, J. D. (2011). Communication law (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Ziegelmueller, G. W., Kay, J., & Dause, C. A. (1990). Argumentation: Inquiry and advocacy (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

60

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

A

dvocates and opponents need to know what specific arguments to use as they prepare to capture the proposition’s argumentative ground. In this chapter, we begin to consider the process of putting together the argumentative package to advocate or oppose a proposition. This process is called case development, and it begins with the analysis of the proposition. The process of analysis is field invariant for all types of propositions. Choosing specific arguments that you will use in constructing your case of advocacy or opposition is usually field dependent, although certain ideas such as the cost of something and its benefit may be used across several different fields. The ultimate goal of analysis is to discover the actual issues you will argue. Actual issues are the questions central to the specific need for knowledge or differences of opinion identified by the wording of the proposition you are preparing to argue. Actual issues are found through a four-step process of analysis: (1) locating the immediate cause of concern about the topic, (2) investigating the history of the topic, (3) defining key terms and creating the primary inference for the topic, and (4) determining the actual issues in the controversy.

LOCATING IMMEDIATE CAUSE Locating the immediate cause of interest or concern about a topic is done by monitoring media and paying attention to what people are talking about, both within a field and across fields. Today, electronic technology and the capacity for seemingly instantaneous communication about what is on people’s minds makes it possible to find out what most concerns them at a given point in time. Mass media channels of communication focus our attention on topics by rapidly disseminating stories about them. Personal use of Web-based media such as blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and electronic discussion sites makes it easy to research immediate cause. Analyzing the immediate cause helps you discover why the controversy expressed in a proposition is sufficiently important to justify argumentation. You will From Chapter 4 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

61

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

find indications of your proposition’s importance by examining your subject’s recent history: Is it viewed as a controversy by mainstream or field-specific news media? What are opinion leaders saying about it? Are people undertaking research projects or reporting findings from them? Are commissions, task forces, or committees investigating the subject? Are influential groups or individuals issuing position statements or white papers on the subject? Are people creating Web sites, tweeting, blogging, or talking about the controversy online? When you discover what is being said about questions that lead to propositions of fact, value, and policy, examine the opinions and interpretations that are being made. People become involved in factual argumentation because something leads to a difference in the interpretation of information or suggests the need to acquire knowledge. A significant event, an unusual occurrence, or an observed circumstance may be an immediate cause for factual argumentation. To find the immediate cause for a proposition of fact, examine what has recently taken place or been expressed that stimulates a need to make a fresh interpretation of existing information or creates a desire to seek knowledge. People engage in value argumentation to judge or evaluate a person, place, object, event, policy, or idea. The immediate cause in value argumentation is that which initiates the need to make a judgment. As a stimulus for value argumentation, immediate causes include questions about the saliency of a particular core value, concerns about the criteria used to make a value judgment, the desire to make a fresh evaluation of something, or a conflict between existing value judgments. An important discovery or the development of new technology may also initiate value argumentation. People argue about changing a policy or creating a new one when someone or some group believes a problem exists. In policy argumentation, immediate cause stems from events or observations that suggest a problem exists. You should look for significant, often harm-causing, events and explanations of why these events occurred. Locating immediate cause is particularly important for proving inherency in policy propositions. Inherency arguments identify the cause of a problem. Advocates must identify what causes a problem in order to develop a prima facie policy case, and identifying the immediate cause of a problem often reveals the inherent reasons why a change is necessary. Locating immediate cause can help you find inherent reasons for change in fact and value propositions, but it is essential to finding the structural and attitudinal basis for a policy change. In addition to what people are talking about using social media, what news and mass media choose to talk about can have a significant impact on what concerns people at the moment. A topic covered in a news story may draw attention to a controversy. Such was the case for us when we read a story in Newsweek that described a new museum with the phrase, “it is architecture as argument, explicitly meant to sway opinion” (McGuigan, 2009, p. 62). We will illustrate how to analyze propositions of fact, value, and policy with a controversy that was brought to our attention by the opening of a new museum in Athens, Greece. Most of us are familiar with the image of Indiana Jones removing an artifact from the ruins of a temple in the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but we seldom consciously consider arguments concerning the ownership of such artifacts. Private collections and the world’s museums and galleries are stocked with treasures and artifacts of ancient cultures. Who is the rightful owner of these antiquities?

62

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

Argumentation on this question reached a peak in recent years, particularly following the destruction of “blasphemous” pre-Islamic artifacts by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and the looting of Iraq’s archeological sites and the National Museum in Baghdad following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. One longstanding controversy over cultural artifacts was renewed in 2009.

Immediate Cause in the Parthenon Marbles Controversy The British Museum is a popular stop for many tourists visiting London, and the magnificent display of the Elgin Marbles is one of the “must see” exhibits. On June 21, 2009, the new Acropolis Museum opened in Athens, creating an immediate cause for renewed interest in the controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles. The Greek government wants the collection returned to Athens for display with the other surviving sculptures from the Parthenon. The controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles involves issues of fact, value, and policy that go beyond which museum gets to display them. We saw the Elgin Marbles in 1990 and were deeply touched by these magnificent works of art as a symbol of the excellence of ancient Athens, so our attention was called to the controversy by the Newsweek article. In addition to the opening of the Acropolis Museum, immediate cause is found in a series of new publications specific to the Elgin Marbles and larger concerns on cultural patrimony and museum collections, especially the role of the world’s great encyclopedic museums. 䊏

䊏

䊏

In The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification, American journalist Christopher Hitchens revised his earlier work on the Elgin Marbles and published this edition in 2008 to coincide with the opening of the new Acropolis Museum. He examines the moral, artistic, legal, and political reasons for returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece. In The Parthenon Sculptures, also published in 2008, senior curator of the Greek and Roman antiquities collection of the British Museum, Ian Jenkins makes the case that the Elgin Marbles belong to the world, not just to Greece. In About the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art, and Law, published in 2009, John Henry Merryman, Stanford Law School expert in art and cultural property law, examines the international debate on cultural property policy and the specific claims of both sides in the Elgin Marbles controversy, including why people are presently concerned about the marbles and whether claims based on cultural heritage are sound.

Of the many Web sites devoted to the Elgin Marbles controversy, most of which favor repatriation to Greece, three will illustrate the online presence that establishes immediate cause. The Committee for Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles was begun in 1983 by a group of scholars, members of the British government, journalists, and celebrities such as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson. Their Web site states: “We are a group of British people who having considered the case for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles strongly support it and wish to campaign to achieve it” (Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, 2001–2002a). The site provides background information, research, news articles, information about the new Acropolis Museum and its upcoming events, and a forum for discussion.

63

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

There are many other reunification committees worldwide, one of which is The American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, established in April 2007. This group’s mission is to educate Americans on the issue of returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Its Web site provides a history of the Elgin Marbles, the case for returning them to Greece, and a visual exhibit, “All Sides of the Parthenon,” along with detailed information about the public education campaign (American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, 2007). The two previous examples are Web sites of nonprofit organizations. Elginism is an exclusively online presence created and maintained by “Matthew.” Instead of the typical purpose statement or “who we are” description, the opening of this Web site defines “Elginism” as: An act of cultural vandalism. A term coined by the destructive actions of Lord Elgin who illegally transported the Parthenon Marbles from Greece to London between 1801 and 1805. Now applies to other cultural objects. Usually refers to artifacts taken from poorer nations to richer ones. (Matthew, 2005)

Matthew describes his site as one designed to educate people about the importance of the Elgin Marbles case and cultural property restitution as a whole. The site offers an extensive data base of news articles, speeches, government and international institutional documents, research reports, and other material on both sides of the controversy. Matthew offers his observations and posts comments by anyone who wants to contribute. He also encourages activism by providing links to reunification committees, suggesting ways for individuals to get involved, and especially encouraging Facebook users to spread the word and campaign for reunification of the marbles using the site.

INVESTIGATING THE HISTORY Every controversy and every quest for knowledge through the use of argumentation has historical connections. Each new development in communication technology from Guttenberg’s printing press to the “Twitter Revolution” has spawned debate over what would be the impact of the new technology, how it should best be employed, and should it be regulated. The Twitter Revolution challenges established media and has historical roots in the emergence of talk radio, the Internet as an “information superhighway,” the iPod and podcasts, and the emergence of blogs. In turn, this “new media” is connected to earlier forms of communication such as the emergence of the novel in sixteenth-century Europe and Thomas Paine’s pamphleteering in support of the American Revolution. All are antecedents of the Twitter Revolution (Micek & Whitlock, 2008). Investigating the contemporary and historical background of your proposition’s subject provides you with pertinent information that helps you find the issues you will argue. The history of a given topic will help you understand the field in which you are arguing and discover where presumption lies. Even instances where the immediate cause of a controversy is obvious, the field of argument seems very clear, an immediate cause only tells you why people are concerned about the subject at the moment. Investigating the history of the controversy will give you a deeper understanding of the issues of the controversy.

64

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

Some controversies and uses of argumentation as a quest for knowledge have a more specific historical beginning, such as our example of the Elgin Marbles controversy. Others, such as our reference to the Twitter Revolution, may be less specific. Creating a profile of the historical background of your topic will help you expand what you learned from locating the immediate cause. Examine historical episodes and the evolution of dissatisfaction and conflicting interpretations to build your knowledge of the controversy and the field, and to find the specific issues.

History of the Parthenon Marbles For two and a half millennia, the Parthenon has stood on the Acropolis, a hill dominating the city of Athens. In 448 BCE, the Athenian Assembly voted to build a new temple to their patron goddess Athena, replacing the one destroyed in the war between Greece and Persia. This was the age of Pericles, the height of Athenian democracy and the influence of Athens as a center for art and culture. The Parthenon, as Athena’s temple, was intended to symbolize Greek innovation and excellence. The temple was decorated with friezes depicting themes from Greek history and mythology. The sculptures that became known as the “Elgin Marbles” were decorations attached to the Parthenon’s walls and architecture, plus a few sculptures from other monuments on the Acropolis. The collection in the British Museum, now called the “Parthenon Marbles,” is approximately half of the surviving sculptural detail of the Parthenon, 247 feet of the original 524 feet of frieze, 15 of 92 metopes, and 17 figures from the Parthenon’s pediment (British Museum, n.d.). There are many surviving artifacts and structures from antiquity, but few display “the architectural complexity and artistic distinction of the Parthenon. And none possess the rich associations and the symbolic values which the Parthenon has acquired in the course of centuries” (Browning, 1997, p. 1). The Parthenon has become a powerful symbol of democracy and liberty. Beyond the aesthetic value of the marble sculptures that adorned the Parthenon, “Periclean Athens is valorized as civilized and harmonious, and the source of western democracy” (Gillman, 2009, p. 168). Lord Elgin’s Role. Controversy surrounding the Elgin Marbles began almost as soon as they arrived in London in the early 1800s. Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, was a Scottish nobleman appointed British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1799. At that time, Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire, and Athens was a dusty outpost of little consequence to the Ottomans. Like many wealthy men of his day, Elgin was enamored of classical art and architecture. Newly married, he promised his wife he would build her a mansion in the classic Greek style. Elgin took advantage of his position, as well as the British–Ottoman alliance against Napoleon and France, to send a team of artists and craftsmen to Athens to make drawings and molds of the art and architecture of the Parthenon and the other Acropolis monuments. Elgin found the buildings and their artworks in such a sad state that he determined to do more than just make drawings and casts. The Parthenon had been used as a Christian church for centuries and many of the anatomical features of the nude statuary had been removed. Under the Ottomans, it became a mosque and

65

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

more of the artwork was defaced. Later, the Turkish military used the Parthenon to store gunpowder, and in 1687 Venetian artillery scored a direct hit on it, destroying more of the building and its sculptures. By the 1700s, wealthy European tourists were removing statuary to grace their homes and gardens. When Elgin’s team arrived on the scene, the locals were using the site as a quarry for building materials and were burning marble to make lime for mortar. He maneuvered to get permission from the Ottoman authorities to remove some of the surviving pieces. Elgin believed he was not only rescuing the artwork from further degradation but from Napoleon, who was busy stocking the Louvre by plundering the antiquities of Rome and Egypt at that time, as well. Reminiscent of the alleged curse on those who opened King Tutankhamen’s tomb, a vengeful Athena, to whom the Parthenon was dedicated, seems to have cursed Elgin for despoiling her temple. Returning home in 1803, Elgin was captured by the French and held hostage until 1806. One of the ships carrying the marbles to Britain sank, and he spent a great deal to have them recovered. Elgin’s career was in ruins as British society, and the press suggested he “had abused his position as ambassador to remove and ship the sculptures” (Atwood, 2004, pp. 135–136), his wife left him for another man, and the removal and transportation of the sculptures wiped out his fortune. An illness, possibly syphilis, disfigured his once handsome face, eroding his nose. Like the Parthenon, Lord Elgin was “defaced” (Wood, 2004). In 1815, Elgin offered to sell the marbles to the British government, touching off a fierce public debate over the legal ownership of the collection, the aesthetic and moral questions concerning their display, and eventually whether the marbles should be returned to Athens. In 1816, the sale was completed for a sum of £35,000 on the condition that the collection be kept together in the British Museum and be known as the “Elgin Marbles.” The sculptures went on display in 1817, and the British Museum continues to hold them in trust for the people of the United Kingdom. Immediate Reactions. Shortly after Elgin’s collection went on display, two giants of English literature, John Keats and George Gordon, Lord Byron, entered the controversy. From an impoverished background, Keats would not have had an opportunity to see the sculptures had they not been on display, free of charge, in the British Museum. Keats made several visits and wrote “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” and venerated Greek art in “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” His epic poem, Hyperion, returned to the glory of Greek art, none of which Keats would have seen without the British Museum. Lord Byron, a wealthy, rebellious, and flamboyant figure, visited Athens as Elgin’s team was removing the last pieces they would take from the Parthenon. The sight moved Byron to write “The Curse of Minerva,” denouncing Elgin for his destruction of the Parthenon. Byron also carved his initials and a rude remark about Elgin into the Parthenon’s walls. Written later, the second canto of Byron’s epic poem, Childe Harold, offers a lengthy accusation of Elgin as a vandalizer of Greek art. Byron would go on to be a hero in the Greek war for independence from the Ottoman Empire. He died from an illness contracted while fighting, and the Greeks made him a national hero. The poetic battle over Elgin’s marbles emphasized the controversy over leaving the treasures of antiquity in their original context versus the kind of

66

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

British imperialism that justified wealthy collectors bringing them home as souvenirs or emblems of their good taste. Keats and Byron were among the first to articulate the “wrangle” over the destruction of cultural property. “Reading the opinions of Elgin, Byron, and their contemporaries, one is struck by how little the terms of the debate have changed since. The Elgin Marbles have lost none of their power to symbolize, for some the excess and rapacity of collectors, and for others, the virtue of rescuing cultural treasures from neglect” (Atwood, 2004, pp. 138–139). In 1822, Greece proclaimed its independence as a modern state and the Ottoman Turks were expelled from Athens. “As the fledgling Greek state fought through the nineteenth century to unite the Greek-speaking nation dispersed across the Aegean, the Parthenon became a riveting symbol of national redemption” (Atwood, 2004, p. 139). One of the first acts of independent Greece was to ban the export of antiquities in 1833. In 1898, the Greek government made its first formal request to Britain for the return of the marbles Elgin had removed. Twentieth-Century Repatriation Efforts. The Parthenon was a symbol for the Greek Resistance in World War II. The Nazis occupied Athens and a huge swastika flag was displayed on the Parthenon as an emblem of Hitler’s “new order” in Europe. Manolis Glezos, a Greek Resistance fighter, “tore the offending emblem away on 31 May 1941, and thereby helped to ignite the Greek national resistance” (Hitchens, 1997, p. 21). In March 1943, at a meeting between Greek and American leaders, President Franklin Roosevelt observed, “Napoleon went to Russia and Italy and stole works of art; Goering went to the Netherlands and stole works of art. It will be just and proper to raise the question of restoration of all stolen property at the peace conference” (Hitchens, 1997, p. 66). At the end of World War II, the debate over the Elgin Marbles and the return of allegedly “stolen” artworks “intersected with the nationalist, anti-Western rhetoric of the decolonization movement. Looting had become not just bad taste in the eyes of some, but a potent symbol of cultural subjugation and imperialism” (Atwood, 2004, p. 150). The newly formed United Nations began considering the concerns of nations demanding an end to the looting of their cultural patrimony (the new term for cultural property) and a return of stolen artifacts. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), charged with dealing with concerns of cultural patrimony, chose the image of the Parthenon as its visual symbol (Hitchens, 1997). The UNESCO conference in Paris in 1970 created the treaty for the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The United States was a signatory to the treaty, the British government was not, and the treaty has been extended many times. The objective of the treaty was to stop the looting of archaeological sites and the trade in antiquities. The treaty introduced the idea, which the restitutionists in the Elgin Marbles controversy have adopted, that cultural objects belong by right to the culture that created them and that cultural right overrides circumstantial ownership (Greenfield, 2000). Those advocating the restoration of the Elgin Marbles to Greece claim that there should be no question that the Elgin Marbles are part of the cultural patrimony of contemporary Greece. “The sculptures were created for the Athenians, by

67

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

the Athenians and with uniquely Athenian themes. These are the people for whom the Marbles were intended. They are a uniquely documented treasure. There is no obscurity regarding their origins or ‘migration’” (Greenfield, 2000). In 1981, actress Melina Mercouri became Greek Minister of Culture and made the return of the Elgin Marbles her personal mission. She dubbed the display in the British Museum the “Parthenon Marbles” to emphasize their origin. In May 1983, she “ran her fingers over the marbles in the chilly splendor of the British museum and, in front of television cameras, wept” (Atwood, 2004, p. 139). Mercouri told a London newspaper, “The marbles are part of a monument to Greek identity, part of the deepest consciousness of the Greek people: our roots, our continuity, our soul” (Gillman, 2009, p. 168). Her “campaign added fuel to an international debate over who owns cultural property” (New Acropolis Museum, 2009, p. 13). Mercouri’s sentiments launched the campaign by The Committee for Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in Britain, who adopted her position on Greek cultural patrimony: “The Parthenon is the most important symbol of Greek cultural heritage and according to the declaration of human and cultural rights the Greek State has a duty to preserve its cultural heritage in its totality, both for its citizens and for the international community” (Committee for Reunification, 2001–2002b). World attention was again drawn to the restoration campaign when Athens was named the site for the 2004 Summer Olympics, and the Greek government again petitioned Britain to make the marbles available for display in time for the Olympic ceremonies. Broader Issues of Cultural Property. In March 2008, UNESCO, at a conference held in Athens, revisited the issue of restitution of cultural patrimony. “Certain categories of cultural property are irrevocably identified by reference to [the] cultural context in which they were created (unique and exceptional artworks and monuments, ritual objects, national symbols, ancestral remains, dismembered pieces of outstanding works of art). It is their original context that gives them their authenticity and unique value” (Committee for Reunification, 2001–2002b). The conference was held at the new Acropolis Museum then under construction to underscore the theme of the return of cultural property. The history of the Elgin Marbles controversy is part of the history of the controversies surrounding the world’s museums, especially large “encyclopedic” museums found in Europe and North America. These great museums began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from “the Enlightenment ideal of the museum as a repository of things and knowledge, dedicated to the museum’s role as a force for understanding, tolerance, and the dissipation of ignorance and superstition” (Cuno, 2009, p. 28). Today, these museums “are dedicated to the principle that access to the full diversity of human artistic industry promotes the polymath ideal of discovering and understanding human knowledge, and improves and advances the condition of our species and the world we inhabit” (Cuno, 2009, p. 37). The British Museum was created to foster a better understanding of the world’s civilizations, not to serve as a museum dedicated to British sense and British national citizenship. Its strategy was to display artifacts from all over the world together so that visitors could see patterns of similarity and difference for themselves (MacGregor, 2009).

68

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

The crux of the controversy is over who owns “culture” and its artifacts. UNESCO’s proclamations and treaties were intended to help modern nation-states protect what lay within their boundaries and maintain legal claim to artifacts stolen by looters. More recent UNESCO declarations on “cultural patrimony” were intended to help poor nations and indigenous peoples retain that which is morally theirs, and refers to ownership of “the property of a culture. If you belong to that culture, such work is . . . your cultural patrimony. If not, not” (Appiah, 2009, p. 73). The difficulty with the principle of “cultural patrimony” is that it can be exceptionally challenging to determine whose culture is in dispute—ancient peoples and their cultures are not modern states. “If the argument for cultural patrimony is that the art belongs to the culture that gives it its significance, most art doesn’t belong to a national culture at all” (Appiah, 2009, p. 79). “Culture” and who, in the sense of contemporary nation-states, “owns” a given culture is now at the heart of controversies involving museum collections, large and small. “Modern nation-states claim culture for themselves. They nationalize it. They say it is important to their identity and they try to police it” (Cuno, 2009, p. 27). UNESCO’s support of cultural patrimony has had some disastrous consequences in recent history, as many artifacts of earlier civilizations were destroyed during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In February 2001, Mullah Omar issued an edict condemning all pre-Islamic art, and the Taliban began destroying artifacts of ancient Buddhist culture found within the borders of Afghanistan. Curators of the Afghan National Museum were required to turn over pre-Islamic artifacts. “Here were drawers of extraordinary Bactrian artifacts and Ghandara heads and figurines.” Taliban inspectors declared them “blasphemous” and “responded to these extraordinary artifacts by taking out mallets and pulverizing them” (Appiah, 2009, p. 81). Taliban religious fundamentalists also burned ancient Buddhist illuminated manuscripts and sanctioned the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001. Anticipating that this might happen when the Taliban initially came to power, the Director of the Afghan National Museum had negotiated with a Swiss museum for the removal of the endangered artifacts in 1999. Because Switzerland is a signatory of the UNESCO treaties on cultural patrimony, the museum sought UNESCO approval for the removal of artifacts from within Afghanistan’s national borders. UNESCO refused to authorize shipment to Switzerland. At a UNESCO meeting, “experts in Central Asian antiquities actually denounced” the Swiss museum director “for trying to destroy Afghan culture” by removing the artifacts (Appaih, 2009, p. 81). From the 1980s on, the Greek government has demanded “the return of what it views as its stolen property at virtually every international cultural forum, often with the support of countries that feel they, too, have been stripped of their treasures by colonial powers” (Atwood, 2004, p. 139). John Henry Merryman (2009) suggests that the controversy over the Elgin Marbles is the predominant symbol for the entire body of claims against the world’s museums and private collections. Egypt would like the British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone, originally removed from Egypt by Napoleon, but taken as a spoil of war by the British. Egypt would also like Germany to return the Bust of Nefertiti from the Museum of Berlin. Peru has been demanding that Yale University return thousands of artifacts that have been in its collection since the

69

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

early 1900s. Smaller museums, particularly those established by universities to support scholarship, ponder the ethics of maintaining collections of artifacts of indigenous peoples donated by Euro-Caucasian benefactors. The outcome of the Elgin Marbles controversy will be precedent setting.

Questions of Fact, Value, and Policy Obviously there is much more to be learned about the Elgin Marbles controversy than can be presented here. We can, however, determine specific questions of fact, value, and policy that can be pursued through argumentation. Fact: Who has the legal right of ownership of the Elgin Marbles? Who has the moral right of ownership of the Elgin Marbles? Value: Which museum, the British Museum or the new Acropolis Museum, is best suited for displaying the Elgin Marbles? What is the value of the encyclopedic museum in retaining artifacts of symbolic significance from diverse cultures such as the Elgin Marbles? Policy: Should the British government restore the Elgin Marbles to Greece for display in the new Acropolis Museum? How should museums respond to the claims of nation-states demanding the return of their cultural patrimony? As an advocate or opponent for argumentation on one of these questions, you would use the stock issues of fact, value, and policy to help you find the actual issues to be argued. You would also be concerned about the fields of argument in which the controversy exists to help you determine presumption. The history of the Elgin Marbles controversy suggests some possible fields of argument that include law, international relations, aesthetics, literature, and museums. Because there are specific fact, value, and policy dimensions to the Elgin Marbles controversy, as an advocate or opponent, you might narrow the choice of field, depending on the audience for your argumentation. Concerns about audience and field of argument, and where presumption lies, may be clarified as you investigate the history of your topic. In the Elgin Marbles case, there is one overriding presumption regardless of whether the questions is one of fact, value, and policy: The British Museum has held the Elgin Marbles in trust for the people of the United Kingdom for almost two hundred years. Finding the immediate cause and exploring the historical background of the quest for knowledge or controversy will provide you with a frame of reference from which to argue a proposition of fact, value, or policy. These two steps in the process of analysis also give you some clues about your audience’s possible understanding of your proposition. To focus your own interpretation of the proposition, the third step in the process of analysis requires that you define terms and use these definitions to make a primary inference about its meaning.

70

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

DEFINING KEY TERMS AND CREATING THE PRIMARY INFERENCE Almost all propositions need some interpretation to clarify the exact change in belief or behavior you seek from your audience. Although this can be done as you develop individual arguments, effective arguers introduce their cases by focusing the proposition in such a way that the individual arguments will collectively make sense to the audience. The reason we define key terms in a proposition is to clarify what we mean and how we intend the audience to understand the proposition. How you define terms also narrows the range of possible issues to be argued. Advocates must develop a case that on first hearing or reading seems logically complete and that the audience will feel comfortable accepting as probable. This is the concept of the prima facie case. Opponents may choose to defend what the benefit of presumption has identified as deserving of continuation because it works effectively: an existing idea, law or rule, policy, practice, or custom. Opponents may also choose to attack each and every part of the advocate’s prima facie case. Key terms of a proposition are defined to locate issues and to help the audience understand what the arguers mean in their use of terms. Each side in the process of argumentation needs to define terms. The interpretation of a proposition made on the basis of your definition of terms is called the primary inference. An inference is a conclusion you have reached on the basis of information you have examined. We make inferences by drawing a conclusion from available information. The primary inference is the conclusion you draw about what you believe the proposition means based on the information contained in your definition of key terms.

How is a primary inference made from the definition of key terms? Recall that arguing is part of rule-governed communication behavior and the nature of the English language supplies some of the rules. In English grammar there are three forms of sentences: simple, compound, and complex. A simple sentence has a subject, a verb, and a single independent clause (called the predicate). Our proposition for factual argumentation demonstrates the simple sentence structure: The nation-state of Greece (subject) has (verb) the right of ownership of the Elgin Marbles (the independent clause that is the predicate of the sentence).

Propositions should be phrased as a single, declarative sentence that has one central idea. A declarative sentence asserts the relationship between the subject of the sentence and the independent clause. In our example, there is an asserted relationship between the nation of Greece (subject) and a right to ownership of the Elgin Marbles (independent clause). To avoid multiple central ideas or confusing qualifications of the central idea, propositions should not be phrased as compound or complex sentences. Compound and complex sentences do have uses in argumentation. For now, we want to focus on the simple-declarative proposition sentence and how we use definitions of key terms to focus the argumentative ground and find specific issues to be argued.

71

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

Key Terms in Factual Propositions On the surface, a proposition of fact looks much like a true–false item on a test. When you try to figure out if you should mark the item true or false, you do the same thing an arguer does in making a primary inference. You look for the key terms in the test item, define for yourself what the subject and predicate mean based on the material you studied, and decide if your understanding suggests that the statement is a true or false one. Unlike a true–false item, which has only one right answer, either side of an arguable proposition of fact may be shown to have some probable truth associated with it and it is the arguer’s job to determine which side possesses the greatest probability. Consider our proposition: The nation-state of Greece has the right of ownership of the Elgin Marbles. Suppose that as the advocate, you have defined the key terms as: nation-state of Greece—the combination of a civil government with the historically developed community of people who have a distinctive culture and language as is found in contemporary Greece right of ownership—a moral claim to possess the artifacts of a culture, created by the people of the culture, for the people of the culture, as established by the 1970 UNESCO declaration on cultural property Elgin Marbles—the sculptures cut from the Parthenon and those taken from its environs by Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, and removed to London between 1801 and 1806 Notice how these definitions focus the proposition and how they provide clues to some of the specific issues that will form a prima facie case. First, “Greece” is positioned both as the political entity that we recognize as the Greek nation today and contemporary Greece is linked to the historic culture of classical Greece. Second, the definitions establish the UNESCO declaration on the moral right to cultural property as the foundation for a right of ownership. Finally, the definitions specify the cultural property in question is the collection of sculptures Elgin removed from Greece. These definitions create the primary inference: The people of contemporary Greece have a moral right to their cultural property taken from Greece and removed to London by Lord Elgin. This is a much different inference than if “right of ownership” had been defined as a legal rather than a moral right. Why choose this strategy of definition? If research tells you that a stronger case can be made for the moral right rather than the legal right, it is advantageous to place the proposition in the field of ethics rather than law. The advocate’s study of the Elgin Marbles controversy tells her that Britain is not a signatory to the UNESCO treaties on cultural property rights and there is some evidence to suggest Elgin may have had legal permission from the ruling Ottoman officials to remove the marbles and transport them to London. Her research also tells her that there is a strong presumption today favoring the restoration of the “cultural patrimony” of a presently existing culture with clear links to antiquity such as those of Greece. Hence, her definitions produce a primary inference that helps her understand what must be proven to make the proposition probably true in the minds of her audience.

72

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

If you were the opponent for this proposition of fact, given what you know about the presumption favoring the return of cultural patrimony, your strategy for responding to the advocate’s definitions and primary inference might be to argue the legal over the moral right of ownership, creating your own primary inference: The people of the United Kingdom have a legal right of ownership of the sculptures Lord Elgin rescued. You would emphasize the legal dimension in your definition of “right of ownership” and define “Elgin Marbles” to emphasize that Elgin’s actions saved them from possible destruction. Both the advocate and opponent must identify the primary inference that evolves from how terms are defined, although they are not obligated to identify the same one. If the opponent chooses to accept the advocate’s definition of terms, he has tacitly agreed to argue her primary inference. Opponents are not obligated to accept the advocate’s definition of terms or agree to her primary inference as the best interpretation of the proposition. An important strategy of opposition is determined at this point in issues analysis: Should the opponent provide his own definition of terms and argue that the advocate’s primary inference is flawed? Contesting the advocate’s definition of terms and possibly providing your own definitions is important when you believe the advocate has unfairly or mistakenly interpreted the proposition through her definitions. This is also true for value and policy propositions.

Key Terms in Value Propositions In a value proposition, words or phrases in both the subject and predicate of the proposition statement may require definition. One term in particular will always require some definition, the value judgment term. A value proposition has two important elements: a value object term (the thing you are evaluating) and a value judgment term (the source of criteria to make your judgment). The essence of value argumentation is applying the criteria of judgment to the value object. You get these criteria from your definition of the value judgment term. Value judgment terms have words such as desirable, useful, effective, beneficial, injurious, disadvantageous, or wasteful that must be defined. The definitions of these value-laden terms are the source of the criteria you will use to make value judgments as you develop the issues for your case. In some instances, you may also want to define the value object term for clarity and to help you discover specific issues for case development. Our value proposition from the Elgin Marbles controversy is: The new Acropolis Museum is the best site for the Elgin Marbles collection. The advocate chooses to define the value object as: The new Acropolis Museum is a purpose-built facility for displaying and conserving the sculptures from the Parthenon and artifacts from the other monuments of the Acropolis of antiquity; the museum is located in close proximity to the Parthenon.

Why define the value object? Because the definition sets up some of the issues, she will argue about why this new museum is a better site for the Elgin Marbles than their current home in the British Museum. The value judgment term in this proposition is best site. “Best” is the valueladen term, but as a modifier for “site,” it is important for the advocate to define

73

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

best site in such a way that she will have a set of criteria to evaluate the new Acropolis Museum on the basis of its superiority to the British Museum. Defining the value judgment term creates the primary inference for what the advocate means by best site. The primary inference produced by defining key terms in a value proposition usually is a list of the criteria to be applied to the value object rather than a simple-declarative sentence. The advocate defines a best site for the Elgin Marbles collection as one that will: 䊏 䊏

䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

provide state-of-the-art facilities for the conservation of the artifacts; meet the fundamental principle for displaying artifacts—pieces that only make sense as a whole should be kept together; ensure historical accuracy in the display of artifacts; provide for display of artifacts in an appropriate cultural context; explain the symbolic value of the artifacts for the contemporary viewer; and allow for international as well as local–national access.

How did the advocate come up with this list of criteria? This list was generated from the advocate’s research on the historical background of the Elgin Marbles controversy. Six criteria may be too many for effective case building and some of these criteria may overlap and could be combined. In the issues analysis phase for value argumentation, it is a good idea to generate a list of potential criteria that you can choose from as you build your case. In defining terms and creating the primary inference, the opponent’s options are determined by whether the proposition is a singular value judgment or a comparative one. The value proposition in our example makes a judgment about one museum. As a practical matter, however, the value judgment is that the new Acropolis Museum is a better facility than the British Museum for the Elgin Marbles collection; there is an implied comparison of the two museums. Value argumentation sometimes involves this kind of implied comparison making. Comparative value phrasing of the proposition would obligate the opponent to provide his own definition of the value judgment term, best site. The singular value proposition gives him the option of accepting the advocate’s definitions and choosing what he will or will not do with the presumption that the British Museum, which presently has the Elgin Marbles, is an acceptable site for them. Even with the singular value proposition in this example, the opponent may opt to take a comparative value approach for the strategic reason that he wants to use the benefit of presumption to argue the advantages of keeping the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. If he chooses this strategy, he would define the British Museum as his value object. The British Museum is an encyclopedic museum that emphasizes an understanding and appreciation of the interconnections of the world’s diverse cultures across time and place rather than focusing on a unitary culture determined by contemporary national borders.

The opponent creates his own primary inference, that the British Museum is the best site for the Elgin Marbles collection based on criteria that it presently: 䊏

74

offers a context for the marbles that enhances their value as shared history, rather than one nation’s;

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

䊏

䊏

䊏

enables the marbles to serve as the focal point of Athenian excellence in Western European culture and civilization; promotes scholarship in the context of an encyclopedic museum’s varied collections; and displays the marbles in an aesthetically pleasing environment.

For both advocate and opponent, criteria specify the attributes the value object must possess to be evaluated in a certain way and they serve to clarify the nature of the figurative ground in which value argumentation takes place. As we discuss the stock issues of value argumentation, you will see how the advocate and opponent’s definition of the value judgment term becomes a source of actual issues for their respective arguments.

Key Terms in Policy Propositions Because the most identifiable characteristic of a policy proposition is that it points toward a change in behavior, some new course of action, defining that course of action is one of the advocate’s responsibilities in case construction. If the advocate fails to define what is meant by this new course of action, asking the audience to adopt the action as their own will not be very convincing. They do not understand what they are being asked to do. We do not usually change our behaviors when we are unsure about what the change involves. Equally, decision-implementing bodies are unlikely to support change if the details of the decision are unclear. This makes selecting and defining the key terms of a policy proposition particularly important. What are the key terms in a policy proposition? The term that names the change being proposed and the term that identifies the persons or agency responsible for making the change are usually the key terms for definition. A policy proposition to resolve the Elgin Marbles controversy is: The British Museum should restore the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece. The advocate has identified the key terms in this proposition as: Term for proposed change—restore the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece. Term for the responsible agency—the British Museum. Both key terms seem clear enough at first glance that most people should understand them clearly enough. The advocate’s research, however, tells her that definitions of these two terms are required in order for her to build a prima facie case because the British Museum holds the Elgin Marbles collection in trust for the people of the United Kingdom and the marbles cannot simply be given to the Greek government and the new Acropolis Museum. The advocate must consider structural inherency in her case development. How she will address this inherency begins with her definitions of the two key terms. the British Museum—the Trustees of the British Museum who are empowered by the British Museum Act of 1963 to lend items from the collections for public display to institutions both inside and outside the United Kingdom. restore the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece—the collection of sculptures purchased from Lord Elgin in 1817 will be loaned to the new Acropolis Museum for display with the other surviving Parthenon sculptures.

75

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

These are operational definitions that provide the advocate’s specific meaning for the two key terms from which she will develop the details of the proposed loan. There are many possible methods for defining the key terms of a policy proposition, but choosing to operationally define the term for the proposed policy change is an efficient means of setting up the basis of what the change should be. The advocate’s primary inference is: The British Museum’s trustees can restore the Elgin Marbles to Greece by loaning them for display in the new Acropolis Museum. Remember, the definitions you choose for key terms are most important in deciding what you want the proposition to mean as you plan your argumentative strategy. Whether you are advocate or opponent, using your definitions of key terms to make a primary inference helps you focus the topic and make decisions about case development. Once you have made your primary inference, you are ready for the final stage of issues analysis—determining the actual issues you will use in case development.

DETERMINING THE ISSUES Being thoroughly familiar with the available information on your topic is the prerequisite for effective analysis. Thus far in analysis, you will have discovered the immediate cause that brings your topic to the audience’s attention, examined the topic’s historical background, and used your definitions of key terms to make a primary inference about the proposition. In doing this, you will already have some ideas about specific issues for case development. More issues will be found by applying the stock issues for fact, value, or policy to your proposition. There are field-invariant stock issues that can be used to analyze propositions. These “stock” issues are general questions that can be applied to the proposition and its subject matter to generate the actual issues that you might use to develop a case for or against a proposition. These issues are “stock” because they can be applied to any proposition regardless of its topic area. Propositions of fact, value, and policy each have a set of stock questions that can be used to determine what potential issues exist, from which you will choose the actual issues to develop your case.

Stock Issues for Factual Propositions The advocate’s selection of actual issues in a proposition of fact will be determined by two factors: what constitutes her burden of proof in establishing a prima facie case for the proposition and what can be demonstrated to be most probably true with the resources of proof and reasoning available to her. Propositions of fact are argued to decide whether the primary inference is probably true or probably false. There are two stock issues to use in finding potential issues for building your factual case: 1. What information confirms (or denies) the alleged relationship between the subject and the predicate of the primary inference? 2. What techniques of reasoning should be used to demonstrate this relationship? The first stock issue asks you to meet your research responsibility by finding out if there is enough available evidence to prove arguments about the probable

76

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

truth of the proposition. The second stock issue pertains to your responsibility to reason with your audience. Arguing fact is at the very heart of the process of argumentation. We said argumentation is instrumental communication that relies on proof (stock issue one) and reasoning (stock issue two). At first glance, the stock issues of fact seem very simple—find information and use reasoning. This does not mean that factual argumentation is superficial or that substantial cases cannot be created for propositions of fact. The issues for factual argumentation in the Elgin Marbles controversy involve questions of ownership, both moral and legal; the definition of an act, Lord Elgin’s removal and transport of the sculptures to London; and questions about the cultural patrimony of the contemporary nation-state of Greece in regard to these artifacts. The list of issues for the proposition of fact was generated by researching the Elgin Marbles controversy. Issues of arguable fact for the proposition, the nation-state of Greece has the right of ownership of the Elgin Marbles, include: 䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

The removal of sculptures and artifacts from the Parthenon and the Acropolis began in antiquity with the Romans. Elgin had legal permission, a document called a firman, to remove the sculptures from the Parthenon and other Acropolis sites. Questions exist about whether the firman was valid legal permission under Ottoman-Turkish law at the time of the removals. Elgin’s removal of the sculptures was an act of “preservation” that saved them from destruction, deterioration, and removal by others. Contemporary laws and treaties for the “return” of “looted” artworks and artifacts are problematic: there is a legal difference between historically removed objects and the contemporary market in stolen art and antiquities. No one entity can legally or morally be said to own a public monument that is central to so many contemporary nation-states and the whole of Western culture. Treaties and resolutions from the UN General Assembly and UNESCO affirming the return of cultural property to its nation of origin create an international legal mandate for the return of the Elgin Marbles. The Elgin Marbles are undeniably Greek in origin and as such are the cultural patrimony of the Greek nation-state. The marbles are a symbol of Western civilization and not unique to the contemporary nation-state of Greece. The British Museum Act of 1963 holds the contents of the museum in trust for the people of the United Kingdom and prevents returning the Elgin Marbles to the Greek government.

You might have noticed that the issues in this list are not designated as issues for the advocate’s case or for the opponent’s. Some may seem to very obviously belong to one side or the other. When you generate an issues list in the process of analysis, you should generate issues on both sides of the controversy. You need to know where probable truth may be found on all potential issues. As an advocate, identifying the issues the opponent may argue helps you understand where presumption lies, as well as helping you understand the case he may build against the probable truth of the proposition. As the opponent, you need to understand what information and reasoning supports the advocate’s side

77

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

of the proposition. If you only concentrate on the potential issues from your side of the proposition, your case development may be deficient and superficial. This is particularly important when you are using factual argumentation to seek knowledge. Considering the potential issues on all sides of a controversy is also important in the analysis of value and policy propositions.

Stock Issues for Value Propositions Value propositions seek to establish the most acceptable evaluation of a particular person, place, event, policy, or idea. You identify issues that will develop a prima facie case for a value proposition by beginning with the stock issues particular to value argumentation, vital questions that must be answered if the arguer’s case is to be accepted. The three stock issues that shape value advocacy and opposition are: 1. In what value hierarchy is the value object of the proposition best evaluated? 2. By what criteria is the value object to be located in this value hierarchy? 3. Do indicators of effect, extent, and inherency show that the value object meets these criteria? Values are deeply rooted mental states formed early in life. They predispose us to categorize something as existing somewhere along a continuum ranging from highly positive to highly negative. A value held by an individual or a group may not be verbalized until it comes into conflict with some other value about which a judgment is going to be made. Values are not independent of each other. They exist in a hierarchy, with some values deemed more important than others in a given set of circumstances. This is why determining the value hierarchy in which the proposition’s value object is best evaluated is the first stock issue for finding the actual issues for value case development. Advocates and opponents for value propositions will discover appropriate value hierarchies and criteria for judging the value object by examining the immediate causes for a value controversy and the relevant historical background of the value topic. The immediate cause for the most recent value controversy over the Elgin Marbles was the opening of the new Acropolis Museum with the belief that the new Acropolis Museum is the best site for the Elgin Marbles collection. For most of the controversy’s history, there was no question that the British Museum was superior to an “old” Acropolis Museum. The political and economic circumstances of successive Greek governments left few resources for preserving the Parthenon and other Acropolis monuments. The museum created in 1970 was inadequate and seldom open to the public. Value argumentation over whether the British Museum or the new Acropolis Museum would be the better home for the Elgin Marbles ensued as construction of the new facility began in Athens. In the Elgin Marbles controversy, two value hierarchies come into conflict. The advocate for the new Acropolis Museum operates from a hierarchy that places the importance of the original historic location of the Parthenon in Athens at the top of the value hierarchy. The British Committee for Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (2001–2002b) expresses this value hierarchy: The Parthenon is the most important symbol of Greek cultural heritage and according to the declaration of universal human and cultural rights the Greek State has a duty to preserve its cultural heritage in its totality, both for its citizens and the international community.

78

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

The opponent in the Elgin Marbles controversy operates from a different hierarchy. James Cuno, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, expresses the value hierarchy as the promise of the encyclopedic museum to be: A repository of objects, dedicated to the promotion of tolerance and inquiry and the dissipation of ignorance, where the artifacts of one culture and one time are preserved and displayed next to those of other cultures and times without prejudice. (2009, p. 1)

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, links the British Museum to this value hierarchy: The British Museum was established very specifically for everybody, the whole world. . . . It was established on the proposition that through the study of things gathered together from all over the world, truth would emerge. And not one perpetual truth, but truth as a living, changing thing, constantly remade as hierarchies are subverted, new information comes, and new understandings of societies emerge, Such emerging truth, it was believed, would result in greater tolerance of others and of difference itself. (2009, p. 39)

The advocate’s value hierarchy is based on the core values of nationalism and cultural patrimony, the belief that today’s Greek nation-state has a direct cultural link to those who created the Parthenon and the monuments on the Acropolis. Today’s Greek State has the duty to preserve this and the new Acropolis Museum was created to preserve it. Clashing with this value hierarchy is the opponent’s value system derived from the Enlightenment principle of universal knowledge and the interconnectedness of the world’s cultures as promoted by the encyclopedic museum. Whereas the advocate’s core value is nationalism, the opponent’s value system is the value of understanding the common ancestry of all humanity. Earlier we gave you the definition of key terms and the primary inference created by the advocate and opponent. The criteria each provided flow from their respective value hierarchies. These criteria are then applied to their value objects as each builds a case supporting her or his side of the proposition. The actual issues in value argumentation are the criteria used to make the value judgment. The third stock issue, indicators of effect, extent, and inherency, is used to find the specific arguments to prove how the value object meets each criterion. Because our value advocate and opponent are each building a case in support of a different museum facility, operating from clashing value hierarchies, and using different criteria, we have separated the issues list into each side’s criteria of value judgment. For the advocate, the new Acropolis Museum is the best site for the Elgin Marbles because: 䊏

䊏

䊏

It provides state-of-the-art facilities for the conservation and display of the Elgin Marbles collection; it was purpose-built with the newest technology and methods for conservation of the artifacts; the curators know that the sculptures were created by Athenians, for Athenians, with uniquely Greek themes. It meets the fundamental principle of integrity in displaying artifacts by keeping pieces together that only make sense as a whole; all surviving sculptures from the Parthenon can be displayed in their original positions. It ensures accuracy in the historical details of the display of the sculptures; the Acropolis Museum has a Parthenon Gallery with the exact dimensions, orientations, and proportions of the Parthenon that will allow for display of the surviving sculptures in the exact order and arrangement of their original positions.

79

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

䊏

䊏

䊏

It will provide for display in the appropriate cultural context; the sculptures are identified with the cultural context of the Parthenon and displaying them in proximity to it gives them authenticity and restores the sense of their unique architectural significance; they are displayed within sight of the Parthenon itself. It accurately establishes the symbolic value of the sculptures; the Parthenon is the definitive symbol of Greek civilization and the sculptures are uniquely Greek symbols of concepts and events from classical Greek history that contributes to Western civilization. It allows for visitor access; today’s Athens is a major travel destination with visitors from all over the world, particularly those interested in cultural tourism.

For the opponent, the British Museum is the best site for the Elgin Marbles because: 䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

It offers a context for the sculptures that supports their value as shared history; as an encyclopedic museum, the British Museum challenges the narrow concepts of nationalism and acknowledges the sculptures as part of everyone’s shared history and their significance in world culture as the legacy of ancient Athens to the whole of Western civilization. The sculptures have greater importance when viewed in the context of the British Museum’s varied collection as the focal point of Athenian excellence in Western European culture and civilization that transcends their value as a symbol of Greek nationalism. It promotes scholarship; the British Museum has a long history of actively promoting scholarship and extensive publication of research findings; the British Museum is a unique world resource by virtue of the breadth and depth of collections that encourage scholarly consideration of cultural identities and the interconnectedness of the world’s cultures. It displays the Elgin Marbles collection in an aesthetically pleasing environment; the new Acropolis Museum was designed by a postmodern deconstructionist architect and its architecture gets in the way of the exhibits—there is too much “visual noise” with ugly yellowish artificial lighting.

From the two issues lists, you can begin to see the individual arguments that will form the judgments that the advocate and opponent will make as they compare the suitability of the two museums. Whether you are involved in comparative values argumentation, or engaging in argumentation over a single value judgment, you need to consider the issues from both the advocate’s and the opponent’s perspective.

Stock Issues for Policy Propositions We chose the Elgin Marbles controversy as the example for doing analysis of propositions because there are very specific elements of fact and value in this controversy. The essence, however, of the controversy is that today, the British Museum has the collection of artifacts Lord Elgin removed from Athens and the Greeks want them returned to Athens. Ultimately, this controversy involves policy. Issues of fact and value, however, contribute to making the case for and against the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Many of the issues already identified for the

80

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

fact and value propositions would be appropriate to use in arguing the proposition: The British Museum should restore the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece. Specific to policy argumentation are issues that concern the structural and attitudinal impediments to returning the Elgin Marbles as well as the advantages and disadvantages of returning them for display in the new Acropolis Museum. Policy propositions concern changes in behavior ranging from the passage of new legislation or the creation of new institutions to a course of action an individual should follow. Policy propositions imply that a critical decision to do something be considered. The stock issues for developing a prima facie case for a policy proposition are: 1. Is there a reason for change in a manner generally suggested by the policy proposition? 2. Does the policy proposed resolve the reason for change? 3. What are the consequences of the proposed change? In using the stock issues of policy propositions to develop a prima facie case, the advocate must develop specific issues for all three areas. Applying the first stock issue to the policy proposition will produce issues that point to a need for change in the way something is done. Potential issues of a reason for change will identify problems in the present way of doing things, the cause of these problems, and the impact of the problems on people, institutions, or environments. To meet her burden of proof in arguing a policy proposition, the advocate must justify a reason to make the policy change. Many of the issues from the list for the proposition that Greece has a right of ownership to the Elgin Marbles could be used to argue the advocate’s reason for change. To meet her burden of proof, she must reasonably demonstrate why the collection should be returned to Greece. The second stock issue is used to generate the details of the proposition’s policy change. If the advocate operationally defines key terms about what the policy is and the agent or agency responsible for enacting it, she has met the requirements of the second stock issue. Earlier, these definitions were provided: the British Museum—the Trustees of the British Museum who are empowered by the British Museum Act of 1963 to lend items from the collections for public display to institutions both inside and outside the United Kingdom. restore the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece—the collection of sculptures purchased from Lord Elgin in 1817 will be loaned to the new Acropolis Museum for display with the other surviving Parthenon sculptures. Of course, the advocate will need to supply a few more details about this policy in her prima facie case development. If she did not operationally define the key terms to suggest the policy change, she would need to do so now in applying the second stock issue. The third stock issue is used to generate arguments to explain how the proposed policy responds to the reason for change. Issues of fact are generated to address how the policy overcomes or solves the problem. Issues of value are generated to consider the consequences of the proposed policy. The new policy becomes a value object and the advocate uses criteria to evaluate why this policy is the best solution to the issues identified by the first stock issue. The advocate may also use value issues to show benefits or advantages that are unique to her proposal.

81

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

Using the first and third stock issues, potential issues emerge for developing cases relating to the restoration of the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece for display in the new Acropolis Museum. These potential issues are not identified as belonging in the advocate or the opponent’s case, but most clearly favor one side or the other and some are mutually exclusive. As was the case in arguing fact and value, it is a good idea to generate potential issues on both sides of the controversy during your analysis of the proposition in order to anticipate what the other side might argue. 䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

82

The British Museum Act of 1963 mandates that the Elgin Marbles collection, like other items housed in the British Museum, is the lawful property of the people of the United Kingdom. The British Parliament has the legal authority to pass a special act for complete restitution of the Elgin Marbles collection to Greece. The Elgin Marbles were legally acquired in 1816 and the British Museum would violate its legal obligation to hold them in trust for future generations if it were to make a long-term loan of them to Greece. Many in the United Kingdom support restitution of the sculptures as demonstrated by the Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. An international movement for restitution of the Elgin Marbles exists, comprised of groups from Europe, the British Commonwealth, and North and South America. There is an international trend toward restitution of cultural artifacts, museums in the United States, Germany, and the Vatican have returned pieces of the Parthenon marbles that were in their collections. UNESCO treaties on cultural patrimony have done as much harm as good in preserving the artifacts of antiquity as evidenced by the Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic artifacts. The vision of Pericles, embodied in the Parthenon, serves as a symbol of European unity, Britain and Greece are both members of the European Union, and restitution of the Elgin Marbles would be a significant act of cooperation. Museum directors fear the consequences of the British Museum’s returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece; there are other demands for the return of artifacts that, if met, would denude the world’s great encyclopedic museums. The Elgin Marbles are unique in that their history is known; Lord Elgin cut them from the Parthenon and shipped them to London; the Parthenon unquestionably still stands in Athens in recognizable form; there is no other case for restitution that meets these conditions of a rightful claim. Restitution of the Elgin Marbles would not create a precedent. It is impossible to restore the Elgin Marbles to their cultural context on the Parthenon. The remaining structure is too fragile to support the sculptures and more than half of the original sculptures can never be found; sending the Elgin Marbles to Greece is not restoration, it is moving them from one museum to another. The Trustees of the British Museum have the authority to make a long-term loan of the Elgin Marbles collection to the new Acropolis Museum and still retain legal custody. The Trustees of the British Museum are not empowered to dispose of items at will through long-term loans or other means; loan requests are considered only if the United Kingdom’s legal ownership is accepted.

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏

The new Acropolis Museum was purpose-built for displaying the artifacts of the Parthenon and Acropolis monuments; it has state-of-the-art facilities and technology for protecting the fragile marbles. London is the number one tourist destination in Europe, allowing more people the opportunity to experience the sculptures as the legacy of ancient Athens to world civilization. The British Museum does not charge an entry fee or a fee for access to the sculptures, the new Acropolis Museum does. If Greece’s aim is to attract cultural tourism, having artifacts of ancient Athens in the world’s greatest museum will accomplish that goal more effectively than gathering them together in a museum in Athens. Seeing the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum can encourage travel to Athens to see other artifacts for those who might not have considered travel to Greece otherwise. Athens remains a polluted environment and there are many structural problems with the new Acropolis Museum; the Elgin Marbles should not be removed to a less secure site. The political and economic stability of Greece is tenuous; Greek governments do not have a strong track record for stability; the Elgin Marbles would be safer in the British Museum.

The stock issues of policy argumentation help you discover the kinds of arguments the advocate must develop to establish a prima facie case, but they also demonstrate the relationship of fact and value to policy argumentation. The movement from fact through value to policy exponentially increases the complexity of argumentation and the options available to advocates and opponents of policy change. Not only are the issues more numerous and the strategies more intricate, but policy propositions common to academic argumentation are also worded in such a way that they afford the advocates of change wide latitude for interpretation. The Elgin Marbles controversy is one example, albeit one of the leading ones, of a much larger, worldwide controversy over cultural property policy. For academic argumentation, we might have worded the policy proposition more broadly: The large encyclopedic museums should restore contested artifacts to their nation of cultural origin. The advocate might, through her definition of key terms, interpret this proposition as meaning the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Or, she might interpret it as the restoration of the Rosetta Stone and the Bust of Nefertiti to Egypt, or as meaning some other contested artifact or set of artifacts. The breadth of a policy proposition for academic argumentation creates some constraints on opponents as they face uncertainty about the actual issues the advocate will argue. The opponent is not without resources because he has the benefit of presumption and the knowledge that the advocate’s burden of proof is more complex, creating more opportunities for her to make mistakes. In analyzing a policy proposition to determine the potential issues he will argue, the opponent needs to remind himself that he only needs to defeat the advocate on one of the stock issues in order to prevail. His research on the general topic area and his understanding of the stock issues of policy argumentation can help

83

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

him develop a series of generic arguments that would apply to a number of different interpretations of the proposition. For the more general proposition on restoring cultural property, without knowing that the advocate will choose to interpret it in terms of the Elgin Marbles controversy, the opponent could find and develop issues on concerns about the repatriation of cultural property, the legal environment, and the wisdom of using cultural patrimony as a way of dealing with claims made on museums for the return of artifacts. He could also develop generic arguments on the value of the encyclopedic museum for scholarship and enjoyment. The requirements of meeting the advocate’s burden of proof for policy propositions also provide options for analysis of certain generic issues. The opponent should carefully consider what issues of cost might be found in the change generally suggested by the proposition. Whether it is the Elgin Marbles or some other item in a museum’s collection, the movement of valuable and frequently fragile artifacts is not a matter of simply crating them up and calling UPS. Many expensive special arrangements need to be made when items are transported from a museum to another location. Most policy propositions, whether they are very specific or of the more general academic variety, will usually involve issues of cost. As an opponent of a policy proposition, your analysis and research will suggest additional possibilities for creating issues, even when you do not know the specifics of what the advocate will argue. The process of analysis is the same for propositions of fact, value, and policy, although the breadth and depth of analysis may be different for a specific proposition. Both advocates and opponents should examine the immediate cause and the historical background of the proposition. After defining those terms that require definition and deciding how the clarified terms form a primary inference, advocates and opponents should then use the stock issues for their type of proposition to generate a list of the potential issues that might be argued. From this list, the advocate and opponent then decide which issues can be developed with evidence and reasoning to build a case for or against the proposition. Issues are established by the requirements of stock issues particular to each type of proposition. The choice of actual issues to be argued, within the framework of what is required by the stock issues, is determined by the resources of proof and reasoning that will help you develop each issue in case building. If you are not experienced in finding source material, there are various techniques for doing research in the library and online. Once you have a sense of the issues that will become the main ideas of your case, you need to begin thinking about the individual arguments that will develop these issues into meaningful argumentation.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Examine the propositions listed below. Select one of the propositions for issues analysis. What is the immediate cause of the controversy in the proposition? What are some important elements in the history of the topic? What key terms should be defined and

84

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

what primary inference can be formed from those definitions? What are the actual issues that might be argued by the advocate? By the opponent? a. The federal government should provide an opportunity for a college education to all U.S. citizens. b. American football has become excessively violent. c. The further exploration of space should be a priority in the twenty-first century. d. The need for oil is the most important element of U.S. foreign policy. e. The high cost of college textbooks is a consequence of the market for used textbooks. Read the Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, “The Case for Reunification,” at www.parthenonuk.com/the_case_for_the_return.php. Is this case a value or a policy case? Which set of stock issues would best apply? Does the Committee meet the requirements of arguing either value or policy? What actual issues make up the case? Follow the debate over the Elgin Marbles controversy on an online source such as Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. What issues do you find in the debate? Are these issues similar to the ones identified in the chapter or are new issues emerging? Richard Fraser argues that John Wilkes Booth was only indirectly responsible for the death of Abraham Lincoln, because the physicians on the scene were guilty of malpractice. Their inept medical treatment caused Lincoln’s death. Read the essay, “How Did Lincoln Die?” by Richard A. R. Fraser in American Heritage, February/March, 1995, pp. 63–64, 66–70, available online at www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ ah/1995/1/1995_1_63.shtml. What is the immediate cause that leads Fraser to author an argument about this subject in 1995? What historical background does Fraser use to build his argument? What actual issues did Fraser choose to argue? Does he create a prima facie case of factual argumentation? James Canton’s The Extreme Future: The Top Trends that Will Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years and Richard Watson’s Future Files: The 5 Trends that Will Shape the Next 50 Years discuss several trends that will shape the future. Choose one of these trends, or the trend assigned by your instructor, and make a presentation to the class in which you explain the trend in terms of the value hierarchy it suggests. What values are implied by the trend? What degree of importance does society presently attach to these values? How will the future affect the present hierarchy of these values? Phrase your own proposition of fact, value, or policy. What terms require definition? What type of definition should you provide? What is the primary inference that your definitions lead to? What is the immediate cause of controversy in your proposition’s topic area? What issues may be argued by advocates? By opponents?

REFERENCES American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. (2007). How can we help. Retrieved May, 18, 2010, from http://www.parthenonmarblesusa.org/ Parthenon/help.aspx. Appiah, K. A. (2009). Whose culture is it? In J. Cuno (Ed.), Whose culture? The promise of museums and the debate over antiquities (pp. 71–86). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Atwood, R. (2004). Stealing history: Tomb raiders, smugglers, and the looting of the ancient world. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. British Museum. (n.d.). What are the Elgin Marbles? Retrieved July 1, 2009, from http:// www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/article_index/w/what_are_the_elgin_marbles. aspx.

85

How Do I Analyze Propositions?

Browning, R. (1997). The Parthenon in history. In C. Hitchens (Ed.), The Elgin Marbles: Should they be returned to Greece? (pp. 1–15). London: Verso. Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. (2001–2002a). Our composition, supporters and aims. Retrieved May 18, 2010, from http://www.parthenonuk.com/ who_are_we.php. Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. (2001–2002b). The case for the return. Retrieved May 18, 2010, from http://www.parthenonuk.com/the_case_for_the_ return.php. Cuno, J. (2009), Whose culture? The promise of museums and the debate over antiquities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gillman, D. (2009). Heritage and national treasures. In J. Cuno (Ed.), Whose culture? The promise of museums and the debate over antiquities (pp. 165–182). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Greenfield, J. (2000). House of Commons—Culture, Media and Sport—Appendix 13. Memorandum submitted by Dr. Jeanette Greenfield. Retrieved June 29, 2009, from http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmcumeds/371/371ap20.htm. Hitchens, C. (1997). The Elgin Marbles: Should they be returned to Greece? London: Verso. Hitchens, C. (2008). The Parthenon Marbles: The case for reunification (rev. ed.). London: Verso. Jenkins, I. (2008). The Parthenon sculptures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. MacGregor, N. (2009). To shape the citizens of that great city, the world. In J. Cuno (Ed.), Whose culture? The promise of museums and the debate over antiquities (pp. 39–54). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Matthew (2005). What is elginism? Retrieved May 20, 2010, from http://www.elginism. com/definition. McGuigan, C. (2009, June 15). Romancing the stones. Newsweek, 173, 62–63. Merryman, J.H. (2009). Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical essays on cultural property, art and law. New York: Wolters Kluwer. Micek, D., & Whitlock, W. (2008). Twitter-revolution. Las Vegas: Xeno Press. New Acropolis Museum opens. (2009, June 25). The Economist (London). Retrieved from http://www.economist.com. Wood, G. (March, 2004). The strange case of Lord Elgin’s nose; or, a study in the pathology of Hellenism. Prometheus Unplugged. Retrieved June 29, 2009, from http://prometheus. cc.emory.edu/panels/5E/G.Wood.html.

86

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

I

n argumentation, controversy over a proposition is disputed in terms of issues. The stock issues for fact, value, and policy help you find the important points for developing a prima facie case or arguing against one. Using the stock issues to discover actual issues gives you main points for the overall organization of your ideas. Each of those main points must be developed through one or more specific arguments that help the audience understand how and why that main point is probably true. Each individual argument that develops a main point can be thought of as a unit of argument, a building block in case construction. For example, earlier in your life you may have been involved in a controversy over the policy proposition: You should eat your vegetables. A prima facie argument advocating this proposition probably included the main point: “Vegetables are necessary for your good health.” This main point might have been developed through units of argument, headlined by two subpoints about the connection between veggies and health: “Vegetables have vitamins and minerals” and “Vitamins and minerals are vital to proper growth.”

THE TOULMIN MODEL OF ARGUMENT Whatever topic you choose to argue, your position as advocate or opponent emerges through a series of claims supported by grounds and warrant, terminology developed by British logician Stephen Toulmin (1958; Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik, 1984) to classify the parts of an argument. There are many interpretations of how to use Toulmin’s thinking on the structure of an argument. In this chapter, our interpretation is that the model should be used as a blueprint for creating your individual units of argument. We recommend that you develop your cases of advocacy and opposition by labeling the issues to be argued as contentions (argumentation jargon for a main point) and by using the Toulmin model to create one or more units of argument that will prove each contention’s probable truth. From Chapter 5 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

87

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

Claims Argumentation begins when an advocate makes one or more claims. A claim is your own opinion, the conclusion you form from information on the topic. A claim is a conclusion that does not stand alone and something the listener or reader can ultimately agree or disagree with. In this sense, claims both begin and end the process of argumentation. Claims begin the process by showing where an arguer has taken a stand. Claims also end the process, showing what the listener or reader is expected to accept as true or probable. Disputes concerning claims center on whether they are capable of being supported by proof and reasoning and shown to be true-probable or untrue-improbable. There are four categories of claims, each of which performs a different function: factual claims argue what was, is, or will be definitional claims argue how something is to be defined or categorized value claims argue evaluation or pass judgment on something policy claims argue that something should be done

Factual claims resemble propositions of fact in that they are concerned with things that can be verified. They are concerned with past, present, or future fact. The arguer asserts that something did exist, now exists, or will exist in the future, and then proceeds to offer whatever proof can be discovered to demonstrate it. Theoretically, the best proof of factual claims derives from direct observation and experimentation (Ehninger, 1974). Practically, most of us have to rely on print and electronic sources of information for material to prove our factual claims. What might you use to prove each of the following factual claims? Failure to resolve the hostage crisis led to President Carter’s defeat in 1980. The “No Child Left Behind” policy is undermining K–12 education in the United States. Motor vehicles will run primarily on alternative fuels by the year 2020. The second type of claim common to argumentation is the definitional claim. Such claims are used when the precise definition of a term becomes a contested issue. Definitional claims are concerned with how something is defined, as a particular type or category of act, individual, object, or idea. The following are examples of definitional claims: Mass media are commonly considered to be (are recognized as) television, radio, film, recordings, magazines, newspapers, and books. Computer literacy is (defined as) the basic knowledge needed to use computers. The U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 was (should be categorized as) a case of international aggression. Like the value propositions they resemble, value claims show the arguer’s evaluation or judgment. Value claims express an attitude toward something and are identified by the use of evaluative language. The following are examples of value claims: Return of the King has the best special effects of the three films in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The social security system is a poor substitute for effective retirement planning. Internet advertising is more effective than television advertising.

88

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

The policy claim is similar to the policy proposition. It states that an action should be taken or a behavior should be altered. Because policy claims advocate change, they always concern the future. The following are examples of policy claims: You should floss your teeth once a day. You should develop fluency in a second language. You should register to vote. Claims, regardless of type, are what arguments are about. Because they have a sentence structure similar to that of propositions, it is not surprising to discover that claims assert relationships between people, things, and ideas or actions. For example, in advancing the claim, “The social security system is a poor substitute for retirement planning,” the arguer seeks to relate an institution (the social security system) to a judgment about it (is a poor substitute). Standing alone, this claim represents the arguer’s opinion of the social security system. Opinion statements of this sort are usually insufficient to alter an audience’s belief or behavior. More is required. A final point about claims concerns how they are worded. Because claims express complete thoughts, they have the properties of formal sentences. Claims may be phrased as simple statements, with one relationship asserted, or as compound statements, with multiple relationships asserted. A compound sentence has two or more independent clauses in its predicate. Compare the following simple claim statements with their corresponding compound statements: Personal income tax fraud is increasing. (factual claim) Personal income tax fraud is the willful evasion of one’s obligation to pay assessed taxes on salaries and remunerations. (definitional claim) Personal income tax fraud is harmful to the well-being of society. (value claim) Tax law enforcement should be strengthened to prevent personal income tax evasion. (policy claim) A compound claim statement differs in that it argues more than one relationship in its assertion. Compare the following examples of compound claim statements with their simple counterparts: Personal income tax fraud is increasing and becoming more difficult to prosecute. Personal income tax fraud is the willful evasion of one’s obligation to pay assessed taxes and a violation of federal and state laws. Personal income tax fraud is harmful both to U.S. citizens and to institutions. Tax laws should be revised to more equitably distribute the tax burden and more stringently punish the tax evader. In discussing propositions, it is unwise to have multiple ideas stated in a single proposition. In wording claim statements that serve as subarguments, compound statements often make argumentation more economical. By offering a single claim to argue that tax fraud harms two entities, individuals and institutions, the arguer saves time and keeps related ideas together in her listener’s or reader’s mind. In addition, compound statements allow the arguer to set up patterns of reasoning through comparisons. “The seriousness of income tax evasion is demonstrated by the fact that tax fraud is increasing more rapidly than crimes against persons and

89

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

property.” The types of crime are unrelated, but the compound statement gives the audience a basis for comparison and a measure of the extent of tax fraud. The arguer’s task in making a claim is to present a well-defined and supported position for the listener or reader to consider. In doing this, the arguer offers not only a claim but also the grounds and warrant that support it. The relationship between them is such that an argument is the movement from grounds, accepted by the listener or reader, through warrant to claim (Brockriede & Ehninger, 1960). These three elements make up the primary triad of a unit of argument in the Toulmin model. A unit of argument is the structure for forming opinions from information you have collected on the topic. This unit of argument corresponds to the rational processes people use in making decisions (J. L. Golden, Berquist, Coleman, Sproule, & R. Golden, 2007). Although the arguments you hear or read may not have all three elements clearly identified, the elements of the primary triad are basic to the structure of all argument. They represent the reasoning process invoked when someone makes a statement that requires support before someone else is willing to accept it as true or probable. If we say, “X is the cause of Y” (a claim) and, to support this opinion, we add, “Y happens every time we find an X present” (information about the co-occurrence of X and Y), we have created a unit of thought about X and Y. If we were uncertain that the audience saw the connection between X and Y in the same way we did, we might state more of our thinking: “X has certain properties that result in the creation of a Y” (a statement about how one thing causes another thing). If the audience accepted our opinion that X causes Y because it shared our opinion, there would be no argumentation over the relationship between X and Y. Because argumentation takes place when people have differences of opinion or want to test all the ways in which the relationship between X and Y might not hold up, stating a claim is usually not enough for a unit of argument to make sense. In the Toulmin model form, we would write up this unit of argument as shown in Figure 1. Real people actually create units of argument when they need to build a case. Using the Toulmin model as a blueprint for creating arguments to change an audience’s beliefs, so that in turn they would cease a particular behavior, the Board of Directors of a condominium association made a case against the popular practice of feeding wild birds. This example demonstrates how the concept of the prima

Grounds

Warrant

X is present in this instance, and we also have evidence that Y is present.

An X has certain properties that give it the ability to produce a Y.

FIGURE 1 Toulmin Form of Unit of Argument

90

Claim X causes Y.

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

facie case comes together with the conventions presumption and burden of proof as a case is developed through a series of units of argument. This example addresses the first stock issue of a policy proposition, the reason for change. It also demonstrates why claims alone are inadequate and require the support of grounds and warrant to make the message worthy of agreement. When humans and wildlife interact, significant problems can occur. Between 1980 and 2007, pilots reported over 82,000 bird strikes, and in January 2009, a flock of Canada geese migrating from Nova Scotia struck U.S. Airways Flight 1549 as it departed from LaGuardia airport. Disaster was only averted when the pilot was able to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River (Walsh, 2009). Our “Canada goose problem” began less dramatically, but over a few years, turned into what the Board saw as a substantial financial and health problem for the association. The condominiums are built around a spring-fed pond in an abandoned quarry in a wooded area that attracts a great variety of birds. Residents had become accustomed to setting up feeders and enjoying the many bird species that made the area their home. Five years ago, a pair of Canada geese made the pond their nesting area, but left with their goslings soon after they hatched for the safer, larger waters of Lake Superior. Several residents thought the goslings were cute and enjoyed watching the goose family for a few, brief weeks. The next spring the original pair returned to Quarry Pond for the nesting season. Hoping to entice the geese to hang around a bit longer, several residents put out bread, cereal, cookies, and other “human” food for the geese. The geese quickly became full-time summer residents and over time the flock increased in size. In addition to the food provided by humans, the birds also ate the grass and fresh plantings. The Canada goose is a very large bird and each one leaves a significant amount of fecal matter in its wake, as much as one pound per goose per day (Walsh, 2009). Concerned about the increased costs of maintenance, along with the health hazards posed by the fecal matter and the growth of the flock, the Board wanted to ban all wildlife feeding and encourage residents to use all legal means to discourage the geese from extending their stay. They knew they had to make a compelling case for this change because many residents were ardent wildlife lovers and liked the idea of having the flock in residence for the summer. PROPOSITION: PRESUMPTION:

BURDEN OF PROOF:

All condominium residents should refrain from artificially feeding the geese. The existing state of affairs is that some residents have been feeding the geese “human” food and enjoy having them as neighbors. The Canada goose is native to the area. Presumption indicates that the geese are thriving and have made the pond their home. There is no reason to ban feeding the geese. As advocate, the Board must overcome the presumption that feeding Canada geese is an acceptable practice. They had to create arguments that, at face value, would be sufficient to overcome the pro-feeding residents’ presumption that feeding the geese is acceptable. The Board created four

91

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

PRIMA FACIE CASE:

CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2: CLAIM 3: CLAIM 4:

units of argument based on their analysis of the first stock issue for arguing policy, reason for change. As advocate, the Board seeks suspension of presumption by presenting arguments on the topic of “the consequences of artificially feeding wild birds” that demonstrates the inherency of “feeding the geese causes problems.” Feeding the geese harms them more than it helps them. The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents. The geese pose a health hazard. The geese are a nuisance.

The pro-feeding residents would be unmoved by the four claim statements. To them, these statements represent the unsupported opinions of the Board. As the advocate for the ban on feeding geese, the Board would fail to establish a prima facie case if all they presented were these four claims. Generally, claims are not accepted at face value and the pro-feeding contingent would not be persuaded to change their behavior. By providing grounds and the warrant to support each claim, the combination of claim ➔ grounds ➔ warrant becomes a compelling reason to refrain from feeding the geese, a prima facie case. CLAIM 1: SUPPORT:

CLAIM 2: SUPPORT:

CLAIM 3: SUPPORT:

CLAIM 4: SUPPORT:

92

Feeding the geese harms them more than it helps them. Artificially feeding the geese causes them to lose their fear of humans. Feeding encourages the geese to stay in our urban area where they are likely to be hit by cars. Feeding the geese food meant for human consumption alters their digestive systems and impairs their ability to gain nutrition from natural food. The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents. The geese destroy lawns by eating the grass down to the bare ground. The geese produce fecal matter that contaminates the ground and the pond. Cleaning up after the geese is expensive. The appearance of the common areas is deteriorating, and the value of individual units will decrease. The geese pose a health hazard. Fecal matter on the ground creates a health hazard to residents who use the common areas for recreation, especially children playing on the ground. Contaminated pond water presents further risks to swimmers and boaters. There is also a potential risk associated with avian flu posed by the presence of waterfowl. The geese are a nuisance. Feeding the geese has caused their behavior to change radically. They have become aggressive toward humans and pets. Instead of fleeing, they defend their territory and go on the attack. In other places, geese are known to have injured children and even adults. (Used by permission of the Shiras Pointe Condominium Association Board)

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

Grounds Because a claim alone is insufficient to alter belief or behavior, you must consider the second major element of the Toulmin model: grounds. Grounding the claim provides the foundation of information on which an argument rests, the proof required for a rational person to accept the claim as true or probable. The relationship of claims to grounds is such that “the claim under discussion can be no stronger than the grounds that provide its foundation” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 26). Grounding is that element in the argument given to the listeners or readers that enables them to answer such questions as “What information supported this claim?” or “Upon what foundation is this claim based?” Common ground, which the audience already knows and accepts, may exist, and you may draw on it to support claims. You may also add information to it to increase the probability that the audience will accept your claim as true. The pro-feeding audience for the proposal to ban feeding the geese has already observed the deterioration of the lawns around the condominium complex. They can see the bare spots for themselves. A simple statement of this fact can be used to ground claim 2. CLAIM 2: GROUNDS 1:

The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents. The geese have eaten the grass down so short in some places that lawns have developed bare spots.

This bit of information, which the audience already possesses, may not be sufficient to ground the claim because the pro-feeding audience may see this as a problem easily solved by sprinkling some grass seed on the bare spots. To strengthen the support for the claim, the Board added a second fact, information about the way condo fees (the monthly assessment each owner pays for maintenance and other services) are spent, to strengthen the conclusion that the geese adversely affect the common areas of the complex. The revised unit of argument took this form: CLAIM 2: GROUNDS 1: GROUNDS 2: GROUNDS 3: GROUNDS 4:

The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents. The geese have eaten the grass down so short in some places that lawns have developed bare spots. The Association spends almost $25,000 of our dues to keep the common areas attractive and useable by the residents. The size of the goose population has grown since the initial pair first came to Quarry Pond. The growth of the goose population has increased the cost of maintenance over time and decreased the value of our mutually owned common areas and individually owned condo units.

We sometimes use the generic term evidence to classify all proof in the form of facts and opinions discovered through research and used to ground claims. Because other parts of the Toulmin model may also use evidence, this element in the primary triad is labeled grounds to avoid confusion. Experimental observations, statistics, expert opinion, personal testimony, matters

93

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

of common knowledge, or previously established claims make up the pool of material used as grounds in an argument. A few general comments are in order at this point. The reliability of the information you use to ground your claims is your first general concern. Your audience determines the reliability of evidence based on its accuracy and recency. You must determine whether or not the information you are relying on represents what its reporter observed as closely as possible. If grounds are to be believed to be reliable, they must be as credible as possible. You also need to ensure accuracy in your use of information. When quoting someone, do not take statements out of context. Make sure you honestly portray what the source had to say. Sometimes it is neither practical nor desirable to present a source’s entire statement verbatim in your argument. When paraphrasing, do so honestly, in a manner that accurately reflects the author’s intent or frame of reference. Much argumentation, and claim making of all kinds, is concerned with current events. Use recent sources of information to add potency to your arguments. This does not mean you should not research the history of your topic carefully. Knowing what has happened in the past helps you to hypothesize about what will happen in the future. However, relying on out-of-date sources to ground your claims may cause you to miss recent developments. The quality of the information you use to ground your claims is your second general concern. There is a temptation to confuse gathering a large quantity of information with having high-quality information. Quality results when you ground your claims with information that best helps the audience understand how you have arrived at the conclusions implied by your claim making. Quality evidence is sufficient, representative, relevant, and clear. Ideally, the best argumentation occurs when we know everything about our topic. Having all the facts is seldom possible, particularly in our information-intensive society. Nevertheless, it is your responsibility to research your topic sufficiently and support your claims in a way that makes it possible for your audience to accept them. Just be sure the grounds you select to support your claims are representative of the available information. Did you have to look long and hard, ignoring much of what you read, to find grounds for the point of view you are advancing? If so, there may not be adequate support for your point. The grounds you offer are relevant if they are related to the claims you wish to support. In some cases, the relationship between grounds and claim in an argument is not always apparent. The reasoning process of the warrant, discussed later in this chapter, can help make this relationship more apparent, as can the use of additional information in the form of multiple grounds for a claim or backing for a warrant. The important thing to remember is that information that has little bearing on a claim will be of little use in supporting it. Will the information you use to ground a claim be clearly understood by your audience? The advice on the importance of defining terms in such a way that they render a subject more understandable to your audience also pertains to the selection of grounds for an argument. Information that is too technical, or in some way beyond an audience’s level of understanding, may be unsuitable. Vague or equivocal evidence will not contribute to your audience’s acceptance of a claim it purports to support.

94

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

The consistency of your information with itself, with other information on the same subject, or with human understanding contributes to grounding your claim making. Information that seems atypical, for whatever reason, is likely to cause the audience to disbelieve the claim it supports. Consistency is assessed on two levels: internal and external. Does your information contradict itself? A single source should not state contradictory positions. Except in instances in which a simple explanation can be provided, a piece of information that reports both an increase and a decrease, or a positive and a negative result, may pose serious problems of internal consistency when you attempt to use it to ground a claim. External consistency is a matter of agreement with other sources of information on the subject. Although new discoveries are being made constantly, and two equally respected authorities in a field may interpret the same event very differently, we generally expect that, in most instances, any piece of information will be consistent with others on the same subject. One instance where you need to be careful not to dismiss dissenting points of view out of hand is when you are dealing with an area where research relies heavily on grant funding. Because the purpose of foundation and government grants is to discover information related to a particular value or policy agenda, only projects that meet that litmus test may get funded. This is not to suggest that foundations or the government try to buy answers favoring their agenda, just that they are only interested in asking questions related to it. When another witness appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests suggested that Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen, Department of Forest Science at Texas A&M University, was “outside the scientific consensus,” he took exception to this characterization. He also went on to disagree with: this other point that was brought up earlier about all the scientific values and ecological values of old-growth that all the studies have demonstrated. I suggest to you as a scientist that if you were to pour millions of dollars into research on the other successional stages that are an integral part of a dynamic, functioning forest, you would find that each and every one of them has immeasurable scientific value rivaling anything anybody has found from old-growth. So just because that is where the money went does not mean that is what is really important scientifically or even ecologically. (Forest Protection Initiatives and National Forest Policy, 2001, p. 50)

Another part of our need for external consistency is our expectation that the grounds in an argument will conform to what we already know in general. There is a natural tendency for a reader or listener to reject something that seems not to fit. For example, because we expect the president of the United States to support American values and traditions, we might be skeptical when we hear the president quoted as condemning some intrinsic American value. Audience acceptability is your last general concern about the information you use to ground your claim. Will your listener or reader accept the information? There is little utility in having the best information if the audience will not accept it, so what you use must be selected with the audience in mind. This does not mean you should be dishonest or distort information in such a way that the audience will

95

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

be forced to agree. It does mean, however, that audience values, predispositions, knowledge of the subject, and technical expertise must be taken into account as you determine how you will ground your claims. The field in which argumentation takes place often influences the form and substance of individual arguments that make up a particular instance of argumentation. We have discussed law as one field that possesses features that make it unique, such as the artificial presumption of innocence. Knowing the field of argument gives you some insights into the kinds of evidence that appropriately ground claims and the expectations that surround the kinds of reasoning that warrant accepting claims based on such evidence. Some aspects of argument, however, are independent of the particulars of a given field. Although a geologist and a criminal lawyer use different strategies in preparing and presenting their arguments, both need a structure to follow in building those arguments. The same is true when you begin to create your own arguments. This system for constructing arguments is transportable to any field, because argumentation is based on a series of common elements. Claims must always be supported by grounds; claims alone are only tentative hypotheses until something supports their veracity. When the Board made the claim, “Feeding the geese harms them more than it helps them,” pro-feeding residents could reasonably be expected to ask, “Why does feeding the geese harm them?” To these residents, putting out food for birds was a logical thing to do. That feeding the geese would harm them would seem illogical. Grounds used to support a claim are selected to provide specific information pertinent to that claim as distinct from all other possible claims. Grounds should always point toward the claim and lead the audience directly toward the conclusion specified by it. The Board needed to ground this claim with information that demonstrated that “human food” is not nutritionally beneficial for wild geese. Any other information about the Canada goose, such as how the bird got its name, would not logically fit the claim. Sometimes, the logical fit between a claim and the information that grounds it is clear in our own minds but may be a mystery to the reader or listener without further explanation. The third element of the primary triad in the Toulmin model provides such explanations.

Warrant The third element in the primary triad is called the warrant. It shows why if one accepts the validity of the grounds, one can also safely accept the validity of the claim. The warrant indicates how, given the available grounds, it is reasonable for the listener or reader to make the inferential leap from them to the claim. “The assertor’s task is normally to convince us not just that it was legitimate for him to adopt the initial claim for himself, but also that we should share it and so rely on it ourselves” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 46). Warrants provide us with specific information about how the arguer reasons. By showing the relationship between grounds and claim, warrants demonstrate that making the mental leap from one to the other is rational. The easiest way to show this relationship is to verbalize how you reasoned from the grounds to the claim in forming an opinion. We can return to our “X causes Y”

96

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

example for a simple demonstration of how to explain your reasoning process as the warrant step in a unit of argument. CLAIM: GROUNDS: WARRANT:

X causes Y. X is present in this instance, and we also have evidence that Y is present. An X has certain properties that give it the ability to produce a Y.

Look very carefully at the wording of the warrant. The warrant describes how reasoning from cause is done. For one thing to be the cause of another, it must have the ability or properties to make the second thing occur. We can explain why we believe that X causes Y with the information that the two always occur together (the temporal property of causal reasoning). The mental leap that takes us from this property—X and Y being connected in time—to the claim that X causes Y is the cue to the reader or listener on the nature of causal reasoning. This provides additional support for our mental leap: X has certain properties above and beyond the temporal connection to Y, making it capable of bringing about Y. A warrant does not always have to describe how you reasoned in forming a claim statement based on the grounds. You may draw on what the audience knows as material for the warrant. Warrants are found in things already accepted as true as a part of common knowledge, values, customs, and societal norms. In addition, natural laws, legal principles, statutes, rules of thumb, or mathematical formulas may establish warrants. Warrants take the form of information that shows a relationship between a claim and the grounds used to support it. Consider how the Board warranted their claim about the connection between the goose population and property damage. CLAIM 2: GROUNDS 1: GROUNDS 2: GROUNDS 3: GROUNDS 4:

WARRANT:

The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents. The geese have eaten the grass down so short in some places that lawns have developed bare spots. The Association spends almost $25,000 of our dues to keep the common areas attractive and useable by the residents. The size of the goose population has grown since the initial pair first came to Quarry Pond. The growth of the goose population has increased the cost of maintenance over time and decreased the value of our mutually owned common areas and individually owned condo units. The bare spots on the common-area lawns, the increased amount of money needed for maintenance, and the decreased value of the property are all attributable to one source: the growing goose population.

Note the use of the term cause in the claim statement. Use of this term signals that the reasoning in this unit of argument is causal reasoning: X (the growing goose population) causes Y (the increase in maintenance costs and the decrease in property value). Claim statements are often phrased to reflect the pattern of reasoning the arguer uses in a unit of argument. In the Board’s units of argument for the first stock issue, most of the reasoning was based on such causal connections between the geese and the problems they created. The Board wanted to prove, as a

97

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

prima facie case for change, that a cause–effect relationship existed between feeding the geese (cause) and a series of problems that resulted from their presence (effect). They also wanted to prove a cause–effect relationship between the practice of feeding and the growth in the size of the flock. The warrant justifies movement from the grounds to the claim by describing how you reasoned to connect grounds to claim or by calling on commonly accepted belief to demonstrate the connection. In the ebb and flow of everyday argument, warrants are often unstated. The audience must discover the warrants for themselves. Very often, it is the warrant that defines the locus of controversy between advocate and opponent. We reason from claim to grounds or grounds to claim, and it is the warrant that specifies the reasoning. Thus, a claim stands or falls on the validity of the warrant. If you have ever confronted a claim and the grounds that purported to support it and felt that it just did not make sense, it may have been because you were unable to find a warrant reasonably linking one to the other. JEANNE: KATHY: JEANNE:

Phil really isn’t a very good student. Why? Because he’s on the football team.

Kathy probably wonders, “Why does being a football player automatically make Phil a poor student?” Her question arises from the lack of a sensible warrant. From this facetious example, we can learn two things about the nature and use of warrants. First, warrants are a vital part of argumentation. If a clear link between grounds and claim is not provided, the audience’s rationality may prevent it from accepting the claim. Second, the arguer should always select a warrant that the audience is likely to understand and accept as rational. It “makes sense” that a flock of geese may damage lawns. It “makes no sense” that being on the football team equates to poor academic achievement. The warrant is essential in argument, but it is helpful only to the extent that it is understood by the intended audience.

Summary of the Elements of the Primary Triad 1. A claim is a conclusion that does not stand alone but requires further proof before the audience is willing to accept it as verified. 2. Grounds are information of fact or opinion used to provide verification for the claim, commonly labeled evidence. 3. Warrant is the reasoning that justifies the mental leap from grounds to claim, certifying that given the grounds, the claim is true or probable. Claim, grounds, and warrant do not always provide sufficient proof and reasoning to establish the argument. Because arguers face the need to be clear, accurate, and specific, it is sometimes necessary to build in additional support and qualification for the claim using the elements of the secondary triad of the Toulmin model: backing, qualifiers, and rebuttals. These constitute the things that show an argument’s strength or force. Backing is not always required to build an effective argument, but we recommend that you use backing while learning argumentation skills. Qualifiers and rebuttals are necessary when you must show your audience the limitations on the probable truth of your claims.

98

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

Backing The audience may require more information before they agree that given the grounds, and in light of the warrant, the claim should be accepted. Warrants sometimes require clarification and additional information. Because “warrants are not self-validating” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 62), the effective arguer demonstrates that the warrant supplied should be believed. Backing offers explicit information to establish the reliability of the warrant used in arguing the claim. “An argument will carry real weight and give its conclusions solid support only if the warrants relied on in the course of it are both sound and also to the point” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 63). Backing your warrant offers support that your point can be made using a particular kind of reasoning or by drawing on what the audience already knows to help them make the mental leap from grounds to claim. The type of information the arguer must use to provide backing may be either general or specific, depending on the requirements of the situation. As the warrant serves as justification for making the leap from grounds to claim, backing justifies belief in the warrant itself. Like the warrant, backing may be unstated, left to the imagination of the listener or reader. If the audience is knowledgeable on the subject being argued or familiar with the grounds used, backing, and even the warrant, may be unnecessary. However, in circumstances where the audience may not have much prior knowledge, the arguer is well advised to supply both warrant and backing to increase the believability of the position, as shown in Figure 2. In the Board’s argument, providing both warrant and backing is not argumentative overkill. They help the pro-feeding audience understand the impact their behavior is having on both the value of the jointly owned property and their own units. If after analyzing your audience you are undecided about whether to include warrant and backing, it is usually wisest to go ahead and include both. Claims seek to alter belief or behavior, and people are predisposed to resist change. Including grounds, warrant, and backing in each unit of argument makes that unit of argument clearer for the audience. Clear arguments and specific information is more likely to lead to success in advocating or opposing propositions. Warrants and backing help an audience to interpret and understand the factual basis on which your claim rests.

Qualifiers The second element of the secondary triad in the Toulmin model helps the arguer indicate the force or strength of the claim. Not all arguments have the same strength. Qualifiers show the degree of force the arguer believes the claim possesses. Not all claims must be qualified; in some instances the arguer is certain of the correctness and strength of the claim. If in investigating a topic you discover exceptions or instances that disconfirm your claim, you will have to account for those exceptions in your argument. Consider the following examples of qualified and unqualified claims: Qualified: In some cases, feeding wild birds harms them more than it helps them. Unqualified: Feeding wild birds harms them more than it helps them.

99

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

Grounds 1 The geese have eaten the grass down so short in some places that lawns have developed bare spots. Grounds 2

Warrant

The Association spends almost $25,000 of our dues to keep the common areas attractive and useable by the residents. Grounds 3 The size of the goose population has grown since the initial pair first came to Quarry Pond.

The bare spots on the common-area lawns, the increased amount of money needed for maintenance, and the decreased value of the property are all attributable to one source: the growing goose population.

Claim 2 The geese cause damage to the common areas that belong to all residents.

Backing

Grounds 4 The growth of the goose population has increased the cost of maintenance over time and decreased the value of our mutually owned common areas and individually owned condo units.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “In urban areas birds will congregate at feeding sites in parks near lakes and ponds, transmitting diseases to each other through droppings and ruining vegetation and water quality.” A home surrounded by fecal matter located next to a contaminated pond is not going to be desirable to many potential buyers.

FIGURE 2 Use of Warrant and Backing

The limitation of the first claim is suggested by the modal qualifier “in some cases.” The qualified claim is more compelling for the pro-feeding audience because they provide bird feed to attract robins, cardinals, chickadees, cedar waxwings, hummingbirds, and other small birds common to the area. There has never been a problem with feeding these birds. Modal qualifiers are “phrases that show what kind and degree of reliance is to be placed on the conclusions, given the arguments available to support them” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 85). Modal qualifiers typically take the form of adverbs, adverbial phrases, or prepositional phrases that modify the action suggested by the claim’s verb. The following are examples of frequently used qualifiers: sometimes presumably necessarily certainly perhaps

100

maybe in certain cases at this point in time with the exception of in all probability

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

The use of such qualifying terms indicates the strength or limitation of your claim. Qualified claims provide the arguer with a means of advancing an argument in circumstances where the reliability or applicability of the claim is not absolute or universal. The arguer using qualified claims is communicating honestly, alerting the listener or reader to the fact that the claim is not valid in all instances or is not absolutely true. The use of a qualified claim does not necessarily signal that the opinion it states is unsound, merely that it is not absolutely verified or verifiable.

Rebuttals The final element of the secondary triad in the Toulmin model also provides a means of accommodating the limitations of claims. A rebuttal is added to claim statements that need to be limited to indicate the circumstances under which they may not be valid. Strategically, the use of a rebuttal anticipates objections to the claim. Rebuttals help us avoid errors in reasoning and reflect that we are dealing with what is generally true, not absolutely true. In our example, attachment of a rebuttal to the claim might result in a stronger argument than merely attaching the qualifier “in some cases,” given the experience and knowledge of the pro-feeding audience. Residents are familiar with seed mixes designed to attract various bird species that have been certified as nutritionally sound by the Audubon Society. Feeding wild birds harms them more than it helps them. Feeding wild birds harms them more than it helps them, unless the food is designed to meet their nutritional needs. You may feel that using qualifiers and rebuttals is not a very good idea, because they seem to diminish the strength of arguments. The use of qualifiers and rebuttals acknowledges that argumentation is not an exact science and that human affairs are seldom discussable in absolute terms. There are two circumstances in which the use of rebuttals is particularly important if you are truly committed to being honest with your audience. The first circumstance exists when grounds, warrant, and backing support the claim only under certain conditions. This occurs in our example. The second circumstance occurs when grounds, warrant, and backing provide only partial support for the claim. What if a ban on feeding the geese were insufficient to overcome all harm to the birds? The claim would have to be restricted, stated in terms of that part of potential harm to the geese that would be overcome by abiding with a ban on feeding them.

Summary of the Elements of the Secondary Triad 1. Backing provides the credentials that help establish the legitimacy of the inferential leap from grounds to claim. 2. Qualifiers show the amount, or degree, of force that a claim possesses. 3. Rebuttals limit claims, showing circumstances under which they may not be true and anticipating objections to the claim. The Toulmin model provides a useful system for creating individual units of argument. Individual arguments, however, are seldom sufficient to advocate or

101

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

oppose each issue adequately in your development of a fact, value, or policy case. Because an issue serves as a main point in your case, and main points must be developed with substructure, a series of units of argument form that substructure. In this chapter, we have provided a system for building units of argument used to make a complete case for or against your proposition, based on the issues you discovered in doing the analysis of the proposition. Now it is time to head to the library or grab your laptop to find the information to ground your claims and back your warrants.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Select a topic with which you are familiar. Create four arguments for that topic corresponding to the four types of claims: fact, definition, value, and policy. For each unit of argument provide and label each of the following elements: grounds, warrant, backing, and claim. When you have finished, examine your arguments. Do any of them require qualifiers or rebuttals? If so, provide and label appropriate qualifier or rebuttal statements. Concentrate on developing each part of the argument rather than on the use of evidence in establishing the grounds, warrant, and backing. 2. Find three examples of claims in an editorial or opinion piece that use qualifiers. Develop a complete Toulmin model of each, being sure to label all parts of the argument. 3. Find three examples of claims in an editorial or opinion piece that use rebuttals. Develop a complete Toulmin model of each, being sure to label all parts of the argument. 4. Select an argument such as an editorial, letter to the editor, or an opinion column. Complete the following: a. In a single sentence, state the proposition for argument. b. Identify the contentions used in developing the proposition and the claims used to develop each contention. c. Classify these claims as to type: fact, definition, value, or policy. d. Of the parts of argument, identify those the author uses, and those left to the reader to supply. 5. Classify the following claims as to type, and identify those claims that use qualifiers, rebuttals, or both. Be sure to identify the parts of the claim statement that serve as qualifier or rebuttal. a. Argumentation is the process of arriving at conviction through the use of reason. b. For good performance through a severe winter, front-wheel-drive vehicles are best. c. Most restrictions on trade and imports will not solve America’s economic problems. d. Discretion is the better part of valor. e. Evolution and Creationism are opposing theories of the development of life on Earth. f. Professional sports just aren’t the same now that many players are paid such huge salaries. g. If you want to develop confidence in your ability to communicate with others, take a public-speaking course. h. We should intervene in the affairs of Central American nations, because they are geographically close to the United States. i. Laughter is the best medicine. j. White tigers are a separate strain of Bengal tigers with recessive genetic characteristics that cause their white coat and blue eyes. k. In the absence of more equitable proposals, many Americans favor a policy of flat rate taxes. l. For those who would gain insights into the future, study the past.

102

How Is a Unit of Argument Created?

REFERENCES Brockriede, W. E., & Ehninger, D. E. (1960). Toulmin on argument: An interpretation and application. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 46, 44–53. Ehninger, D. E. (1974). Influence, belief, and argument. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman. Forest protection initiatives and national forest policy. (2001, October 2). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forest of the Committee on Energy and National Resources, U.S. Senate. Golden, J. L., Berquist, G. F., Coleman, W. E., Sproule, M. J., & Golden, R. (2007). The rhetoric of western thought (9th ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. London: Cambridge University Press. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., & Janik, A. (1984). An introduction to reasoning (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Walsh, B. (2009, July 6). Man vs. goose. Newsweek, 173, 52–53.

103

This page intentionally left blank

How Do I Prove My Argument?

From Chapter 6 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

105

How Do I Prove My Argument?

I

n some situations, proving your arguments will be a matter of drawing on your own knowledge or that of your audience. In most situations, you will need to research the topic thoroughly. You will need evidence, the term commonly used to describe the grounds for an argumentative claim or the information that backs its warrant. In this chapter, we are concerned with the discovery of evidence and the assessment of its quality in a larger sense. By definition: Evidence is information, taken from material of fact or opinion, used to establish the probable truth of a claim.

The kinds of information necessary to establish the grounds or back the warrant in your argument are determined by your analysis of the issues in your proposition. Standards for determining the quantity and quality of proof necessary for building good units of argument result from applying accepted tests of evidence. Because proof is the foundation of argument, you will need to learn how to discover and apply it.

THE DISCOVERY OF EVIDENCE Your college library holds, or provides access to, most of the best available sources for locating facts and opinions. Although we describe worthwhile electronic resources you can access through your library or locate on the Internet, those musty books and periodicals in the library still have several advantages at this point in time. First, they provide historical background, which most electronic sources will not. Second, they are more permanent. Third, they may be more credible. Fourth, they are organized in a way that makes finding information much easier. In this chapter, we consider each of these points. Personal computers came into existence only a few years back. With advancement of technology, the use of Internet started to spread beyond its roots as a means for government and research institutions to share information. In the current scenario, more and more information that was once only physically available

106

How Do I Prove My Argument?

through libraries is becoming virtually available online through libraries, as they respond to the constraints of cost and space. Although some old books and periodicals have been scanned and made available over the Web, most have not, for reasons of cost and copyright (Mann, 2005), although even that is changing to a certain extent. Because one of your responsibilities as an arguer is to know the historical background of your topic, the library remains the ideal place to begin your research. The reason some of the books and periodicals in your library have gotten musty is that they have been there for a long time. When thoughtless students tear pages out of periodicals, Interlibrary Loan can be used to order a copy of the missing article if it is too old to be available online in full text form. If you have done much Web surfing, you know that Web sites change addresses, sometimes vanish completely, or not contain something you expect to be there. There is an article in Newsweek by Cathleen McGuigan about the museum that piqued renewed interest in the dispute over ownership of the Parthenon Marbles. As subscribers, we had read it shortly after the print version of that issue arrived in our mailbox. A year later, we wanted to add the article to the electronic clip file without having to scan it. We could not find it on Newsweek’s Web site. Granted, paper deteriorates with age, and your library could burn down, but even taking these factors into account, your library is still a more permanent repository of knowledge than the Web. There are general concerns you should have about the information you use to ground your claims. Foremost among these are accuracy and recency. Although there are unfortunate examples of reporters faking stories and scientists fudging their data, such cases are the exception, not the rule. Moreover, we are aware of them because the fakery was exposed and often reported in the same publication that carried the original report. The Web, on the other hand, empowers anyone with an opinion and access to act as publisher, so you need to be very cautious about who created the sites you visit and whether the information they contain is biased or even baseless (Jacobson & Cohen, 1997). Ironically, a good place to go to learn how to do this is located on the Web. Practically every library now has pages on its Web site that discuss how to evaluate material you find on the Internet. A particularly good one, which is referenced frequently by other libraries, is maintained by Widener University at http://www.widener.edu/libraries/wolfgram /evaluate/originaleval.asp. It includes both an online tutorial and checklists for evaluating various types of Web sites. Web sites fall into six categories. Some sites try to influence opinion or promote a cause, while others promote a product. Some sites try to entertain us, while personal pages exist for the idiosyncratic reasons of those who post them. Some sites provide factual information about a person, place, or thing, while others focus on bringing us the latest news. A site’s Web address or uniform resources locator (URL) sometimes helps you determine what type of site it is (Radford, Barnes, & Barr, 2006), and sometimes it does not. Domain names can help, but that is not always the case. Because whoever registered a domain name first gets to use it regardless of their purpose, you will find anomalies like www.martinlutherking.org, a site designed to

107

How Do I Prove My Argument?

discredit Dr. King, which is analyzed in the tutorial on Widener’s Web site. Jane Armour Polly (2001) provides another revealing example in the story of: a 14-year old student writing a paper on the Holocaust. In an Internet search for the word Zykion, a poison used in Nazi gas chambers, he found a reasonable looking article by Arthur R. Butz, a professor at Northwestern University (pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/ ~abutz/di/intro.html), which explains away the “legend” of the Holocaust. Although it’s true that the essay was written by an academic, Butz is a professor of engineering, not history. (p. 56)

The .edu domain may suggest a site has scholarly credibility or is an official school publication, but schools usually allow faculty and even students to post personal pages often indicated by a tilde (~) somewhere in the address. Although the URL in this example is no longer valid, the point about exercising care in attributing credibility is. Both examples are consciously chosen because they are so transparent, to make a point. Circumstances surrounding Dr. King’s life and the Holocaust are so well known that most who would accept the “facts” communicated by these sites would do so for reasons of personal ideology rather than naiveté. In argumentation, you frequently are doing research to learn about something you know little or nothing about, so you must be extremely cautious about what you find on most Web sites. As Dan Brown’s fictional Harvard professor Robert Langdon is fond of saying, “‘Google’ is not a synonym for ‘research’” (2009, p. 98). Finally, the information in your library is better organized than most of the information you can access on the Internet. This makes it easier to find what you are looking for. A working knowledge of how your library is organized, as well as the assistance the reference staff can give you, will save time and frustration in your search for proof. It helps to get to know your library’s organizational system and make the acquaintance of the reference librarian. The sources of information described in this section are available in most college libraries. The resources of the reference section in the library can be discovered through guides that provide bibliographies of reference materials. American Reference Books Annual has been published yearly since 1970. You can also access it, along with more than 190,000 other books, online at www.netlibrary.com if your library is one of the more than 71,000 libraries currently affiliated with the netLibrary system. American Reference Books Annual provides detailed explanations of such reference resources as dictionaries, general encyclopedias, specialty encyclopedias, English-language references from foreign countries, abstracts, indexes, and other reference material. It covers new editions of older references and annually describes references published in serial form. A couple of paperback books that every college student should own are The Oxford University Guide to Library Research by Thomas Mann and Web Research: Selecting, Evaluating, and Citing by Marie Radford, Susan Barnes, and Linda Barr. Mann’s book primarily discusses how to locate all types of material found in a library, although it does discuss virtual libraries. The book by Radford and her colleagues is an up-to-date source about the rapidly changing world of the Internet. For other sources, consult the card catalog, which is now computerized in most libraries, and search under the subject heading “reference— bibliography.”

108

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Subject Heading Searches The quickest way to find information is to start with the “red books.” This fivevolume set of the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) helps you find the precise terms to look under in searching the card catalog and other sources. These terms are also used to index most periodicals, although most indexes to serial publications go beyond this tightly controlled vocabulary. Suppose you were looking for information about the lottery. Turning to the 2007 edition of the LCSH, you would find this: Lotteries (May Subd Geog) [HG6105—HG6270.9] BT Gambling —Advertising USE Advertising—lotteries —Employees NT Lottery ticket vendors —Law and legislation (May Subd Geog) You now know to search under the subject heading of “Lotteries.” Singulars and plurals make a big difference in the LCSH system. “(May Subd Geog)” means that place names may follow the heading, so you could search for “Lotteries— Michigan,” for example. “BT” stands for “broader term,” so looking under “Gambling” might turn up some useful information. “NT” stands for “narrower term.” “USE” tells you that information on lottery advertising can be found under the subject “Advertising—lotteries” rather than “Lotteries—advertising.”“[HG6105— HG6270.9]” is the range of class numbers in which books representing the most common aspect of this subject are classified. If your library has open stacks, you could browse to your heart’s content.

Books Books, nonfiction (unless you are arguing about literature), are a valuable source of evidence for argumentation. Your library’s electronic card catalog lists all books available in its collection. Unless you are looking for the work of a specific author or know the title of the book you wish to locate, begin your search using the subject index. If you were a student at our university and searched under the subjects “Lotteries” and “United States,” you would find a 2001 book, Governing Gambling, and a 2004 book, Gambling Politics: State Government and the Business of Betting, among others. However, before running to get them before anyone else checks them out, you should check the tracings. Tracings appear toward the bottom of a card in the physical catalog or an electronic record. They tell you what subjects the book is catalogued under. This may not seem like a big deal, because you already found both of them under “Lotteries—United States.” According to the tracings, you can also find the first book by searching under subjects such as “Gambling—Law and legislation— United States,” “Casinos—Law and legislation—United States,” and “Indians of North America—Gambling.” Also, the second book can be found by searching

109

How Do I Prove My Argument?

under “Lotteries—Government Policy—United States,” among other things. You now have other subject areas to explore. Books are useful because they usually provide a more comprehensive treatment of a subject than a periodical or newspaper has space to provide. They provide historical background on a topic but have limitations. First, books have the disadvantage of quickly becoming outdated sources of fact and opinion. The process of researching, writing, revising, and publishing a single volume may span several years. In that time, the factual basis of the book may become dated or superseded by new discoveries. Second, your library may have only a limited number of books on your topic, so you may be unable to find the quantity of information you had hoped. You can overcome this problem by determining if your library can provide access to the material in electronic form or by using the resources of other libraries through Interlibrary Loan. If your library is part of such a system and is one of the more than 10,000 libraries that are part of the WorldCat system, you may be surprised how many books are available on your subject. Even if it is not, the books that are available in your library will be a good place to begin. If you require an abundance of up-to-the-minute information, you must seek it from other sources. Before discussing these further, it is important to mention a few electronic libraries that might be useful. The Library of Congress is arguably the finest library in the world, and it has a resource-rich Web site (www.loc.gov/index.html). It contains a database of bibliographies in science, technology, and the social sciences, a series of electronic books on various countries, and much more. The merger of the Internet Public Library with the Librarian’s Internet Index has resulted in ipl2 (www.ipl.org). Hosted by the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel University, it catalogs electronic almanacs, census data, dictionaries, encyclopedias, books, magazines, newspapers, and special collections. States have also become actively involved in providing resources to their citizens. For example, the Michigan Electronic Library (www.mel.org) provides access to a wide variety of materials.

Periodicals Periodicals offer access to current fact and opinion and may offer it in quantity. Because they are so numerous and varied, it is impossible to generalize about which periodicals will be of most value to you in preparing to argue. Consulting one of the reference guides mentioned earlier will help you find the ones most pertinent to your topic. A good place to begin is The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, which is now available in electronic form. It indexes what are commonly termed popular periodicals such as Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report. It indexes by subject heading, so the techniques and terms you used in mastering the electronic card catalog can be applied here. A search under “Lotteries” would turn up articles like “Turning the Lottery Loose” in the September 2008 issue of Governing, which deals with the approaches states have taken to increase lottery revenues.

110

How Do I Prove My Argument?

The Reader’s Guide has one important limitation. It does not reference many scholarly journals or special interest publications. Because the credibility of material from these sources is often greater, you will need to examine specialty indexes. Most college libraries have a number of indexes to scholarly or special interest periodicals such as: Applied Science and Technology Inde Biological and Agricultural Index Business Periodical Index Education Index General Science Index Humanities Index Index to Legal Periodicals and Books Social Science Index The difference between these indexes and The Reader’s Guide is in what they do, not how they do it. Like The Reader’s Guide, indexing is by subject, and many now are available in electronic form or have electronic equivalents. Do not assume a single index adequately covers your subject. If you were looking for information on the environment and conservation, you could productively examine the Applied Science and Technology Index (which covers 700 titles), the Biological and Agricultural Index (which covers 375), and the General Science Index (which covers 280) without a lot of overlap. Also, do not forget that the same subject may be approached from different disciplines. Searching for “Lotteries” in ERIC, an education index, yields “Maximizing State Lottery Dollars for Public Education: An Analysis of Current State Lottery Models” in the Fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies, which looks at differences in the way states allocate lottery revenues and identifies the characteristics that make the process more efficient. The Business Periodicals Index turns up articles such as “States Use Tough Times to Tout Their Lotteries” in the October 6, 2008, issue of Advertising Age, which describes how states come up with different marketing strategies, including using social-networking sites like Facebook, to boost play. The Social Science Index would help you find articles like “Gambling at Lucky Stores: Empirical Evidence from State Lottery Sales” in the March 2008 issue of The American Economic Review, which analyzes where people choose to buy their lottery tickets. Something that distinguishes scholars and effective arguers from plagiarists is that they are meticulous in documenting their sources. Thus, if you find a recent article in a scholarly journal that is exceptionally useful to you, you can use its reference list as a guide to other things you might want to read. But suppose you are aware of a seminal piece of research that was done a decade or more ago and you want to see how others have built on this work—what would you do? You could turn to the Social Science Citation Index or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index or the Science Citation Index (whichever is relevant to your subject) to discover later works that have referenced this work. Learning to work with citation indexes is a bit more complicated than indexes based on subject heading described earlier, so consult a reference librarian or pick up a printed guide that many libraries have available to get a handle on the process.

111

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Newspapers Not all college libraries offer current and back issues of a wide variety of newspapers, but your library will certainly have one or more major newspapers from your state and some national newspapers such as The New York Times. The latter is an excellent source of material, not only because of its reputation but also because it is indexed. This newspaper prints the text of major speeches, Supreme Court decisions, and documents such as the Pentagon papers. Articles are available for free at www.nytimes.com. If your library has a service like Access World News, you can access articles in other excellent newspapers, many of which have established Web sites that are searchable by keyword. Keyword searches differ from subject searches in that the vocabulary is totally free. You could search for the name of your favorite lottery game as a keyword and only see those articles that use it in the title and/or mention it in the article, depending on how the search engine is configured. Searching by keyword also means that you will turn up all articles that use the word lottery, even those unrelated to your area of interest. For example, the National Basketball Association uses a lottery system to determine the order in which teams with the worst records every year draft new players. You can find the Internet addresses of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations that have Web sites at www.newslink.org. Just remember, sometimes the back issues do not go back very far in cyberspace, and some sites charge for access to their electronic archives. Access World News, a product of NewsBank, Inc., obviates the need to do this by reproducing articles from over two thousand U.S. and international newspapers, and a number of other print sources. NewsBank was originally indexed by topic, with articles provided on microfiche. The index and articles moved first to CD-ROM in 1986, and are now available over the Internet via Access World News. Searching for the term lottery produces articles such as “‘Destroyed’ by Addiction” in the April 28, 2010, issue of The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) and “States Face Drop in Gambling Revenues” in the September 10, 2009, edition of The New York Times. You can guess from the titles that the second story would probably be more useful than the first in building arguments about what lotteries will or will not be able to do for public education. The first story suggests another possible line of argument about state lotteries.

Government Documents If you are interested in nutrition, how to prepare an income tax return, or treaty restrictions on foreign trade, the federal government has probably published one or more documents on the subject. Texts of the hearings of major and minor congressional committees, information bulletins, treaties and agreements, all proceedings of legislative bodies, and the like are contained between the covers of government documents, indexed in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publication (catalog.gpo.gov/). For information on recently published federal documents or court decisions, visit the Government Printing Office (www.gpoaccess.gov/). You can also use this site to obtain information from various federal agencies, such as a December 2002 report by the General Accounting Office, Internet Gambling: An Overview of the Issues requested by the Subcommittees on Financial Institutions and Consumer

112

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Credit, and Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Financial Services. A useful portal to millions of pages of information spanning all branches of government is www.firstgov.gov. You can even use it to apply for a student loan or a passport, check out lottery results, or find out what is being done to curb drinking on college campuses. The Congressional Record, also available through www.gpoaccess.gov/, is a particularly good source for topics on public policy. It is issued daily (while Congress is in session) and provides complete transcripts of congressional debates and presidential messages. It also includes other materials such as letters pertaining to business before Congress that a legislator wants made part of the official record.

Fact Books, Encyclopedias, and Other Resources A variety of sources that compile statistics and other factual information are available in the reference section of your college library. These sources compile information in condensed form and are organized for quick access. The Statistical Abstract of the United States and the World Almanac provide statistical information on such subjects as population, demographic characteristics and change, transportation, agriculture, trade, mining, national and international banking, energy use, and more. By looking in the 2010 edition of the Statistical Abstract, you would learn that in 2008 states took in over $77.3 billion dollars from lotteries and disbursed over $18.1 billion in proceeds after paying the cost of prizes and administration. These sources are updated annually, and the Statistical Abstract has been available online at www.census.gov/compendia/statab/ since 1995. Dictionaries and encyclopedias can also provide valuable information. We are not talking about Webster’s or Wiktionary here; we are referring to specialized research tools, such as the Dictionary of American History or the Encyclopedia of Education, that provide introductions to a variety of fields. Suppose you have started reading some of the material on the use of lottery profits to fund education and are confused by terminology such as “state equalization valuation.” You are not sure what a “bond issue” is or what it does. The Encyclopedia of Education has hundreds of articles written with you, the nonspecialist, in mind, including two that explain how public education on the university and K–12 level is financed in this country. To see if there are such works in the area you are researching, do a subject search for “Subject—Dictionaries and encyclopedias,” where “Subject” is an LCSH category like “Education.” Your library probably contains several sources of biographical information that can be used to discover the credentials of authorities and experts. A particularly good source is Current Biography Yearbook. In its seventh decade of publication, it provides biographical articles about living leaders in all fields worldwide, which are updated yearly. Your library also probably contains several sources of bibliographical information. If someone else has already compiled a list of sources on the subject you are researching, why not take advantage of it? Search under the heading of your primary “Subject—Bibliography” or “Bibliography—bibliography:” As with “Dictionaries and encyclopedias,” “Bibliography” is one of the standard LCSH subheadings. A quick search of “Lotteries—Bibliography” turned up nothing, so we tried the broader term “Gambling” and discovered that in 2002 the Michigan

113

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Legislative Service Bureau compiled a seven-page bibliography on gambling for the state legislature. Because our library is a Michigan documents depository, we would be able to lay our hands on it without having to resort to Interlibrary Loan. If your library provides access to the Bibliographic Index Plus, the online successor to the Bibliographic Index, see whether anything on your subject is available. Depending on where you are, other bibliographies on the subject might be more or less easily accessible. Another resource is the Reference Shelf and its electronic sibling Reference Shelf Plus. It treats topics in much the same way as arguers do by presenting proand-con positions on a topic. Each volume is devoted to a single topic on a subject of public interest and contains reprints of articles, excerpts from books, and opinions of experts. Volume 64, number 4, in 1995 was devoted to gambling. Although none of the articles were specific to lotteries (addressing general issues such as problem gambling instead), some of the sources in the annotated bibliography were specific to lotteries. Reference Shelf suffers the same limitations of becoming outdated as do all other printed materials, but it does provide valuable sources of information. The series, which began in 1922, can be an excellent source of historical background information on how Americans have perceived many issues. Just turn to volume 23, number 6, from 1952, which also addresses the subject of gambling, to see how things have changed. The foregoing is by no means a complete list of available reference sources— just some suggestions to get you started. To discover what else is available, browse through the reference section of your library, consult the librarian assigned to that section, or experiment with the various computerized services available in your library. As you become more experienced, the process will get easier. We want to reemphasize that developing a good working knowledge of your library and its electronic resources is the first step in the discovery of evidence.

TYPES AND TESTS OF EVIDENCE As our definition of evidence suggests, there are two general classes of evidence: fact and opinion. Equally, there are two sources of evidence: your own observations and the recorded observations of others. The most reliable source of evidence is personal observation and experimentation. Consider the experience of buying a new car. “Which car should I buy?” can become a question that may ultimately lead to argumentation on a policy proposition. That proposition might be argued through a number of fact and value claims about the quantifiable performance and qualitative evaluations of a series of automobiles. The most reliable evidence would be obtained through your own road tests of these vehicles. However, even in something as personal as buying a new car, performing your own tests is not always feasible. You may not have the time or ability to conduct as sophisticated a series of tests as those reported in Road & Track or AutoWeek. Beyond saving time, relying on printed sources relieves you of the need to be an expert in a number of fields. Additionally, it is often advantageous to add the credibility of expert opinion or research to your own ideas. By using published facts and the opinions of sources that are “in the know,” you strengthen your argument and increase the credibility of its rational appeal.

114

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Evidence of Fact Facts are those things that can be verified to be true or false. By verification we mean observation. We believe something because of our own observation or because of the observations of others, whose ability to make such an observation we respect. Factual evidence is information obtained from direct or indirect observation. Factual evidence describes or reports what exists—events, objects, places, persons, or phenomena.

Factual evidence does not attempt to explain or evaluate; it merely reports what was observed. Direct factual evidence is observed by the arguer. Indirect factual evidence is obtained from the reported observations of others. Indirect evidence is used more frequently than direct evidence in many fields of argument, except for the field of law. Because we live in an age of relatively easy access to a variety of published materials, using evidence obtained from the research of others has almost as much validity as evidence obtained through our own observations. Examples and Illustrations. A report or description of events and phenomena that tells us what was observed in a given situation constitutes either an example or illustration. This type of evidence may be a brief statement, such as: A Bethlehem woman charged with stealing nearly $69,000 from her employer to fuel her addiction to scratch-off lottery tickets “feels horrible” about her actions, her attorney testified. (Lehman, 2010) An assistant manager at a CVS pharmacy in Palo Alto was arrested in connection with the theft of 268 packets of Scratchers lotto tickets worth $73,200, lottery investigators said. (“CVS employee,” 2010) A Sioux Falls man who cashed in fraudulent video lottery tickets for $2,700 is headed to prison. Jake E. Collins, 28, pleaded guilty. . . . Authorities say Collins used computer software to print out the fake tickets, which were slightly narrower than authentic tickets. (Waltman, 2010) Lazaro Morales-Alcala presented his scratch-off ticket, hoping to claim a $500 prize. The ticket looked like a winner but didn’t scan in as one . . . because MoralesAlcala . . . altered a losing ticket, using a pen to turn a 4 into a 14. (Poltilove, 2010)

Or this evidence can be a longer, more detailed description. Like many family members, close friends, and even co-workers, 84-year-old Theresa Sokaitis and her 87-year-old sister, Rose Bakaysa, went to casinos and played the lottery together and shared their winnings. In fact, they signed a contract to that effect in 1995. When Theresa sued Rose for what she felt was her share of a $500,000 Powerball jackpot, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Cynthia K. Swienton’s ruling, that Rose didn’t have to share with her sister, attracted national attention. Whether the sisters were gambling partners at the time that the Powerball numbers . . . hit on June 18, 2005, was a key issue in the . . . case. Both women testified . . . they stuck to the contract for nearly a decade ... until a fight . . . about a year before the Powerball jackpot. The fight . . . was about a $250 loan Bakaysa had made to Sokaitis. When Sokaitis said she didn’t have the money to pay her sister back, “it is quite believable that the conversation became heated, and Terry said, as Rose testified, ‘I don’t want to be your partner anymore,’ at which point Rose agreed, saying, ‘okay,’ ” Swienton wrote.

115

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Swienton said the behavioral changes that occurred support Bakaysa’s position that there was a heated argument. . . . From that day on, . . . the sisters never bought lottery tickets together, went to the casinos together or gambled together. (Griffin, 2010)

These two reports differ in both subject matter and degree of detail. The examples of employee theft and attempts to cash bogus lottery tickets present brief, specific instances of criminal behavior. The more detailed account of how a large lottery jackpot only served to exacerbate a deteriorating family relationship is longer and more informative and possesses the characteristics of an illustration. Although examples have the virtue of being time efficient because of their brevity, illustrations can draw the reader or listener into the imagery associated with the story they tell about a person, place, or event. As such, a good illustration embodies the principles of narrative, as discussed by Walter Fisher (1984). Some have argued that such narratives have the ability to enlighten readers and listeners in ways other forms of evidence cannot because they humanize that which is being described (McDonald & Jarman, 1998; Taylor & Jarvis, 2000). In addition to recognizing the various types of evidence, we must be able to evaluate its reliability. In addition to a general concern for reliability, quality, consistency, and audience acceptability of the grounds for any argument, specific tests need to be applied to each type of evidence. These tests of evidence establish the standards our proof must meet before it will be accepted as credible by our listeners and readers. Tests of Examples and Illustrations. These tests concern the observations made and ask specific questions about the accuracy and reliability of the report and the reporter, as follows: Source Qualifications. Was the observer capable of making the observation in terms of the necessary physical and mental ability? A blind witness, for example, may have difficulty describing an automobile accident but may be able to describe minute variations in the sound of an automobile engine. Did the observer have the training and experience necessary to make the observation? Someone who has never driven, for instance, will have difficulty in describing the differences in handling between a front-wheel-drive and a rear-wheel-drive car. Data Accuracy. Is the information reported in a straightforward manner, or has it been manipulated to give it more or less importance? Some of the early reporting on the evidence found at the scene of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman stated that the police discovered a ski mask, which later turned out to be a hat. Although this is an example of a lapse of accuracy (which was discovered and corrected), the early reports made the object the police had found seem more sinister than it actually was. Because information may be interpreted by the source reporting it, you must take care in checking the reliability of the interpretation. Originality of Observation. Is the source’s information obtained from firsthand or secondhand data collection? It is possible to make observations on the basis of someone else’s data, but more reliable reports of fact are obtained from firsthand observation. This does not mean that you should never rely on a source that reports secondary information, because in some situations collecting data firsthand is difficult.

116

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Recency of Observation. In general, the more recent the information, the more reliable it will be. Some things remain relatively stable over time; however, many things do not. In using examples and illustrations taken from the reports of others, the recency with which the reporter made the observation can be very important. How easy is it for you to remember what happened last week or last month? The time that passes between when an observation is made, and when it is reported serves as an additional filter through which a reporter’s account must pass. Arguments dealing with economic matters are a classic example of the need for up-to-date information. You need only examine the economic history of the United States over the past decade to appreciate how much the Dow Jones average may vary in a short period of time, with accompanying observations by pundits about how the bulls and bears are running on Wall Street. Attitude of the Observer. Ideally, the best sources of factual reports should have a neutral attitude toward what they are observing. Because each person sees the world through unique perceptual filters, such factors as prejudice, emotion, and ambition may color the reporting of facts. Thus, a final test of examples and illustrations concerns reporters’ attitudes toward what they are reporting. Try to find unbiased reports framed in relatively neutral language. Statistics. Statistics present descriptive and inferential information about people, events, or phenomena in a numeric format. While an example often describes people, events, or phenomena in isolation, statistics can place such information in context. This gives the reader or listener a sense of the significance of the thing described. The following is an example of a descriptive statistic, one in which the entire population of people, events, or phenomena of a particular kind are observed. Currently, Missouri spends $1.3 million on ads, less than any of the 43 other states with lotteries and a fraction of the $8.2 million that Missouri spent on ads eight years ago. . . . Lottery sales slid 2.7 percent last year and are down about 1 percent so far this fiscal year. With beefed-up ads, the lottery predicts it could generate $259 million for education on sales of about a billion dollars next year. (Young, 2010)

Descriptive statistics can be reported in any number of ways. Averages or percentages are sometimes used to reduce raw numbers to more manageable form and to provide standards for comparing one group of people, events, or phenomena to another. Although percentages are used to describe the decrease in lottery revenue in this example, the amount spent on advertising is discussed in terms of raw numbers. This example demonstrates something that is important to remember about using statistical information: the statistics must be interpretable. That is why Virginia Young, a staff writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, compares what Missouri currently spends on lottery advertising to what other states spend, and what Missouri used to spend less than a decade earlier. Not all statistics are descriptive of what happens in an entire population of people, events, or phenomena. An inferential statistic is one in which data concerning a portion, or sample, of the entire population of a particular kind are observed, and the researcher infers that what is true of the sample is true of the population from which it was drawn. The Florida Lottery has engaged the services of a marketing firm, IpsosReid, to help it avoid declining sales. The firm developed a profile of lottery players

117

How Do I Prove My Argument?

who fall into one of six categories, three of which comprise slightly more than half the state’s population but only buy about six percent of all tickets sold. Indifferent jackpot dabblers comprise almost one fourth of the population, and are the folks who only play when jackpots on games like Lotto or Powerball get very high. Another quarter of the state’s population is almost equally divided between Concerned followers and Prohibitionists, who both see gambling as harmful and wonder whether the people who play can afford to do so. What differentiates these groups is that Concerned followers play what little they do because they believe lottery profits support worthwhile causes, while Prohibitionists have a moral opposition to gambling. The remaining three groups are comprised of: Upscale gamers: 20 percent of the population accounts for 28 percent of lottery sales. . . . [They] have higher incomes and education levels . . . are competitive, experimental and comfortable with technology. Thrill-seeking dreamers: 13 percent of the population accounts for 50 percent of lottery sales. . . . Middle-income earners with slightly lower education levels . . . They have the most play on all games, especially scratch-offs and daily games. Conflicted players: 16 percent of the population accounts for 16 percent of lottery spending. . . . Educated [with] the second-highest income level. . . . [They] have concerns about gaming and think the government is too dependent on it. (Taylor, 2010)

Firms like Ipsos-Reid regularly conduct market research, something Gary Taylor, a staff writer for The Orlando Sentinel, mentions in his article. Researchers asked a sample of Florida residents questions about themselves and the lottery and used their responses to identify different types of players and what distinguishes them from each other. Percentages are an inferential statistic in this instance, that what is true of the sample of lottery players is true of the state’s population as a whole, whereas the percentage decline in Missouri lottery sales is descriptive of what is actually the case based on total sales figures. Regardless of whether statistical information is descriptive or inferential, it can be misleading. Means, medians, and modes are different terms used to describe the central tendency of a set of numerical data. The mean is the arithmetic average of a set of numbers, the median is the middle score in that set, and the mode is the score that occurs most frequently. Given the following data—98, 57, 23, 11, and 11—a source could report its mean to be 40, its median as 23, or its mode to be 11. When a source reports results as an average, that term properly refers only to the mean, but the writer may have misapplied it to the median or mode of a set of data. Be sure you understand what kind of statistics your sources are using to avoid misleading your audience. Tests of Statistical Evidence. These tests reflect our concern with verifying the reliability of our evidence. Statistics furnish us with an economical form of proof on a variety of subjects, but they are more prone to distortion and misrepresentation than other forms of proof. Statistical proof has a certain psychological appeal. The use of numbers seems somehow more credible, but you must take care that your statistics come from credible sources. Consider the following: Source Reliability. The first test of statistics is to identify the source of the information. Certain agencies and institutions are in the business of gathering statistics.

118

How Do I Prove My Argument?

The U.S. Bureau of the Census, for example, may be regarded as a highly credible source of demographic information about the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics might be regarded as a worthy source regarding information on employment. Statistical Accuracy. In addition to knowing who collected the information, we also want to know how it was collected. Statistical information is frequently collected by sampling techniques. Did the counting procedure fairly select a representative sample? If a statistic claims to representatively sample the entire country, it should draw information from each state or region. Along with the process of data collection, accuracy is also influenced by the length of time during which data were collected. Conditions change, and it would be a gross misrepresentation to claim, based on statistics for December reporting a drop in inflation, that inflation went down last year if inflation increased during the months January through November. Comparable Units. Statistics frequently inform through comparisons, so it is important for the units being compared to be really comparable. Common sense dictates that we cannot compare airplanes and microwave ovens, because they do not have enough in common to render such a comparison meaningful. The same caution is necessary when dealing in statistical comparisons, because statistics can appear to have been gathered on comparable entities. For instance, if you want to argue about technology in industrialized societies before citing statistical information about the use of robotics in Canada, the United States, and Japan, be sure the term robotics has been defined in the same way by the agencies that compile each nation’s statistics. Artifacts. Actual exhibits of objects, audiotapes or videotapes, or photographs presented for verification by the audience are termed artifacts. If you have ever watched Court TV or a courtroom drama on television, you are familiar with the use of artifacts as evidence. In a courtroom, artifacts or exhibits constitute “real” evidence, as distinguished from the testimony provided by witnesses. The use of artifacts as evidence enhances argumentation on certain topics. The New York Lottery introduced a five-dollar scratch-off game with a black ticket and “gold detail, a look borrowed from the 1970s Lotus Formula 1 race cars that [New York Lottery Director Gordon] Medenica once idolized. ‘The black American Express card, Johnny Walker Black: These were all the images we were trying to get in our mind,’ he said.” This sort of upscale look is unusual for scratch-off games whose tickets “often resemble pinball machines . . . cluttered, loud, peppered with explosions, stars, or bulbous bags of cash” (Grynbaum, 2010). Advertising for New York Lottery Black featured oversized images of the ticket alone, or on a silver platter. The effectiveness of this use of an artifact in an advertising campaign with a budget half the size of what is normally the case is seen in the fact that New York Lottery Black tickets sold more quickly than all but one other five-dollar game. Tests of Artifacts. These tests are usually performed by having the audience employ their own senses. There are only two tests of artifacts to consider:

119

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Artifact Genuineness. In an age when the ability to edit audiotapes and videotapes has benefited from astonishing technological advances, the authentication of artifacts used as evidence is a concern. Artifacts should be tested to determine their authenticity. Has a document or photograph been altered? The photographic and audiotape evidence supporting the claim that Elvis Presley is still alive offers a clear indication of the importance of document authentication. Artifact Representativeness. Artifacts are often used in value arguments concerning the worth of a product. Because it is usually impossible to examine all examples of a given item, a representative sample is used. When confronted by a large luscious hamburger in a television commercial, you probably ask yourself why it is not typical of the burgers you get at the local fast-food emporium. What you are applying is a test of the representativeness of the video burger as an artifact. Premises. Factual evidence that is accepted because it reflects human belief or experience is termed a premise. There are some statements, which may technically be considered claims, that are so widely believed to be true that they are accepted as fact without further verification. A premise is accepted because there are many previously recorded or reported instances of its being true. Premises are discovered through your own observation of people’s statements about what they believe or from print and electronic sources of information and opinion. Laws of nature, such as “Water seeks its own lowest level,” and rules of thumb or folk wisdom, such as “Monkey see, monkey do,” tend to be accepted. Because premises are predictions or projections based on experience, they can be verified like facts of other kinds. In theory, an audience could suspend belief until a premise is verified. A premise is an expressed belief of those in a field and is used as proof to save time and effort. When you can predict which premises an audience will accept, it becomes unnecessary to verify them. Nevertheless, those learning argumentation should verify premises by providing the warrant and its backing. Even those experienced in argumentation should follow this suggestion. Tests of Premises. Because our belief in any premise is based on another premise—the notion that our ability to predict the future can be safely based on what we have observed in the past or present—all premises must be tested on two levels. First, is the underlying premise that we can make a valid prediction warranted in this case, or is any future outcome independent of what we have observed in the past? “A gambler usually wagers more after taking a loss, in the misguided belief that a run of bad luck increases the probability of a win. We tend to cling to the misconception that past events can skew future odds” (Schulman, 2002, p. 22). We frequently fall prey to what is called the “gambler’s fallacy.” When Lotto Texas had not hit in 47 drawings, approaching the previous record of 48, many felt it was due, prompting Houston Chronicle staff writer Peggy Fikac (2010) to quote San Antonio College mathematics and statistics professor Gerald Busald: “The thing to remember is the drawings are independent events. What’s happened in the past has no influence on what’s going to happen in the next drawing. You have a 1-in-25.8 million chance of winning.” When lottery jackpots soar into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, more people play. That means more combinations of numbers are covered, someone hits the right

120

How Do I Prove My Argument?

combination, and the result appears to confirm the gambler’s fallacy that the lottery was due to hit. Second, premises are valid because of the assumption that nothing will occur to invalidate them, so is there any indication that circumstances have changed or that our interpretation of them should change? Many people believe in “Lucky Number Seven,” and you would be hard pressed to convince holders of winning tickets in the Pennsylvania Lottery’s Big 4 drawing on March 31, 2010, otherwise. When 7-7-7-7, an extremely popular combination, was drawn, the lottery paid off to the tune of $7.77 million, 1,573 percent of sales for that drawing. Although seven was a lucky number for the 3,107 winners, “the 7-7-7-7 combination has come up only twice since Big 4 began in November 1980” (Mucha, 2010a). Hardly the kind of track record that warrants a belief that the number seven carries a horseshoe in its back pocket. Many premises are the product of, or are tested by, the scientific method. When we encounter a problem—for example, perhaps your car won’t start one morning—we attempt to explain it. The explanation takes the form of a hypothesis, a guess about what might be the source of the problem: “My car won’t start because the battery is dead.” The hypothesis states the dependency of one thing, the car’s ability to start, on the variability or independence of another, the level of charge in the battery. You would test the hypothesis that the battery is dead by seeing if the lights, radio, or horn work. If these work, this informal measure of the charge of your battery suggests that the hypothesis is false, and you would test other explanations, such as blown fuses, loose wiring, or a defective starter. What you have just done is roughly equivalent to what researchers in the physical and social sciences do in laboratory and field settings. Published reports of their findings can be used to support your claims. Scientific Evidence. The results of controlled experiments on the inferred effect of one variable on another is termed scientific evidence. Although the lottery barely returns fifty cents to those who play it for every dollar they wager, the amounts spent on tickets indicate that it is very popular. It is also known that people who can least afford it, the poor, are avid players. A researcher might feel, for example, that a person’s belief about his or her financial situation is subjective, based on a comparison to what others have, and not merely a reflection of what they earn in absolute terms. Because winning a lottery prize, even a small one, can mean more to a poor person, that person’s subjective feeling about his or her financial situation may influence a decision to buy lottery tickets. The first variable— the subjective sense of one’s financial situation—is called the independent variable. Changes in it are hypothesized to produce changes in the second variable—the decision to purchase lottery tickets—which is the dependent variable. A third class of variables, nuisance variables, includes those things that could minimize or maximize the predicted effect. Examples of possible nuisance variables might be such things as a prior history of regular lottery play; actually having some money to buy a ticket; or the ease of finding a place to buy one. In a laboratory experiment the researcher has some degree of control over the manipulation of the independent variable, measurement of the dependent variable, and the presence of nuisance variables. In a laboratory experiment testing the impact of subjective feelings about income on the purchase of lottery tickets,

121

How Do I Prove My Argument?

the researcher might manipulate the independent variable by asking people about their income using two different response formats: one asks subjects to indicate their income by choosing among five categories ranging from less than $10,000 to more than $60,000 and the other with categories starting at less than $100,000 and ranging up to more than $1 million. Thinking about how to answer the income question constitutes the treatment condition for the independent variable. Subjects in the experiment would be randomly assigned to one group or the other, unless the desire to control for variables such as race or gender requires modifying group assignment in some way. Having the money to buy a ticket could be controlled by paying subjects for completing a questionnaire about a subject unrelated to the experiment except for the subjective income induction and some demographic questions. Offering them the option to use that money to buy lottery tickets from the researcher, who agrees to pay off on winning tickets, controls the vendor convenience variable. The researcher could record the number of tickets the subjects purchased to assess the dependent variable. Finally, the researcher would conduct the appropriate statistical test on the resulting data. The following example reports the results of such a laboratory experiment conducted at the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Pittsburgh: Participants who reported their income on a low scale (check at intervals between $10,000 and $60,000), designed to make them feel they had a high relative income, purchased .67 tickets on average. Participants who reported their income on a high scale (check at intervals between $100,000 and $1,000,000), designed to make them feel they have a low relative income, purchased 1.28 tickets on average. The dependent variable . . . shows the marginally significant effect (p ⬍ .09) of the induction. Chronic reflects self-reported lottery play in daily life. Not surprisingly, chronic players purchased more tickets at a marginally significant level. After controlling for this factor, the relative income manipulation becomes significant at the .05 level. . . . These results support the hypothesis that inducing people to perceive that their income is lower than some reference point increases their propensity to purchase lottery tickets. This manipulation does not force an explicit social comparison and the participant is very unlikely to be aware of the manipulation, as it is embedded in other demographic questions. Despite its subtlety, however, the experimental manipulation of subjective poverty has a substantial effect. Ticket purchases were nearly doubled in the low relative income condition. Results support the idea that when people are made to feel subjectively poor, they view the lottery as a means to correct for their low-income status. (Haisley, Mostafa, & Lowenstein, 2008, pp. 287–289)

In a field experiment, the independent variable is frequently manipulated by the marketplace or social forces rather than by the researcher. The researcher finds a way to measure the dependent variable as well as find out what treatment condition the subject has been assigned to. If a researcher was interested in determining whether people treated for gambling problems differ from each other based on the type of gambling, including lottery play, they sought treatment for, a field experiment might be the logical choice. Consider the following example of a field experiment: Subjects were drawn from a retrospective analysis of 347 consecutive admissions of individuals beginning treatment for gambling in the State of Connecticut between August 1998 and July 2000. . . . 15% of participants (n ⫽ 48) indicated lottery alone or in conjunction with scratch tickets as the most problematic form of gambling. . . .

122

How Do I Prove My Argument?

Differences among the groups emerged with respect to days and amounts gambled in the month prior to entering treatment, P ⬍ 0.01. The scratch/lottery gamblers wagered on more days per month than all the other groups except for the horse/dog-race gamblers, and they gambled more frequently than the card players. The horse/dog-race gamblers wagered the greatest amounts of money. Sports, cards and slot players wagered intermediary amounts, and scratch/lottery players also bet less than the sports gamblers. Current and life-time debts also differed across groups, P ⬍ 0.05, as did bankruptcy rates, P ⬍ 0.05. Scratch/lottery players accumulated the least amount of debt, while slot gamblers were most likely to file for bankruptcy. . . . Differences among groups emerged in Gamblers Anonymous participation, P ⬍ 0.01, with scratch/lottery players being the least likely to be involved. . . . The five groups did not differ with respect to age of first alcohol use, but rates of illicit drug use differed among the groups, P ⬍ 0.001, with the lottery/scratch players reporting higher rates than most of the other groups. Substance abuse treatment histories also differed across groups, P ⬍ 0.05, with the lottery/scratch gamblers most likely to have been treated for a substance use disorder. (Petry, 2003, pp. 647–649)

Scientific evidence used to ground an argument may not seem that different from other types of evidence of fact or opinion. However, because it frequently employs statistical tests of significance, scientific evidence differs from other types of evidence of fact. Its statements of direct or indirect observation carry with them an estimate of the probability that the inferred cause–effect relationship could have been produced by chance or coincidence. Scientific evidence differs from evidence from opinion in that its credibility derives from the rigor of its method of observation, rather than the prestige of the person drawing conclusions about those observations. Tests of Scientific Evidence. These tests are primarily concerned with the appropriateness of the methodology used in the experiment and possible effect of the laws of probability on its outcome. For that reason you should always understand the methodology of any scientific evidence you use and be able to explain it to your listeners or readers. The following three tests of scientific evidence should always be performed: Generalizability of Setting and Subjects. Laboratory experiments offer researchers greater control over the variables of interest than do field experiments. Some, however, question the generalizability of laboratory findings to most settings. Many use college students who are readily available and can be induced to participate for extra credit in a class or a small amount of money, whereas real gambling often involves the possibility of winning a huge jackpot. “Secondly, real gambling implies the risk of personal monetary loss whereas laboratory gambling usually does not.” Laboratory studies of gambling often involve people who do not normally gamble, which may “ignore personality differences and the way in which those differences interact with the actual gambling behavior” (Walker, 1992, p. 13). While lauding Emily Haisley and her colleagues for studying the behavior of low-income subjects at a Greyhound bus station using actual lottery tickets, Debi A. LaPante, Heather M. Gray, Leslie Bosworth, and Howard J. Shaffer (2010) indicate a problem with their methodology that limits the generalizability of their findings. We question the degree to which data derived from laboratory studies can be extrapolated to “real world” settings. As outlined by Levitt and List, social scientists cannot

123

How Do I Prove My Argument?

always assume that people will behave the same way in the laboratory as they do in the “real world,” because nature and the scrutiny of others influence human decisions. . . . In this study [Haisley et al, 2008], participants were still aware that their behavior was being scrutinized. We suggest that research derived from laboratory settings should be supplemented by studies of actual lottery play in which participants retain their anonymity. This will allow researchers to test whether important findings derived from contrived settings represent the behavior of “real” lottery buyers. (p. 312)

In other words, even the dullest subject would realize that the researchers were not interested in their opinion about Pittsburgh as they were waiting to get on a bus leaving town as soon as they offered to sell them lottery tickets. In addition, some experiments are performed on nonhuman subjects, such as mice or monkeys, for ethical reasons. If a certain food additive produces disease in a laboratory animal, are we safe in inferring that it will produce the same disease in humans? Applying these tests does not mean you should exclude all scientific evidence from laboratory studies or research using nonhuman subjects. Those conducting such research often address these questions in describing their methodology and discussing the limitations of their study. You should examine the arguments they present before dismissing their findings. That is not to say that field experiments cannot and have not also been questioned on the grounds of generalizability. The published success rates for problem gambling treatment programs must be treated with caution. Problem gamblers entering treatment are not at all representative of the full spectrum of individuals experiencing problems related to gambling. Their motivation for achieving and sustaining abstinence is much higher than for less seriously compromised gamblers. Published reports of treatment effectiveness are biased further by extremely high dropout rates, common across all treatment modalities. Additionally, there is little information about recidivism among clients in these programs. While clients who complete treatment show substantial rates of success, it is likely that a significant proportion of the clients who drop out of treatment return one or more times to attempt treatment again. (Volberg, 2001, pp. 74–75)

Variable Control and Manipulation. Whether in a laboratory or a field setting, a scientific researcher should take care to control as many of the variables that could confound his or her results as possible. If the researcher has reason to believe that members of one sex may be naturally inclined to buy lottery tickets, the researcher should make sure that members of both sexes are assigned equally to each treatment condition of the independent variable. However, it is impossible to control all possible nuisance variables. Your own investigation of a topic will give you insight into whether the researcher attempted to control the important nuisance variables. In addition, you should look at the independent variable and the way it is manipulated. Is it capable of influencing the dependent variable, and is it manipulated in a meaningful way? Is the decision to buy lottery tickets with money that unexpectedly came your way similar to what happens when you decide to spend your own money? Haisley et al. (2008) argue that paying people for filling out a survey made them feel like they earned it, so the decision to buy lottery tickets represented spending their own money. If a difference between treatment groups was found, does the researchers’ methodology allow them to determine what probably caused it? Fortunately, much scientific research is published in refereed journals in which

124

How Do I Prove My Argument?

the editorial board, composed of top professionals in that field, screens and rejects methodologically flawed submissions. It is important to know your source’s editorial policy and apply some common sense. Consistency with Other Findings. Although external consistency was discussed in general terms with regard to the grounds for any argument, it requires special attention in regard to scientific evidence. The conclusions of laboratory and field experiments often rely on the application of statistical tests of significance to assess whether the independent variable may have had an impact on the dependent variable. Reading that “when gender differences in the SOGS [South Oaks Gambling Screen, a widely used instrument for classifying gamblers] categories were examined there were significantly more female recreational gamblers than male recreational gamblers, p ⬍ .01” (Platz & Millar, 2001, p. 387), it means there was less than one chance in a hundred that a difference of the size the researchers observed could have occurred by chance. Sometimes researchers state that the effect of X on Y was significant at the 0.05 level, meaning that there are less than five chances in a hundred that phenomena of the magnitude observed could have occurred by chance or coincidence. The findings of studies in which tests of statistical significance are employed are often considered to be tentative and conditional on others repeating the experiment and getting similar results, unless there are good reasons why the results others get might vary. When Laurie Platz and Murray Millar (2001) discovered that according to the SOGS, over 11 percent of the 536 subjects who participated in their study of gambling by college students were pathological gamblers (a number that is roughly twice the rate reported in most other studies), they suggested several possible explanations. Because their subjects were students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, they felt that the higher percentage of pathological gamblers in their sample might be an artifact of the greater availability of opportunities to gamble offered by Las Vegas as compared with most other college or university towns. The authors also suggested the higher rate might have something to do with the way they calculated their percentages. A conservative estimate of pathological gambling prevalence . . . divides the number of pathological gamblers in the sample by the total number of participants in the sample (including those who have never gambled). A second method provides a more liberal estimate of pathological gambling as it divides the number of pathological gamblers in the sample by the number of participants in the sample who have actually gambled. . . . The second and more liberal method was used. . . . The prevalence rate for pathological gambling reported in this study would drop if nongamblers had been included. (pp. 391–392)

The ability to replicate is at the heart of the scientific method, and the need to do so is the reason why researchers publish their methodology along with their results. Even in circumstances where differences in the independent variable are totally unrelated to differences in the dependent variable, probability theory suggests that if we replicated a study a hundred times, randomly selecting a new set of subjects from the available population each time, our statistical test of the effect of X on Y might yield significant results on three or four occasions. If the conclusion of a piece of scientific evidence is inconsistent with other findings, you must be able to account for the difference. Was a different methodology used, or have relevant

125

How Do I Prove My Argument?

changes in the population from which samples were drawn taken place during the intervening time between studies? If you are unable to find a reason for inconsistent findings, be extremely skeptical of them.

Evidence from Opinion Although factual evidence describes without judgment or evaluation, opinions are judgments and interpretations—someone else’s perception of the facts. Anyone may render an opinion, but in argumentation, evidence from opinion usually refers to the use of the opinions of experts in the field you are arguing. Opinion evidence consists of the interpretive and evaluative statements made by an expert in a given field in regard to factual material pertinent to that field.

The opinions of authorities in a field provide arguers and audiences with access to their expertise. Peggy Fikac (2010) turned to a professor of mathematics and statistics at a nearby college for an explanation of why Lotto Texas was not “due” to hit just because no one had won the jackpot in a while. Peter Mucha, staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, turned to a professor of business to help his readers understand why Powerball outsells Mega Millions even though the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are even longer then the odds for Mega Millions. Scott Testa of Radnor College says the explanation is simple: “It’s a better name. It has better brand recognition. More people recognize what it is,” the professor said. Just as people go into stores and ask for Kleenex or Windex when other brands will do, lottery players tend to think and say Powerball. “The name Powerball seems to resonate better with lottery players.” “When you’re talking about gambling, you’re talking about dreams and emotion, and logic usually doesn’t come into play, believe it or not,” Testa said. (Mucha, 2010b)

If we are discussing the economy, we might turn to nationally known and respected economists, such as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, for their opinion. Not all experts, however, are nationally or even locally recognized. If your state has a lottery, can you name its director? To find an expert, we seek persons with credentials in the field we are discussing. Because opinions perform the function of evaluating and interpreting factual information, they often appear to be claim statements. The only real difference between a claim you might make in constructing an argument and the opinion of an expert is that the expertise of the source of the opinion is a kind of proof in and of itself. The qualifications of the source give these opinions probative value. When the qualifications of the source are omitted, the probative value of the source’s opinion may rest solely on its similarity to what the listener or reader already believes. The critique of the generalizability of field studies of programs for the treatment of problem gamblers cited earlier in this chapter illustrates the point. Although you know that this opinion came from a book written by someone named Volberg, is that enough to convince you that you ought to believe everything it tells you? Would it help if you knew that Rachel A. Volberg is president of Gemini Research? Is it more convincing to know that since 1986, she has directed many studies of gambling and people with gambling problems? That her research

126

How Do I Prove My Argument?

has been published in places like Journal of Gambling Studies, American Journal of Psychiatry, and American Journal of Public Health? In the absence of such credentials, we could only feel secure in the belief that her opinions would be accepted as proof by a listener or reader whose opinions were not contrary to them. In essence, the opinion of an uncredentialed source functions as proof only when it is viewed as a premise by the audience. This raises an interesting problem. In magazines such as Time or national newspapers such as the Washington Post, the credentials of the author are not provided, or if they are, they may be something like staff writer. In some instances, the author is not even identified. Can you use such material as if it were an expert’s opinion? Yes. In this instance, nationally recognized news organizations such as those mentioned are acknowledged as reputable sources of information. The publication’s reputation becomes the credentials backing the opinion. However, news sources are not infallible. It is usually wise to check the opinions they contain against those of acknowledged experts when you discover what you think might be worthwhile opinion evidence. Often a news magazine or newspaper article with a named, or an unnamed, author will serve as a secondary source for the authoritative opinion of an expert. In the process of reporting on a story, they may quote briefly from a book or scholarly article by an expert in the field. In such instances, the credibility of the opinion derives as much, if not more, from this secondary source as it does from the reputation of the magazine or newspaper. Although it would be best to read the primary source firsthand if you can locate it, the use of secondary source material is acceptable. In using opinion evidence as proof, remember that it does not provide facts but rather interprets or explains them. Expert or authoritative sources provide interpretations or judgments about facts and are always one step removed from the objects, statistics, and events that comprise their factual basis. Expert opinion is accepted by the listener or reader only when the expert is believed to be qualified to offer the interpretation or make the judgment, or when the expert states what the listener or reader already suspects or believes. Test of Evidence from Opinion. Unlike facts, opinions are not directly verifiable. However, that does not mean that we cannot test opinion evidence. Opinion evidence can seldom be judged true or false in the same sense as factual evidence. Because an opinion is someone’s belief about facts, it is subject to contradiction by someone else’s opinion of those facts. Keep in mind that some of the best minds of the sixteenth century believed lead could be turned into gold if only the right chemical formula could be discovered. Source Expertise. In using opinion evidence, we are concerned with what the law refers to as the expert witness. Although our opinions might all be of equal worth on some subjects, it is impossible for each of us to have the degree of experience necessary to make sound judgments about all the phenomena we encounter. If you want to know which automobile is most roadworthy, the opinion of a test driver for an independent consumer-testing agency or automobile magazine that regularly publishes road tests would be valuable. In testing the expertise of the source, we are concerned with the credentials that give this person the right to pass judgment on something. Investigate the training, background, and experience of these

127

How Do I Prove My Argument?

individuals in their field of expertise. To the extent that your audience will accept those credentials, their opinion will have impact. Source Bias. As a general rule, seek the most unbiased source of opinion evidence. Although it is virtually impossible for experts to remain totally unbiased about their fields, the more objectively the opinion is stated, the more credible it will be. In instances where bias cannot be avoided, it should be forthrightly acknowledged so that the listener or reader is aware of the bias. Factual Basis of the Opinion. As in the case of statistical information, the credibility of opinion evidence may be diminished if the opinion is based on secondhand information. Out of necessity, many opinions on historical occurrences must be rendered after the fact. The most credible judgments, however, are those made by an expert observer on the scene at the time something is happening.

Summary of Types and Tests of Evidence 1. Examples and illustrations describe or report events, phenomena that exist. Examples are brief statements; illustrations are more detailed accounts. a. Was the report of fact made by a qualified source? b. Was the information reported accurately? c. Did the reporter make the original observation, or is the report based on secondhand information? d. Was the report based on a recent observation of phenomena? e. Was the reporter relatively unbiased toward the material being reported? 2. Statistics numerically represent information about people, events, and phenomena; they may be expressed in raw numbers or summarized in percentages or averages. a. Were the statistics collected by a reliable source? b. Were the statistics accurately collected from a sufficiently large sample over a sufficiently long period of time? c. Are comparable units used in statistical comparisons? 3. Artifacts are actual exhibits of such things as objects, audiotapes and videotapes, photographs, and diagrams. a. Is the artifact genuine, or has it been altered in some way? b. If the artifact is supposed to represent a certain class of items, is it typical of that class of items? 4. Premises are factual claims that exist as evidence on the basis of their being accepted as reflections of human belief or experience. a. Is there reason to believe that circumstances, or our understanding of them, have not changed in such a way as to invalidate the premise? 5. Scientific evidence reports the results of field and laboratory experiments on the effect of one variable on another. a. Are the results of the study generalizable beyond the setting in which the research was conducted and the subjects who were involved? b. Are nuisance variables controlled and independent variables manipulated in a meaningful way? c. Are the conclusions consistent with those of other studies conducted at roughly the same time using similar methodologies?

128

How Do I Prove My Argument?

6. Opinions are interpretive and evaluative statements made by an expert in a field regarding factual information relevant to that field. a. Is the source a qualified expert in the field by training, background, or experience? b. Is the source relatively unbiased? c. Is there a reliable factual basis for the opinion?

RECORDING EVIDENCE You should know how to record the material you discover to render it most useful when the time comes to use it in constructing arguments. It is one thing to find information in the library or on the Internet; it is quite another to organize it so that it will be readily accessible. Perhaps you function quite efficiently with a notebook full of bits of information, a folder crammed full of photocopied pages, or a bunch of files residing on your hard drive. However, most of us are not that efficient. What follows is a workable system based on the premise that an organized system of note taking will make you a better arguer. Failure to have a good system for recording and organizing material is one of the most common problems experienced by beginning and seasoned arguers alike. The first step in efficient research is to have a clear idea of the evidence needed. Your analysis of the topic should help you get off on the right track. In the initial stages of working with a topic, attempt to discover what information is available by skimming summaries, prefaces, and opening paragraphs of the sources you find. Read for ideas as much as for examples, statistics, and opinion statements. Once you have surveyed the available information, look for specific things—a statistic grounding a relationship you want to claim, the opinion of an authority to back a warrant. Later you can become more concerned about the quality of the proof you are finding, but initially worry as much about quantity. The key concept to keep in mind is that you can only be efficient in looking for proof if you have a clear idea of what arguments you are trying to prove. Reading for ideas initially gives you a feeling for what can be proven with the resources available to you and keeps you from wasting time later looking for proof that may not exist. Step two in the research process involves keeping an annotated bibliography and is performed in conjunction with step one. As you consider each printed source, record the title, author, publisher, date, and page numbers where pertinent. It is also a good idea to include the call numbers of all library materials so you can quickly find them again. For electronic sources do the same, but substitute the URL or Web address so you can find those sources again in cyberspace. In a few sentences, jot down the viewpoint of the author, a summary of what the source includes, and your personal evaluation of it. The purpose of this bibliography is to give you a general idea of what sources contain. The third step in the research process involves excerpting specific facts and opinions in an organized system that will allow you to find what you need when you are ready to construct your arguments. The mechanics of the system need not be complex. You can use word processing files for recording each separate fact and opinion statement. Include the author, the author’s qualifications, title, publication or publisher, date, and page number somewhere in each file; then carefully record

129

How Do I Prove My Argument?

the fact or opinion. For cybersources, include as much of the above as possible as well as the URL and the date you recorded the information, since Internet sources can vanish or change address without warning. Accuracy is imperative. Omitting a word, punctuation mark, or phrase can seriously alter the meaning of the fact or opinion. Be especially careful in recording statistical information. In a moment of stress, 3.6 million is less likely to be misread than 3,600,000—just be sure the source stated “million” and not “billion.” It is easy to become confused when working with statistical information. Once you have recorded information from a number of sources, you will need to arrange it in a way that will make it easy to find particular pieces of proof later on. If you require a particular opinion to back a warrant, you do not want to shuffle through a sixty-page electronic file, or a hundred or more smaller files, to find it and then shuffle through everything all over again to find the material to ground the next argument. Although using your word processor’s Find function might speed the process if you are working with one large file, an organizational system will help you avoid possibly missing the best evidence you have to prove a point. The fourth step in the research process involves developing a topical heading system and a system of folders and subfolders on your hard drive to organize your information. Think of this as developing your personal version of the Library of Congress Subject Heading system. The name of each folder provides a two- or three-word summary of the information it contains. Because electronic files must have unique names so that a file created later does not overwrite one with the same name created earlier, use this to your advantage by naming files in a way that that provides more detail when you cut and paste the contents of one large file into a series of smaller files. For instance, we began the section of this chapter on types and test of evidence with four examples of criminal activity. This material came from the “Crime” subfolder in the “CH6 Articles” folder on our hard drive. The files are named “Addiction,” “Ticket Theft 3,” “Fake Tickets,” and “Altered Tickets,” respectively. “Ticket Theft 3” indicates that, unfortunately, we found many examples of people charged with stealing lottery tickets. Other subfolders in “CH6 Articles” have names like “Advertising,” “Problem Gambling,” “Poor Play More,” and “Odds.” Naming folders and files this way, commonly referred to as using “slug lines,” can help you organize large quantities of material into related categories and distinguish material pertaining to one category from all others. The important thing to remember about slug lines is that they serve your purposes and should make sense to you. They reflect your impression of the contents of a particular folder or file. Although this may seem needlessly complicated, we assure you it is important. Because evidence is vital in establishing claims, it is at the nexus of effective argumentation. The more systematic your approach to the discovery and recording of materials of fact and opinion, and the creation of a means to facilitate their retrieval, the better you will be in building arguments. Knowing the types of evidence used in building arguments, the tests it must meet, and the means of finding and recording information enables you to begin preparing arguments.

130

How Do I Prove My Argument?

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Find two samples of each of the following types of factual evidence: example, illustration, and statistic. Explain how each of your samples meets the tests for its type of factual evidence. 2. Choose a topic with which you are familiar. Find three sources that provide authoritative opinion evidence on this topic. Explain why each source is credible in terms of the tests of opinion evidence. 3. Find five examples of evidence based on premises. Consider each premise in terms of how it came to be held as true without needing further proof. Is there any reason to believe these premises might become invalid? 4. Review the definitions of fact and opinion in this chapter. Decide which of the following statements are facts and which are opinions. a. The Supreme Court has decided that legal counsel will be provided for those who cannot afford to pay for it. b. Humans are primates descended from earlier forms of primates. c. College tuition costs have stabilized. d. The Pacific Rim will dominate world trade in the twenty-first century. e. Many professional educators believe studying a foreign language helps students become more proficient in the structure and grammar of the English language. f. Railroads played an important part in the North’s ability to win battles during the Civil War. g. Simply by visiting the Smithsonian, all may enjoy our nation’s treasures. h. Natural-habitat zoos are more interesting than traditional caged-exhibit zoos. 5. Begin researching the topic area you have selected for future assignments concerning propositions of fact, value, and policy. Your evidence file should meet the following criteria: a. Sources of information should be identified in a bibliography. b. Each item of evidence should be classified as to type. c. Each item of evidence should be evaluated as to credibility—meeting the tests of evidence. d. Each piece of evidence should be slugged according to the topic you have selected.

REFERENCES Brown, D. (2009). The lost symbol. New York: Doubleday. CVS employee arrested in theft of lottery Scratchers. (2010, April 23). Alameda Times-Star (CA). Retrieved from http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar. Fikac, P. (2010, April 7). It’s been a long dry spell for Lotto Texas. Houston Chronicle (TX). Retrieved from http://www.chron.com/. Fisher, W. R. (1984). Narration as a human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51, 1–22. Griffin, A. (2010, May 13). Sister loses lottery battle family rift. The Hartford Courant (CT). Retrieved from http://www.courant.com/. Grynbaum, M. W. (2010, February 14). Scratch-off hopes come in a new aesthetic: Black. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/ Haisley, E, Mostafa, R, & Lowenstein, G. (2008). Subjective relative income and lottery ticket purchases. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 21, 283–295. doi: 10.1002/bdm.588 Jacobsen, T. E., & Cohen, L. B. (1997, August). Teaching students to evaluate internet sites. The Teaching Professor, p. 4.

131

How Do I Prove My Argument?

LaPlante, D. A., Gray, H. M., Bosworth, L., & Shaffer, H. J. (2010). Thirty years of lottery public health research: Methodological strategies and trends. Journal of Gambling Studies, 26, 301–329. doi: 10.1007/s10899-010-9185-1 Lehman, P. (2010, April 28). ‘Destroyed’ by addiction. The Morning Call (Allentown, PA). Retrieved from http://www.mcall.com/. Mann, T. (2005). The Oxford University guide to library research. New York: Oxford University Press. McDonald, K., & Jarman, J. W. (1998). Getting the story right: The role of narrative in academic debate. Rostrum, 72. Available online at http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/ cxmcdonald0198.pdf. Mucha, P. (2010a, April 2). Pa. Lottery loses big on 7-7-7-7 win. The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA). Retrieved from http://www.philly.com/. Mucha, P. (2010b, April 21). Powerball flexes lottery muscle. The Philadelphia Inquirer (PA). Retrieved from http://www.philly.com/. Petry, N. M. (2003). A comparison of treatment-seeking pathological gamblers based on preferred gambling activity. Addiction, 98, 645–655. Platz, L., & Millar, M. (2001) Gambling in the context of other recreational activity: A quantitative comparison of casual and pathological student gamblers. Journal of Leisure Research, 33, 383–395. Polly, J. A. (2001, November). Learning right from wrong. On magazine supplement to Time magazine, p. 56. Poltilove, J. (2010, April 18). Investigators: Lottery scams a bad bet. The Tampa Tribune (FL). Retrieved from http://www.tampatrib.com/. Radford, M. L., Barnes, S. B., & Barr, L. R. (2006). Web research: Selecting, evaluating, and citing. New York: Allyn & Bacon. Schulman, D. (2002, July/August). The gambler’s fallacy: Why we expect to strike it rich after a losing streak. Psychology Today, 35, 22. Taylor, G. (2010, April 13). It takes all kinds—Lottery fans, that is. The Orlando Sentinel (FL). Retrieved from http://www.orlandosentinel.com/. Taylor, J., & Jarvis, J. (2000, October). The role of narrative as a form of evidence in modern academic debate. Paper presented at the International Debate Education Association conference, Budapest, Hungary. Volberg, R. A. (2000). When the chips are down: Problem gambling in America. New York: Century Foundation Press. Walker, M. B. (1992). The psychology of gambling. Tarrytown, NY: Pergammon Press. Waltman, S. (2010, April 1). Phony tickets lead to prison: Sioux Falls man who made fake lottery tickets gets 13 years. Aberdeen American News (SD). Retrieved from http://www. aberdeennews.com/. Young, V. (2010, April 24). Lottery ad push could up ante for education. St. Louis PostDispatch (MO). Retrieved from http://www.stltoday.com/todayspd.

132

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

A

rgumentation is a process of drawing inferences. As you discover information on a topic, you make guesses about how it fits together and how it might support or fail to support your own ideas about the topic. You become concerned with creating viable arguments. But what makes an argument viable? In part, an argument is viable because the evidence used to ground the claim has been tested for validity, but there is more to the viability of an argument than the validity of the evidence that supports it. The relationship between evidence and the claim it supports is established through reasoning. In studying the reasoning process, you are concerned with the logic of the inference drawn when you ask your listeners or readers to agree that the evidence you provide warrants accepting your claim. This inferential relationship is established by the warrant, which can be tested for validity. When it passes the test, we say that the argument is viable. The reasoning process is based on recognizing common patterns of experience. Consider a not uncommon experience of dormitory life: You encounter Dennis and Paul. Dennis has an empty bucket and Paul is dripping wet. What goes on in your mind? Because you were not on the scene to observe firsthand how Paul got wet, you probably inferred the cause of Paul’s wetness. Experience suggests that the claim, “Dennis dumped a bucket of water on Paul,” is viable. How reliably do the grounds, Paul’s wetness and Dennis’s empty bucket, support the claim? How probable is it that your claim describes what really happened? You do not know with any degree of certainty based on the grounds and claim alone, but a warrant increases your certainty of the relationship between grounds and claim. This chapter is about the reasoning process, the warrant step in the Toulmin model of argument. In using the Toulmin model to create units of argument, remember that it is an idealized blueprint for creating and testing arguments. It graphically depicts the process of reasoning from evidence to a conclusion. The form an argument takes in the model may not represent the best way to articulate it in a speech or an essay. The actual wording of an argument for presentation depends on such factors as

From Chapter 7 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

133

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

communicator style, audience needs, and how individual arguments combine to shape your speech or essay. As we guide you through understanding how the reasoning process works, we will provide examples that show how arguments are typically authored. While you are learning about argumentation, we strongly suggest that you employ all four elements—grounds, warrant, backing, and claim—in creating your arguments. As you develop skill, you may find it unnecessary to articulate all of them all of the time. You will elect to use all of them only when your audience is likely to require them or want them supplied. Reasoning is the inferential leap from grounds to claim made through the warrant. Arguments may be developed in many different fields. Although the subjects about which inferences are drawn and the pattern of inference drawing that is favored may differ from field to field, the reasoning process does not change because it is based on patterns of common human experience. In this chapter, we consider the forms of reasoning and the rules for testing the validity of warrants. Six major forms of reasoning develop the relationship between grounds and claim: cause, sign, generalization, parallel case, analogy, and authority. In addition, a minor form of reasoning, dilemma, is useful in certain circumstances. As you study these forms of reasoning, it is important to remember that reasoning, the warrant, is used to infer that because these grounds exist, believing this claim to be true or probable is justified.

ARGUMENT FROM CAUSE Argument from cause is one of the most prevalent forms of reasoning in argumentation. When things are happening to us and around us, it is human nature to infer connections between them. As a form of reasoning, argument from cause suggests a temporal connection between phenomena.

We claim that an event or condition of one kind is the cause of an event or condition of another. Consider these phenomena. PHENOMENON 1: PHENOMENON 2:

A student does not read his assignments. The student receives an F on an exam.

It is useful to conceptualize events as existing on a time line (Ehninger, 1974). Phenomena along it may be connected, and it may be traveled in either direction. A present effect may be connected with a preceding cause; a presently existing cause may be identified to predict some future effect. Argument from cause is based on the premise that things occur in an orderly fashion for some reason. Because the affairs of neither humanity nor nature are random, we assume we can rely on the premise, “Everything has a cause.” In an argument from cause, the grounds, warrant, and backing must validate the claim on the basis of their temporal connection. If we are careful in researching phenomena, we

134

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

can support claims that events or conditions of one kind are the cause of events or conditions of another. As an illustration of how argument from cause works, consider the written testimony of James Hall of the Up Front Drug Center in Miami: “Smoking” methamphetamine causes drug problems even more serious than those associated with crack cocaine. Methamphetamine may be vaporized (“smoked”) in its crystal (salt) form and need not be converted to a base form like crack. When “smoked,” its extreme volatility delivers a highly concentrated dose of the drug instantaneously to the brain, even more intensely than with crack. The drug’s rapid tolerance means that smoking methamphetamine accelerates compulsive abuse and addiction. Its long duration of action contributes to the probability of toxic and fatal reactions. Brain damage is expected to be more severe from methamphetamine “smoking” than from crack as is the violent, paranoid behavior associated with either drug. (Drugs in the 1990’s, 1989, pp. 80–81)

Figure 1 lays out Mr. Hall’s case. There are several grounds—things known to be true about smoking methamphetamine from observation or research. For each of these points, something inherent in the drug’s consumption or pharmacological impact makes its effect worse than crack’s, which warrants Mr. Hall’s claim— smoking methamphetamine is worse than crack—stated in his opening and closing sentences.

Ground 1

Warrant

Smoking methamphetamine is easier than smoking crack,

because it “need not be converted to a base form like crack.”

Ground 2 Smoking methamphetamine packs a bigger, faster wallop than smoking crack,

Ground 3 Smoking methamphetamine hooks users faster than smoking crack,

Warrant because of “its extreme volatility.”

Warrant because of “the drug’s rapid tolerance.”

Claim “Smoking methamphetamine causes drug problems even more serious than those associated with crack cocaine [including] brain damage [and] violent, paranoid behavior associated with either drug.”

Ground 4 Smoking methamphetamine is more likely to harm or even kill users than smoking crack,

Warrant because of “its long duration of action.”

FIGURE 1 Argument Against Smoking Methamphetamine.

135

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

In arguing causality, some precautions must be taken to ensure that our inferential leaps are justified. The most important question to ask is: Are the grounds sufficient to bring about or cause the conditions specified in the claim? Focusing on the grounds is an important first step in testing the strength of the argument from cause. Examine your arguments from cause using the following questions as guidelines: 1. Are other grounds likely to lead to the effect? 2. Is the asserted relationship between grounds and effect consistent, or are there instances in which this effect has not followed from these grounds? When using causal reasoning, you are generalizing about the relationship between phenomena along a time line: In the presence of phenomenon A (cause), we can always find evidence of phenomenon B (effect); or if we can find evidence of phenomenon B (effect), it is likely to have been the consequence of phenomenon A (cause). The regularity with which this has been true in the past warrants speculation about causes or effects that are undocumented or undocumentable. This is particularly useful when arguing about things that have not yet happened, such as brain damage, paranoia, and violent behavior. We look at a drug that is easier to get, more potent, longer lasting, and more lethal than crack, and we can reasonably expect it will have the worst effects on its users. This same strategy can be used in speculating about the consequences of a policy change, taking that course of action as a cause and forecasting the effects, both good and bad, that it is likely to produce. We also want to examine the arguments produced by cause and effect reasoning to make sure they are really a cause and its effect, not simply two phenomena that happened to occur sequentially. Just because phenomenon A is followed by phenomenon B does not make A the cause of B. Many superstitions are based on this notion of false cause. Knocking on wood to ward off a run of bad luck, which was never going to happen in the first place, is a prime example. Causality requires proof of more than chronological occurrence. When two things happen sequentially, and you suspect a cause–effect relationship, consider whether the alleged cause is capable of producing the effect. Is the cause potentially strong enough to do so? If a drug is easier to get than crack because it requires no preparation, does that mean it will produce worse problems than crack? Avoid being trapped by superficial connection between events by looking for alternative explanations of what happened. In both interpersonal and public relations, few things happen as the result of a single cause. The argument on smoking methamphetamine is a good example of the identification of multiple causalities: It is not only easier to get but also more potent, addictive, and longer lasting than crack, making the problems it produces more serious. For any given set of events, before placing too much faith in any single cause–effect relationship, look for possible alternative, or multiple, causes for the effect. A cause may be discussed in terms of its being necessary and sufficient. A cause is said to be necessary if, without its presence, the effect will not occur. However, this cause may not be sufficient to bring about the effect all by itself. The difference between necessary and sufficient cause is illustrated by the relationship between HIV and AIDS. Some people who are HIV-positive do not have AIDS, so apparently the virus alone is not a sufficient cause for the disease. The discovery that some AIDS patients are not HIV-positive suggests the virus may not even be a necessary cause. In the case of smoking methamphetamine, none of the four causes

136

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

is sufficient to make the effects worse than they are for crack cocaine. Taken together, the facts that it is easier, more potent, addictive, and longer lasting constitute a series of necessary causes that, taken in toto, are sufficient to make the effects worse. Why is this distinction important? In determining whether a cause produced an effect, sufficient causes can always be counted on to produce predictable effects. The distinction between causes that are necessary and causes that are sufficient helps to emphasize the importance of always looking for alternative and multiple causes.

Summary of Argument from Cause 1. Argument from cause suggests a temporal connection between events in which one produces the other. 2. When we can document effect, we may reason as to its cause; when we can document cause, we may reason as to its effect. 3. A necessary cause is a factor that must be present to bring about an effect but will not in and of itself produce the effect. 4. A sufficient cause includes all factors needed to produce a particular effect. 5. Causality involves more than chronological order and may be tested by asking the following questions: a. Is the cause capable of producing the effect? b. Is the effect produced by the cause or does the effect occur coincidentally to the cause? c. Are there other potential causes? d. Has this effect consistently followed from this cause?

ARGUMENT FROM SIGN Unlike arguments from cause, which link causes to their effects, Arguments from sign connect phenomena with conditions that merely exist.

Signs are indicators—observable symptoms, conditions, or marks—that tell us what is the case. Would-be naturalists often study the behaviors of animals and connect those behaviors to other events. Consider the following examples of sign reasoning in which the sign has no causal connection to the events signs are used to predict: When the squirrels store extra nuts, it means we’re in for a hard winter. If the groundhog sees its shadow on February 2, spring is still six weeks away. What kinds of things serve as signs? Events are often seen as signs of attitudes or activities. We observe that a certain product is selling well and take this as sign evidence of the product’s quality or the effectiveness of its advertising. Statistics are often interpreted through sign reasoning. High employment and low inflation are signs of a healthy economy. Public opinion polls signify attitudes about policies, activities, and persons. Marjorie Heins, who is a Fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice in New York University’s School of Law and Founding Director of the

137

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Free Expression Policy Project, used sign reasoning in her testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary: In the time remaining, let me just address the claims that are so frequently made and that you’ve heard here today that social science research has proved media violence to cause aggressive behavior. I was perfectly willing to accept this conventional wisdom when I began research for Not in Front of the Children, but what I discovered, like so many independent researchers before me, was that, number one, most of the research has actually produced null results. Number two, claimed positive results are often based on manipulation of statistics or flawed measures of aggression, such as punching a Bobo doll, which is an acceptable form of play aggression, recognizing aggressive words on computer screens, or one of my favorites, popping a balloon. There is no uniformity in research results, the first requirement for scientific validity. Some studies have found children more aggressive after watching Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. Joanne Cantor’s book, Mommy, I’m Scared, documents anxiety reactions among children exposed to such relatively non-violent fare as Little House on the Prairie, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland. No filter V-chip or censorship law can identify what from the vast array of art and literature might frighten a particular child. Even correlational research, which can be suggestive but certainly does not show causation, is inconclusive. Violent crime rates, as I’m sure you know, for youth have been declining in the last decade, even as media violence has become more intense. In 1986, one researcher found negative correlations between exposure to violent TV and violent crime in 281 metropolitan areas. He stated, “the data consistently indicate that high levels of exposure to violent television content are accompanied by relatively low rates of violent crime.” Finally, there’s no uniform definition of media violence in either experimental or correlational studies. Some researchers use cartoons, some use Batman, Superman, fight scenes in movies. Even the American Psychological Association, which speaks usually more guardedly than Mr. McIntyre did today, in terms of risks rather than proof, acknowledges that “violence, per se, is not the problem. It is the manner in which most violence on television is shown that should concern us.” Yet social science studies rarely test the context in which violence is shown or the artistic merit of the work. Certainly, movie filters don’t make these distinctions. (Derivative rights, 2004, p. 27)

Ms. Hein wants to convince the representatives that social science research does not support the belief that exposure to media violence causes aggressive behavior in children. To do this, she advances this claim supported by sign reasoning from examples. She can rely on her position. She has been called as an expert witness, which implicitly backs her unstated warrant that the examples she provides signify the lack of a scientific basis for the alleged cause–effect relationship. She can also rely on the fact that the committee has a full agenda, and that the two people she specifically mentions are also testifying and would be able to respond. This may lead the members of the committee to believe she could provide more examples or back her warrant in some other way if she was given the time to do so. CLAIM: GROUND 1:

138

Social science research does not support the belief that exposure to media violence causes aggressive behavior in children. “Most of the research has actually produced null results.”

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

GROUND 2: GROUND 3: GROUND 4: GROUND 5:

WARRANT:

“Positive results are often based on manipulation of statistics or flawed measures of aggression.” “Some studies have found children more aggressive after watching ‘Sesame Street’.” “Even correlational research, which can be suggestive but certainly does not show causation, is inconclusive.” “There is no uniform definition of media violence in either experimental or correlational studies . . . [and] studies rarely test the context in which violence is shown.” [implied] These facts signify the lack of a scientific basis for the alleged cause–effect relationship between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior in children.

There are some cautions to observe in arguing on the basis of signs. The most important is to be sure the sign you use is reliable. The problem with finding a reliable sign is that signs are only circumstantial evidence in many instances. Things we observe as signs may not really warrant any claim unless backing for the warrant can be found. A second caution regarding sign reasoning is that signs should not be confused with causes. A good rule to follow in distinguishing sign from cause is this: A sign tells what is the case, while a cause explains why it is the case. Arguments from cause attempt to analyze events in terms of antecedents and their consequences. Arguments from sign concern themselves with what the sign will signify. They tell us what we can expect to observe as a result of having first observed the sign. Ms. Hein’s argument does not explain why, for example, there is no uniform definition of violence, only that there isn’t one and that is just one of the problems with the research on media violence. A final caution about sign reasoning is that we must be concerned with the strength of the sign. Sign arguments lead to conclusions about what was, is, or will be. Sign reasoning is presented as a factual claim about the sign and what it signifies. It must be tested the way we test any factual claim, by examining its grounds. We want to know if the grounds (the sign) always or usually validate the prediction of what it signifies (the conclusion drawn in the claim). Examination of the grounds might include asking if sufficient signs are present. After all, one robin does not constitute spring, but a flock of robins and other species, buds on trees, and the absence of snow may reliably lead us to conclude that spring is at hand.

Summary of Argument from Sign 1. Signs are observable symptoms, conditions, or marks used to prove that a certain state of affairs exists. 2. Signs should be reliable so that the grounds point to the conclusion drawn, not to some alternative conclusion. 3. Sign reasoning must not be confused with causal reasoning. Signs describe the situation; causes analyze the situation. 4. Sign reasoning is assessed on the basis of the presence of a sufficient number of signs or the certainty of an individual sign’s strength.

139

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

ARGUMENT FROM GENERALIZATION Generalizations, based on sampling populations to draw conclusions about wholes, are very common. Much social science research studies a small sample of people or events and generalizes about the group the sample represents. A generalization states that what is true in some instances is true in all or most instances. Generalization is a form of inductive reasoning in which one looks at the details of examples, specific cases, situations, and occurrences and draws inferences about the entire class they represent.

Generalizing may be the form of reasoning you have experienced most frequently in forming your attitudes, values, and beliefs. If you have had a negative experience with a course in Department X, you may reason that no course offered by Department X is worth taking. Prejudices against people and nations are often formed on the basis of generalizations. This does not mean, however, that generalization is not an effective and efficient form of reasoning. What we see on commercial television is determined on the basis of reasoning from generalization. The Nielsen ratings of the popularity of various television shows are based on sampling the viewing habits in a few American homes and generalizing that what is true of the viewing habits of the sample is true of the viewing habits of all Americans. Suppose you wanted your readers to accept a claim that armed violence occurs too frequently in schools. You have found an example, but your readers are unlikely to accept it as a reliable sign on your word alone. If you could find some other examples from cities across the nation, your readers might be willing to accept the generalization that what is true in these cities is probably true in cities nationwide. Despite his role as executive director of the National School Safety Center, this is precisely what Ronald Stephens did in his written testimony: Reading, writing and retaliation has become a common theme on many of our nation’s campuses. Far too often this retaliation involves ducking bullets and serious violence. . . . September, 1992, Palo Duro High School, Amarillo, Texas—Teenager shoots 6 in school after a fight; 2 seriously hurt. May, 1992, Lindhurst High School, Olivehurst, California—Four slain, 11 injured as ex-student enters high school campus and opens fire; 59 students and teachers were held hostage during the eight-hour siege. March, 1992, Largo High School, Washington, D.C.—Sixteen-year-old girl was stabbed in the abdomen with a 3-inch paring knife by a female classmate. March, 1992, McAuliffe Elementary School, Chicago, Illinois—Eight-year-old boy brings gun to school in his book bag, thinking it is a toy and shoots and paralyzes an 8year-old girl in the classroom. February, 1992, Thomas Jefferson High School, Brooklyn, New York—Two students are fatally shot in school hallway by a ninth grader while students are changing classes. February, 1992, Roland Park Elementary/Middle School, Baltimore, Maryland— Seventh grader shoots a school police officer for confiscating his pager. (Children carrying weapons, 1992, pp. 30–31)

140

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Because the claim and the grounds that support it are so transparent, focus your attention on the warrant and how the choice of examples subtly provides backing. WARRANT: BACKING 1: BACKING 2: BACKING 3:

[implied] What is true in these instances is probably true in other instances nationwide. This is not a regional problem; the examples are drawn from five states and the District of Columbia. This is not a high school problem; two of the examples are drawn from elementary and middle schools. This is not an exclusively male problem; one of the assailants and at least two of the victims were female.

The one limitation on the generalizability of the claim that Mr. Stephens’s development of this unit of argument does not address is that the warrant and its backing lead to the conclusion that this is an urban, or at least a large city, problem. He addresses this in his next unit of argument, claiming “school crime is not simply a big-city problem. It encompasses rural, suburban and urban communities” (Children carrying weapons, 1992, p. 31). Generalizations may be restricted in nature, arguing from some to more. Notice the qualifiers “many” and “far too often” in the opening statement. Mr. Stephens does not assert that all disputes on all campuses result in armed violence; it is left to the reader to determine exactly how often “far too often” and how many “many” really is. The use of qualifiers in claim statements facilitates generalization when the behavior of an entire population, or the qualities of an entire class of objects, cannot be validly predicted. You may have owned three cars made by the Motor Car Company, experiencing great dissatisfaction with each, but would it be warranted for you to generalize that “the Motor Car Company produces lemons”? Generalizations may also be universal, arguing that what is true of some members of a group will be true of all members of that group. In making a universal generalization, the arguer needs to be careful that the sample on which the generalization is based is adequate to warrant the conclusion. The verification of factual and statistical evidence applies to generalizations. There are four generic tests to apply to arguments from generalization to determine whether a generalization should be universal or restricted. First, sufficient cases or instances should be cited as grounds to ensure a reliable generalization. It would be unreasonable to argue on the basis of what happens in one state that armed violence in our schools is a nationwide problem. A sample composed of states from each region might be needed to show a national trend. How large must the sample be? Large enough that the addition of more instances does not change the conclusion. Ultimately, the audience is the final arbiter of how many cases are needed to support the claim. The more familiar your audience is with the topic, the fewer instances you will need to cite. The second test of generalizations is sample representativeness. Do the individuals or items cited in the grounds fairly represent the group or class about which the generalization is made? Items or individuals must be typical of a class if they are to represent it. All items must actually come from the same class, and it makes a difference how you define the class. For example, generalizing about a

141

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

class of objects called schools may be problematic if your definition allows the inclusion of institutions, such as reform schools or alternative schools, to which children who have already had trouble with the law are sent. The third test of generalizations is that instances must be taken from random samples of populations. If in attempting to generalize about school violence you include schools from only the most violent urban areas, distortion may occur. The schools you have selected may have more violence and thus fail to accurately represent a national trend. The final test of generalizations asks if negative instances have been accounted for or explained. A generalization will not hold up if too many instances exist that contradict it. Including a rebuttal statement to modify such a claim is absolutely necessary. If in preparing an argument on school violence you discover that religiously affiliated schools do not share this problem with their publicly funded counterparts, you would use a rebuttal to account for the difference.

Summary of Argument from Generalization 1. Generalizations argue that what is true of some members of a group will be true of more or all members of the same group. 2. Generalizations should be based on a sufficiently large sample of cases if a conclusion about an entire group is being drawn. 3. Instances cited in making the generalization should be representative of all members of the group. 4. Instances should be randomly selected to avoid distortion. 5. Negative instances should be explained or accounted for.

ARGUMENT FROM PARALLEL CASE Argument from parallel case is used when we have all the particulars about a given case and we reason from it, comparing the known case to a similar unknown case. Arguments using parallel case involve reasoning on the basis of two or more similar events or cases.

Government policy makers and organizations such as universities often use argument from parallel case to frame their thinking. Those who set academic policies and regulations governing graduation requirements may study what is happening at other similar schools, reasoning that what is appropriate at college 1, college 2, and college 3 should be appropriate at our college. In arguments based on parallel case, grounds involve the case (or cases) that is in some critical way similar to the case about which the claim is made. The warrant, backed by additional evidence when necessary, explains how the case described in the grounds and the case identified in the claim are truly parallel cases. An example of an argument reasoning from a parallel case is found in the testimony of Robert Sachs, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association: To put cable prices, in context, if you look at the CPI-U numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which I believe was 55 percent from the period December 1993

142

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

through June 2003, education costs in this country went up 62 percent, college tuition and fees 60 percent, financial services 56 percent, cable television 55, admissions 55. Let me focus on admissions, and I will submit an entire list for the record. Admissions includes ticket costs for movies, concerts, theater and sporting events. Cable in its purest form is an entertainment medium, and we have seen across entertainment alternatives that prices increase more rapidly than inflation because the inputs for creating programs increase—especially the inputs for sports salaries. Do we think that consumers are getting good value for their money? Absolutely. For $40 a month, the average cost of a cable bill for basic cable and expanded cable, it is impossible to take a family of four to a movie for a single evening in the course of a month, whereas cable is something that people can enjoy for the full month for $40 a month. Now, people elect to pay more for premium services, for new digital services, for high-speed Internet, and now for telephony in an increasing number of communities. But those are all options that consumers have. (Cable competition, 2004, p. 22)

Mr. Sach’s point is that, when you consider cable price increases in comparison to price increases for other forms of entertainment, cable customers get good value for their money. Using the cost of “admissions” as a parallel case serves as a vehicle for proving his point. To the extent that his listeners perceived fundamental similarities between paying for cable television and paying for tickets to a movie, Mr. Sach’s argument demonstrated his point. Those similarities are established in whatever grounds the arguer provides. GROUND 1:

WARRANT: GROUND 2:

“From the period December 1993 through June 2003,” the cost of cable television went up 55 percent the same as admissions, which “includes ticket costs for movies, concerts, theater, and sporting events.” “Cable in its purest form is an entertainment medium,” so it can reasonably be compared to other forms of entertainment. “For $40 a month, the average cost of a cable bill for basic cable and expanded cable, it is impossible to take a family of four to a movie for a single evening in the course of a month.”

There are two tests to apply to arguments from parallel case, and both involve scrutinizing the similarities between the cases cited. First, ask yourself, “How similar are the cases cited?” If we hear that we can better understand the value of subscribing to cable television by comparing it to the cost of a movie ticket, we must be able to find enough similarities between the two to make the comparison hold up in our minds. Are there dissimilarities, such as experiencing entertainment on a big screen rather than a small one, or being at an event in person, so we can experience it in its unmediated form, which might suggest cable television is different from the forms of entertainment we buy tickets to see? The second test to apply to arguments from parallel case is to ask, “Are the similarities cited key factors?” In general, the more critical the factors common to both cases, the more force the argument will have. In particular, the similarities cited must have relevance to the claim being made in the argument. Mr. Sachs indicates that the rate of cost increases for cable television and other forms of entertainment for almost a decade have been the same, but that you get a month’s worth of enjoyment rather than an evening’s worth when you spend your money for cable. Are these the key factors and are they relevant?

143

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Summary of Argument from Parallel Case 1. Argument from parallel case reasons on the basis of two or more similar events or cases; because case A is known to be similar to case B in certain ways, we can appropriately draw inferences from what is known to what is unknown. 2. For the argument from parallel case to be valid, the cases must not only be similar but their similarities must also pertain to important rather than trivial factors.

ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY Analogies represent a special form of comparison in which the cases compared do not have a sufficient degree of similarity to warrant argument from parallel case. Arguments from analogy assume some fundamental sameness exists between the characteristics of dissimilar cases.

The argument proceeds much as it would if it were an argument from parallel case. A claim that is true of case 1 should be expected to be true of case 2, because both share a sufficient number of relevant characteristics. The essential difference between an analogy and an argument from parallel case is found in their forms of comparison. Analogies are figurative and often used as rhetorical devices to add style to an argument, while arguments from parallel case are literal. Consider the following from Marjorie Heins. Prior to her critique of the claim that social science research supports a cause–effect relationship between viewing violence and doing violence, she adapted an argument from analogy related to the Internet to dispute the notion that filtering software, which allows parents to prevent their children from seeing certain scenes in movies on commercially available DVDs, is the best way to protect them: As the National Research Council wrote in a 2002 report on the related subject of Internet filters, “media literacy provides children with skills in critically evaluating the content inherent in media messages. A child with these skills is less likely to stumble across inappropriate material and more likely to be better able to put it into context if and when he or she does.” And they made the analogy to swimming pools. They can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms. All of these measures are helpful, but by far, the most important thing one can do for one’s children is to teach them how to swim. (Derivative rights, 2004, pp. 26–27)

Comparisons in analogies are based on the functional equivalence of very different entities. Starting with a premise that “there are a lot of dangers our children may face growing up” as its implied subtext, Ms. Heins’ argument from analogy refines and sharpens that point: GROUNDS 1: GROUNDS 2:

144

Swimming pools “can be dangerous to children.” “To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms . . . but by far the most important thing one can do for one’s children is to teach them how to swim.”

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

WARRANT:

BACKING:

CLAIM:

[implied] If movies like swimming pools pose a danger to our children, we should teach media literacy rather than installing locks. “As the National Research Council wrote in a 2002 report on the related subject of Internet filters, ‘media literacy provides children with skills to critically evaluate the content inherent in media messages.’” [implied] Teaching our children how to cope with potential dangers is more effective than trying to prevent them from encountering those dangers.

We do not normally think of analogies in terms of the Toulmin model of argument. If you are going to use them, you need to think them through, and the Toulmin model provides the framework for doing just that. Ask yourself what might cause your analogy to be accepted or rejected by your audience and where the likely points of attack might be for those who are arguing against you. Because of its figurative nature, analogy has been classified as the weakest form of argument (Eisenberg & Ilardo, 1980; Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik, 1984; Ziegelmuller, Kay, & Dause, 1990). It is said that the comparison of dissimilar cases is a rhetorical device and cannot actually warrant a claim. The analogy’s usefulness is primarily confined to illustrating, clarifying, or making an argument more memorable or striking. As Ehninger (1974) suggests, the position you ultimately adopt on the use of analogy will be determined by how you define argument and by the degree of probability you expect an asserted relationship to possess before you are willing to regard it as proven. If your definition of argument is restricted to instances where the relationship between grounds and claim produces conclusions that have a high probability of truth, you will probably not be satisfied with arguments from analogy. Argument from analogy can be useful in communication. Rendering the form of an argument understandable to the audience is a requirement for effective communication, so there will be times when an analogy is the most appropriate argumentative choice. Analogy fulfills several critical functions in argumentation (Wilcox, 1973). It helps organize and clarify thought by relating terms, enables us to learn new information, and adds style to our reasoning. Should you choose to argue from analogy, two tests must be applied to determine its viability. First, the cases alleged to be similar must be sufficiently similar in function in all important ways. An analogy will not hold up if the functions compared are so dissimilar that the analogy is incomprehensible to the audience. Second, the dissimilarities between the cases compared must not be so great as to adversely influence perception of implied similarities. Because analogies compare things that are essentially dissimilar, those dissimilarities must not overshadow their similarities. If you decide to use this form of argument, search for analogies that will add force to your argument. Although there is probably a point of diminishing returns in the use of analogy, it is possible to use more than one analogy to help your audience make connections between the available evidence and the claims you wish to advance.

145

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Summary of Argument from Analogy 1. An analogy is a comparison of fundamentally dissimilar cases that draws attention to the common function they perform. 2. Analogies are commonly used as rhetorical devices, providing figurative rather than literal comparisons. 3. The dissimilarities between the cases should not be so great as to nullify the validity of the comparison being made.

ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY Arguers often use the opinions and research of experts as evidence. Society has become so complex that we are no longer confident of our own expertise on many subjects, so we rely on the knowledge of authorities. Textbooks are examples of reliance on authority to shape inferences about the nature of things. Watch the news on television, read an article in a magazine, or listen to the opinions of friends; it will not take long to discover how reliant you are on authorities. Who are these people we turn to for opinions and interpretations of fact? We label as an authority any person or group determined to possess expertise in a given field. Their expertise may come from education or experience, from having published in their field, or from being a well-known professional, scientist, physician, jurist, artist, or the like. In addition, leaders, public figures, government officials, and spokespersons for well-known institutions, groups, and organizations are acknowledged as authorities. In an argument from authority, the inference is that the claim is justified because it is consistent with the opinion, interpretation of fact, or research findings of an authority. As a form of reasoning, argument from authority relies on the credibility and expertise of the source to warrant acceptance of a claim.

Authorities use the same patterns of reasoning as the rest of us, so an argument from authority may appear to be an argument from cause, sign, generalization, parallel case, analogy, or dilemma. What distinguishes argument from authority is that the warrant identifies why the audience should regard the authority as credible rather than drawing some other inference linking grounds and claim. Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen testified before a Senate committee about the fact that there is no scientific agreement about what constitutes an old-growth forest. One reason his implied warrant—that the sign evidence he offered reliably indicated why most notions about old-growth forests are romantic myths—was probably accepted by those listening was the argument from authority with which he began his prepared statement: My name is Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen. I am a professor in the Department of Forest Science at Texas A&M University specializing in restoration forestry. I have conducted research on restoring and sustaining America’s native forest for more than thirty years. I have written over one hundred publications and I authored the book titled America’s Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery (Copyright January 2000, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 594 pages). The book documents the history of North America’s

146

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

native forests. It gives special emphasis to the way our native forests appeared at the time of European settlement and the role Native Americans played in their development. (Forest protection initiatives and national forest policy, 2001, p. 43–44).

If we examine the basis in fact that Dr. Bonnicksen lays out in his argument, we gain insight not only into how he established his own credibility, but also into how you might structure your arguments from authority using evidence of fact and opinion from credible sources. In establishing personal credibility, as Dr. Bonnicksen does, the crux of the argument lies in the grounds offered: GROUND 1: GROUND 2: GROUND 3:

“I am a professor . . . specializing in restoration forestry.” “I have conducted research on . . . America’s native forest for more than thirty years” and “have . . . over one hundred publications” I authored a book that “gives special emphasis to the way our native forests appeared at the time of European settlement and the role Native Americans played in their development.”

In arguments from authority using evidence of fact and opinion that you create, the locus shifts to the backing for the warrant that establishes the credibility of the source of fact or opinion used to ground a claim. Your own arguments from authority can be structured in one of two ways. In the first form, state your own opinion as the claim. The reason for your reader or listener to accept the claim is warranted because an authority, established by backing the warrant, provides the factual grounds for it. In a sense, this is the form nearly all arguments in academic argumentation take. Through research, you discover as much as you can about a topic, determine the opinions you hold on it, and decide how those opinions will be formed into claim statements. Then you find evidence from credible sources to ground your claims. In the second form of argument from authority, you take an authority’s opinion, restate its main point as the claim, and use evidence taken from the authority’s opinion as grounds for the claim. As in the previous form of argument from authority, the warrant states that the authority should be considered credible, and backing applies one or more of the tests of argument from authority to establish that credibility. Because argument from authority involves evidence that expresses an opinion, interprets fact, or reports research findings, many of the tests of evidence, such as “Evidence of Fact” and “Evidence from Opinion,” may be appropriate. The specific tests of argument from authority seek answers to the question: Can the authority be regarded as credible? The first test of argument from authority is to determine whether the source is a qualified expert in the field by reason of training, experience, or background. The academic degrees a person holds, the length of his or her experience, and the nature of his or her background are all ways of verifying that an alleged authority is indeed an expert. To be recognized as an authority, some demonstration of expertise must be made. The second test of argument from authority examines the context in which the source offered an opinion or presented information. Is the statement made within the context of the alleged authority’s area of expertise? Public figures express a variety of opinions that may not necessarily be within their field of expertise. For example, prominent members of the entertainment industry have expressed opinions

147

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

about the environment, but are ecology and industrial policy within the context of their field of expertise? The third test of argument from authority examines the source’s degree of involvement. Is the alleged authority relatively unbiased? The office or position a person holds may induce bias in a certain direction, and a person who is trying to protect tenure in an office or position will reflect such biases. We would expect the president of the American Medical Association to reflect some bias in expressing an opinion about government regulation of physicians’ fees or the cost of malpractice insurance. Although all authorities have a vested interest in their fields, the important thing to look for in examining their biases is obvious conflicts of interest or self-serving statements. The fourth test of argument from authority examines the source’s statement in relation to those of acknowledged experts in the field. Does the alleged authority reflect a majority or minority view? In legal argument, each side may have its own expert witnesses, amply qualified, who express diametrically opposite views. Experts often disagree with each other on subjects inside and outside their fields of expertise. Just because a view is different, it is not automatically invalid. However, an alleged authority may also express a totally isolated point of view. Many accepted principles were once minority opinions. If you cite an authority whose view does not reflect majority opinion, be prepared to establish the credibility of that view by providing the backing for the warrant in your argument. The fifth and final test of argument from authority examines the factual basis on which the source’s statement rests. Is there a reliable factual basis for this opinion? Remember, it is not the image or stature of the alleged authority that grounds the claim but the factual basis on which the opinions are offered. When someone with prestige, office, or an academic reputation offers an opinion, we assume there is some basis for it. This may not be the case. The person may be bluffing, expressing a point of view that is contradicted by the evidence, or speaking outside his or her field of expertise, relying on reputation alone to support the view (Wilson, 1980). Because of the special nature of this pattern of reasoning, we offer a final caution about argument from authority. Arguments from authority can be used to circumvent the reasoning process when authority is cited to prevent further consideration of a matter. Someone is properly regarded as an expert because the person possesses special knowledge, not because of fame or status. The warrant in an argument from authority should reassure the listener or reader that this is so. Backing is used to verify the basis of the alleged authority’s expertise. It is important to include both steps in creating arguments from authority.

Summary of Argument from Authority 1. Argument from authority relies on the credibility of the source of information to warrant acceptance of the claim it grounds. 2. The source should be a qualified expert in the field by reason of training, experience, or background. 3. The statements of authorities are only credible within the context of their fields of expertise. 4. The authority should not be unduly biased.

148

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

5. If the authority expresses an opinion at odds with those of the majority of experts in the field, the arguer should establish the credibility of that view. 6. The authority’s opinion should have a basis in fact.

ARGUMENT FROM DILEMMA This final type of reasoning deals with choice making and the consequences those choices bring. For that reason, arguments from dilemma are built with two or more arguments from cause that embody undesirable consequences. An argument from dilemma forces a choice between two unacceptable alternatives.

In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. economy turned sharply downward. The bubble in housing prices, fueled by subprime mortgages that allowed people to buy more house than they could afford, burst. Many people faced the choice between trying to pay off a loan whose principal balance was substantially more than their house was now worth or having the bank foreclose. As the number of foreclosures mounted, financial institutions facing troubles themselves tightened credit. This combined with a decline in consumer spending, fueled by fear of layoffs and a recession, to squeeze retailers and manufacturers like the auto companies. The Bush administration faced the dilemma of whether to let major American companies like GM, AIG, and Citigroup go bankrupt or increase the deficit by spending substantial tax dollars to bail them out. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner eloquently described the dilemma faced by those who witness crimes. On the one hand, they have an obligation to help preserve the fabric of society by testifying. On the other, their obligation to self-preservation may discourage them from doing just that. Witness intimidation is one of the toughest issues we have discussed this year. In the twisted mind of a gang member, murderer, he has little to lose if he kills witnesses. Since he has already killed one victim, he could face the death penalty or live in prison and there is little more that the criminal justice system can do to him. That makes this problem tough to solve and puts a lot of pressure on the good people, on the police and prosecutors to protect innocent people who are witnesses, people who are trying to do their duty as good citizens and trying to help take the killers off the streets. Imagine being the witness to one of these murders. One day you are leading a normal life at home with your family, going to work, the next day you see a murder. And all of a sudden, due to no fault of your own, your life and the lives of your family are threatened by the gang members. How outrageous that these decent people must change their habits, homes and identities simply because they are doing the right thing and they are doing their duty as citizens of this great democracy. (Witness intimidation, 1994, p. 3)

Regardless of the number of alternatives suggested in the argument, the validity of a dilemma depends upon its identification of a true either–or situation. The grounds presented must identify the options available, and these alternatives must indeed be different, mutually exclusive, choices. An argument from dilemma can either point toward the one suitable, or least objectionable, choice among the alternatives that the arguer favors, or it can suggest that, in the absence of change, no suitable alternative exists.

149

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Representative Sensenbrenner’s argument takes the form of a forced choice between remaining silent, being silenced if you testify, or having to go into a form of custody by entering a witness protection program so you can testify. The warrant indicates these are true either–or choices, because the criminal’s lack of inhibition to kill again explicitly backs the warrant. No matter what choice the witness makes, adverse consequences occur. Maximizing the societal value by testifying minimizes personal values of safety or freedom or both. Minimizing the societal value may not raise the level of personal need satisfaction, because the criminal will still be at large in the witness’s neighborhood. Reasoning makes the connection between claims and the evidence used to ground them. Although in actual argument the warrant and its backing are seldom stated, it is only through the presentation of the warrant that your reasoning is explicitly stated to your reader or listener. In your early attempts to frame arguments from dilemma, we suggest you include at least four elements of the Toulmin model—grounds, warrant, backing, and claim—as a means of developing facility with this technique of reasoning. When you reason, you make an inference that establishes relationships between observed or known facts and the probable truth or validity of a claim. The purpose of reasoning is to assist in determining that probability. In the process, warrants are offered in the form of argument from cause, sign, generalization, parallel case, analogy, authority, or dilemma. Each form has some specific tests associated with it that help determine the validity of the reasoning process. However, these tests do not identify all the potential errors in reasoning that can occur in argumentation.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Conduct a discussion of argument from cause on one or more controversial topics such as gun control, abortion, euthanasia, or a campus controversy. What necessary and sufficient conditions establish cause in each case? Are these instances in which multiple causality may apply? What would be necessary to prove cause in each case? 2. Find examples of public opinion polls on an issue such as gun control, pollution, or presidential popularity. Construct an argument from sign based on the statistical information. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of this sign in establishing the probable truth of your claim. 3. Examine the text of several speeches from a recent issue of Vital Speeches, or other similar source, for examples of the use of analogies. Share your examples in class. Which analogies succeed in creating comparisons that make the unknown more easily understood? Which seem to fail, and why do they fail? On the basis of this experience, are analogies a useful reasoning technique?

REFERENCES Cable competition—Increasing price; Increasing value? (2004, February 11). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. Children carrying weapons: Why the recent increase? (1992, October 1). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate.

150

How Do I Reason with My Audience?

Derivative rights, moral rights, and movie filtering technology. (2004, May 20). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. Drugs in the 1990s: New perils, new promise. (1989, August 31). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. Ehninger, D. E. (1974). Influence, belief, and argument. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman. Eisenberg, A. M., & Ilardo, J. A. (1980). Argument: A guide to formal and informal debate (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Forest protection initiative and national forest policy. (2001, October 2). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests of the Committee on Energy and National Resources, U. S. Senate. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., & Janik, A. (1984). An introduction to reasoning (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Wilcox, J. R. (1973). The argument from analogy: A new look. Unpublished paper, Central States Speech Association, Minneapolis. Wilson, B. A. (1980). The anatomy of argument. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Witness intimidation: Showdown in the streets—Breakdown in the courts. (1994, August 4). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives. Ziegelmueller, G. W., Kay, J., & Dause, C. A. (1990). Argumentation: Inquiry and advocacy (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

151

This page intentionally left blank

What Should I Avoid?

From Chapter 8 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

153

What Should I Avoid?

T

he strength of your arguments is determined by the use of reliable evidence, sound reasoning, and adaptation to the audience. In the process of argumentation, mistakes sometimes occur. At this point, it is important to distinguish between those made deliberately to distort or deceive and those made in error. The message appears the same, whether the mistake is the product of intentional deception or the honest error of an arguer who has failed to examine his or her arguments critically. These mistakes are generically termed fallacies. Rather than identifying all possible ways in which deliberate distortion and deception can occur, this chapter focuses on errors to avoid, which will better serve your development as an arguer. This chapter also suggests how you can both improve your skills as an advocate or an opponent of change and hone your critical thinking skills to become a more discerning consumer of argument. Most errors in logic result from faulty reasoning or problems in language choice, so we want to emphasize the need to pay careful attention to the structure of arguments, the nature of the appeals they make, and the language used to phrase them. Consider these problems from the following perspective: The study of fallacies can be thought of as a kind of sensitivity-training in reasoning. It should attune the student to the omnipresent dangers to which we are exposed as a consequence of imprecise expressions—vague, ambiguous, or misdefined terms—students should also be alert to unarticulated assumptions and presumptions. (Toulmin, Rieke, & Janik, 1984, p. 132)

FALLACIES IN REASONING Hasty Generalization When you make a hasty generalization, you have committed the error of jumping to a conclusion. Recall the two tests of argument from generalization: The generalization must be made on the basis of a sufficient number of cases, and the cases must compose a representative sample of all cases. The fallacy of hasty

154

What Should I Avoid?

generalization occurs when the claim is not warranted, either because insufficient cases were used or because they constitute a nonrepresentative sample. Wagering on amateur and professional sports is illegal everywhere in the country except Nevada. William Saum, director of agent, gambling, and amateurism activities for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) committed the fallacy of hasty generalization when he urged the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce to close the so-called “Nevada loophole” in the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Legalized amateur sports wagering in Nevada continues to blunt efforts of the NCAA and higher education to combat college sports wagering. The insidious effect of legalized wagering on college sports has crept far beyond the Nevada state line. Even though sports wagering is illegal in nearly every state, point spreads on college games are published in newspapers across the country, bookies are common fixtures on college campuses, and new technologies allow bets on college games to be placed over the Internet or in a casino in innovative ways. The dollars involved are big and escalating every year. By clearly making gambling on college sports illegal everywhere all the time, we will strengthen our efforts to maintain the integrity of college sports. This nation’s college and university system is one of our greatest assets. We offer the world the model for postsecondary education. Betting on the outcome of college sporting events tarnishes the integrity of sport and diminishes the esteem in which we and the rest of the world hold United States colleges and universities. While we recognize that a ban on collegiate sports wagering will not eliminate all gambling on college sports, it is a significant part. Our goal is to protect student-athletes and remove the unseemly influences of sports wagering on our amateur athletes and the games they play. (Challenges facing amateur athletics, 2002, p. 35)

The scientific method imposes rigorous standards for data collection and analysis that must be met if valid generalizations are to be drawn. In the field of scientific argument, reports of results often include a discussion of the limitations that restrict their generalizability, which constitute deficiencies in backing for the implicit warrant that the results are generalizable beyond the sample because they were derived from the scientific method. No similar tradition exists in other fields of argument. Although arguers in these fields should make every attempt to avoid committing fallacies, the onus is on their listeners and readers to engage in critical thinking to make sure they are not being deceived, even in circumstances such as a congressional hearing where spokespersons for the other side of the controversy will be present. Although Mr. Saum qualifies his conclusion, saying “we recognize that a ban on collegiate sports wagering will not eliminate all gambling on college sports,” that does not minimize the significance of two hasty generalizations that precede it. The first is the argument that legal sports betting in Nevada influences the decision by newspapers to publish point spreads, bookies to do business on college campuses, and people to wager lots of money on sports in places where doing it is illegal. The second is the assertion that “the esteem in which we and the rest of the world hold United States colleges and universities” is diminished when people place bets on the outcome the Rose Bowl. Avoiding the fallacy of hasty generalization underscores the importance of our earlier suggestions that arguers include all elements of the primary triad in the Toulmin model of argument and that they back their warrants. “If we are forced to spell out the warrants on which our arguments rely and the backing on which

155

What Should I Avoid?

those warrants depend, it will usually become clear at once when our grounds are based on too small a sample of cases or on examples that are quite untypical” (Toulmin et al., 1984, p. 154). Many fallacious generalizations occur when arguers are tempted to squeeze more from an argument than is actually warranted. Arguing an unqualified claim grounded on insufficient or atypical cases, rather than one qualified to conform to the limitations of your research, is a mistake. Because generalization is one of the most frequently used forms of reasoning, you are well advised to examine very carefully the generalizations you make and hear.

Transfer Transfers extend reasoning beyond what is logically possible. There are three common types of transfer: fallacy of composition, fallacy of division, and fallacy of refutation. Fallacies of composition occur when a claim asserts that what is true of a part is true of the whole. The written statement of Merriah Fairchild, Higher Education Director of the California Student Public Interest Research Group, which accompanied her testimony, included the following: Results of the CALPIRG Report Ripoff 101: How the Current Practices of the Textbook Industry Drive Up the Cost of College Textbooks Throughout fall 2003, a team of students and staff at ten University of California and Oregon campuses conducted interviews with bookstore managers and faculty and compared different editions of the five most purchased textbooks. The report was peer reviewed by a number of academics and a former publishing industry executive to confirm the statistical validity of the report’s findings and conclusions. Among the report’s findings: Textbooks Are Expensive and Getting Even More Expensive • Students will spend an average of $898 per year on textbooks in 2003–04, or almost 20 percent of the cost of in-state fees. In contrast, a 1997 UC survey found that students spent an average of $642 on textbooks in 1996–97. Textbook Publishers Add Bells and Whistles That Inflate the Price of Textbooks; Most Faculty Do Not Use These Materials • Half of all textbooks now come “bundled” or shrink-wrapped with additional instructional materials, such as CD-ROMs and workbooks. • Of all the books surveyed, there was only one instance in which students could buy a textbook “a la carte” or without additional materials. In that example, the bundled version was $120, while the unbundled version was only $60. Over sixty-five percent of the faculty surveyed for the report say they “rarely” or “never” use the bundled materials in their courses. Textbook Publishers Put New Editions on the Market Frequently—Often With Very Few Content Changes—Making the Less Expensive, Used Textbooks Obsolete and Unavailable • Publishers keep textbook editions on the shelf for an average of only 3.5 years before updating them. • Meanwhile, seventy-six percent of faculty surveyed said that the new editions they use are justified half the time or less; over half of those faculty said that the new editions they use are “rarely to never” justified. (Are college textbooks fairly priced? 2004, p. 10)

156

What Should I Avoid?

Before you start thinking “hasty generalization,” because this argument certainly is one, notice that CALPIRG’s study focused on a very limited number of books and the faculty who adopt them. A written statement submitted for the record in response to CALPIRG by Thomson Higher Education quotes Professor of Statistics Jessica M. Utts at University of California, Davis: In fact the size of the population relative to the sample is irrelevant, as long as the population is large. The two relevant issues are the size of the sample, and the method of selection. In CALPIRG’s case, they say the students were “randomly surveyed” but then say they were chosen as they finished buying their books at the campus bookstore. That is not a “random” sample. They also admit that the faculty were selected based on what books they used in their classes. Thus, they were not randomly selected either. (Are college textbooks fairly priced? 2004, p. 41)

When claims assert that what is true of a part is true of the whole, the warrant and its backing must be carefully examined, because they are what justifies the inferential leap from part to whole. CALPIRG’s argument makes the inferential leap from part to whole in two ways. First, it asserts that what is true of “the five most purchased textbooks” is true of all textbooks. Second, it asserts that the beliefs of faculty who select these textbooks are held by faculty in general. The most purchased books are likely to be those used in mass-lecture or standardized multisection courses that most, if not all, students at a particular school are required to take. Although such courses can account for a lot of textbook sales, they represent a small, and potentially atypical, part of the universe of college textbooks and college professors. Fallacies of division are the opposite of fallacies of composition. This error arises from arguing that what is true of the whole will be true of its parts. When you break a whole into its parts and attempt to make claims about them, you may create an unwarranted transfer from the whole to its parts. “Speech courses are fun, and argumentation is a speech course; therefore, argumentation is fun.” This may be true or it may be false, but the transfer from whole to part is not sufficiently warranted. Johnny Hughes, retired major in the Maryland State Police and the director of government relations for the National Troopers Coalition, committed the fallacy of division in the statement he submitted to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary in which he claims racial profiling does not occur: If some misguided governors, politicians, and police chiefs continue to attack the issue of legitimate criminal profiling and call it racial profiling, legitimate policing of this nation’s drug couriers will be dramatically reduced. Good police officers will be afraid to stop anyone for fear of being labeled a racist and facing retaliation by their police department and political rivals. Some police commissioners, superintendents, and chiefs have already yielded and are not supporting their troopers and police officers on this particular issue. Overreaction to race rather than crime is a travesty, as troopers and police officers are in the direct line of fire. Numerous troopers and police officers have been killed or severely injured on drug interdiction traffic stops. The National Troopers Coalition represents 45,000 sworn State Police and Highway Patrol personnel. These fine troopers and officers of all ranks, trooper through colonel, support and utilize professional policing methods. Race-based traffic stops is not one of them. (Racial profiling within law enforcement agencies, 2000, p. 44)

157

What Should I Avoid?

The subcommittee heard testimony from a number of witnesses indicating criminal profiling was racially biased. Setting that aside for the moment, even if law enforcement officers as a whole do not use race as the basis for pulling people over, that does not mean the some officers do not stop motorists for the offense of “driving while black or latino” and nothing else. Whenever we speak of all members of a group as having uniform attributes, motives, or behavior patterns, we risk committing the fallacy of division. Fallacy of refutation is the final transfer fallacy, also known as the straw man argument. It occurs when an arguer attempts to direct attention to the successful refutation of an argument that was never raised or to restate a strong argument in a way that makes it appear weaker. It is called a straw man argument because it focuses on an issue that is easy to overturn. It is a form of deception because it introduces a bogus claim, one that was not part of the argument or misrepresents the original claim. In his written testimony, Wallace I. Renfro, senior advisor to the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, commits the fallacy of refutation in arguing that critics of higher academic standards for student-athletes are not only attacking the integrity of intercollegiate athletics but university faculties as well. The votes by the Division I Board of Directors on the new reform initiatives had barely been reported last month when the critics went on the attack. The worst are the cynics who have declared that the reform efforts will fail because faculty will succumb to the unrestrained pressure of coaches and fans and commit academic fraud to ensure that studentathletes remain eligible and athletics programs remain successful. Their arguments are specious. They would have us believe that higher academic standards result in increased instances of academic fraud. The logical counterpart is that reduced standards will reduce academic fraud, and the elimination of all standards will end academic fraud for good. The Board rejects completely the notion that tougher standards are a barrier to improving academic performance. Faculties around the country should be insulted by the suggestion that their collective integrity will wilt in the heat of competitive pressure. Academic fraud is the result of loss of integrity and not the result of higher standards or enhanced expectations. Nor is it fair to characterize all coaches as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who are disinterested in the academic success of their student-athletes. The vast majority of coaches view themselves as educators who take pride in the classroom achievements of their charges. (Supporting our intercollegiate student-athletes, 2004, p. 19)

Fallacies of this sort are relatively easy to commit. We often raise a series of questions or call attention to things related but not central to the issue at hand, thinking they constitute a sufficient response to the arguments of another. Mr. Renfro is correct in claiming that critics believe higher standards would increase fraud, but they never claimed that lowering or eliminating standards would reduce it. Although it is true that faculty may be insulted by charges that they will succumb to pressure and commit academic fraud, that does not mean there will not be pressure, and it does not mean some faculty will not cave in. It is easy to accidentally shift the focus of argumentation in an inappropriate direction. When we are uninformed or ill-prepared, we may unintentionally create straw man arguments. Carefully examine the degree of similarity between the things compared in an analogy or the number of cases used to support a generalization. Responding to an argument perceived to be weak with a strong argument of your

158

What Should I Avoid?

own does not mean you are necessarily creating a straw man by magnifying a minor issue into a major one. Remember, the quality of individual units of argument can vary, depending on both the competence of the arguers and the availability of evidence.

Irrelevant Arguments An irrelevant argument is one that does not seem pertinent in terms of the claim it advances or the basis of the proof it offers. Such fallacies are also known as non sequiturs, Latin for “it does not necessarily follow.” Representative Ed Whitfield of Kentucky had the following to say during the hearings concerning the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004: I disagree with some in the industry who say that these incidents are so fleeting, or are so insignificant that they don’t really have an impact. Any time a flagrantly inappropriate word or scene is broadcast into tens of millions of homes across the nation, in my opinion, that incident ceases to be isolated or rare. (The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004, 2004, p. 20)

These hearings took place shortly after the exposure of Janet Jackson’s right breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. In the context of the Super Bowl halftime extravaganza, which lasts longer than the halftime for any other NFL game, this roughly one-second event was so fleeting that some people were not sure what had happened until they checked their TIVOs. In the context of what has become a half-day Super Bowl experience, complete with pre-game and postgame shows, it “does not follow” that because millions of people saw her breast the “incident ceases to be isolated or rare.” A questionable argument from analogy can seem like a non sequitur. Not to be outdone by his colleague, minutes later Representative Michael F. Doyle of Pennsylvania made the following observation: And I further wonder why we can’t establish a more effective and timely method of reviewing complaints and handing out fines when necessary. You know, when a driver runs a red light or parks in the wrong spot, their fine is swiftly established, yet when indecent material is broadcast to millions of people, our current process can take years to conclude. Unfortunately, that seems to both allow for and almost invite further abuse. (The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004, 2004, p. 20)

Although the definition of what constitutes “running a red light” is fairly well established and understood, what constitutes “indecent material” is not. Whether we ever could or should think of them in the same way is an open question. Therein lies the rub and the reason these hearings were held. If it is your intention to advance an argument, do so completely by stating your claim, the grounds that support it, and the warrant that links them so that you do not appear guilty of speaking or writing in non sequiturs.

Circular Reasoning Also known as begging the question, circular reasoning supports claims with reasons identical to the claims themselves. Donald M. Fehr, executive director of

159

What Should I Avoid?

the Major League Baseball Players Association, managed to talk himself around in an almost perfect circle while discussing the issue of privacy as it relates to drug testing: Another important issue which is implicated in this discussion we summarize in a single word, and that’s “privacy.” We believe that any program can be successful, on steroids or anything else, only if stringent safeguards are in place to protect the privacy of the employees, particularly so in an industry like baseball in which the lives of the players—and the rest of us, for that matter—are so much in the public eye. We also recognize the ongoing public debate, which has been referred to in the opening statements this morning, about the merits of cause-based versus random testing. The Players Association has always believed that one should not, absent compelling safety considerations, invade the privacy of an individual without a substantial reason—that is to say without cause—related to conduct by that individual and not merely to his status as an employed baseball player. We understand, of course, that the principles underlying the Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches and seizures are not directly applicable to the private employment setting. Nevertheless, such principles should not, we submit, be lightly put aside. (Steroid use, 2002, p. 27)

In this example, the meaning of grounds and warrant are equivalent to the meaning of the claim itself. CLAIM: GROUND:

WARRANT:

You shouldn’t invade the privacy of a player who is already in the public eye. Even though “Fourth Amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches and seizures are not directly applicable to the private employment setting . . . such principles should not . . . be lightly put aside.” “One should not, absent compelling safety considerations, invade the privacy of an individual without a substantial reason—that is to say without cause.”

Strictly speaking, this is a nonargument, because it makes no inference from grounds through warrant to claim. It is an example of a fallacious attempt to support a claim by simply repeating the essential aspects of the claim using different words.

Avoiding the Issue Any attempt to shift attention away from the issue at hand is an error, because ignoring an issue rather than discussing it denies the integrity of the reasoning process. Although we suspect that some avoidance behaviors are intentional, it is more likely that arguers pay insufficient attention to the task at hand. Monitor your own behavior and that of others for these common errors. Simple evasion is the first type of avoidance. Changing the subject for no apparent reason, or bypassing a critical issue, diverts attention from the issues central to the argument. This error is most likely to occur when insufficient time has been spent analyzing the topic to determine which issues are inherent to the proposition. In some instances, evasion represents a conscious attempt to avoid confronting an unpleasant fact. In response to a question by Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota about why baseball could not have a drug testing program like the National Basketball

160

What Should I Avoid?

Association’s, which screened for drugs that were not explicitly banned by Congress, Fehr had this to say: First of all, I don’t speak for, and don’t purport to speak for, the NBA players or anyone other than my own constituency, so I’m not going to speak to those issues. I assume they do what they do for reasons that they believe are good and sufficient to themselves. Secondly, that does not resolve the question which may arise from time to time, which is, “If this substance is not prohibited, and if I’m of a certain age, is that not a choice that I should make?” Now, to ask the question doesn’t answer it, but there are lots of things we say in this country that are different. You can’t buy alcohol when you’re in 5th grade. You can’t buy tobacco when you’re in 5th grade. You can’t advertise tobacco to kids. You can’t do any of that stuff. Third—and this is most important point, I think, for me. And we all have kids, and this is why I think this is a much more significant issue than just baseball, although that’s where the publicity has been. In fact, if children are using a lot of these substances, and we’ve just been talking about androstenedione, it is in large part because 11-year-olds can walk into stores and buy them. And there’s no getting around that. And that is something that Congress can do something about, which is why we invite you to take a look at it. It doesn’t answer the question as to what you do in baseball. But I respectfully suggest it’s a much bigger question than what we do in baseball. (Steroid use, 2002, p. 52)

Attacking the person not the argument is the second avoidance behavior. Known as an ad hominem argument, it shifts attention to the arguer’s personality or appearance, ability to reason, skin color, or values, none of which tell us anything about the validity of the arguments. It is essential that the worth of ideas behind claims be given primary consideration in the argumentative context; the ad hominem argument subverts this. Former President Carter wrote a book of poetry that was well received by critics. An ad hominem attack dismissed it briefly, without presenting sound reasons why it was not worth reading. “He’s written a book of poetry. I think that I shall never see/a poem as lovely as a goober pea” (Mullen, 1995, p. 10). A more extensive example is found in the testimony of Robert Corn-Revere, a partner in the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. In it, he labeled one of the other witnesses testifying a censor and attacked his motives: Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court has written that self-assurance is the hallmark of the censor. And in that case, Mr. Bozell seems to be very, very certain about what programs we should not be watching on television or listening to on radio. Just going by the Web site of the Parents Television Council, for example, they list the top 10 and the worst 10 and the best 10 television shows. The No. 1 show on the worst 10 is CSI, Crime Scene on CBS, which just coincidentally is the top-rated show on television. If the community standard for broadcasting has nothing to do with people—with what people have chosen to watch, I am not sure what the community standard may be. There is also a part of the Web site for Parents Television Council that calls on people to file complaints with the FCC over the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Now, say what you will about that show, you might like it, you might hate it, for purpose of constitutional analysis it is really the same thing as Baywatch, although with perhaps better acting. (“Can you say that on TV?” 2004, pp. 70–71)

There is one circumstance in which attacking the person is appropriate and does not commit any fallacy. That is when the qualifications of a source of information

161

What Should I Avoid?

are called into question. So long as the argument focuses on factors relevant to the disputed issue and avoids irrelevant personal attack, no fallacy of reasoning takes place. In a written response to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Professor Michael Radelet of the University of Florida and Professor Adam Bedau of Tufts University attacked the tactics of a witness who appeared before the committee and the expertise of a source of information used by that witness: Mr. Cassell also presented the Committee with a distorted discussion of the research that has been done on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Again, the belief that only sources that support his conclusion should be cited is seen. Mr. Cassell argues that the death penalty has strong deterrent effects, and cites a study done by Stephen Layson, a young economist, not a criminologist, and published in a regional economics journal, as support. He ignores the fact that a meticulous critique of this study has been published since 1989 that showed that Mr. Layson’s conclusions do not follow from his data. In addition, Mr. Cassell ignores the fact that no criminologist or sociologist in the country today claims to have data that show the death penalty has a better deterrent effect than long imprisonment. He ignores the fact that virtually every study done on deterrence in the United States in the last sixty years has found no deterrent effects. He ignores such authority as the National Academy of Sciences, whose study on this topic in 1978 concluded that a study similar to that cited by Mr. Cassell had no relevance for public policy. Even Stephen Layson, author of the study cited by Mr. Cassell, acknowledged in his 1985 congressional testimony that his results were an artifact of the 1960s, when few executions occurred, and thus the findings could not be generalized to other years in the irresponsible way done by Mr. Cassell. By ignoring the problems with the work on deterrence he cites, as well as by ignoring numerous other studies that conflict with his preset conclusions, Mr. Cassell misleads this Committee about the status of modern research on deterrence. (Innocence and the death penalty, 1993, p. 158)

What Professors Radelet and Bedau did differs from the two previous examples because they offer a series of arguments indicting the tactics of Mr. Cassell and the qualifications of Mr. Layson. They apply tests of proof, source credibility, and sound reasoning rather than attacking the personhood of either the opposing arguer or his source. They apply the rule of that noted practitioner of argumentation, Don Vito Corleone, the Godfather: “It’s not personal, it’s business.” Shifting ground is a third fallacy of avoidance. Shifts of ground occur when an arguer abandons his or her original position on a particular argument and adopts a new one. It is probably one of the easiest errors to commit. In everyday communication, most of us do not decide on what we plan to say in advance. There is a tendency to adapt, to modify our thoughts and the manner of their expression, to those around us. This becomes a problem when we are involved in argumentation, because shifting ground gives the impression of evasiveness. We need to be careful to stick to our claims. This does not mean you can never change your mind or admit an error in argumentation. However, if you find it necessary to move away from your original claims, take special care to explain what has caused you to shift ground. L. Brent Bozell III, president and founder of The Parents Television Council gives the impression of shifting ground in response to Mr. Corn-Revere’s charge that he is acting like a censor. MR. BOZELL: MR. UPTON:

162

Since this attack came out of nowhere, can I defend myself? I will give you 30 seconds.

What Should I Avoid?

MR. BOZELL:

Fine. First of all, we have never suggested that nobody should watch CSI. That is preposterous, and you know that. Second, where Victoria’s Secret is concerned, many organizations complained, people complained from all over the country. I thought that was our right, first amendment. Thank you. (“Can you say that on TV?” 2004, p. 71)

Seizing on a trivial point is the final error of avoidance. When you locate another’s weak or indefensible argument and magnify it out of all proportion to discredit his entire position on the proposition, you have committed the fallacy of seizing on a trivial point. Sarah Brady almost committed the fallacy of seizing on a trivial point in responding to Senator Herbert Kohl’s question about the claim that the existence of 22,000 gun laws proves that legislation cannot reduce gun-related violence: No one has ever been able to figure out where this 22,000 figure comes from. According to the Justice Department we can only figure out close to 15,000 or 16,000 laws, most of which are very local, some very antiquated. (Children and gun violence, 1993, p. 159)

The accuracy of factual information is of great importance, but focusing all of your attention on minor inaccuracies and trivial points is unsound argumentation. Had her response stopped at this point, Ms. Brady would have seized on a trivial point. Even using the lower range of the Justice Department estimate, 15,000 laws is a lot. It should be enough to reduce gun-related violence if laws were a necessary or sufficient cause to produce that effect. The remainder of her response to Senator Kohl’s question is what enabled her to avoid the fallacy of seizing on a trivial point: They are certainly not federal laws. And it points out what we need are effective, national, uniform laws that are enforceable and that are enforced. And we need effective laws, and that’s what we’re working toward with the Brady Bill, . . . which would be put in place federally, what Wisconsin already has in place. . . . Make it uniform so that you can’t go to other states and traffic guns back in, so that everybody across the country is on an even footing. (Children and gun violence, 1993, p. 159)

Forcing a Dichotomy A forced dichotomy is one in which listeners or readers are presented with an oversimplified either–or choice, phrased in such a way that it forces them to favor the arguer’s preferred option. The fallaciousness of the forced dichotomy rests on its failure to consider alternative choices fully. The forced dichotomy is also known as the false dilemma. Because argument from dilemma involves clustering two or more arguments from cause, forced dichotomies, or false dilemmas, are produced when arguers fail to account for the possibility of partial or multiple causality. The forced dichotomy is a fallacy in reasoning because the choice that it forces one to make is too simplistic. Notice how Representative Charles Schumer rejected a false dichotomy, that television is either the cause of all social problems or has no effect on them whatsoever, in his statement opening the hearings on television violence: At a recent symposium on television violence sponsored by TV Guide, Neil Hickey pointed out that, in 1940, the seven top problems in public schools identified by teachers

163

What Should I Avoid?

were: talking out of turn; chewing gum; making noise; running in the halls; cutting in line; dress code infractions; and illiteracy. In 1980, the top seven problems in public schools were: suicide; assault; robbery; rape; drug abuse; alcohol abuse; and pregnancy. Now, of course, television is not to blame for all of this dramatic change, but it is just as wrong to say it has had no effect at all. It has, and that is why we are here. (Violence on television, 1992, p. 2)

The either–or rhetoric of a forced dichotomy in this instance would have forestalled consideration of too many potential issues. In human affairs, truth about causality is seldom an either–or proposition, a simple choice between two alternative explanations. Examine your own reasoning and that of others to avoid being trapped into arguing or accepting forced dichotomies.

Summary of Fallacies in Reasoning 1. Hasty generalizations offer conclusions based on insufficient information— for example, on too few instances, atypical examples, or overstatements that claim more than is warranted. 2. Transfer fallacies of composition result from the unwarranted assumption that what is true of the part is true of the whole. 3. Transfer fallacies of division result from the unwarranted assumption that what is true of the whole is true of its parts. 4. Irrelevant arguments, non sequiturs, make assumptions that do not follow from the information provided. 5. Circular reasoning offers as warrants and grounds statements equivalent in meaning to the claims they are supposed to support. 6. Avoiding the issue is an error in reasoning that shifts attention from the issue under consideration. It commonly takes the form of a simple evasion of the issue, an attack on the arguer rather than the argument, a shift of ground, or seizing on a trivial point rather than the central issue. 7. Forcing a dichotomy puts the listener or reader in the position of having to choose between oversimplified either–or options.

FALLACIES OF APPEAL When you construct an argument, you do not do so in a vacuum. You have an audience in mind and develop your arguments accordingly. This can lead you to commit a series of fallacies based on the appeals you decide to make. In particular, we must be careful when appealing to emotion rather than the ability to reason. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with emotional appeals, but problems can arise when you use these appeals to avoid arguing the issues at hand. Appeals that bypass reason are usually based on the feelings, prejudices, or desires of the audience. The fallacies of appeal we shall discuss are some of the more commonly occurring lapses arguers experience that reduce the rationality of their arguments. Again, we emphasize that emotional appeals are an important part of the process of persuasion and caution that, in argumentation, emotion should not supplant reason.

164

What Should I Avoid?

Appeal to Ignorance Appeals to ignorance, known as the ad ignoratium argument, ask the audience to accept the truth of a claim because no proof to the contrary exists. In other words, something is true simply because it cannot be proven false. Dr. Arnold Relman, M.D., and Professor Emeritus of Medicine and of Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School begged the question in a unique way in responding to Larry Craig, Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, on the question of whether direct-to-consumer drug advertising has any effect: THE CHAIRMAN:

DR. RELMAN:

Dr. Relman, in your testimony you stated “There is no scientific evidence to support the contention that DTC advertising encourages people to consult physicians for earlier diagnoses or treatment.” How do you respond to the surveys by FDA and Prevention Magazine that indicate that as many as 20 million people visited with their doctor about a condition for the first time as a result of DTC advertising? Senator, one of the basic rules of all good epidemiologic research is that there be adequate controls. There are simply no controls for all such studies. We do not know in any systematic, quantitative way what the behavior would be of patients who never heard about these ads for the simple reason that there is hardly anybody who is conscious in America these days who has not heard about these ads. If you look at the data which says well, these ads are responsible for the behavior, it will not pass muster. It would not have been accepted for the New England Journal of Medicine or any other really rigorously peer-reviewed journal.

Senator Craig then asked Dr. Janet Woodcock, M.D., and Director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, how she would respond to that statement. It would be a challenge in today’s environment, as Dr. Relman just alluded to, to design such a study. It would be difficult to take a segment of our population and refuse to allow them access to prescription drug ads so that we could determine what their behavior is. There are methodologic difficulties in getting to the level of scientific proof that Dr. Relman is looking for. (Direct-to-consumer advertising, 2003, p. 117)

Dr. Woodcock’s answer indicates the inherent problem in trying to scientifically prove that exposure to drug advertising causes people to check with their doctor sooner than might have otherwise been the case. Given his background, Dr. Relman’s appreciation for the medical model of scientific research is understandable, but it causes him to dismiss the existence of all evidence collected using alternative models that supports a causal connection. For him, if you cannot prove something happens using this method, it means it does not happen. Even more troublesome is the technique of claiming that because we cannot prove something has not happened, or does not exist, it therefore must have happened or must exist. Consider this example: “The inability to disprove the existence of flying saucers and extraterrestrial visitation to earth confirms the existence

165

What Should I Avoid?

of the former and the occurrence of the latter.” Can you make nonfallacious claims about what the absence of proof may mean? The answer is yes, to a certain extent. Artificial presumption may be assigned in such a way that failure to prove something leads to the conclusion that its logical opposite is true. When the prosecution fails to present a prima facie case against the accused, we conclude the accused must be innocent. In other fields that do not rely exclusively on artificial presumption, the absence of contrary evidence may strengthen a claim, but it in no way proves it. The absence of evidence may simply mean that research regarding the phenomenon has not been very thorough.

Appeal to the People Also known as the bandwagon appeal, the ad populum argument, is an appeal to the people that addresses the audience’s prejudices and feelings rather than the issues at hand. When a claim is justified on the basis of its alleged popularity—we should do or believe something because the majority of people do or believe it—an appeal to the people is being made. FCC Commission Michael J. Copps did precisely that in the following: I think the average citizen has helped bring us to where we are today. I think the average citizen has kind of compelled the attention of the Federal Communications Commission for the first time in many, many, many, many years or even going farther back. I have a great trust in the average citizen when he or she speaks out, and if given the facts I hold to that quaint notion that the American people will probably arrive at the conclusion of what is the right thing to do for the country. I think millions of Americans have arrived at the conclusion that the time is now to do something on indecency. I think our leaders also, like Brent Bozell and the Parents Television Council, Jim Steyer, Common Sense Media, the list goes on and churches and others who have been instrumental in this, not because they’re directing an orchestra, but because they’re responsive to the grass roots and they appreciate the sentiment that’s out there and how widespread it is in every nook and corner of this land. (The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004, 2004, p. 133)

On the one hand, common sense suggests that when matters concerning “the people” are discussed, their will should be taken into account. In the case of a future law, this allows us to forecast whether it would likely be obeyed or violated. On the other hand, to make popular opinion the sole criterion of a claim’s worth, and to appeal to this opinion to discourage consideration of pertinent facts, cannot help but result in less informed and less thoughtful decisions. Critical consideration of the issues should take precedence over popular opinion.

Appeal to Emotion As we suggested, the use of emotional appeals is not necessarily bad, nor is it possible to be entirely rational. Nevertheless, strong appeals to emotion are no substitute for careful reasoning. Any emotion may be a source of appeal; here, we will concentrate on the two used most frequently in poor argumentation, appeals to pity and fear. Traditionally, the use of the appeal to pity was taught as a means of creating audience sympathy for an individual or group. Such appeals are common on topics

166

What Should I Avoid?

that address the suffering of those unable to overcome misfortune without the aid of others. No fallacy is committed when such appeals are used in conjunction with sound reasoning. However, when pity is the only basis on which an alteration of belief or behavior is justified, argumentation has been abandoned in favor of exclusively emotive persuasion. The appeal to fear is another form of emotion seeking, arousing concern over potential consequences. As with appeals to pity, the use of appeals to fear is a matter of appropriateness and balance. There are occasions when a little fear is needed to move people to action, but appealing to fear alone may produce disastrous consequences. When fear dictates behavior, rash decisions may result, such as the blacklisting that destroyed careers during the McCarthy era. Lowell W. “Bud” Paxson, chairman and CEO of Paxson Communications Corporations suggested we have more than indecent content in what is broadcast to fear: Yes, the father and the mother have a responsibility of what their children watches. We also have a real issue here going beyond that. We are talking about the satellite, we are talking about the cable company. We are talking about the right of ways all owned by the public. And I can tell you that a majority of American people would stand up and scream no in no way, scrambled, unscrambled, in no way do we want our right of way, our licenses, our airways to be used for pornography. Let us go past indecency. Let us go right to the heart of the matter: pornography; 675 hours in one 24-hour period here in the Nation’s Capital on Tuesday. That is destroying the family. It is destroying it in every way. The kids can get to the remote. Mom is not in there every minute. A lot of families work. The kids come home in the afternoon. Their parents go to bed at 9. They get up at 11. There is just no way that the pornography issues should be allowed to exist. (The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004, 2004, p. 251)

Appeal to Authority An argument from authority that uses the opinions and testimony of experts is a legitimate form of reasoning. However, care must be exercised to ensure that the argument from authority does not become a fallacious appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is fallacious when a seemingly authoritative source of opinion either lacks real expertise or prevents a fair hearing of the other side of the issue. Instead of being used to ground a claim or back a warrant, the authority is characterized as infallible and is used to shut off further discussion of the issues. Abuses of authority commonly involve the Bible, the Constitution, revered persons, or testimonials by celebrities in advertising. Robert Corn-Revere used biblical examples to explain why “per se rules,” which define certain words as indecent, regardless of their context, do not work: For one thing, under such a rule, certain passages in the Bible would be banned from the air. Isaiah, Chapter 36, Verse 12, would be out, as would Samuel, Chapter 25, Verse 22. So would certain newscasts. In 1991, the FCC dismissed an indecency complaint against National Public Radio for a newscast which included an excerpt of a wiretap from the mob trial of mob boss, John Gotti. The same word or variations thereof that appeared in the Golden Globes’ telecast was repeated 10 times in the course of any 30-second segment. Nevertheless, the Commission found that, given the surrounding circumstances, the use of expletives during the Gotti segment does not meet its determination of broadcast indecency. (“Can you say that on TV?” 2004, p. 31)

167

What Should I Avoid?

At a later point in the hearings, representative John Shimkus of Illinois seems to commit the fallacy of appeal to authority by discussing the issue of per se rules as they might relate to certain passages from the Bible: Mr. Corn-Revere, you mentioned scripture, which brings us to this issue of intent. Second Timothy 3:16 says: All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for doctrine for rebuke, for training and righteousness, but the man of God might be equipped for every good deed. So if we just had a radio show and quoted scripture and then penalized the use of the word in scripture, the intent of the language in the scripture is not to debase, but it is to train, instruct, and it is—to train in righteousness. That is the whole intent. So I am going to throw out, how do we fashion legislative language—and I am a cosponsor—to make sure that we go after the bad actors, the people who are intending to defraud and abuse and misuse the public airwaves, and not go after, you know, as I said in the opening statement, slippage? And how do you craft in the FCC a ruling body that can judge intent? (“Can you say that on TV?” 2004, p. 69)

Representative Shimkus only avoids a fallacious appeal to authority to the extent that intent (his term) and context (Mr. Corn-Revere’s term) are synonymous, which his desire to “go after the bad actors” suggests is not the case. Besides avoiding the use of authority to short-circuit the process of argumentation entirely, be prepared to defend your choice of experts. Unknowingly, your choice may represent a fallacious use of authority if you cite someone outside her or his acknowledged field of expertise. Although we might take Tiger Woods’s advice about golf, is he likely to be an expert on cars or some of the other products he used to hawk? Making this distinction is sometimes difficult because an individual may be an expert in more than one field. At one time, comedian Bill Cosby appeared in a series of computer commercials. We might acknowledge his expertise as a performer, but what about education, the major claim advanced in these commercials? In fact, Bill Cosby has advanced degrees in psychology and education, has produced several educational films, and has also lectured on race relations and motivation. This illustrates why it is always important to provide information documenting the qualifications of those you cite.

Appeal to Humor Appeals based on humor can be problematical for several reasons. The arguer who resorts to a series of jokes about women drivers to refute criticism of auto safety standards uses humor to entertain rather than enlighten. When humor becomes the focal point of the discussion, the point of argumentation is lost. Representative Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin comes perilously close to committing the fallacy of appealing to humor in her opening remarks during the hearings concerning the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the method by which a national champion is determined in Division I college football. I am sure that many of my colleagues did as I did over the Thanksgiving recess and spent much of our time in listening sessions and engaging with constituents. I can tell you my own experience, in listening session after listening session around my district, that I was shocked to hear more constituents talk about their confusion with the Medicare prescription drug plan than their confusion or the changes that are being

168

What Should I Avoid?

proposed to the BCS formula. I also have to admit, I was taken aback when I got more questions about what Congress is doing to provide health care to the uninsured and no questions about who I would pick to win the Heismann Trophy. For the record, I think that Reggie Bush is a lock, with all apologies to Texas University and Vince Young fans. (Determining a champion on the field, 2005, pp. 12–13)

Humor is also misused when it takes a claim to its most extreme and therefore absurd meaning. This is known as reductio ad absurdum. Reducing a claim to absurdity is a particularly troublesome kind of fallacy because it sometimes occurs in an effort to employ style. What it mostly does is decrease the discussion’s rationality. One of the premises of the National Rifle Association is frequently seen on bumper stickers: “I support the right to bear arms.” This claim is reduced to the absurd by another bumper sticker: “I support the right to arm bears!” Although such a turn of phrase may be witty, it has the effect of trivializing a serious issue. Certainly humor can be an effective device and humor can even have a positive effect, creating goodwill or lessening tensions in a heated situation. During the summer of 1980, President Carter had the unpleasant task of informing farmers in the Southwest that the economic aid they desired would not be forthcoming. Just before his helicopter landed in the drought-stricken Dallas-Fort Worth area, there was a sudden rainfall. President Carter began an address to a group of farmers saying, “Well, you asked for either money or rain. I couldn’t get the money so I brought the rain” (Boller, 1981, p. 346).

Appeal to Tradition We normally have strong ties to tradition, and learning the historical background of a topic is a good way to prepare to argue it. However, the act of asking an audience to accept something because it is customary rather than because of the reasons that justify it is the fallacy of appeal to tradition. Representative Baldwin followed up her lighthearted opening with an argument that explicitly appeals to tradition. But in all seriousness, I know that the BCS system has had its fair share of controversies since it was adopted in 1998. Moreover, I do believe that it is prudent for the Energy and Commerce Committee to keep a watchful eye on the integrity of billion dollar businesses, including college football. But I also believe that we must be careful and not go too far in suggesting changes to the bowl system that may damage the long tradition of college football and what it means to the schools, players and coaches. I think most college football fans in Wisconsin would prefer that retiring UW coach, Barry Alvarez, have more of a say in these types of decisions than Tammy Baldwin or members of Congress, and I agree. Those of you who follow college football know how much Wisconsin loves their Badgers, and believe me, there is nothing like going to Camp Randall Stadium and see that 85,000-plus crowd enjoy the game and come together in song to the tune of varsity at the end of the game. These traditions may be small, but they have helped make the school and the student body what it is today, and are deeply valued and appreciated by everyone who is a part of the university. Annual bowl games are much bigger traditions, but are valued in much the same way. (Determining a champion on the field, 2005, p. 13)

Just because bowl games have been the end-of-the-season focus for Division I college football in the past is not an adequate reason that they should be so in the future. This fallacious appeal to tradition implies that the existence of any tradition, be

169

What Should I Avoid?

it college bowl games or fraternity hazing, is sufficient in and of itself to justify its perpetuation. On that basis, women should not have the right to vote and African Americans should not have the opportunity to learn to read, because giving these rights to either group violates a tradition that was legally sanctioned at one time. Comparisons that reference tradition are not necessarily inappropriate. Value claims often involve matters of taste derived from tradition. A thorough analysis of the reasons behind a tradition provides a valid basis on which to argue its future violation or veneration. However, it is important to realize that arguing on behalf of a belief or behavior solely on the basis of tradition gives the audience insufficient understanding of the issues that justify opposing a proposed change in that belief or behavior. Recalling our discussion of presumption, you may think something is amiss. Doesn’t presumption favor tradition, that which is already in existence? Yes, and opponents in argumentation find themselves arguing on behalf of the benefits of continuing to believe or behave as we have in the past, just as Representative Baldwin does. However, when the opponent uses such argument, she must provide good and sufficient reasons to justify maintaining that tradition and not merely appeal to tradition alone.

Summary of Fallacies of Appeal 1. Appeals to ignorance ask the audience to accept a claim solely because no proof exists to deny its validity. 2. Appeals to the people ask an audience to accept a claim because it is supported by majority opinion. 3. Appeals to pity arouse sympathy for individuals or groups to encourage the redress of some wrong or misfortune they have suffered. 4. Appeals to fear attempt to gain the audience’s acceptance of a claim by arousing concern over the consequence it alleges. 5. Appeals to authority encourage reliance on some ultimate source of knowledge in place of reasoning as the basis of a claim. 6. Appeals to humor either fail to make a serious point or reduce another’s claim to its most absurd level. 7. Appeals to tradition ask an audience to accept a claim because it represents a customary belief or course of action.

FALLACIES OF LANGUAGE Language is the vehicle of an argument’s meaning, so arguers must be cognizant of how they use it in constructing arguments. We have already indicated some concerns about the way in which claims are phrased, and we have stressed the importance of defining terms. We will now discuss the care that must be exercised in choosing language appropriate to all aspects of argumentation. In any use of language, but especially in using it to alter belief or behavior, an important point to remember is that meanings are in people, not in words. The meaning we attach to the words of others is a consequence of their passing through our own perceptual filters. Become aware of your own language habits and biases to avoid falling victim to the fallacies of language described here.

170

What Should I Avoid?

Ambiguity and Equivocation The ambiguity of language interferes with effective argumentation when a term is used differently by both parties to the dispute. This “meanings are in people” problem may occur unintentionally, with both arguers operating on the basis of legitimate, but entirely different, meanings of a term. If you have ever handed a paper in late and the professor, emulating Benjamin Disraeli, has told you, “I shall lose no time in reading this,” you have experienced the uncertainty that ambiguity engenders. As with the errors resulting from the ambiguity of language, errors of equivocation occur because words have multiple legitimate meanings. Thus an error of equivocation occurs when we use ambiguous words to conceal the truth or avoid committing ourselves to a position. When you shift the meaning of a term in an argument, you are equivocating. When you use language to try to step around an issue rather than face it head on, you are equivocating. The statements of candidates for public office are frequently and intentionally equivocal as they attempt to avoid offending part of the electorate. In 2004, Mel Kazmazin was president and CEO of Viacom, Inc., the parent company of CBS that brought both the Super Bowl and Janet Jackson’s right breast into our living rooms. He appeared before the committee holding hearings on broadcast decency, and did his best to avoid being pinned down by the committee chair, Representative Fred Upton of Michigan: MR. UPTON:

MR. KARMAZIN: MR. UPTON: MR. KARMAZIN:

But on the one hand you said it was objectionable enough that even the producers, everybody was fired, and it’s off the air and a second later, you indicate—and that was justified, but the second case though, you don’t pay the fines. The FCC has agreed that it was, in fact, indecent. I would guess that everyone in this room in watching would say that it was totally inappropriate, terribly offensive to virtually everyone that heard it. You agreed with that. The FCC ruled and yet the fine is unpaid. Congressman, I think what you said was objectionable, offensive and we would all agree to that. The question— And indecent. The question is whether or not the material was indecent. So I can fire somebody for reasons that they broadcast something that I did not want on the air. I did not like during halftime of the Super Bowl that somebody touched their crotch, okay? I don’t know whether or not touching the crotch, there’s an awful lot of people who do that, whether or not that violates the indecency—but I can tell you that’s not acceptable for us. So the fact that we fire somebody doesn’t mean they violated necessarily the indecency standard, so the idea of paying the fine is basically acknowledging that you have aired indecency and my attorneys have assured me that in their judgment we did not air indecency. We aired objectionable, offensive, embarrassing, don’t want it, shocking all of these other words. The question is whether or not the legal first amendment standard of indecency was crossed. (The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004, 2004, pp. 43–44)

171

What Should I Avoid?

Because the audience is a part of the process of argumentation, it will be impossible for you to avoid all instances of ambiguity. However, by exercising care in phrasing arguments and defining key terms, you can avoid many errors of equivocation. You, as arguer, should be cognizant of language in the arguments you construct and scrutinize the language used in the evidence these arguments contain, especially when it is opinion evidence.

Emotionally Loaded Language The arguments of everyday life are frequently condensed to what fits on a bumper sticker, a T-shirt, or a picket sign carried at a march or rally: “War is unhealthy for children and other living things”; “Abortion is murder”; “A boy of quality is not threatened by a girl of equality.” In addition to serving as a vehicle for the denotation of ideas, language is a powerful instrument for the expression of attitudes and feelings. Your choice of language can reveal your attitude toward a topic. There can be little doubt how Marvin Kitman, television critic for Newsday, feels about the issue of violence: The networks are like serial killers. Their programs are the equivalent of writing with lipstick on the mirrors in our home, “Stop me before I kill again.” They have won the disrespect and distrust of the Nation in dealing with the violence problem. It is time TV was made to end the killing fields of violence. (Violence on television, 1992, p. 16)

In various forms of imaginative or creative speaking and writing, language that fully expresses feeling or attitude is highly prized. Indeed, if language did not possess the power to express and elicit feelings, most of the world’s great literature would not exist. In arguments, however, emotionally loaded language, which exceeds the natural warmth that marks a sincerely expressed belief and earnestness of purpose, becomes an impediment to rational decision making and represents a poor choice.

Technical Jargon The use of the technical terminology of a field becomes a problem when it so confuses listeners that they lose sight of the issues or when it is used in place of reasoning on the issues. Beginning arguers frequently become so involved in their topic that they forget that not everyone is as conversant with its jargon as they are. Technical terminology may be important in explaining the issues involved, but it is possible to send an audience into semantic shock if you ask them to deal with too many new terms at once. Audience analysis is critical in determining what needs further explanation and what does not. Some of the discussion of the bill prohibiting possession of handguns by juveniles centered on the wisdom of passing a law that would create, for the first time, a federal status offense. For those in attendance, the issue was not clouded by jargon. As lawmakers and lobbyists, they all knew a status offense is one in which behavior is only an offense (an illegal act) for persons of a certain status (under eighteen years old). A minor caught with a beer is a status offender. A minor caught with marijuana gets busted just as anyone else would.

172

What Should I Avoid?

In some cases, problems with jargon are less a result of the failure to analyze our audience than they are a failure to refrain from making word-salad when we speak or write: One of the concerns that we had in our preliminary review of the bill is that it doesn’t state an interstate nexus to it, and you have a situation of possession with intrastate, and so we just would want to address what we need to do in terms of the Federal Government’s role as the nexus in interstate commerce. (Children and gun violence, 1993, p.75)

The best way to avoid problems with jargon is to say what you mean, and mean what you say, plainly.

Summary of Fallacies of Language 1. Ambiguity occurs when a term is used in legitimate but different senses by two or more persons involved in argumentation. 2. Equivocation occurs when an individual uses a term in different ways in the context of the same argument. 3. Emotionally loaded language becomes a problem when we use terms that show more about our feelings on the issues than about the rational basis from which those feelings derive or when we use emotion as the sole means to alter the belief or behavior of others. 4. Technical jargon becomes a problem when the audience is overwhelmed with too many new terms or when it is used to impress the audience or replace sound reasoning. The foregoing are the sorts of errors in reasoning, appeal, and use of language that should be avoided in constructing your own arguments. Use them as a yardstick as well in evaluating the arguments of others. You should now be able to construct valid arguments, patterns of proof, and reasoning that are sufficient to support claims. You are ready to begin putting it all together.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Discuss current examples of advertising in the mass media. Which seem to contain fallacies? What kinds of fallacies are they? 2. Each of the following statements represents a fallacy of the types discussed in this chapter. Identify the type of fallacy in each statement and explain why the reasoning, appeal, or use of language is in error. Some statements contain more than one error, so be sure to identify all fallacies. a. In reference to high levels of defense and social spending, the government should have learned from the Vietnam experience that you can’t have guns and butter at the same time. b. By definition, since a housewife is someone who doesn’t work, it follows that all housewives are unemployed. c. When you’ve seen one zoo, you’ve seen them all. d. The Democratic party has always been the party of the working man and woman. It makes no sense for the AFL-CIO to endorse a Republican candidate.

173

What Should I Avoid?

e. Obviously, the authors of this chapter want to make us schizophrenic. They want us to learn how to both advocate and oppose a proposition on the same topic. f. Your argument that drunk driving causes death and injury is very interesting, but what about all the people who weren’t wearing their seatbelts at the time of the accident? Aren’t you assuming that every person involved in an automobile accident has been drinking? You can’t really make that claim until you look at some of the other information. g. We outlawed prayer in schools and look what happened! Within ten years of that sacrilegious Court’s decision, the divorce rate approached 50 percent, students were becoming functionally illiterate, drug abuse increased in our schools, and juvenile crime rose. h. Cheating on exams must surely be acceptable. After all, most college students cheat on an exam at least once. i. The advocate has obviously misanalyzed the situation. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom of choice in the matter of abortions in 1973, not 1972. j. The Motor Car Company’s new Q-Body designs have had serious problems with their brake systems. I’d be suspicious of all their products. k. Rolling Valley Vineyards must produce good wines. Their commercials state that they are the only American winery that doesn’t use pesticides to control insect damages to the crop. We should all be concerned about pesticides in what we eat and drink. l. The chairman of the rules committee says that our bylaws have been incorrectly developed. He ought to know. After all, he’s the chairman of the rules committee. m. We shouldn’t be surprised that State University’s basketball team was cited for recruiting violations. Recruiting players has always been a matter of which college could offer a prospect the best deal. n. Professional athletics is a hotbed of drug abuse. Why, just last week, three more football players were arrested for using cocaine.

REFERENCES Are college textbooks fairly priced? (2004, July 20). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness of the Committee on Education and the Work Force, U.S. House of Representatives. Boller, P. E., Jr. (1981). Presidential anecdotes. New York: Penguin. “Can you say that on TV?” An examination of the FCC’s enforcement with respect to broadcast indecency. (2004, January 28). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Telecommunication and the Internet of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. Challenges facing amateur athletics. (2002, February 13). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. Children and gun violence. (1993, June 9, and September 13). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. Determining a champion on the field: A comprehensive review of the BCS and postseason college football. (2005, December 7). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs: What are the consequences? (2003, July 22). Washington, DC: Special Committee on Aging, U.S. Senate. Innocence and the death penalty. (1993, April 1). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate.

174

What Should I Avoid?

Mullen, J. (1995, February 3). Jim Mullen’s hot sheet. Entertainment Weekly, p. 10. Racial profiling within law enforcement agencies. (2000, March 30). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. Steroid use in professional baseball and anti-doping issues in amateur sports. (2002, June 18). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Toursim of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate. Supporting our intercollegiate student-athletes: Proposed NCAA reforms. (2004, May 18). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives. The broadcast decency enforcement act of 2004. (2004, February 17 and 26). Washington, DC: Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U. S. House of Representatives. Toulmin, S., Rieke, R., & Janik, A. (1984) An introduction to reasoning (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. Violence on television. (1992, December 15). Washington, DC: Committee on the Judiciary, U. S. House of Representatives.

175

This page intentionally left blank

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

From Chapter 9 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

177

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

M

ost argumentation textbooks consider arguing a factual proposition a stepping-stone to arguing about values and policies. And, it is a valid point that the ability to successfully argue propositions of value and policy is greatly enhanced by knowing how to argue fact. The complexities of the postmodern world, however, have created a new interest in factual argumentation. The complicated relationships of our personal and public lives, the explosive development of technology, the pursuit of new knowledge, and the interpretation of existing knowledge in every field have revitalized argumentation theory and awakened interest in arguing factual propositions in their own right. Answering factual questions is often a matter of arguing a factual proposition. Many fields see factual, as well as value and policy, argumentation as central to the production of knowledge. Argumentation is more than a process of advocating and opposing prima facie cases and asking an audience to render a decision as to which side wins. The new interest in factual argumentation suggests that we consider argumentation as critical thinking. “Argumentation is no longer solely the articulation and testing of claims, it is also the understanding, critique, and creation of the means of legitimation of knowledge” (Sandman, 1993, p. 101). For example, scientists from fields such as paleontology, evolutionary biology, biomechanics, and physiology are trying to understand what dinosaurs may actually have been like by studying contemporary birds, reptiles, and mammals. They take what they know about how these animals are put together and how they work, and apply the knowledge to the often fragmentary remains of creatures that no longer exist. In this way, the field of paleobiology rests on what Ohio University’s Lawrence Witmer refers to as an “Inverted Pyramid of Inference.” Imagine an upside-down pyramid with, at the pointed bottom, the words “bones.” Bones are the known commodity, the solid evidence. They are aged; they may be broken, cracked, ambiguous, but you can at least hold them in your hand. Above bones on the inverted pyramid are soft tissues. There aren’t many of those because they rarely fossilize.

178

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

Above that is function, how the bones and tissue work. Above that—so very far from the hard evidence of bones—behavior. Above that is environmental interaction. The dream would be to know the behaviors of many different dinosaurs and to be able to put them in context so you’d know what dinosaurs ate and where they slept and what they feared and how they prowled the landscape. (Achenbach, 2003, p. 18)

The debates that emerge over whether Tyrannosaurus Rex was a top predator or merely a very large scavenger are as lively as any you find concerning any subject for argumentation. Even if you are not a scientist, learning how to argue factual propositions has practical applications that you can use as a student who must prepare presentations, write research papers, and answer essay questions on exams. The stock issues for factual argumentation and the process of case development for advocates and opponents can guide your preparation of any assignment that calls for you to sift through information and draw conclusions about it. Karyn recently taught a course on the rhetoric of Jane Austen using film and television adaptations of Austen’s classic novels to explore why this nineteenthcentury lady is so popular with twenty-first century audiences. About half of the students were familiar with the novels, but the rest were experiencing Austen for the first time through these adaptations. The question emerged: Was Jane Austen a feminist, or do the creators of these films and television miniseries make her appear to be one by including contemporary themes to appeal to today’s audiences? Those who were familiar with the novels questioned whether Austen was a feminist, while those who had not previously read any of her novels argued that she must have been because the stories contained feminist themes. In preparing oral reports, students interested in exploring this issue encountered an extensive body of research, especially criticism of Austen’s novels from a feminist perspective. Those who had taken the argumentation class used principles of factual argument to answer the question: Was Jane Austen a feminist?

ADVOCATING PROPOSITIONS OF FACT Construction of a prima facie case for a proposition of fact begins with analysis of the proposition, using the following steps locating immediate cause, investigating the history, defining key terms and making the primary inference, and using the stock issues for factual argumentation to determine the actual issues you will argue.

Analyzing the Proposition Analysis of factual propositions will help you define the key terms and make the primary inference that clarifies the relationship between the subject and predicate of the proposition, the primary inference to be advocated or opposed. The essence of factual argumentation is to determine whether this relationship is probably true or probably false. The information that you discover from locating immediate causes and investigating the historical background of the controversy surrounding the subject will provide the evidence that you need to offer as proof and reasoningwhen arguing the probable truth or falsity of the factual proposition.

179

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

Immediate Cause. In locating immediate causes, look for examples, illustrations, or other information of fact and opinion that signify something about the topic. Students in the Jane Austen class were struck by how many books on Austen, film and television miniseries based on her novels, and adaptations that inject zombies, vampires, and sea monsters into an Austen novel have recently appeared. They also discovered ongoing debates about Austen and feminism on a variety of Web sites such as Jane Austen Today and the Republic of Pemberley. As you research immediate cause for your question of fact, look for instances of unusual discoveries or an authority’s statement that we need to know more about something as the source of an immediate cause. Historical Background. As you investigate the historical background of your topic, collect sufficient published research and commentary by experts in the field to give you a reasonably thorough understanding of the topic. The Jane Austen class discovered that published commentary and criticism on her novels began in the mid-1800s, with some sources even earlier. They also discovered two important dates pertinent to the topic. First, in the 1970s during the second wave of the feminist movement, literature scholars and those in the new “women’s studies” programs began producing an extensive body of research applying feminist concepts to Austen’s novels. Second, in the mid-1990s, a number of very popular films and television miniseries based on the novels were made. These productions, sequels to and adaptations of the novels, and other Austen-related artifacts made Jane Austen a pop culture phenomenon. The Internet added a new dimension to the Austen phenomenon. In researching historical background, students discovered an electronic universe of scholarly work on Austen and a thriving, worldwide community of “Janeites” who engaged in extensive debates on all-things-Austen. They also learned that while we talk about factual argumentation in terms of “past,” “present,” and “future” fact, these distinctions sometimes blur. Students were exploring a question about the relationship between an author who died nearly two centuries ago and the ideology of feminism. At first glance, that clearly seemed to be “past fact.” Researching immediate cause and historical background, particularly through Internet sites, they began to agree with an observation made by Claire Harman in Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World: “Just as Jane Austen feels closer to our own time the further she recedes from it, so the sense of a personal connection being possible with the author has increased with the exponential growth of her fan base” (2009, p. 224). What began as an exploration of past fact began to have elements of present and even future fact. Not every proposition concerning past fact will necessarily turn out to be like this, but do not be surprised if you find elements of present and future fact intruding into a consideration of “past” fact. Students also discovered that investigation of the historical background on Austen and application of the stock issues of fact blended into a single analytical step as we shall presently discuss. Defining Key Terms. Defining key terms and making the primary inference are important in factual argumentation, even when the proposition seems to point to only one possible inference: Jane Austen was a feminist. A proposition of fact asserts a relationship about something (Jane Austen) and what we are asked to believe

180

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

about it (that she was a feminist). On the surface, this seems like a fairly straightforward inference, but defining key terms and making the primary inference from these definitions is still important, even when the inference seems obvious. The proposition had two key terms, Jane Austen and feminist. Defining these terms helped identify the issues to be developed in the advocate’s case. Jane Austen—the foremost female novelist in English literature, author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. feminist—one who supports the principles of feminism, a social movement for women’s equality that is now a well-established ideology based on equal rights and the acknowledgment of gender differences. The advocate’s definition positioned Jane Austen as the most important female novelist in English literature and identifies the novels under consideration in proving the alleged relationship between her work and feminist ideology. The definition of feminist specifies that ideas about “equal rights” and “gender differences” are central to feminist ideology, producing the primary inference: If Jane Austen’s novels address issues of equal rights and gender differences, she was a feminist.

Can you spot the problem in trying to advocate this proposition and the primary inference produced by defining key terms? Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died in 1817. The feminist movement did not begin until much later in the nineteenth century and the term feminism did not come into common use until near the end of the century. To create a prima facie case for Jane Austen was a feminist, the advocate had to explain her use of the term feminist. That became one of the issues in her case development. Using Stock Issues. The advocate employs the stock issues for factual argumentation to decide what main points to use in developing the primary inference. You will recall that the stock issues point you in the direction of finding what information and reasoning are available to prove the primary inference. 1. What information confirms (or denies) the alleged relationship between the subject and predicate of the primary inference? 2. What techniques of reasoning should be used to demonstrate this relationship? Using the research collected in locating the immediate cause and investigating historical background, the advocate determined what she could confirm about the alleged relationship between Jane Austen’s novels and feminist ideology, and which reasoning techniques she should use in proving that relationship. Earlier, we mentioned that investigation of historical background and the application of the stock issues of fact can blend into a single analytical step. Such was the case for the advocate in this instance. As she researched immediate cause and historical background, the advocate discovered information about a connection between Jane Austen and the “founding mother” of the feminist movement, Mary Wollstonecraft. This helped her figure out a strategy for dealing with the problem posed by the proposition and her definition of feminist. Before there was a feminist movement, there were proto-feminists such

181

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

as Wollstonecraft who first articulated ideas that would become the core of the feminist movement. This research also suggested the actual issues and reasoning techniques that the advocate used in developing her prima facie case. The advocate’s historical research merged into the application of the stock issues of fact as she found information and authoritative commentaries that pointed to a connection between Austen and the proto-feminist ideas of her era. She also determined that techniques of sign and cause–effect reasoning would be most useful in creating units of argument from this information, along with argument from authority to back her reasoning. The actual issues for the advocate’s case development were: (1) Jane Austen was a proto-feminist; her novels reflect the proto-feminist views of her era; and (2) Jane Austen disguised her feminist themes by using her skills as a writer to protect her reputation and social status. The advocate also needed to consider presumption found in the existing knowledge and opinion of both her audience and experts on Austen. In this case, the advocate was addressing an audience interested in exploring this question: Was Jane Austen a feminist? They did not begin with a predetermined stance, but wanted to weigh available information and opinion, and their own observations, to answer the question. In this context, factual argumentation became a process of inquiry. In applying presumption as an audience analysis technique, the advocated made further strategic decisions using the two stock issues of fact. Because only some members of the class were familiar with Austen’s novels, but all were familiar with their plotlines from the screen adaptations, the advocate decided to use material from the novels as some of her supporting evidence. Because this fulfilled an oral reporting assignment, and the audience would expect the answer to the central question to be informed by scholarly research, the advocate also wanted to reason on the basis of argument from authority. With this use of presumption in mind, the advocate developed her prima facie case.

Building the Prima Facie Case From the two actual issues, the advocate created three contentions to use as the structure for her prima facie case. CONTENTION 1: CONTENTION 2: CONTENTION 3:

Jane Austen’s novels reflect proto-feminist views, ideas that would become feminism in the late nineteenth century. Jane Austen’s proto-feminism is found in the plotlines of her novels that concern dominant women’s issues of her era. Austen disguised her feminist themes to protect herself from social censure.

She then built her prima facie case by creating units of argument for each contention. How did she know what to include? Advocates for factual propositions create units of argument about effect, significance, and inherency to argue why the contentions are probably true. Effect Arguments. In factual argumentation, effect focuses on one or more units of argument that call the audience’s attention to the results, outcome, or consequences of the relationship alleged by the proposition of fact. Another way to think of “effect” is that it answers the question: What is produced by proving that

182

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

the alleged relationship is probably true? The effect the advocate wanted to prove was that Jane Austen had feminist beliefs that we can find expressed in her novels. The focus on effect in the advocate’s case is found in her second contention: “Jane Austen’s proto-feminism is found in the plotlines of her novels that concern dominant women’s issues of her era.” The advocate developed units of argument to prove three claims. CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2: CLAIM 3:

The inadequacy of education for women is a common theme in Austen’s novels. Limited choices and the narrowness of women’s lives are a common theme in Austen’s novels. A woman’s need to marry to gain economic stability and social position is central to Austen’s novels.

Notice how the advocate employed the two stock issues of fact. She determined that choosing evidence from Austen’s novels met the requirements for grounding claims, the standards of reliability, quality, consistency, and adaptability to the audience. Because examples taken from her novels are observable indicators of Austen’s proto-feminism, the appropriate reasoning technique for these units of argument is sign reasoning. Choosing excerpts from the novels that reveal a concern for a dominant women’s issue of her era would prove effect, confirming the relationship between Austen and proto-feminism. The advocate also incorporated argument from authority as she provided an expert opinion in backing each unit of argument. Significance Arguments. It is not enough to know that something is a result, outcome, or consequence; building a prima facie case for factual argumentation must also explain the significance of the effect of the alleged relationship. Why is it significant that we find evidence of Jane Austen’s proto-feminism in her novels? In factual argumentation, significance focuses on one or more units of argument that prove the importance, magnitude, extent, or impact of the effect. There is no necessary order in which the advocate must cover effect, significance, and inherency. In our example, the advocate elected to devote her first contention to significance arguments. She created three units of argument to develop the contention: “Jane Austen’s novels reflect proto-feminist views, ideas that would become feminism in the late nineteenth century.” CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2:

CLAIM 3:

Wollstonecraft’s arguments against primogeniture and male financial control over women are reflected in Austen’s novels. Wollstonecraft’s distaste for Dr. James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women is reflected in Austen’s mocking of them in Pride and Prejudice. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication questions the prevailing belief that women were incapable of rational thought because they were physically and mentally weak, a response echoed by Austen’s female characters.

Strategically, the advocate decided to place this contention first because she knew many in the audience wondered how Jane Austen could be connected to feminism if the feminist movement did not emerge until several decades after her death.

183

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

From her research on historical background, the advocate discovered information about Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792, a proto-feminist statement that Austen may have been familiar with. She also discovered authoritative sources connecting Austen with Wollstonecraft, plus an article from Jane Austen’s Regency World, a magazine with a pop culture orientation, suggesting the similarity of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility to Wollstonecraft’s Vindication (Ray, 2009). For significance, the advocate decided that establishing a connection between the foremost female novelist of English literature and the seminal work on which the feminist movement would be based would be compelling for her audience. She developed the units of argument for her focus on significance much as she did for effect. She used the two stock issues of fact to determine what information and opinion best confirmed the connection between Austen’s novels and Wollstonecraft’s Vindication, and what pattern of reasoning should be used to show the connection. The advocate chose evidence from the primary sources, Wollstonecraft’s Vindication and Austen’s novels, to ground her claims. She backed each unit of argument with an authoritative opinion that further explained the connection, confirming her linkage of Austen and Wollstonecraft. Her reasoning technique in comparing material from the primary sources was a combination of parallel case and sign reasoning. For each comparison of a passage from Vindication with one from an Austen novel, the advocated reasoned that a parallel exists. Each similarity between Vindication and an Austen novel was also a sign that Austen was either familiar with Wollstonecraft’s ideas or developed similar feelings independently, either of which connect her to proto-feminism. Inherency Arguments. Finally, to develop a prima facie case for factual argumentation, the advocate must consider inherency. In factual argumentation, inherency often deals with attitudes—why we do or do not believe something to be probably true. In our example, what information and reasoning causes us to believe, or disbelieve, the alleged relationship between Jane Austen and feminism? Because the advocate could find no direct confirmation from Austen herself, or those close to her, that she embraced the emerging proto-feminist views of the era, explicitly proving the inherency of the relationship between Austen and feminism was not possible. In developing her first two contentions, the advocate believed there were strong indications that Austen was sympathetic to the ideas of proto-feminism. The question remained, if this was so, why was Austen not more obvious in her support of these ideas? In researching historical background, the advocate discovered powerful attitudes against proto-feminist authors in Austen’s day and that even attaching her name to “her own writing could threaten a woman’s reputation as well as her social position” (Fergus, 1997, p. 13). With no direct evidence of Austen’s feminism, but with the evidence of similarities between the ideas in Wollstonecraft’s Vindication and the women’s issues addressed in Austen’s novels, the advocate addressed the inherency of Austen’s feminism in her third contention: “Austen disguised her feminist themes to protect herself from social censure.” Two units of argument were developed to support this contention. CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2:

184

As Austen began her career as a novelist, there was a backlash against women associated with the ideas of Wollstonecraft. Austen’s use of irony and satire were her principal means of disguising her proto-feminist ideas.

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

Remember that inherency deals with causality, using cause–effect reasoning. The cause of the failure to be able to directly connect Jane Austen with the protofeminist ideas of her era was that she concealed them to protect her social position. The advocate’s two units of argument explained why many women in Austen’s era did not want to be publicly associated with Wollstonecraft’s ideas and how Austen used literary techniques to disguise her proto-feminism. Inherency in factual argumentation deals with the causes behind why we do or do not believe an alleged factual relationship exists. This is why inherency in factual argumentation is more often attitudinal rather than structural. In our example, the advocate could not find any “structure” establishing the relationship between Austen and emerging proto-feminism. Would it be possible to argue structural inherency for this topic? Jane Austen was a prodigious letter writer, frequently exchanging letters with her sister Cassandra in the same way that people exchange e-mails and text messages today. We know that she left a considerable number of letters and other written material and that Cassandra Austen closely guarded this material, destroying much of it before her own death. A structural barrier that has frustrated Austen scholars and “Janeite” enthusiasts is the loss of this material. In the future, if someone found a hidden cache of letters or manuscripts in Jane Austen’s hand addressing the proto-feminist beliefs of the era, they would constitute a “structure,” Austen’s own words, revealing her relationship to proto-feminism. Whether structural inherency will be an issue in factual argumentation depends on your topic and what you discover in researching it. To develop a prima facie case for a proposition of fact, you must create arguments addressing the effect, significance, and inherency of the primary inference, the alleged relationship in the proposition. There is no necessary order in which these issues must be addressed and no specific number of units of argument needed to establish each. Our Jane Austen example evolved from class discussions and oral reports by groups of students in the rhetoric of Jane Austen course. It was pure serendipity that caused three contentions to emerge as they did, one each for effect, significance, and inherency. Not every proposition will require three contentions to build a prima facie case. A single contention might be developed with units of argument that establish effect, significance, and inherency. As long as you address all three, your case will be prima facie. How you do it is a matter of the strategic choices you make and the resources of information and reasoning available to you.

Preempting Opposing Arguments Before saying she is done, the advocate should consider the proposition from the opponent’s perspective. What is the opponent likely to argue and where are points of clash likely to occur? One strategic option the advocate has is to include preemptive arguments in her case, arguments that respond to the probable objections the opponent will make before he has a chance to raise them. The advocate’s third contention in our Jane Austen example functions as a kind of preemptive argument. As we noted, the advocate found no direct evidence to support a connection between Austen and the proto-feminists. A natural objection for the opponent to raise is to call attention to the absence of any direct proof of the alleged relationship. The advocate preempted this in her third contention as

185

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

she explained why no direct connection can be found. Although the opponent may still choose to argue that in the absence of direct proof, the audience should not accept the probable truth of the alleged relationship, the advocate’s preemptive argument puts her in an offensive rather than a defensive position. She offered compelling reasons for the absence of direct proof that the opponent must disprove. He can’t just holler “no direct proof.” If as an advocate, you choose to preempt an opponent’s arguments, you must avoid excess, preempting everything but the “kitchen sink” and creating a series of what might be unrelated arguments. Kitchen sink preempts are also a bad rhetorical strategy because they run the risk of weakening, rather than strengthening, your position in the audience’s mind. They create the impression that, if you can find so many objections to your position, it must be weak. Prudent use, however, of preemptive arguments keeps attention focused on the proposition and keeps presumption and the burden of proof where they belong.

Developing an Argumentative Brief The advocate now has a number of arguments, and the proof and reasoning that support them, to keep straight. One way to make sure things stay where they belong is to create an argumentative brief. The idea of briefing arguments is adapted from the field of law and legal brief writing. Lawyers develop written briefs that include all of their arguments and evidence as they prepare for a trial or in appealing a decision to a higher court. A legal brief is seldom “brief” because lawyers include everything they think is germane to their side’s case. You will be operating in a different environment, and even if you are asked to produce a written argument, you will likely have restrictions on its length. If you are developing a brief as preparation for an oral presentation or in-class debate, your argumentative brief may be structured as an outline. The purpose of brief writing is to promote clarity and you should choose a format for organizing your brief that will clearly present the proposition for argumentation, definitions of key terms, and each contention with the claims and evidence that develop it. Clarity is enhanced by using complete sentences for contentions and claim statements.

Argument in Action There are several different ways to format an argumentative brief to achieve clarity. For factual argumentation, the Toulmin model is used. Box 1 shows how the advocate’s prima facie case was fully briefed. In preparing a brief, remember that it is not the finished product in argumentation. The finished product is a speech or essay. The brief provides the logical framework that organizes your arguments. It is refined for oral and written presentation. For oral argumentation, think of the brief as a speaking outline that includes main points, their subpoints and evidence that supports them, and other important information such as an expert’s qualifications. For written argumentation, a brief can serve as a very rough draft that you must revise, rewrite, and polish into a completed essay. For both oral and written argumentation, you also need to develop an introduction and conclusion, as well as transitional material to move the listener or reader between your main points.

186

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

BOX 1 Fact Advocate Brief Proposition Jane Austen was a feminist.

Definition of Key Terms Jane Austen—the foremost female novelist in English literature, author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Feminist—one who supports the principles of feminism, a social movement for women’s equality that is now a well-established ideology based on equal rights and the acknowledgment of gender differences.

Overview Jane Austen (1775–1817) lived and wrote during the Enlightenment, that era of revolutionary thought about natural rights and the power of human reasoning that are the province of men. “For inherent in the vaunting human (male) reason is the idea that rational beings are the lords of creation and have the right to impose their reason on all who lack it—women, nonhuman creatures, and the earth itself” (Donovan, 1992, p. 3). In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, becoming the founding mother of Western feminism, with her arguments that women, like men, are rational creatures. The feminist movement and the use of the term feminism did not begin until after her death, but in Jane Austen’s day, “to become an author was, in itself, a feminist act” (Kirkham, 1997, p. 33). {Contention 1} Jane Austen’s novels reflect proto-feminist views, ideas that would become feminism in the late nineteenth century. {Claim 1} Wollstonecraft’s arguments against primogeniture and male financial control over women are reflected in Austen’s novels. {Grounds 1} In Vindication, Wollstonecraft describes the situation of women left without financial resources. “Girls . . . are often cruelly left by their parents without any provision, and, of course are dependent on . . . their brothers. . . . In this equivocal humiliating situation a docile female may remain some time with a tolerable degree of comfort. But when the brother marries . . . she is viewed as an intruder, an unnecessary burden on the benevolence of the master . . . The wife . . . is displeased at seeing the property of her children lavished on an helpless sister” (Wollstonecraft, 1792/1992, p. 159). {Grounds 2} Austen’s Sense and Sensibility opens with the death of Henry Dashwood, whose estate will pass to the son of his first marriage, leaving his second wife and three daughters with limited resources and no home. John Dashwood has promised his father “to do everything in his power to make them comfortable” (Austen, 1811/2003, p. 12). “Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters.To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree . . . And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods . . . have on his (continued)

187

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

generosity to so large an amount. . . . why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half-sisters?” (pp. 15–16). {Warrant} The similarity between the scenario described by Wollstonecraft and Austen’s plotline in Sense and Sensibility is a strong indicator that Austen was familiar with Wollstonecraft’s ideas about male financial control of women. {Backing} “The most stunning echo of Wollstonecraft occurs in Sense and Sensibility . . . when Fanny Dashwood convinces her husband to convince himself that they must not honor his father’s deathbed request because any charity to his sisters and mother-in-law would harm ‘poor little Harry.’ Perhaps Austen should have credited Wollstonecraft” (Ray, 2009, p. 57). {Claim 2} Wollstonecraft’s distaste for Dr. James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women is reflected in Austen’s mocking of them in Pride and Prejudice. {Grounds 1} Wollstonecraft notes that young women are encouraged to read the Sermons and explains that they encourage them to be weak. “Dr. Fordyce may have had a very laudable end in view; but these discourses are written in such an affected style . . . melting every human quality into female meekness and artificial grace” (Wollstonecraft, 1792/1992, p. 194). {Grounds 2} Mr. Collins is one of Austen’s comic clergymen. In Pride and Prejudice, he visits the Bennetts and Mr. Bennett asks him to read aloud to entertain the family after dinner. “Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it . . . protested that he never read novels. . . . Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce’s Sermons. Lydia [youngest Bennett daughter] gaped as he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him . . . Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said,‘I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit’” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 92). {Warrant} Although Austen does not directly attack Fordyce’s advice to young women as did Wollstonecraft, by associating the Sermons with the pompous, silly, and obsequious Mr. Collins, her satire makes the same point. {Backing} Peter Knox-Shaw’s (2004) study of how Austen’s novels evoke Wollstonecraft’s Vindication describes the connection. “Austen would have had a clear sense of what Wollstonecraft stood for . . . the Vindication . . . made its presence felt in the scene in which Collins, taking it upon himself to read to the Bennett daughters, discards a novel . . . in favor of Fordyce’s sermons. Wollstonecraft had devoted an entire section of her tract to the mischief done by this standby of the young woman’s library” (pp. 102–103). {Claim 3} Wollstonecraft’s Vindication questions the prevailing belief that women were incapable of rational thought because they were physically and mentally weak, a response echoed by Austen’s female characters. {Grounds 1} Wollstonecraft explains her belief in the rational power of women. “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone . . . I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness . . .” (Wollstonecraft, 1792/1992, pp. 81–82).

188

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

{Grounds 2} In an early scene in Persuasion, Mrs. Croft is arguing with her brother, Captain Wentworth, about the suitability of having an officer’s family on board a warship. Wentworth argues that women have no “right” to feel at home on a warship. His sister responds, “But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days” (Austen, 1818/2004, p. 86). {Warrant} This example shows us the agreement of the two authors that women possess intellectual strength. Mrs. Croft is an example of a strong woman who can think for herself. {Backing} Knox-Shaw (2004) concludes that the character of Mrs. Croft signifies the connection with Wollstonecraft. “Jane Austen’s continuity with Wollstonecraft . . . is evident in the language Mrs. Croft uses when she tries to convince her brother that women have a place on naval voyages . . . and the distinction she draws between ‘fine ladies’ and ‘rational creatures’ breathe the air of the Vindication” (p. 238). {Contention 2} Jane Austen’s proto-feminism is found in the plotlines of her novels that concern dominant women’s issues of her era. {Claim 1} The inadequacy of education for women is a common theme in Austen’s novels. {Grounds} Caroline Bingley, who has romantic designs on Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, tries to impress him with her account of the well-educated woman. “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all of this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 58). {Warrant} Austen uses the comic character of snooty Caroline Bingley, and the absurd things she does and says, to show the inherent weakness in the education commonly provided for upper-class women. {Backing} Darryl Jones (2004), Lecturer in English at Trinity College, Dublin, explains the use of Caroline Bingley: “In the Vindication, Wollstonecraft writes witheringly of the limitations inherent in the series of ‘alluring’ accomplishments which comprised the standard female education, and which have served effectively to cretinise generations of women . . . Miss Bingley, who certainly wishes to establish herself and rise in the world by marriage to Darcy, offers a conventional account of woman’s accomplishments” (p. 103). {Claim 2} Limited choices and the narrowness of women’s lives are a common theme in Austen’s novels. {Grounds 1} Emma takes place largely in Emma Woodhouse’s home and the small village of Highbury. Emma rarely travels more than a mile from home. Donwell Abbey, home of Emma’s eventual husband, Mr. Knightley, is a mile from her home. “It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey . . . she was glad to . . . look around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must ever be so interesting to her” (Austen, 1816/2003, p. 430). {Grounds 2} Anne Elliot talks about women’s confined lives in Persuasion. “We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather (continued)

189

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. . . . You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions” (Austen, 1818/2004, p. 279). {Warrant} Emma Woodhouse’s physical confinement to her home and the adjacent village, and Anne Elliot’s observations on both the physical and psychological narrowness of women’s lives, are evidence of Austen’s recognition of the limits placed on women’s lives. {Backing} John Wiltshire (2006), English Department of LaTrobe University, Australia, observes that women in Austen’s novels are mostly limited to the home while men are free to come and go as they choose. “Space is thus gendered, and the various dimensions of confinement interrelated: confinement to the indoors, to a restricted sphere of influence” (p. 27). {Claim 3} A woman’s need to marry to gain economic stability and social position is central to Austen’s novels. {Grounds} In Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas accepts the odious Mr. Collins, after he has been rejected by Elizabeth Bennett, because marriage is her only option. “Mr. Collins to be sure was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honorable provision for well educated young women of small fortune” (Austen, 1813/2003, pp. 161–162). {Warrant} Women in Austen’s time who did not have a personal fortune would be dependent on their families to support them for their lifetimes. Inherent in the social structure was the stricture against involvement of women in a profession. {Backing} Hazel Jones (2009), Exeter University, United Kingdom, describes the situation that caused Charlotte Lucas to accept Mr. Collins. “In a world where genteel women with negligible fortunes must marry or face social denigration and humiliating reliance on their male relations, the choice between marrying or staying single could be relatively uncomplicated, as Jane Austen recognized” (p. 181). {Contention 3} Austen disguised her feminist themes to protect herself from social censure. {Claim 1} As Austen began her career as a novelist, there was a backlash against women associated with the ideas of Wollstonecraft. {Grounds} Wollstonecraft died in 1798 and her husband, William Goodwin, wrote a factually accurate memoir with “foolish disregard for how the truth would be received . . . [Wollstonecraft] was branded as a whore and an atheist . . . and not only her own arguments discredited, but those of any other woman who dared to write on the subject, for it was argued they all wanted to overthrow the institutions of marriage and religion” (Lane, 2005, p. 95). {Warrant} The effect on women authors was to conceal any connection to Wollstonecraft’s ideas and to emphasize their support for the prevailing social structure. {Backing} Claudia L. Johnson (1988), professor of English at Marquette University, explains, “No woman novelist, even among the most progressive, wished to be discredited by association with Mary Wollstonecraft . . . the fear of being branded a treasonous Jacobin [in sympathy with the French revolutionists] obliged moderately progressive novelists to appear more conservative than they really were” (p. xxiii).

190

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

{Claim 2} Austen’s use of irony and satire were her principal means of disguising her proto-feminist ideas. {Grounds} Jane Austen “smuggled” in her “social criticism . . . through various means of indirection—irony, antithetical pairings, double plotting, the testing or subverting of overt, typically doctrinaire statements with contrasting dramatic incident” (Johnson, 1988, pp. xxiii-xxiv). {Warrant} Authors commonly use these techniques when writing in a comic frame to disguise their real message. {Backing} Margaret Kirkham (1997), Bristol Polytechnic, United Kingdom, “There is in the Austen comedy, a great deal of wit, some sarcasm and a true malignity here and there . . . The feminism is in the laughter, sometimes rather harsh laughter, but it is also a visionary ideal, for Austen manages to create a few brief oases where men and women experience equal relationships with one another” (p. 83). Sources Cited Austen, J. (1811/2003). Sense and sensibility. London: CRW Publishing. Austen, J. (1813/2003). Pride and prejudice. London: CRW Publishing. Austen, J. (1816/2003). Emma. London: CRW Publishing. Austen, J. (1818/2004). Persuasion. London: CRW Publishing. Donovan, J. (1992). Feminist theory: The intellectual traditions of American feminism (2nd ed.). New York: Frederick Unger. Johnson, C. L. (1988). Jane Austen: Women, politics, and the novel. Chicago:The University of Chicago Press. Jones, D. (2004). Jane Austen: Critical issues. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Jones, H. (2009). Jane Austen and marriage. London: Continuum. Kirkham, M. (1997). Jane Austen, feminism and fiction. London:The Athlone Press. Knox-Shaw, P. (2004). Jane Austen and the Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lane, M. (2005). Jane Austen’s world: The life and times of England’s most popular novelist. London: Carlton Books. Ray, J. (2009, September/October). Crediting Wollstonecraft. Jane Austen’s Regency World, Issue 41, pp. 56–57. Wiltshire, J. (2006). Jane Austen: Introduction and interventions. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Wollstonecraft, M. (1792/1992). A vindication of the rights of woman. London: Penguin Books.

Summary of Fact Advocacy 1. What is the primary inference identified in the proposition of fact? a. Is the primary inference about past, present, or future fact? b. What is the nature of probable truth concerning this proposition, and how should it be argued? 2. What do the stock issues lead you to discover about this proposition of fact? a. What reasoning pattern is sufficient to establish the key issues? b. Is sufficient proof available to support this reasoning pattern? c. What will audience expectations be in regard to proof and reasoning; should warrant and backing be included in establishing the pattern of reasoning?

191

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

3. Have the requirements of a prima facie case been satisfied? a. Are terms defined where necessary for clarity? b. Is the interpretation of the proposition topical? c. Does the development of issues provide good and sufficient reasons (effect, significance, and inherency) for accepting the advocate’s inference? 4. Should preemptive arguments be used? a. Is the opponent likely to be skeptical of the advocate’s interpretation of the issues? b. Will preemptive arguments focus argumentation or create confusion?

OPPOSING PROPOSITIONS OF FACT Whether the proposition is one of fact, value, or policy, both advocate and opponent are obligated to follow certain rules. The advocate has the burden of proof and must develop claims that uphold it; the opponent initially possesses presumption. He may choose to question the validity of the advocate’s allegations concerning fact in a number of ways. Determining exactly what to argue as opponent is a matter of using the resources gained from analyzing the proposition and paying careful attention to what the advocate has argued. The opponent begins construction of his case by examining the advocate’s primary inference in interpreting the proposition. The inference established her unique way of describing the relationship between the subject and the object of the proposition. The opponent’s task is to determine what strategies to employ in disputing the probable truth of the advocate’s inference.

Evaluating the Primary Inference The opponent’s first strategic decision is to determine whether to accept the advocate’s primary inference as topical or as unnecessarily restricted. The inference grows out of the advocate’s definition of terms and issues discovered while analyzing the proposition. Although the opponent is not obligated to dispute the advocate’s definitions, it may be advantageous to do so. If the advocate has defined terms in such a way that the primary inference represents an unreasonable interpretation of the proposition, the opponent may wish to argue for a different definition of terms. He should consider whether the advocate has developed a topical prima facie case. The opponent for the proposition, Jane Austen was a feminist, chose to accept the advocate’s definition of Jane Austen, but provided his own definition of feminism. feminism—the ideology of equal rights for men and women, women’s struggle to achieve economic and political parity, and the twentieth-century extensions of girl power and equity in romantic relationships You will notice that the opponent’s choice of a key term was feminism, rather than feminist, and his definition had a contemporary emphasis. This definition was essential to his strategy of opposition.

192

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

Establishing Strategy In factual argumentation, clarity is enhanced if the opponent begins with an overview of his interpretation of the relationship alleged by the proposition. This is his philosophy of opposition in which he establishes his position and previews his strategy, telling the listener or reader in general terms how he will respond to the advocate’s arguments and what arguments of his own he will advance. One strategic choice the opponent must make is how he will use the benefit of presumption. You will recall that the concept of presumption in argumentation refers to those beliefs presently held by those in a field or by an audience. Presumption describes who presently occupies the figurative ground over which argumentation takes place. Presumption in this sense is natural presumption. In factual argumentation, we may also view presumption as artificial when the proposition is treated as a hypothesis and argumentation is used to test its probable truth or falsity. Artificial presumption, as hypothesis testing, is commonly used when we engage in argumentation to seek knowledge. The proposition alleging a relationship between Jane Austen and feminism emerged as students observed feminist ideas being conveyed in film and television adaptations of her novels. Different opinions were expressed by those already familiar with the novels than those whose only exposure to Austen was through these adaptations. Both sides kept coming back to the question: Was the author a feminist, or were feminist ideas imposed on her novels by those who adapted them for the screen? The students treated this question as a hypothesis to be tested, granting artificial presumption, that Jane Austen was not a feminist, to the opponent. Like the advocate, the opponent also discovered important issues for developing his case through the process of analysis. In locating immediate cause and researching historical background, he discovered that beginning in the mid-1990s, those who adapted Austen’s novels for film and television incorporated feminist themes to appeal to contemporary audiences. He also discovered a possible reason for this. The second wave of the feminist movement of the 1970s encouraged more women to enter Ph.D. programs and many were in doctoral programs in literature, communication, and the new area of women’s studies. In their graduate research, and later as college professors expected to publish scholarly research, many women (and some men) “discovered” Austen’s novels and produced a staggering amount of material applying feminist ideas to them. In the mid-1990s, scriptwriters, producers, and directors who adapted Austen’s novels for predominantly female audiences, drew on this body of feminist scholarship. From his research, the opponent’s philosophy of opposition began to emerge. First, his review of feminist and other literary scholarship on Austen revealed that opinion was divided as to whether she embraced the proto-feminism of her era. Credible sources made sound arguments to suggest she did not. Second, he discovered extensive material regarding the adaptation of the novels for film and television and knew he could draw on his audience’s experience of having viewed those adaptations most frequently identified as having had feminist themes added to them. From this, the opponent established two strategies for building his case: (1) Jane Austen was not a feminist, her novels have been appropriated and interpreted by twentieth-century critics as espousing feminist ideas; and (2) Jane Austen’s

193

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

novels have been re-visioned in popular film and television adaptations that add contemporary feminist themes to them.

Refuting by Denial and Extenuation Strategic decisions about how to address the advocate’s primary inference and how to use the benefit of presumption shape how the opponent will respond to the advocate’s contentions and the units of argument that develop them. He must determine whether the strategies of denial and extenuation can be used to refute these arguments. He makes this decision after examining how well the advocate’s arguments satisfy the requirements of the stock issues for factual argumentation. First, the advocate will have selected a particular pattern of reasoning to use in constructing arguments substantiating the proposition. The opponent should make sure that this pattern is sufficient to demonstrate the probable truth of the inference made in each of the advocate’s units of argument. Second, the opponent may elect to challenge the sufficiency of the proof offered by the advocate. In essence, this strategy asserts that while the advocate’s claims in and of themselves would be sufficient to establish the probability of the inference, those claims are not grounded in proof and reasoning sufficient to warrant assent. The two strategies commonly used by opponents to refute the advocate’s arguments are denial and extenuation. Denial. In employing a strategy of denial, the opponent does not argue that the advocate has knowingly engaged in distortion or deception, but that the arguments offered are nonetheless unwarranted because the advocate has: 1. Misanalyzed the situation, and the analysis provided by the opponent is proper; 2. Overlooked certain important facts, which the opponent provides along with an explanation of the significance of their having been overlooked; 3. Given undue significance to certain facts, and the opponent explains why they lack significance; 4. Drawn unwarranted conclusions from the proof, and the opponent provides the proper conclusion. Denial is a form of refutation in which the opponent argues that the advocate has failed to provide sufficient proof and reasoning to establish the relationship inferred by a contention and its supporting units of argument. In opposing the proposition that Jane Austen was a feminist, the opponent’s first strategy was one of denial. “Jane Austen was not a feminist, her novels have been appropriated and interpreted by twentieth-century feminist critics as espousing feminist ideas” denies the advocate’s inference of a relationship between Austen and the proto-feminist ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft. The opponent’s first contention established his strategy of denial: “Jane Austen was not a feminist author.” He developed this contention with three claims. CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2:

194

Austen was not an advocate of Mary Wollstonecraft’s protofeminist ideas. Twentieth-century feminist critics have imposed their feminist principles on Austen’s novels.

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

CLAIM 3:

Film and television adaptations of Austen’s novels encourage us to think of her as a feminist.

The opponent’s first unit of argument was a direct denial of the advocate’s contention of a connection between Austen’s novels and the proto-feminist views of her era. He grounded this claim with his own authoritative source and used one of the advocate’s techniques, directly quoting an Austen novel, to back his argument. The next two units of argument extended the denial of a relationship between Austen and proto-feminism, explaining that such a connection was unwarranted by providing arguments showing why the connection was flawed. These units of argument were grounded and backed by information and authoritative opinion on feminist criticism of Austen’s novels and how it influenced those who adapted the novels for the screen and contemporary audiences. Extenuation. The other strategy commonly used to oppose arguments of fact is one of extenuation. Extenuation arguments focus on the circumstances that surround a given fact and its interpretation. In this type of refutation, the opponent argues that the relationship inferred by the advocate is based on a limited understanding of the circumstances surrounding those facts and that a more complete understanding of those circumstances would lead to a different inference. Extenuating or unusual circumstances warrant a conclusion other than the one normally drawn when these facts are present. The opponent’s second strategy was one of extenuation. “Jane Austen’s novels have been re-visioned in popular film and television adaptations that add contemporary feminist themes to them” was used to develop two contentions and their supporting units of argument to prove that extenuating circumstances cause the perception that some relationship exists between Austen and feminism. His second contention addressed the re-visioning of characters that took place as Austen’s novels were adapted for film and television: “Adaptations of Austen’s novels have re-visioned her female characters from a feminist perspective.” He developed three claims to support this contention. CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2: CLAIM 3:

Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility re-visions the story from a contemporary feminist perspective. Douglas McGrath’s adaptation of Emma re-visions the titular character from a contemporary feminist perspective. Patricia Rozema’s adaptation of Mansfield Park changes the character of Fanny Price to embrace a contemporary feminist perspective.

With this contention and its supporting claims, you might notice how the opponent’s definition of feminism from a contemporary perspective became important. He wanted the audience to understand that it is contemporary ideas about feminism that are the source of the alleged connection of Austen to feminism, not the proto-feminism of her era. Also, because many of the advocate’s units of argument focused on Austen’s female characters, the opponent made a point of emphasizing how her female characters have been re-visioned on the basis of contemporary feminism. The opponent’s third contention continued the strategy of refutation by extenuation, this time focusing on Austen’s male characters: “Film and television adaptations

195

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

re-vision Austen’s male characters from a contemporary perspective.” He developed this contention with two claims: CLAIM 1: CLAIM 2:

Male characters are modified to fit today’s image of an ideal man from a feminine perspective. Visual storytelling focuses on the male body as an object of female desire in Sue Birtwistle and Andrew Davies’s re-visioning of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from a contemporary female perspective.

The opponent discovered extensive discussion of how the screen adaptations of Austen’s novels had re-visioned her heroes to make them appealing to contemporary women in his research. “Girl power” of twentieth-century feminism suggested women want to see men portrayed with certain qualities that do not appear in Austen’s novels. The units of argument supporting this contention, along with those supporting the second contention, used descriptions of the adaptations to signify the re-visioning to ground claims backed by expert opinion, argument from authority, confirming and explaining the incorporation of contemporary feminist themes in the adaptations.

Responding to Preemptive Arguments The final strategic choice the opponent must make concerns what to do if the advocate presents preemptive arguments. Is the opponent obligated to respond to them? No. The opponent has as much right to determine his strategy and select the arguments he will advance in refutation of the proposition as the advocate has in choosing hers. The opponent must examine the advocate’s preempts carefully. Although they may represent a sincere and ethical attempt to keep argumentation focused, they may be nothing more than a collection of straw man arguments cynically and unethically introduced to gain an advantage. In our example, the opponent responded to the advocate’s preemptive argument with his first unit of argument under the first contention: “Austen was not an advocate of Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist ideas.” He offered an authoritative source of his own and used Austen’s most famous statement about marriage to deny the connection between Austen and proto-feminism. Because the main thrust of the opponent’s case was to argue that any feminist themes the audience finds are the product of the adaptation of Austen’s novels for the screen, he did not dwell on direct denial of the advocate’s preempt. This was a strategic choice he made to keep the audience focused on why they found feminist themes in the film and television adaptations.

Argument in Action The complete brief of the opponent’s argumentation for the proposition, Jane Austen was not a feminist, appears in Box 2. As you review the grounds used for the units of argument under his second and third contentions, visualize how video clips might be used in place of the written descriptions. In presentations made in class, students frequently used this kind of artifactual evidence to ground claims about the re-visioning of Austen’s characters. We are constrained by the print medium so we have provided descriptions, but assure you that these clips were a compelling means of grounding such claims.

196

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

BOX 2 Fact Opponent Brief Proposition Jane Austen was not a feminist.

Definition of Key Terms Feminism—the ideology of equal rights for men and women, women’s struggle to achieve economic and political parity and the twentieth-century extensions of girl power and equity in romantic relationships.

Overview Today, people experience the novels of Jane Austen through adaptations for film and television. Louise Flavin (2004), author of Jane Austen in the Classroom, encourages this use in literature classes as a gateway to the novels. M. Casey Diana (2001) found that students were better able to engage with the plot and characters from Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, that the film “left a stronger, far more lasting impression” than did reading the novel (p. 144). {Contention 1} Jane Austen was not a feminist author. {strategy of denial} {Claim 1} Austen was not an advocate of Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist ideas. {Grounds} British historian Josephine Ross (2002) indicates that Austen’s characters and themes do not reflect the “subversiveness” of the proto-feminist “lady philosophers” and that Austen would not have thought of herself as one of them. [Austen] “did not seek to unpick the stitches which bound society . . . She does not openly challenge the dependent female role within marriage: her message, rather, is that it is both a woman’s right, and her duty, to choose wisely and responsibly whom to marry” (pp. 137–138). {Warrant} Austen’s novels all conclude with one or more marriages and do not offer any sense that she rejected the social structure of her day. {Backing} Austen’s most famous line, the first sentence in Pride and Prejudice, supports the era’s idea of marriage, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” (Austen, 1813/2003, p. 11). {Claim 2} Twentieth-century feminist critics have imposed their feminist principles on Austen’s novels. {Grounds} From the 1970s, “Austen was a gift to feminist theorists and provoked intense debate among them as to the nature and degree of her own feminism . . . [In Emma, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey] elements . . . that hardly seemed to be noticed before . . . [are subjected to locus of meaning shifts as feminist critics show] how flexible Austen can be in the hands of her interpreters . . . Exponents of ‘heteronormativity’ in Austen’s work now vie with those who note its ‘queerness’” (Harman, 2009, pp. 190–191). (continued)

197

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

{Warrant} Feminist critics, mostly university professors who must publish to advance in their careers, are the cause of Austen’s being labeled a feminist. Critics, especially postmodernists who interpret Austen on the basis of what she doesn’t say, use the ideological lens of their feminist beliefs to see their own notions of gender, class, or national identity reflected in her novels. {Backing} As the most prominent female author of the literary canon, “Jane Austen was a natural subject for feminist criticism . . . from the early 1970s, the dominant critical methodology for the study of Austen was feminist” (Jones, 2004, p. 3). {Claim 3} Film and television adaptations of Austen’s novels encourage us to think of her as a feminist. {Grounds} “Austen-mania” began in the mid-1990s and continues with recent film and television adaptations of the novels. “[T]he key factors in the recent resurgence of Austen has undoubtedly been gender. . . a rise of interest in filming from a feminist perspective . . . Austen’s novels have been recognized as a fertile terrain for socially conscious representations of women’s lives—a perception undoubtedly nurtured by the proliferation of politicized readings of Austen in the academy” (Dobie, 2003, p. 248). {Warrant} Gender issues are important to women today and popular culture artifacts address issues raised by academics in a more accessible medium. {Backing} Sue Parrill (2002), Head of the English Department at Southeastern Louisiana University:“recent Austen adaptations have been popular because they represent a ‘mainstreaming’ of modern feminism. Often incorporating modern critics’ interpretations of Austen’s novels as embodying feminist principles, the adaptations of the nineties reflect modern feminism and are appealing to modern viewers for that reason” (p. 7). {Contention 2} Adaptations of Austen’s novels have re-visioned her female characters from a feminist perspective. {strategy of extenuation} {Claim 1} Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility re-visions the story from a contemporary feminist perspective. {Grounds} In Austen’s novel, 13-year-old Margaret Dashwood is covered in a few sentences and has no significance in the plotline. “In Thompson’s adaptation, Margaret serves several purposes. She is the primary critic of the status quo and advocate of equal opportunity for women . . . By her protests, she also is the occasion for her elders’ explaining . . . the reasons for their predicament. Further, she practices a kind of freedom of action and speech that her sisters cannot . . . Since Margaret’s plans for the future include a career in piracy, she obviously does not feel debarred from traditionally masculine activities such as the captaincy of ships and slaughter on the high seas. We see her practicing swordsmanship with Edward and hear him say that Margaret plans to take him along as a servant on her forthcoming expedition to China” (Parrill, 2002, pp. 37–38). {Warrant} Emma Thompson’s re-characterization of Margaret as a contemporary girl adds feminist overtones to a character that Austen’s novel described as “goodhumored” and “well-disposed,” but “without having much sense” and not likely “to equal her sisters at a more advanced period of life” (Austen, 1811/2003, p. 15). {Backing} Kristin Flieger Samuelian (2001), professor of English at George Mason University: “Transformed by Thompson from a plot device to an integral character, Margaret serves both to voice reasonable dissent and to exhort unpalatable truths from the mouths of her more restrained elders . . . Elinor and Edward’s support of

198

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

her ambitions, however tongue-in-cheek , . . . that the world she inherits will be far more tolerant than the one her sisters find themselves in” (p. 149). {Claim 2} Douglas McGrath’s adaptation of Emma re-visions the titular character from a contemporary feminist perspective. {Grounds 1} Emma is portrayed as a modern girl. “She and Harriet are ‘girlfriends’ in a modern, trivialized sense, talking about boys and playing with puppies” (Kaplan, 2001, p. 185). {Grounds 2} “Paltrow plays Emma as a beautiful model, as a spoiled child, as a rebellious teen . . . Her typical gestures are pouting, rolling her eyes, sighing in exasperation, and whining” (Flavin, 2004, p. 140). {Grounds 3} “In Douglas McGrath’s version, Emma was pictured engaging in target archery and driving her own carriage, actions that have no source in the novel. . . . The image of Emma engaging simultaneously in athletic and verbal competition with Knightley has a particular resonance for contemporary women, who are regularly exhorted to ‘Just Do It’ like their male counterparts” (Ferriss, 2001, p. 127) {Grounds 4} Austen’s Emma is very conscious of the social hierarchy. McGrath’s Emma is Americanized to erase class distinctions: “. . . the film erases . . . the most problematic passage in the novel: Emma’s final disposal of Harriet as a friend. In McGrath’s version, the estrangement between the two women is fleeting; when Emma’s announcement of her engagement is seen in dumb show through a window, Harriet appears to rush out of the room, but the very next scene has the two warmly reuniting over the news of Harriet’s own engagement. . . . Nothing in this version suggests that difference in rank will ultimately separate the two women” (Dole, 2001, p. 69). {Warrant} McGrath’s adaptation of the character, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal, encourage the interpretation of Emma as a contemporary American girl with contemporary feminist ideas. {Backing} Marc DiPaolo (2007): Communication and English Department at Alvernia College: “. . . the McGrath film is possibly unique in its portrayal of Emma as a physical figure who counts archery as one of her hobbies and drives herself from place to place (p. 89). [A]s much as [it] is faithful to the novel . . . the Miramax film is clearly a product of the 1990s, a time in which Hollywood strove to fashion romance films that could please . . . modern-day feminists” (p. 91). {Claim 3} Patricia Rozema’s adaptation of Mansfield Park changes the character of Fanny Price to embrace a contemporary feminist perspective. {Grounds 1} “Rozema . . . entirely abandoned the author’s characterization of Fanny Price and makes her into a fantasy version of the young Austen herself, a spirited, would-be writer . . . she often appears angry and passionate, displays an energetically heaving bosom . . . “ (Harman, 2009, p. 215). {Grounds 2} “At one point we see Fanny lying on her stomach on her bed, kicking her feet in the air, while Edmund listens to her read aloud. This scene, like many others, presents Fanny as having a twentieth century girl’s ease with the opposite sex” (Parrill, 2002, p. 89). {Grounds 3} “Rozema has . . . injected energy into Austen’s ‘creepmouse’ heroine . . . Frances O’Conner’s verve and athleticism makes her Fanny Price physically appealing (continued)

199

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

. . . a far cry from Austen’s retiring protagonist, who longs to fade into the background. . . . the novel’s Fanny rides—fearfully, at first, then sedately . . . O’Conner cannot repress her energy, galloping around the house . . . then pounding across the countryside on a horse” (Troost & Greenfield, 2001, pp. 191–192). {Warrant} Austen’s Fanny Price had moral strength but was physically weak. Rozema’s makeover causes us to see her as a contemporary young woman with today’s attitudes. {Backing} Martine Vioret (2003), Romanticism literary scholar: “[Fanny] has become Rozema’s ‘feminist Cinderella.’ Gone also from the film, are all the judgments that because of ‘the sweetness of her temper, the purity of her mind and the excellence of her principles’ [Austen’s description], Fanny would have been the perfect complement and ideal wife for Henry Crawford . . . [because many people] now reject the idea, exemplified by Fanny, that women are the guardians of morality and virtue” (p. 235). {Contention 3} Film and television adaptations re-vision Austen’s male characters from a contemporary perspective. {strategy of extenuation} {Claim 1} Male characters are modified to fit today’s image of an ideal man from a feminine perspective. {Grounds 1} “[Adding] twentieth-century emotional substance to Austen’s characters, Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility makes substantial revisions to the two heroine’s suitors by replacing scenes of restraint with those of connection” (Nixon, 2001, p. 35). {Grounds 2} “Men’s love of children is very much at issue in the films. Dear’s Persuasion shows Admiral Croft to be a good man for his indulgence of the Musgrove boys, and he makes paper boats with them, which they later sail on the water with Anne’s guidance” (Looser, 2001, p. 171). {Warrant} By re-visioning Austen’s male characters as “sensitive,” the added scenes make Austen’s male characters more appealing to today’s woman. {Backing} Martine Voiret (2003):“In the wake of the feminist revolution, we now want men to be egalitarian, sensitive, nurturing, and expressive . . . They [the adaptations] translate contemporary desires for a type of masculinity that happily embodies those conflicting features . . . Austen’s male characters . . . have been modified to embody characteristics of the new man . . . the films invent or focus moments showing that the principal male characters are sensitive and responsive to other people’s needs” (p. 238). {Claim 2} Visual storytelling focuses on the male body as an object of female desire in Sue Birtwistle and Andrew Davies’s re-visioning of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from a contemporary female perspective. {Grounds 1} “. . . it is, traditionally, men who are possessors of the gaze in viewing on screen and film . . . Pride and Prejudice, however, is unashamed about appealing to women—and in particular about fetishizing and framing Darcy and offering him up to the female gaze” (Hopkins, 2001, p. 112). {Grounds 2} “The scene opens with Darcy in a bath. . . . We cut to Darcy arising from his bath and donning his dressing gown (it is at this point we just miss seeing his naked body).The camera trails Darcy as he moves to the window. . . . We bring to this scene our twentieth-century context of familiarity with the sight of naked bodies on screen” (Blum, 2003, p. 167).

200

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

{Grounds 3} “During the screening of the series . . . Colin Firth, became the nation’s number one heartthrob, a position he . . . retains virtually unchallenged . . . the scene that made him famous was one invented by Andrew Davies, in which Darcy is shown brooding by the lake at Pemberly, and emerging with his clothes damp . . . now considered one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history . . . the matrons of England went mad” (Harman, 2009, p. 207). {Warrant} Scenes displaying Colin Firth’s male charms encouraged women to gaze on Mr. Darcy in a way Austen never suggests, but resonates with the contemporary feminist notion that women should have parity with men when it comes to gazing upon an attractive film star. {Backing} Martine Voiret (2003) points out, “the sexual revolution of the 1960s brought a plethora of movies exhibiting the female body. . . . Hollywood became less and less interested in catering to female subjectivities. While the screen was still filled with handsome actors, they were rarely presented to the female viewer as sight. In Jane Austen movie adaptations, the hero by contrast is there to be looked at. He presents an arresting spectacle not only because of his attire but also because the camera capitalizes on the sight he offers” (p. 231). Sources Cited Austen, J. (1811/2003). Sense and sensibility. London: CRW Publishing. Austen, J. (1813/2003). Pride and prejudice. London: CRW Publishing. Blum, V. L. (2003).The return home. In S. R. Pucci & J.Thompson (Eds.), Jane Austen and co. (pp. 133–155). Albany: State University of New York Press. Diana, M. C. (2001). Emma Thompson’s Sense and Sensibility as gateway to Austen’s novel. In L. Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed., pp. 140–147). Lexington:The University Press of Kentucky. DiPaolo, M. (2007). Emma adapted: Jane Austen’s heroine from work to film. New York: Peter Lang. Dobie, M. (2003). Gender and the heritage genre: Popular feminism turns to history. In S. R. Pucci & J. Thompson (Eds.), Jane Austen and co. (pp. 247–259). Albany: State University of New York Press. Dole, C. M. (2001). Austen, class, and the American market. In L. Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 58–78). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Ferriss, S. (2001). Emma becomes clueless. In L. Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 122–129). Lexington:The University Press of Kentucky. Flavin, L. (2004). Jane Austen in the classroom. New York: Peter Lang. Harman, C. (2009). Jane’s fame: How Jane Austen conquered the world. New York: Henry Holt. Hopkins, L. (2001). Mr. Darcy’s body: Privileging the female gaze. In L.Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 111–121). Lexington:The University Press of Kentucky. Jones, D. (2004). Jane Austen: Critical issues. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Kaplan, D. (2001). Mass marketing Jane Austen: Men, women, and courtship in two film adaptations. In L.Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 177–187). Lexington:The University Press of Kentucky. Looser, D. (2001). Feminist implications of the silver screen Austen. In L. Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 159–176). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Nixon, C. L. (2001). Balancing the courtship hero: Masculine emotional display in film adaptations of Austen’s novels. In L. Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 22–43). Lexington:The University Press of Kentucky. (continued)

201

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

Parrill, S. (2002). Jane Austen on film and television: A critical study of the adaptations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Ross, J. (2002). Jane Austen: A companion. London: John Murray. Samuelian, K. F. (2001). “Piracy is our only option”: Postfeminist intervention. In L.Troost & S. Greenfield (Eds.), Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 148–158). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Troost, L., & Greenfield, S. (Eds.). (2001). The mouse that roared: Patricia Rozema’s Mansfield Park. In Jane Austen in Hollywood (2nd ed.; pp. 188–204). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. Vioret, M. (2003). Books to movies: Gender and desire in Jane Austen’s adaptations. In S. R. Pucci & J. Thompson (Eds.), Jane Austen and co. (pp. 229–246). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Summary of Fact Opposition 1. Will the advocate’s definition of terms be challenged or accepted? a. Does the advocate’s definition of terms stay within the bounds of the proposition’s figurative ground? b. What definition of terms does the opponent offer, and why is it a more reasonable interpretation of the proposition? 2. Will the opponent support presumption? a. Are there existing interpretations of fact that the advocate has overlooked that the opponent wishes to argue? b. What is the level of probability that the advocate’s arguments are true? Is that level of probability greater than the probability that existing beliefs about ideas, institutions, laws or rules, policies, customs, or practices are worth preserving? 3. How will the advocate’s argumentation on stock issues be opposed? a. Will denial arguments be used to argue that the advocate has misanalyzed the situation, overlooked important facts, given undue significance to certain facts, or drawn unwarranted conclusions? b. Will extenuation arguments be used to argue that special conditions or circumstances result in interpretations of fact other than those made by the advocate? 4. If the advocate has presented preemptive arguments, how will they be addressed? a. Are such arguments truly representative of the counterarguments an opponent might be expected to raise? Or are they straw man arguments? b Do preemptive arguments reveal significant flaws in the advocate’s interpretation of the proposition that the opponent might exploit? Propositions of fact attempt to establish what has been, is, or will be. As well as being worthwhile in it own right, learning how to argue fact is a necessary step for becoming effective in arguing value and policy. Value and policy cases of advocacy and opposition are built on a foundation of issues of factual argumentation.

202

How Are Factual Propositions Argued?

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. In discussing the advocacy and opposition for the proposition, Jane Austen was a feminist, we did not reveal the outcome of the audience’s response to the hypothesis testing that went on in class. Review the briefs in Box 1 and 2. Which side makes the more compelling case? Why? How does each arguer’s use of information and reasoning influence your opinion of which side offered the more compelling case? 2. The Web site, Male Voices in Praise of Jane Austen at http://www.theloiterer.org, offers argumentation and commentary on how the film and television adaptations either serve as “models” of Austen’s novels or make “egregious errors” that “must be confronted,” along with a variety of other Austen-related topics. How does this argumentation compare to that offered by the advocate and opponent in this chapter? 3. Develop your own class project for factual argumentation as inquiry to determine the relationship between audience perceptions of people and how they are portrayed in various “reality” programs on television. Choose a group of shows that have a similar theme for your inquiry—for example, choose The Jersey Shore (MTV), Jersey Couture (Oxygen), Jerseylicious (Style Network), and The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo). Create a factual proposition to test as a hypothesis about what a specific reality show or group of shows says about people. For the New Jersey reality television group of shows, the proposition might be: “Reality television programs about people from New Jersey portray them as overly emotional.” Develop positions of advocacy and opposition to test your hypothesis. 4. Phrase your own proposition of past, present, or future fact. Prepare a prima facie case from the advocate’s position. Respond as an opponent to your advocate’s case of factual argumentation, or to that of a classmate as assigned by your instructor.

REFERENCES Achenbach, J. (2003, March). Flesh & bone: A new generation of scientists brings dinosaurs back to life. National Geographic, 203, 2–33. Fergus, J. (1997). The professional woman writer. In E. Copeland & J. McMaster (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Jane Austen (pp. 12–31). Cambridge, UK: The Cambridge University Press. Harman, C. (2009). Jane’s fame: How Jane Austen conquered the world. New York: Henry Holt. Ray, J. (2009, September/October). Crediting Wollstonecraft. Jane Austen’s Regency World, Issue 41, 56–57. Sandman, W (1993). Gorgias and his postmodern cousins: Toward a skeptical view of argument. In R. E. McKerrow (Ed.), Argument and the postmodern challenge. Proceedings of the eighth SCA/AFA conference on argumentation (pp. 97–104). Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association. Wollstonecraft, M. (1792/1992). A vindication of the rights of woman. London: Penguin Books.

203

This page intentionally left blank

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

From Chapter 10 of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

205

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

W

here do we find examples of value argumentation? Religion and philosophy are fields primarily concerned with right and wrong, moral and immoral, and ethical and unethical behavior. Both fields seek to determine standards of socially or doctrinally acceptable behavior. A theologian examines behavior in terms of whether it measures up to a moral code expressed in sacred texts. The philosopher may speculate on the existence of several alternatives for ethical and unethical behavior. The arts—film, theater, music, literature, sculpture, painting, and dance— concern themselves, in part, with judging artistic works against a set of critical standards to determine whether they are “good art.” The critics continually revise these sets of standards to keep pace with trends. We rely on the opinions of the professional critic to help us determine what album to buy, book to read, or film to see. We have a chance to observe how standards for the arts are developed and applied by reading articles and reviews in publications such as the Journal of Popular Culture, Critical Studies in Media Communication, TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, or on Web sites like Premiere.com. Other fields also use value argumentation, particularly regarding standards of ethical behavior. Medicine, law, business, education, and public relations, along with most other fields, are concerned with determining acceptable behaviors for their practitioners. Is prescribing a certain drug to a certain category of patients ethical? Is a certain sales technique an ethical business practice? Is a certain behavior appropriate for an ethical educator? Most professional organizations and many corporations have established codes of ethical conduct. These codes can provoke extensive value and policy argumentation as individuals and groups seek to interpret and apply them. Almost any statement, lengthy or brief, can contain a value judgment. How we describe something or someone will necessarily be colored by our feelings toward what we have described. Deni Elliott (1997) suggests the world’s many cultures “appear to be an array of values, a colorful moral kaleidoscope” (p. 68). The uses of value argumentation are as varied as the groups and individuals who

206

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

are concerned with standards of excellence and appropriate behavior. In academic argumentation, you may be asked to develop a case about the quality or lack of quality of some institution or practice, or the degree to which something is in the audience’s best interests. In this chapter we will examine how arguments are developed for propositions of value.

THE NATURE OF VALUES Value can be an ambiguous term. Consider how a number of scholars have tried to fix the meaning of something that is a psychological and sociological process. Values are intangibles . . . things of the mind that have to do with the vision people have of “the good life” for themselves and their fellows. (Rescher, 1969, p. 4) A value is an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence. A value system is an enduring organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence along a continuum of relative importance. (Rokeach, 1973, p. 5) Values are premises which are related to the preference of a particular audience for one thing as opposed to another. (van Eemeren, Grootendorst, & Kruiger, 1987, p. 222) Values . . . are beliefs expressed in judgment statements rather than in fact statements. . . . Statements about values are normative as distinguished from descriptive statements. (Elliott, 1997, p. 69) [Values are found in the] struggle to understand right and wrong, good and bad, [absolutely] true and false, just and unjust, virtuous and corrupt. In dealing with these ends, we assume that we seek the right, the good, the true, the just, and the virtuous rather than their opposites. (Jensen, 1997, p. 5) Values can be viewed as conceptions of The Good or The Desirable that motivate human behavior and that function as criteria in our making of choices and judgments. Concepts such as material success, individualism, efficiency, thrift, freedom, courage, hard work, competition, patriotism, compromise, and punctuality are value standards that have varying degrees of potency in contemporary North American culture. (Johannesen, Valde, & Whedbee, 2008, p. 1)

From these definitions, we gain a general understanding that values are modes of thought that can influence the way we perceive things and the behaviors in which we engage. In the value-thinking mode, we make subjective, judgmental statements about people, places, ideas, and artifacts. Michael E. Porter (2000) suggests that “attitudes, values, and beliefs that are sometimes referred to as a ‘culture’ play an unquestioned role in human behavior and progress” (p. 14). A culture is a complex of collectively determined rules, values, ideologies, and habits that shape thought and action. Although we live in a multicultural society, what makes us American are a few core values. Core values are “those large patterns of behavior from generation to generation that express continuing convictions” (McElroy, 1999, p. xi). Value judgments are frequently made on the basis of these long-standing core values.

207

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Core American Values Richard L. Johannesen, Kathleen S. Valde, and Karen E. Whedbee (2008) suggest what some of these standards of judgment might be, but theirs is not the only list that has been put forward. Anne-Marie Slaughter (2007), Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and Professor of Politics and International Affairs, examines American foreign policy through the lens of our values. She believes that our foreign policy should be informed by our values and that our actions at home and abroad can be consistent with our values. For her, values of liberty, democracy, equality, and justice, derived from foundational documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, are supplemented by our values of tolerance, humility, and faith. Bill Halamandaris (2004), founder and president of the Heart of America Foundation, believes that a set of values derived from Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1831 book On Democracy in America are still relevant today. Cleverly arranged so that the first letters of each combine to spell the words core values, these foundational values are said to be compassion, opportunity, responsibility, equality, valor, ambition, liberty, unity, enterprise, and spirituality. He argues these values should have the same utility for Americans in the twenty-first century as they did for the Founding Fathers. Daniel Yankelovich (2005), Chairman of DYG, Inc., one of the leading marketing and social research firms in the country, has been in the business of public opinion research since the 1960s. Based on the annual tracking polls conducted by his firm, he has “identified eleven core values that are consistently embraced by most Americans . . . summarized as follows: patriotism, self-confidence, individualism, belief in hard work and productivity, religious beliefs, child-centeredness, community and charity, pragmatism and compromise, acceptance of diversity, cooperation with other countries, [and a] hunger for common ground” (p. 25). Some of the difference between these lists may be semantic, and a consequence of Halamandaris’s desire to have his list literally proclaim itself as America’s core values. There may be no difference, for example, between faith, spirituality, and religious beliefs. The greatest difference derives from the authors’ respective methods. Yankelovich is interested in what Americans do believe rather than what they should believe. His list of 11 values is preceded by an indication of how feelings have changed over time, and followed by a discussion of the extent of popular support for each, making explicit his qualification of the claim that these values are embraced by most Americans. Core national value systems, which may include values relevant to various fields of argument, are of particular importance to your analysis of a value proposition when the dispute is joined at a national level. Dominant patterns of valuing can help you identify value hierarchies that may apply to your value proposition. The following core values are supported by “strong majorities of the general public” (Yankelovich, 2005, p. 26). They are listed alphabetically rather than in rank order, and may exist in combination or in conflict with each other in a given situation. Acceptance of Diversity. In the late nineteenth century, millions of immigrants came to the United States seeking a better life, and one of the enduring images Americans have of their country is as a “melting pot.” Most of us are immigrants

208

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

or the children of immigrants. Hate crimes against members of racial, religious, or ethnic groups still occur, but what makes us “American” is that most of us share a common cluster of values about the kind of nation we want. “U.S. society emphasizes individualism, the dignity and intrinsic worth of each person, and honors freedom and mutual respect” (Jensen, 1997, p. 26). The controversy over illegal immigration is joined in part over this value. Belief in Hard Work and Productivity. “The vast majority of Americans (82 percent) describe themselves as ‘hardworking’” (Yankelovich, 2005, p. 27). The value we place on hard work can be traced back to the Protestant work ethic. The initial British efforts to colonize North America at Jamestown and Plymouth almost failed because the educated gentlemen who emigrated were not used to getting their hands dirty. Captain John Smith decreed that “those who don’t work don’t eat,” and the work ethic triumphed in the colonies. Today, we believe hard work pays off and that the accomplishments of individuals should be rewarded. A corollary to achievement is the belief that we should not be idle, that we should always be progressing toward some goal, even in our leisure activities. Child-centeredness. Three out of every four people surveyed “strongly agreed with the statement that ‘once you have a child your own needs come second’” (Yankelovich, 2005, p. 27). Men and women in almost equally high numbers embraced the identity of being a “family man” or a “family woman,” although the numbers were slightly higher for women. This value finds its expression in the myriad activities we encourage children to engage in, the emergence of the role of “soccer mom,” and government programs ranging from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative. Community and Charity. Community is the core value of the group, the belief that we should work together to accomplish things. This core value encompasses family, neighbors, members of our ethnic group, loyalty to an employer, labor union, professional association, or school. Community-based values take the individual outside of self and into the society of others, while charity engages us in the act of helping the poor, the victims of a natural disaster, or those afflicted with a serious disease. Notice how colleges and universities engage both aspects of this value in their solicitation of contributions from alumni. Cooperation with Other Countries. Although the collapse of the former Soviet Union left the United States as the world’s lone superpower, the lessons learned from the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation are not lost on us. Americans recognize that problems like terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and global economic development are best addressed with the cooperation of other countries. Hunger for Common Ground. In a diverse society, the ability to find areas of common ground is one means of ensuring social cohesion. The American people’s hunger for common ground represents a centrist reaction to media characterizations of

209

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

behavior in the political sphere as increasingly partisan, ideological, polarizing, and indicative of the fact that we are a divided rather than a united people. Individualism. “Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) strongly agreed with the statement that ‘When making choices, I like to go my own way and not necessarily do what others are doing’” (Yakelovich, 2005, p. 27). Foundational documents like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give Americans the right to choose their leaders, to speak out for those things they believe in and against those they do not. The freedom to read, watch, and listen to what we want, to choose our spiritual path and to live our personal lives as we see fit without interference from the government is reflected in the value we place on individualism. Patriotism. “Two-thirds (66 percent) of Americans describe themselves as strongly patriotic. As many as 68 percent stated that they were ‘willing to make sacrifices for’ their country” (Yankelovich, 2005, p. 26). Patriotism is the core value of loyalty to the United States and our concept of democracy. “Patriotism comes naturally to Americans. . . . I know of nowhere else where love of country comes so easily and devoid of complications” (Elliott, 2002, p. 84). This loyalty and love of country extends to the symbols of the United States—the flag, those who serve in the military, our historical traditions and celebrations, and sometimes our leaders. Patriotism can also be local or regional, as in loyalty to one’s state, hometown, or alma mater. Pragmatism and Compromise. According to Yankelovich (2005), “embracing ideological extremes is actually far more characteristic of our intellectual elites than of the general public” (p. 29). Even on issues that are ideologically polarizing like abortion, Yankelovich notes that only a small percentage of Americans absolutely favor or oppose it. Most are in the pragmatic middle, favoring abortion in certain circumstances such as cases of rape or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. An overwhelming majority of Americans wish their political leaders were willing to compromise to get things done. Religious Beliefs. “Americans, as is often observed, remain an extraordinarily religious people. Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) describe themselves as ‘strongly active in church, synagogue, or spiritual group’” (Yankelovich, 2005, p. 27). This core value suggests we feel we benefit from believing in a higher power. America is often referred to as a “Christian nation,” so the religious values expressed tend to be those of Christian doctrine. As a core value, religion is also a source of moral standards. Religion and spirituality are significant in American core values, and we go to great lengths to ensure separation of church and state. Self-confidence. Almost three-quarters of those surveyed by Yankelovich (2005) thought of themselves as confident. Sixty-nine percent indicated that “no matter what comes my way I can handle it” (pp. 26–27). This core value may derive from the Pilgrims’ belief that God had given them this vast, fertile, uncivilized land, “a world in which the Creator had spread before them a richly endowed, primordial continent” (McElroy, 1999, p. 112). Americans have a vision of their nation as a special place, forged from a wilderness through blood and dedication, ordained by

210

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

heaven. This idealized view of America makes a “can-do” feeling of self-confidence seem warranted to many people, although recent economic events have certainly tested it.

Values in Conflict Although these core values are held by a substantial majority of Americans, they are not held by all, so the potential for conflict is inherent in this or any other scheme of values such as those related to matters of taste or personal preference. How do values come into conflict? We either make an evaluation of something based on our knowledge and experience, or we are asked to choose one value over another. In value propositions, the controversy exists over opposing judgments of a person, event, idea, or artifact. Generational Differences. One of the ways Americans differ in their values is along generational lines. J. Walker Smith and Ann Cluman (1997), authors of Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing, argue that Matures, born before 1946, Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, and Gen X, born since 1964, have very different values. Matures’ values emphasize discipline, self-denial, hard work, and obedience to authority, and they tend to be conservative on matters financial and social. Boomers, whose only experience with the Great Depression and World War II was hearing Matures talk about it or studying it in school, feel a certain sense of entitlement and favor self-expression and finding themselves over self-sacrifice. Unlike Boomers who grew up in times of prosperity and stability, Gen X grew up in times of changing economic and political conditions, and as a result, they share some of the Matures’ values. Smith and Cluman’s interest in values relates to how these differences impact marketing messages, which are used to process information along the peripheral route in the Elaboration Likelihood Model. In the broadest sense, the message “you’ve earned it,” will resonate with Matures, while Boomers will respond more positively if told “you deserve it.” Gen X is suspicious of advertising and slick marketing messages, so a campaign that does not take itself too seriously and provides reassurance that the product or service is sound and practical is most likely to succeed with them. Although there is no doubt that the values held by individual Americans differ generationally, it would be a mistake to believe that all Americans of a certain age hold similar values and afford them equal importance in their daily lives. Value Hierarchy Differences. Values do not exist in isolation; they are usually found in value clusters or systems. Rokeach’s (1973) definition of values includes the concept “value systems,” his term for a value hierarchy. “Every person places values in their own hierarchy, “ says John Russonello (2005), one of the principals of Belden, Russonello & Stewart, an opinion research and communications consultancy based in Washington, DC, whose philosophy is to focus on values in assisting their clients’ efforts to communicate with key constituencies. Having said that, he is quick to note that, Our study of values over the last five decades has led us to conclude that some values are consistently stronger motivators than others, so we describe them in two tiers:

211

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

primary and secondary values. Primary values are: responsibility to yourself and your family; freedom; honesty; fairness; spirituality; and work. Secondary values are: responsibility to care for others or for the world we live in—what is called stewardship; selffulfillment; respect for authority; and patriotism, or the love of country or culture.

A common source of value conflict is when two things, both highly valued, come into opposition with each other because the situation does not appear to allow both to be realized simultaneously. Extracting or developing natural resources may provide much needed employment, but it also disturbs the environment and displaces wildlife. A clash of values takes place over which is more important: employment opportunity or environmental protection. Cultural Differences. This clash of values and value hierarchies may also occur when different cultures interpret values to mean different things and give them different significance in their respective value hierarchies. Such was the case in the 1990s as the Ojibway of northern Wisconsin clashed with local government over the proposed site of a copper mine. “Appropriate land use became a common thread in the conflict of values over resources” (Coleman, 1997, p. 202). Government officials held that the copper had no value unless it was mined. The Ojibway held that the value of the copper could not be separated from the value of the earth; we live in a reciprocal relationship with the environment. Russonello (2005) classifies “responsibility to care for others or for the world we live in—what is called stewardship” as a secondary value, which local officials would likely view as relevant only as it related to dealing with the impact that realizing a primary value, work/mining, might have on the environment. For the Ojibway, stewardship combined with earth’s spiritual significance forms the pinnacle of their value hierarchy, the source of all nourishment and thus the source of life. In addition, home is hearth, where food is prepared and shared, where stories are told and retold, and where communal bonds are recreated in a celebration of life. Life is rooted in a concrete locality, and this sense of place is part of the grounding of life. (Coleman, 1997, p. 201)

Generational, cultural, and, no doubt, other differences in values and value hierarchies are not the only source of conflict. So, too, are differences in the meaning supposedly shared values have. Slaughter (2007) believes values, and the manner in which differences of opinion about them are resolved, are particularly important for Americans: Values play a particularly important role in the American national psyche for a unique reason: Although we inhabit a common land that we love, we do not share a common race, creed, or national origin. Liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility and faith bind us together more powerfully than do blood or soil. But here is the paradox. It is the vigorous and impassioned debates we have about the practical meaning of those values and the trade-offs between them that bind us most strongly. The tone of those debates is often fierce and divisive, but the disagreement and dissent that feed them is an essential part of American life. (p. 216)

Whatever differences exist domestically, regardless of source, they pale in comparison to the differences in values that exist when we move beyond our borders and consider other national value systems.

212

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Societal Differences Worldwide. Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss these differences in depth, they are significant enough that ignoring them as a source of value conflict is impossible. The World Values Survey (2009) has interviewed 257,000 respondents from 97 countries representing 88 percent of the world’s population in five waves between 1981 and 2007. Top social scientists from each country studied are recruited as the principal investigator responsible for gathering and analyzing data from randomly selected subjects in their country. The World Values Survey has discovered that, many basic values are closely correlated and can be depicted in two major dimensions of cross-cultural variation: (1) Traditional/Secular-rational and (2) Survival/SelfExpression values . . . [which] explain more than 70 percent of the cross-cultural variance on key variables. (p. 6)

Values in Traditional societies “emphasize the importance of parent-child ties, deference to authority, and traditional family values.” Values in these societies also manifest “high levels of national pride, and a nationalistic outlook.” SecularRational societies “have the opposite preferences.” The World Values Survey emerged from the European Values Study with the goal of not only examining values cross-culturally but also longitudinally in order to assess how values change over time. As a result, it has been determined that “in nearly all industrial societies, worldviews have shifted from Traditional toward Secular-Rational values.” (p. 6) Survival values place tremendous emphasis on issues of economic and social security. For example, child-rearing in societies that emphasize Survival values focus on the importance of hard work. Self-Expression values are associated with a subjective sense of “well-being that is conductive to an atmosphere of tolerance, trust and political moderation.” These values are associated with giving “high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demand for participation in decisionmaking in economic and political life.” A child raised in such a society would be encouraged to develop his or her imagination and taught importance of tolerance (pp. 6–7). To understand what this means in a global sense, consider how the United States compares with Northern Ireland, India, and Romania. All are similarly Traditional in their values, as illustrated by their location along the Traditional/ Secular-Rational dimension in Figure 1. What differentiates values in these societies is where they fall on the Survival/Self-Expression dimension. The United States and Northern Ireland both fall on the Self-Expression end of this dimension, although the United States’ factor score places it about twice as far from the tipping point between Self-Expression values and Survival values as Northern Ireland. India and Romania are both Survival values societies, although Romania is about three times as far away from the tipping point as India. A sense of how societies vary in terms of Traditional/Secular-Rational values can be gained from looking at countries with similar Survival/Self-Expression values. For example, Iceland is similar to the United States relative to Self-Expression values. (See Figure 1.) However, Iceland is Secular-Rational in its values to about the same extent the United States is Traditional in its. Survival values are present in Egypt and China to about the same extent as they are in India. Egypt is a society with

213

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Secular-Rational Values

2

1.5 China 1

0.5

Iceland

0 Romania

Traditional Values

ⴚ0.5

Northern Ireland United States

India

ⴚ1

ⴚ1.5

Egypt

ⴚ2 ⴚ2

ⴚ1.5

Survival Values

ⴚ1

ⴚ0.5

0

0.5 1 1.5 Self-Expression Values Factor Score

2

FIGURE 1 Difference in Survival/Self-Expression and Traditional/Secular-Rational Values. (Adapted from the Cultural Map of the World, World Values Survey, 2009)

much more Traditional values than India, whereas China is a society in which Secular-Rational values are very strong. Although values are relatively stable, they are not static. The World Values Survey indicates that values are changing in various parts of the world. Yankelovich (2005) comments on how determining right from wrong has shifted from a question of whether an action is moral to whether it is legal. More than a decade ago, Yankelovich (1994) identified a belief in American superiority and luck as being core American values. There is a natural resistance to change. As Smith and Cluman (1997) point out, a younger generation does not automatically adopt the values of an older one, which can be a source of conflict. Understanding the forces that foment value change is important, not only in terms of the ability it affords you to forecast possible conflict, but also because as an advocate or opponent in value argumentation you become part of the process of change.

214

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Value Change Although values seldom change abruptly, events can influence what is valued at a particular point in time by a particular culture: The most influential men in America met in Boston. The nation, they agreed, faced a terrible moral crisis: rampant substance abuse, sex (even the old taboo against naked breasts seemed to be gone), and illegitimacy. Public schools were languishing, the pursuit of profits was appalling, the explosion of lawsuits was completely out of hand. Worst of all, parents were doing a terrible job of raising their kids—not enough discipline. (Monroe, 2000, p. 90)

The Boston group published their findings and proclaimed the need for “moral action.” The year was 1679. More than 300 years have passed, but this call for action could easily fit our time. Engines of Change. Core values remain relatively stable even when society experiences abrupt changes. A desire for value change may emerge from the collective experience of those in a field or in society in general, with value conflict as the cause or effect of this change. Nicholas Rescher’s (1969) classic view of shifting values includes a discussion of the sources of value change: change in information; ideological and political change; erosion of values through boredom, disillusionment, and reaction; and changes in the operating environment. The first way in which a value system can change is when new information is introduced. Many of today’s changes are brought about by scientific discovery. Consider the impact that modern communication technology has had on notions of safety, privacy, and appropriate behavior. One of the great unanswered questions that may produce a significant value change, if it can ever be established, is the determination of the point at which life begins. Although it has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, new discoveries about old things do happen. As you investigate the immediate causes and historical background of your value proposition, be alert for new discoveries, new directions, and shifts in thinking that point to changing values. A second way in which society experiences value change is through political and ideological change. Such change can be revolutionary, as occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990. Both political and ideological change took place as communist governments were overthrown and attempts at democracy were begun. Political and ideological change need not be abrupt; “it can take the gradualistic form of conditioning, advertising, propaganda, and promotion” (Rescher, 1969, p. 117). For instance, think about the ways in which television commercials and programs articulate what is to be valued. Mass media call our attention to everything from eating habits to controlling wildlife in urban areas, and they offer us the commentary of experts and ordinary people who are most affected. These commentaries and experiential views give us new or revised ways of thinking about politics and ideologies. The third way societal values change is through erosion of the value, which occurs when large numbers of people resist acting in accordance with a value. Patriotism has long been a core American value, but in the 1960s, thousands of young men rejected the patriotism of the time as they refused to register for the

215

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

military draft. Events of September 11, 2001, a change in the operating environment that we will discuss shortly, produced a very different reaction. Erosion can also occur as a society experiences gradual change, and as a result, a value loses much of its importance. In an age when anyone with cable television or a satellite dish can view sexually explicit series such as MTV’s The Jersey Shore or True Blood on HBO, the value of modesty may be of decreasing importance. A value may also be eroded if society becomes disillusioned with it. Concern with alcohol consumption has long been an issue in our society. In the late nineteenth century, many Americans placed sobriety very high in their personal value systems. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the very colorful activist Carrie Nation, and religious leaders all advocated abstinence from alcohol. By 1920 sobriety was so firmly fixed in the national value hierarchy that a constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages was adopted. As soon as the Eighteenth Amendment took effect, millions of Americans decided it did not apply to them personally and took to making “bathtub gin” or “moonshine,” while others patronized “speakeasies” or bought “bootleg” liquor. Americans became so disillusioned with the lawlessness that occurred in the wake of the Eighteenth Amendment that they approved the Twenty-first Amendment restoring the right to make and purchase alcohol. The final way in which value changes occur is through a change in the operating environment, a “whole range of social, cultural, demographic, economic, and technological factors that comprise the way of life in that society” (Rescher, 1969, p. 117). Results of the World Values Survey (2009) indicated how the shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy in many parts of the world was causing a shift away from survival values toward self-expressive values. Discussion and debate about values accelerated in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Anne-Marie Slaughter (2007) wrote The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World to call attention to how our treatment of enemy combatants represented an undesirable change, or at least flew in the face of national values. “Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, detention without trial and possibly without end, tolerance of torture by others and even ourselves—all enable our enemies to taunt us as hypocrites and our friends to doubt our sincerity” (p. 10). Processes of Change. Rescher (1969) also discusses the process by which values change, suggesting that values are seldom accepted or abandoned absolutely, except in the rare circumstances of religious or ideological conversions. Instead, values are changed through processes of redistribution, emphasis or deemphasis, restandardization, and retargeting. When value redistribution occurs, society adopts the value of a minority group that has successfully promoted a different way of attributing importance to that value. Insurance companies have promoted “women’s work” or “housework” as being equally valuable as the work of wage earners and therefore worthy of insurance coverage against the possibility that the homemaker might die or become incapacitated. This places a new connotation on the value of housework by putting it in an insurable category of labor. Environmental change can cause value emphasis or deemphasis. Some deeply entrenched value, perhaps one that is not even openly stated, is suddenly threatened

216

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

by a change in the physiological or psychological environment and takes on a different level of importance relative to other values. A nearby chemical accident can suddenly make the protection of the community or the right to feel secure in your own home seem extremely important, while 500 miles away people in an area of high unemployment may be excited about the jobs that will be created by the opening of a chemical plant just outside their city limits. You may be familiar with the phrases like “standard of living” and “quality of life.” One way in which values change is through value restandardization, the meaning of “quality of life” changes. Technology, along with trends in other fields, will change what we perceive as a good quality of life. In Future Files: The 5 Trends That Will Shape the Next 50 Years, Richard Watson (2008) indicates how ageing, the shift of economic, political, and military power eastward, global connectivity, GRIN technologies (genetics, robotics, the Internet, and nanotechnologies), and the environment will change the way we live our lives. Although it is an open question whether some of the restandardizations he forecasts will be for the better, the authors of this chapter, who are approaching retirement age, were appreciative of his prediction that “companies will employ older people to design packaging that those with old hands and poor eyesight can actually open” (p. 2). All of us have goals that operationalize enduring values. Because a goal does not always help us to maximize attainment of a particular value, we find ourselves engaging in value implementation retargeting. In this case, the value itself has not undergone a change; what has changed is the manner in which we pursue it. Most people in our society place good health high in their personal hierarchy of values. Government and private medical plans reflect the value we place on good health. This value has not changed substantially, but the manner in which society pursues it has. Instead of focusing on the treatment of disease, medical care has shifted toward the prevention of disease—the “wellness” concept.

ADVOCATING PROPOSITIONS OF VALUE The analysis of value propositions will lead you to the definition of the value object, its placement in a particular value hierarchy, and a choice of criteria to use in judging the value object against the standards of the value hierarchy. Information you gain from locating immediate causes will be used in developing units of argument and may be used to focus on what is being evaluated and why. Historical background is particularly important because it provides you with information about the core values that pertain to your proposition. Although these may be core national values, if the proposition relates to a particular field, these values may be less relevant than the core values of that field. Construction of a prima facie case for value advocacy is a four-step process that begins by defining key terms and proceeds through considering the competing values within a hierarchy to identifying criteria. It ends with applying the criteria to the value object. Two students in our argumentation class wanted to explore the pros and cons of the proposition, Teaching the uses of social media is the most important element in the college curriculum. Immediate cause in this instance may appear to be the assignment they were given, to select and argue a proposition of value, but that would be a facile thought.

217

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

What prompted these two students to select this topic? Perhaps they learned about how companies use social network sites to interact with customers in one of their public relations or marketing classes. Perhaps, through their own involvement in online social networks, they were aware of issues of privacy and the commercial aspect of some sites. In 2007 . . . the default setting in an initiative called Facebook Beacon sent all your Facebook friends updates about purchases you made on certain third party sites. Beacon caused an uproar among users—who were automatically enrolled. . . . In April [2010], it launched a major initiative called Open Graph, which lets Facebook users weigh in on what they like on the web, from a story on Time.com to a pair of jeans from Levi’s. The logic is that if my friends recommend something, I’ll be more inclined to like it too. And because Facebook has so many users—and because so many companies want to attract those eyeballs—Facebook is well positioned to display its members’ preference on any website, anywhere. Less than a month after Open Graph’s rollout, more than 100,000 sites had integrated the technology. (Fletcher, 2010, p. 34)

Regardless of what prompted selection of social media as a topic area, the advocate begins her development of a prima facie case by defining the value object.

Defining the Value Object In some instances, the value object may be instantly recognizable and may not require lengthy definition. We all know what social media are, or do we? Turning to A Modern Dictionary of Human Resource Management: Oxford Reference Online, the advocate learned that, social networking websites (such as Facebook and Myspace) provide individuals with an opportunity to share details about themselves on personal webpages and interact with others in cyberspace. They also provide the opportunity for companies to check on candidates who apply for jobs, or existing employees. (Heery & Noon, 2008)

The advocate had not only begun to define the value object, but serendipitously discovered a reason why learning about how to handle social media properly might be important to a college student, if this was something her research on the historical background of the subject had not already turned up. Looking further, she found a more precise definition that differentiated social media from bulletin boards and other venues that allow people to interact in cyberspace. We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 211)

Even in an example like this, providing a definition of the value object is a good idea, and her definition served to clarify the value object’s meaning for the audience.

218

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Next, the advocate used the stock issues for analyzing value propositions: 1. By what value hierarchy is the object of the proposition best evaluated? 2. By what criteria is the value object to be located within this hierarchy? 3. Do indicators of the effect, significance, and inherency of the value object show that it conforms to the criteria?

Identifying the Hierarchy Value hierarchy identification is the second step for the advocate. A value hierarchy is a complex set of attitudes and core values shared by members of a field or audience. These hierarchies can vary widely from audience to audience. For example, “the majority of audiences will probably regard both beauty and profitability as values, but if they have to be weighed against each other the preference . . . will probably be different” (van Eemeren et al., 1987, p. 224). A group of recent college graduates looking to start their careers may place greater emphasis on the economic vitality of an area than they do on whether it affords them beautiful, panoramic vistas. On the other hand, a group of recent retirees looking for a place to spend their golden years may value an area’s aesthetic properties more than its economic ones. It is not the values that change drastically but the way different audiences and individuals combine them into hierarchies (van Eemeren et al., 1987). In arguing that one core value, or a certain combination of them, should take preeminence in making this evaluation, the advocate wants to move the audience in the direction of a particular set of standards for making evaluations. She wants the audience to view the value object in terms of the “right” hierarchy so that they will understand and accept the criteria she uses to make her evaluation. She knows there are privacy issues and concerns about the commercial aspects of social media, and has learned companies use them to screen prospective employees. Characterizing social media as “the most important element in the college curriculum” in a hierarchy of core values related to the world of work will probably make more sense to her classmates and professor than if she chose values like patriotism, selfconfidence, or even individualism. As a result, she decided that the appropriate hierarchy emphasizes “the mission of higher education is to educate students to enable them to realize the value of hard work and productivity upon graduation.” The appropriateness of the advocate’s positioning of the value object within a hierarchy can be verified by arguments that (1) prove the superiority of the advocate’s interpretation of the value object relative to all other possible interpretations, (2) offer the testimony of “admirable people” who support valuing the object of the proposition in this way, and (3) identify signs demonstrating that this interpretation best fits the existing societal value hierarchy. Conflicting values are framed by value propositions, and value argumentation is aimed at resolving this conflict. The advocate attempts to resolve the conflict in her favor by creating a decision rule: (1) proving the advocate’s value maximizes another agreed-upon value, (2) proving the advocate’s value subsumes opposing values, (3) proving the advocate’s value has more desirable consequences, or (4) arguing from definition, in which the advocate’s value is the defining property of the opposing value (Zarefsky, 1976). This initiates argumentation on the first stock issue, “By what value hierarchy is the object of the proposition best evaluated?” The

219

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

advocate’s next responsibility in building a prima facie case is to decide what criteria she will use to evaluate the value object.

Specifying the Criteria Statement of the criteria for evaluation is the third step in value advocacy. Description of the criteria for evaluation occurs first as the advocate states the criteria to be used. Because the criteria defining values lie at the heart of argumentation over these propositions, the two approaches that can be taken in identifying and applying them need to be considered: criteria discovery and criteria development. Criteria discovery uses an existing framework of values—one already understood and generally accepted—as a standard by which phenomena may be evaluated. These criteria may be set forth in a general statement, but because they are so commonly accepted, advocate and opponent focus all argumentation on the appropriateness of judging the value object as a member of the class of phenomena to which this evaluation is commonly applied. Consider the general outline of advocacy using criteria discovery: Value Proposition: Drug XYZ is an effective treatment for cancer. Criteria as Discovered from the Medical Field: The effectiveness of a drug rests on its ability to cure, contain, or prevent a disease, without producing adverse side effects. Inference Relative to the Object of the Proposition: If drug XYZ can safely cure and contain cancer without producing adverse side effects, it can be considered an effective treatment. Contentions: Drug XYZ can cure cancer. Drug XYZ can contain cancer. Drug XYZ has no adverse side effects. In this instance, the decision to adopt discovered criteria is reasonable. Most listeners and readers would consider a substance with purported medicinal properties to be effective if it had curative powers. Three criteria—the ability to cure cancer, the ability to contain cancer, and the absence of adverse side effects—are applied. Criteria development is used in situations where the advocate finds the criteria by which value may be determined either do not exist or are not commonly understood and therefore require explanation. This approach may also be used in situations where the criteria may be understood but are not readily accepted and therefore require substantiation. If, on analyzing the proposition, the advocate decides to combine value standards from different fields or to use a relatively unknown value standard, criteria development will be her best approach. In criteria development, the locus of controversy may include the stock issues of hierarchy and criteria as well as the issue of whether the value object is appropriately measured by them. A prima facie case is established only if proof and reasoning relevant to all three stock issues of value are presented. In arguing value propositions, a reasonable question to ask is, “Should I use discovered criteria or should I develop them?” Sometimes, a controversy over values has its genesis in a misunderstanding of the value term. A “good” sandwich may be tasty to you, economical to me, and nutritious to someone else. For this reason, criteria development may be the best approach because it has the potential of better

220

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

ensuring clarity of focus in argumentation rather than assuming it will occur naturally. By identifying and defining specific criteria to measure values, the advocate is less likely to find her arguments dismissed out of hand because they were misunderstood. However, the advocate must exercise good judgment. Remember that argumentation is an instrumental process, and you should consider the audience as well as your opponent. If the advocate and her audience share an understanding of the criteria that define a particular value at the outset, it is a waste of time and an insult to the audience’s intelligence to use anything but a criteria-discovery approach. The advocate then establishes the necessary and sufficient characteristics of these criteria. For example, in the case arguing that drug XYZ is an effective treatment for cancer, the necessary characteristics were (1) that it could cure cancer, (2) that it could contain cancer, and (3) that it did not have seriously harmful side effects. Notice that these conditions individually are insufficient to warrant acceptance of the proposition. A drug that merely has no seriously harmful side effects is not acceptable. This single criterion is insufficient to warrant the drug’s use. It must also possess some other properties. The criteria advanced by the advocate must include all necessary and sufficient properties for proving her primary inference about the value object. The decision to employ single or multiple criteria, which are either necessary or sufficient, is one of the strategic choices the advocate makes in deciding how best to advance her value proposition. These choices reflect the advocate’s consideration of the information the reader or listener may legitimately require to assent to the value proposition. Contentions and claims in support of value propositions must be worded so that argumentation over them focuses on the stock issues of value. In analyzing the value proposition’s topic area, look for resources that will provide support for these claims. You might be wondering at this point what happened to the advocate’s responsibility to define the other key terms in her proposition and complete the primary inference. One of the secrets of making a primary inference for a value proposition is that defining the predicate in terms of the specific criteria for evaluation meets that responsibility. Our advocate indicated “the mission of higher education is to educate students to enable them to realize the value of hard work and productivity upon graduation” was at the pinnacle of the value hierarchy. She next defined what makes social media “the most important element in the college curriculum” in terms of the following criteria that she developed based on her examination of immediate cause and research on the historical background of the topic: 䊏

䊏 䊏

The ability to use social media properly is important to the success of a variety of businesses. The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of getting a job. The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of keeping a job.

The advocate might have chosen to use discovered criteria for what makes something central to the college curriculum based on what professional educators have to say. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (1998) indicates that liberal learning, the foundation on which higher education is based, regardless of disciplinary emphasis, results in “the ability to think, to learn, and to express oneself

221

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

both rigorously and creatively, the capacity to understand ideas and issues in context, the commitment to live in society, and the yearning for truth.” Because her audience consisted of her classmates as well as her professor, she decided to develop criteria they would more readily understand in relationship to social media. Using her developed criteria as contentions, she then built her case by constructing units of argument, applying them to the value object.

Measuring the Value Object Measuring the value object with the criteria for value judgment is the fourth step in value advocacy. Three subissues must be addressed as the advocate confronts the third stock issue of value argumentation: “Do indicators of the effect, significance, and inherency of the value object show that it conforms to the criteria?” The amount of proof and the number of arguments used in establishing effect, significance, and inherency are matters of choice, but all three subissues must be present for each criterion, or the case will not be prima facie. By effect we mean what the value object is purported to do or possess. The advocate’s first contention in arguing that social media are the most important thing to teach in the college curriculum was supported by two main arguments: I. The ability to use social media properly is important to the success of a variety of businesses. A. Social media enable people to share their feelings about products and services with each other. B. Businesses realize that in order to be successful, they need to avoid allowing themselves to be totally defined by others. The effect the advocate must demonstrate in proving main point A was that one of the things people discuss on social media are their feelings about products and services. She did this with an argument from authority in her first subpoint: 1. Many people share their opinions online. According to Don Tapscott, chairman of nGenera Innovation Network and University of Toronto adjunct professor of management, “As the Net Generation comes of age, hundreds of millions of passionate users and consumers will be taking an active role in determining, shaping and redefining brands independent of company involvement.” (Tapscott, 2009, p. 216)

In value argumentation, significance is related to the magnitude, severity, or frequency with which the effect occurs. Making value judgments is a form of measurement of the value object; we use the term significance because criteria are a measuring instrument. Does the object of the proposition do what it is purported to do with important or serious consequences, and does this happen with regularity? Notice how Don Tapscott’s testimony indicated that the effect is the product of the behavior of “hundreds of millions” people acting “independent of company involvement.” Effect and significance arguments are both necessary elements of value advocacy. If a criterion for measuring the value object is shown to exist extensively, but does not have much effect on society, interest or concern may not be justified. Equally,

222

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

if the effect of criteria on the value object is very serious or has consequence, but does not extend to a significant number of individuals, interest or concern may not be justified. In this instance, a single argument establishes both. This may not always be the case, and value advocates need to be sure they have established both the effect and significance of each criterion they use to measure the value object. Inherency pertains to causation. Are the effect and its significance the result of something intrinsic to the value object? In value argumentation, inherency often results from societal attitudes toward the value object. If the advocate believed her audience was familiar with the freedom of expression on the Internet, where “I Hate Disney” (or Jeff Gordon, or broccoli, or anything else you can think of) sites are prevalent, and the kind of interaction that takes place on social media sites, she might have decided to forego a separate inherency argument. She could also have relied on the fact that inherency was also implied in Tapscott’s statement when he talked about “the Net Generation coming of age.” To be on the safe side, she included subpoint 2, a second argument from authority, to establish inherency: 2. Social media provide people with a means to do this. According to John Blossom, Shore Communications, Inc., “The bad news for many companies is that people are free to have a conversation with anyone they’d like in social media.” (Blossom, 2009, p. 11)

Keep in mind that causality is often the consequence of complex, interrelated factors, so inherency arguments have to consider the possibility of multiple causes and the fact that, in some instances, inherency relative to value criteria is structural. Effect, significance, and inherency arguments must be present for a case to be prima facie. This is only logical. If the significance of the effect is not inherent to the fundamental nature of the value object, then measurement of the value object by the criterion is invalid. Inherency arguments prove that the effect and significance attributed to a value object are central to a value system or some elements of it. The most carefully constructed arguments about the effect and significance of people sharing their feelings on “shaping and redefining brands” will not warrant the audience’s acceptance of the advocate’s argument if she cannot demonstrate that it is inherent to their use of social media.

Argument in Action The organizational pattern used in discussing effect, significance, and inherency need not always be the same. The advocate could have begun by establishing the inherency of the freedom to converse on a subject of your choosing afforded by social media, and then discussed the effect and its significance relative to corporate image. To see how she went about developing her entire case, review the value advocate brief in Box 1. It more closely follows the principles of formal outlining to show another way of constructing a brief. However, all parts of the primary triad are expressly stated or implied in each unit of argument, with elements of the secondary triad included where necessary.

223

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

BOX 1 Value Advocate Brief Proposition Teaching the uses of social media is the most important element in the college curriculum.

Definition of Key Terms Social Media—“We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site” (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 211). College Curriculum—the group of courses making up an area of specialization in higher education.

Hierarchy The mission of higher education is to educate students to enable them to realize the value of hard work and productivity upon graduation.

Criteria • The ability to use social media properly is important to the success of a variety of businesses. • The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of getting a job. • The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of keeping a job. I. The ability to use social media properly is important to the success of a variety of businesses. A. Social media enable people to share their feelings about products and services with each other. 1. Many people share their opinions online. According to Don Tapscott, chairman of nGenera Innovation Network and University of Toronto adjunct professor of management, “As the Net Generation comes of age, hundreds of millions of passionate users and consumers will be taking an active role in determining, shaping and redefining brands independent of company involvement” (Tapscott, 2009, p. 216). 2. Social media provide people with a means to do this. According to John Blossom, Shore Communications, Inc., “The bad news for many companies is that people are free to have a conversation with anyone they’d like in social media” (Blossom, 2009, p. 11). B. Businesses realize that to be successful they need to avoid allowing themselves to be totally defined by others. 1. Social media are an effective way for companies to do this. According to Blossom, “The good news is that social media is turning out to be a great way for companies to have a conversation with their markets” (Blossom, 2009, p. 11). 2. Many companies are doing this successfully.

224

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

“Twitter has proven to be a very valuable branding tool, and it hasn’t been lost on many big corporations. Just some of the companies you can find on Twitter include: Carnival Cruise Lines, Delta Airlines, JetBlue, Dell, Amazon, Forrester, GM and my favorite M&Ms” (Comm, 2009, pp. 143–144). a. Providing customer service is one way that companies are using social network Web sites successfully. “Good customer service itself can be good branding. It shows that the company is available to anyone who needs their help and that it listens too. The Home Depot does this very well” (Comm, 2009, pp. 154–155). b. Enabling customers to interact with top management is another. According to Blossom (2009),“One of the most important developments in promoting the brand value of senior managers is using social media to enable them (senior managers) to speak directly to markets” (pp. 121–122). For example, “GM’s Bob Lutz, a self-professed car nut who is seen as an influential media figure, posting items on the FastLane blog” and “FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher whose Market Mine blog covers events in the financial industry as well as highlighting her up-and-coming company’s information-analysis products” (Blossom, 2009, p. 122). II. The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of getting a job. A. Businesses want employees with social media skills. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says, “The landscape of today’s job market is shifting, and the shift favors individuals who are savvy in social media” (Knorr, 2009). 1. Position descriptions indicate the need for such skills. For example, “Valtech Technologies seeks an Atlanta scrum master/project manager whose critical responsibilities will include ‘social collaboration including work spaces like Wiki’s, blogs,Twitter, etc.’” (Knorr, 2009). 2. A variety of fields, not just those that are marketing or communications related, require social media skills. According to Bob Van Rossum, recruitment firm president, “Long term, you will need to be able to use social media and be able to communicate on behalf of your company” (Knorr, 2009). B. Social media can facilitate a successful job search. 1. Social media can be used to make an applicant stand out from the crowd. Charles Brown, blogger and social media marketing coach, says, “Think of the kinds of problems you are very good at solving. . . . Start a blog. . . . The goal here is not necessarily to impress an employer that you are a great writer . . . but to make your site a resource for helpful, useful information on solving these problems. . . . to make yourself stand out among the crowd of job seekers” (Brown, 2009). 2. Social media can be used to showcase an applicant’s skills. According to Kevin Wheeler, Global Learning Resources, Inc., president, “Social networks will become the ultimate sourcing and screening tool. Recruiters and particularly hiring managers will be able to see a more 3-D version of a person and get a much better sense of their past accomplishments and capabilities” (Hansen, 2010). C. Even if social media are not part of a job search strategy, applicants need to realize that businesses use cybervetting to screen prospective employees. 1. According to A Dictionary of Human Resource Management, “Cybervetting is the use of information from cyberspace (i.e. on the Internet) to vet job applicants and help decide their suitability to fill job vacancies.The main source of information of this kind are social networking websites, such as MySpace and Facebook, which contain millions of personal webpages” (Heery & Noon, 2008). (continued)

225

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

2. The practice of cybervetting job applicants is widespread. ExecuNet, an executive search firm, indicates “77 percent of recruiters run searches of candidates on the Web to screen applicants; 35 percent . . . say they’ve eliminated a candidate based on the information they uncovered”(Lorenz, 2009). 3. Various kinds of information on a social network Web site can disqualify an applicant. According to a Fortune 500 company recruiter, “I found the profile of one [applicant] on MySpace. It boasted a photo of her lounging on a hammock in a bikini, listed her interests as ‘having a good time’ and her sex as ‘yes, please.’ . . . Another time I . . . found racial slurs and jokes” (Lorenz, 2009). III. The ability to use social media properly enhances the probability of keeping a job. A. Improper use of social media can cost a person his job. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “frustrated fans pleading for something—anything—to be done to stop the Pirates’ losing ways are likely to find little to cheer about in the baseball team’s latest move. They fired a pierogi. Andrew Kurtz, . . . one of the 18 men who take turns posing as pierogies in a crowd-pleasing race [similar to the sausage races at Milwaukee Brewers home games], . . . was dismissed by the team Thursday because he posted disparaging remarks about the Pirates on his Facebook page.” Frustrated by the team’s 19 game losing streak, he posted comments critical of team president Frank Coonelly for extending the contracts of general manager Neal Huntington and manager John Russell through the 2011 season . . . “Asked if he’d learned anything during his time as a pierogi—or as an employee of the Pittsburgh Pirates—Mr. Kurtz [said] . . . ‘Don’t post personal thoughts about the boss or whoever I work for’” (Majors, 2010). WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina, reported that paramedic Jason Brown was fired over a video he made and posted on Facebook. “In a letter of dismissal Brown provided, Colleton County Fire-Rescue Director Barry McRoy said, ‘You [Brown] displayed poor judgment in producing a derogatory video depicting a member of this department with a physician which is implied to be at Colleton Medical Center’” (Vela, 2010) According to The Blade, “a Facebook posting . . . resulted . . . in the firing of an employee of the Lucas County Board of Elections for discussing on the social-media site how a citizen voted. . . . The same Facebook posting referred to [the voter] as ‘a snake’” (Troy, 2010). According to the Charlotte Observer, a waitress became frustrated with a couple who left a $5 tip after spending three hours at the restaurant “forcing her to work an hour past her quitting time. . . . When she got home, she went on Facebook [and wrote], ‘Thanks for eating at Brixx, you cheap piece of ____ camper.’ . . . She was fired for violating company policy against speaking disparagingly about customers. A Brixx official said she also violated a second policy against casting the restaurant in a negative light on social networks” (Frazier, 2010). B. Improper use of social media can adversely affect employment even if it doesn’t cost a person her job. That same article indicated that an area school district suspended an elementary school teacher “in 2008 after learning that her Facebook page listed ‘teaching chitlins in the ghetto’ as one of her activities” (Frazier, 2010). According to The Daily Reflector, at the same time “a high school special education teacher was suspended after writing on her site, ‘I hate my students,’ . . . [and] four other employees received lesser punishments for photos or comments” in the same district (School employee, 2008).

226

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Sources Cited Blossom, J. (2009). Content nation. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definitions, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x Brown, D. (2009). A social media strategy for job seekers—Part one. Web Marketing Coach. Retrieved from http://webmarketingcoach.blogspot.com/search/label/job%20searching. Comm, J. (2009). Twitter power. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Frazier, E. (2010, May 17). Facebook post costs waitress her job. Charlotte Observer (NC). Retrieved from www.charlotteobserver.com. Hansen, K., (2010). How the real-time web changes job search: The Internet as one giant job board. Quintessential Careers. Retrieved from http://www.quintcareers.com/real-time_ job-search.html. Heery, E., & Noon, M. (2008). A dictionary of human resource management: Oxford reference online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5214/views/ENTRY.html?subview= Main&entry=t162.e1538. Knorr, A. K. (2009, August 2). Companies want applicants with social-media skills. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA). Retrieved from www.ajc.com. Lorenz, K. (2009, November 10). Warning: Social networking can be hazardous to your job search. Career Builder. Retrieved from http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-533Job-Search-Warning-Social-Networking-Can-Be-Hazardous-to-Your-Job-Search/?ArticleID= 533&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=92b529ef792c4411afa730694e4dff81-329667288-VK-4. Majors, D. ( 2010, June 19). Out at the plate: Pirates dump outspoken pierogi. Pittsburgh PostGazette, (PA). Retrieved from www.post-gazette.com. School employee, (2008, November 26). School employee is fired over Facebook post. The Daily Reflector (Greenville, NC). Retrieved from www.reflector.com/archives. Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital. New York: McGraw Hill. Troy, T. (2010, May 12). Election worker fired for Facebook posting. The Blade (Toledo, OH). Retrieved from www.toldeoblade.com. Vela, H. (2010, 25 February). Colleton County rescue worker loses job over Facebook post. WCSC TV/DT. Retrieved from www.live5news.com.

Summary of Value Advocacy Strategies 1. Define the terms of the proposition’s value object. 2. Place the value object in the appropriate field, and state the value hierarchy of the field in which the value object is now placed. 3. State the criteria for evaluation. a. Have the characteristics of the criteria been defined or described? b. Are the criteria identified as necessary and/or sufficient to warrant acceptance? c. Has the relevance of the criteria to the value object been established? d. Are the criteria consistent with placement of the value object in a given field? 4. Measure the value object against the value judgment criteria, demonstrating that the value object fits the criteria on the basis of the following: a. What element of society is influenced by the value object? (arguments on effect)

227

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

b. To what degree or in what amount does the effect occur? (arguments on significance)

c. What is the cause that produces the effect and significance of the value object? (arguments on inherency)

OPPOSING PROPOSITIONS OF VALUE As was the case with fact, the opponent of the proposition of value has his choices constrained by both his resources and the advocate’s choices. The uncertainty that this creates for the opponent of value change—and, for that matter, opponents of fact and policy—is partially offset by the asset of presumption. The opponent can also anticipate what the advocate is most likely to argue based on his analysis of the proposition, his knowledge of the stock issues she must address, and his understanding of audience beliefs and attitudes that the advocate might emphasize to encourage a value change. The analysis of the proposition and search for issues is just as important for the opponent as it is for the advocate. To gain any advantage from presumption, the opponent must be aware of how the value object is presently viewed. The opponent should investigate every possible aspect of the value object—how it is regarded in its field, what opinions have been formed about it, what value standards are used to judge it, and what controversies exist concerning it. On the basis of this analysis, the opponent chooses his strategies for refuting the advocate’s case.

Establishing Strategy The opponent normally begins with an overview of the value proposition reflecting the position he will take in presenting arguments refuting the advocate’s case. This is his philosophy, and it expresses the essence of the opponent’s perspective on the controversy, including a preview of his strategy. It tells the listener or reader that he will defend present values, present alternative values, or demonstrate the weakness of proof and reasoning in specific areas of the advocate’s arguments; in short, it elucidates the strategy he chooses to employ. The purpose is to clarify where he stands on the proposition’s value object.

Examining Definitions and Hierarchy Because the first step in advocacy was to define the value object, that may be the opponent’s next area of concern. Has the value object been properly defined? Does the opponent agree with the method of definition used by the advocate? If he feels that the value object should include elements the advocate has failed to consider or exclude elements she has included, his first point of clash with the advocate will be over how to define the value object. Our opponent chose to accept the advocate’s definition of social media, but argued that her definition of college curriculum, courses in an area of specialization, was too narrow, and therefore inappropriate to use in judging at least one of the criteria the advocate developed. He found the same definition the advocate had, that a liberal education results in “the ability to think, to learn, and to express oneself both rigorously and creatively, the capacity to understand ideas and issues in context, the commitment to live in society, and the yearning for truth” (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 1998). He offered this definition because the

228

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

proposition resided in the field of higher education, and he felt that the beliefs of those in the field about valued outcomes should be taken into consideration. The opponent’s next step is to make use of the stock issues of value argumentation. Recall that the first stock issue asks by what value hierarchy the value object is best understood. There are two questions the opponent should ask himself in preparing arguments about this issue. First, is the hierarchy the advocate has chosen really as important in the field and to the audience as the advocate suggests? He may attempt to demonstrate that society, or those in the topic’s field, do not accept the validity of the value hierarchy the advocate has identified. Second, has the advocate identified a value hierarchy appropriate to better understanding the value object? Does he see other, more appropriate value hierarchies that the advocate has failed to recognize? Does the advocate provide an adequate justification for her choice of a value hierarchy? Would a different value hierarchy be more appropriate for this proposition? The advocate’s choice of hierarchy and criteria restricts her opponent’s options. This does not mean that he has no choices. He may choose to dispute the core value she places at the top of her value hierarchy. Our advocate identified the core value of a belief in hard work and productivity as the most important in making her judgment, and justified this by arguing that the mission of higher education is to prepare people for a career. Should the opponent dispute this? Although he chose not to, he could have argued that that college is not a trade school. That by seeking to instill “the commitment to live in society” included in the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ definition, a college education speaks as much or more to values such as the acceptance of diversity or the importance of community and charity as it does to getting a job. This illustrates one of the fundamental differences between fact and value argumentation. It is inappropriate and results in fallacious factual argumentation for the opponent to do too much shifting of the relationship between the subject and predicate of the proposition. An opponent of the factual proposition “the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the levee system caused the flooding of New Orleans,” would be misleading the audience if he responded, “It wouldn’t have mattered if Hurricane Katrina hadn’t happened.” This response bypasses the advocate’s argument and does nothing to refute any points she made about what the Corps of Engineers did or did not do. In value argumentation, opponents do have the option of attempting to shift the hierarchy—asking the audience to view the value object from the perspective of a different value system—without necessarily engaging in fallacious reasoning. This is not an instance of avoiding the issue, as long as the opponent develops arguments that will allow the audience to understand that shifting hierarchies is more appropriate to understanding the proposition. The opponent may deny that there is any utility or probable truth in the advocate’s evaluation of the value object. Or, he may choose to accept the general idea that making such a value judgment is a good thing to do, but argue that the advocate does not go about it in quite the right way. The opponent then offers a new interpretation of the value hierarchy and suggests other criteria that are more appropriate. Suppose the opponent had asked the audience to view the question of what is most important in a college curriculum, not from the economic perspective of hard work and productivity but from the viewpoint of a volunteer or philanthropist concerned with assuring a vibrant community and charitable environment. On the

229

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

surface, you may not see values from these fields as compatible with determining what is most important in the college curriculum, but consider the extent to which issues of civic engagement and academic service learning are being incorporated in college curricula. Had he chosen to do this, the opponent would have had to develop arguments from his investigation of the historical background of curriculum development and change demonstrating the connection to values related to community and charity, and argued that they were the most appropriate source of criteria for making judgments about what is most important.

Challenging the Criteria Whether the opponent chooses to refute every aspect of the advocate’s case or asks the audience to shift to a different field for viewing the value object, his next concern is with the appropriateness of the criteria used in measuring the value object in terms of its effect, significance, and inherency. Has the advocate established unique criteria for a value object for which other, more commonly understood or accepted criteria exist? He may choose to argue that the value criteria are inappropriate for the value object because these criteria are too unusual or more appropriate to measuring some other value object. He would then provide arguments establishing that better criteria exist that are more appropriate to the value object or more widely recognized by experts in the field or society, or that the advocate has misinterpreted the value in question. The advocate developed three criteria for determining what the most important element in the college curriculum might be, based on the core value of the belief in hard work and productivity. The opponent chose to accept the advocate’s value hierarchy rather than proposing another one, but did not accept her criteria at face value. Although he chose to not dispute her arguments concerning the first criterion, that the ability to use social media properly is important to the success of a variety of businesses, he used the definition of what a liberal education includes to reframe her second criterion. He also chose to reframe her third criterion and added one of his own as the basis for asking the audience to accept his position that teaching social media is not the most important element in the college curriculum. From the opponent’s perspective, the criteria for evaluating the proposition were: 䊏

䊏

䊏

There are more important things than the ability to use social media properly that contribute to the probability of getting a job. The ability to use social media properly is not what enhances the probability of keeping a job, but the recognition that this is public space. Teaching the use of social media in the college curriculum would be unworkable.

Refuting the Measurement Finally, the opponent will turn to the third stock issue to determine if the value object is appropriately measured by the value criteria. With the concepts of effect, significance, and inherency clearly in mind, the opponent considers his strategies for opposition. First, remembering that the advocate must establish a prima facie case, he asks himself, “Have effect, significance, and inherency been argued by the advocate?” If one or more have not, a prima facie case has not been established. He should begin refutation by pointing this out. Second, because arguments of effect, significance, and inherency are advanced as claims, they require supporting proof and reasoning. He

230

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

should examine the advocate’s support for claims, asking, “Does the proof and reasoning offered by the advocate meet the tests established to determine their validity?” If they do not, the existence of a prima facie case would be in serious doubt. If after analyzing the advocate’s strategy, the opponent decides that the value criteria are fairly drawn, he must concentrate refutation on the goodness of fit between the criteria and the value object in the proposition. In employing denial and extenuation to oppose the value advocate, the opponent searches for proof and reasoning to ground arguments: (1) stating that the effect suggested by the advocate occurs only in an exceptional case or that extenuating circumstances produce the effect, (2) denying that the value object’s influence is as significant as the advocate suggests, (3) showing that only a small segment of those who place value on this object are influenced, (4) showing that prominent sources in the field do not consider the effect or the significance to be of great importance, (5) showing that either the effect or the significance is a temporary phenomenon brought about by the unusual circumstances, a passing fad, and (6) challenging inherency by demonstrating that the value in question is either not central to the society or is subject to change over time. When the opponent reframed the advocate’s second criterion to argue that there are more important things than the ability to use social media properly that contribute to the probability of getting a job, he was denying that the value object’s influence was as significant as the advocate suggests. His research led him to a study commissioned by the American Association of Colleges and Universities that indicated employers want college graduates to be broadly educated, and other research that suggested immersion in social media diminished the ability to develop the kind of knowledge and skills employers want. When the opponent reframed the advocate’s third criterion to argue that the ability to use social media properly is not what enhances the probability of keeping a job, but the recognition that this is public space, he ended up claiming both that the effect suggested by the advocate occurs only in exceptional cases and that extenuating circumstances produce the effect. He discovered that millions of people use social media, most of them have not taken a class, and most of them do not lose their jobs. In other words, the effect was exceptional. In searching for the reason for these exceptional cases, the opponent came to the conclusion that they were the product of people treating a public space as if it were private, an extenuating circumstance. When the opponent added a criterion of his own, that teaching the use of social media in the college curriculum would be unworkable, he was challenging inherency by demonstrating that the value in question is either not central to the society or is subject to change over time. In this case, it was not the value but the value object that was in a state of flux. The opponent learned that social media have existed in various forms for over three decades, that they are constantly evolving and changing, and that the field is populated by products with broad appeal as well as those targeted at niche markets and interests. For him, the question of what should be taught was a major one in deciding whether something should be included in the curriculum let alone be deemed most important.

Argument in Action To see how he went about developing his entire case, review the value opponent’s brief in Box 2. To emphasize how he initially establishes lines of clash with the advocate, boldface is used in the brief’s preamble (the proposition, definition of key

231

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

BOX 2 Value Opponent Brief Proposition Teaching the uses of social media is not the most important element in the college curriculum.

Definition of Key Terms Social Media—OK College Curriculum—Goes beyond the group of courses making up an area of specialization in higher education. It includes courses that contribute to “the ability to think, to learn, and to express oneself both rigorously and creatively, the capacity to understand ideas and issues in context, the commitment to live in society, and the yearning for truth” (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 1998).

Hierarchy The mission of higher education is to educate students to enable them to realize the value of hard work and productivity upon graduation.

Criteria • There are more important things than the ability to use social media properly that contribute to the probability of getting a job. • The ability to use social media properly is not what enhances the probability of keeping a job, but the recognition that this is public space. • Teaching the use of social media in the college curriculum would be unworkable. I. There are more important things than the ability to use social media properly that contribute to the probability of getting a job. A. Employers want broadly educated rather than narrowly skilled employees. The American Association of Colleges and Universities commissioned a study of what students need to know to succeed in a global economy, a survey of 305 employers and 510 recent graduates by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. (2008). 1. Employers feel that colleges need to do a better job of preparing students. “Fully 63% of business executives interviewed agree that too many recent college graduates do not have the skills to be successful in today’s global economy. Indeed, nearly nine in 10 (87%) employers agree that America’s colleges and universities need to raise the quality of student achievement to ensure the United States remains competitive in the global economy” (Peter D. Hart, 2008, p. 6). 2. Areas needing improvement relate to broader rather than narrower skills and knowledge. “While these employers are somewhat concerned about recent college graduates not having necessary specific job or technical skills, they express the greatest frustration with the challenges of finding ‘360 degree people’ who have both the specific job/technical skills and the broader skills . . . necessary. . . . Employers believe that the areas most in need of increased emphasis by higher education institutions are 1) science and technology, 2) teamwork skills in diverse groups, 3) applied knowledge in real-world settings, 4) critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills, 5) communication skills, and 6) global issues” (Peter D. Hart, 2008, pp. 7–8).

232

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

a. Applied knowledge was not specifically related to social media, but “the ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings through internships or other hands-on experiences” (Peter D. Hart, 2008, p. 8). b. Communication skills were also not specifically related to social media, but “the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing” (Peter D. Hart, 2008, p. 8). B. Immersion in social media may diminish the ability to develop the kind of knowledge and skills employers want. Naomi Baron “sees youth uptake of more informal forms of online writing as part of a broader set of social and cultural shifts in the status of printed and written communication” (Ito et al., 2010, p. 11). 1. Social media inhibits the development of the kind of written communication skill employers want. According to Mark Bauerlein (2009), Emory University professor of English, “Bad grammar, teen colloquialisms, and shallow ironies litter the blogs, comment threads, and social networking sites, raising the vocabulary problem . . . just as weak-vocabulary encounters don’t inculcate stronger reading comprehension skills, so weak-vocabulary writing doesn’t yield better composition skills” (p. 132). 2. Social media inhibits the development of the kind of cognitive abilities employers want. Tim Pychyl, associate professor of psychology, Carleton University says, “Facebook is like taking a person with a gambling problem to Vegas. It’s just too easy to get doing other things rather than the hard work of intellectual work. And Twitter’s even worse. . . . When we get into a context, our brains just go where they go most easily, which is automatic pilot, and that’s not the place that going to stretch and pull you to do learning” (Bowman, 2009). a. The Net Generation engages in multitasking, which inhibits critical thinking. According to John Grafman, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, cognitive neuroscience section, “Does optimizing for multitasking result in better functioning—that is, creativity, inventiveness, productiveness? The answer is, in more cases than not, no. . . . The more you multitask, the less deliberative you become; the less you are able to think and reason out a problem and the more you’re willing to rely on stereotypical solutions” (Tapscott, 2009, pp. 108–109). b. Multitasking inhibits analytical reasoning. According to David Meyer, University of Michigan psychologist, “You can’t think deeply about a subject, analyze it, or develop a creative idea if you’re constantly distracted by an e-mail message, a new site, or a cell phone call” (Tapscott, 2009, p. 109). 3. Social media can make you dumber. “Even if we grant that visual media cultivate a type of special intelligence, they still minimize verbal intelligence, providing too little stimulation for it, and intense, long term immersion in it stultifies the verbal skills of viewers and disqualifies them from most every academic and professional labor” (Bauerlein, 2009, p. 130). C. Contrary to what the advocate says, social media may not help you get a job. According to the 2010 Annual Report on the State of Internet Job-Hunting by Quintessential Careers, “Beginning . . . in 2001, we have emphasized the importance . . . of stepping away from . . . computers and getting out and networking with warm bodies. Back then, job boards created the illusion that online job-hunting was tantamount to actually doing something productive toward landing a job.Today, not only are job-seekers fooled into thinking that posting resumes and applying to job-board ads is an effective use of their time, but they are also being told that significant participation (continued)

233

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

in social-media venues like Twitter and Linkedin will get them a job.” Although they have their use, according to Jason Fall on the website Social Media Explorer the kind of social networking you want to be doing “was, is, and will always be the off-line kind” (Hansen, 2010). II. The ability to use social media properly is not what enhances the probability of keeping a job, but the recognition that this is public space. A. There is a huge user-base, even if only Facebook is considered. “Sometime in the next week, Facebook will officially log its 500 millionth active citizen. If the website were granted terra firma, it would be the world’s third largest country by population” (Fletcher, 2010, p. 32). B. Most of these people probably didn’t take a class. “Social media can be learned without ever taking a course for college credit. It is a social experiment, and students are able to teach themselves. They can use a trial by fire approach and navigate the medium for themselves. . . . Kristina Gorr, a student affairs counselor at the MINI University and account administrator for Automatik Education , . . [says that] part of the value of social media is that she learned from personal experience. . . . ‘Learning from experience instead of in the classroom is very crucial for this type of media’” (Davis, 2010). 1. Even those who take a class end up learning most of it on their own. “Hanson Hosein . . . runs the Master in Communication and Digital Media program at the University of Washington.” He believes social media is a hard thing to teach and that students figure a lot of it out on their own. “There are ‘no textbooks or easy answers’ to cracking the social media riddle. ‘But the answers come through collaboration. . . . I’m not necessarily telling them how exactly to [do it]’” (Kolowich, 2010). C. Unless their employer has never looked at what they were saying online, what probably differentiates most users from the few who have lost their jobs is that they recognize social networks are public rather than private space. 1. From a legal perspective, the expectation of privacy on social network sites is an open question. In 2006, “Hodge argued that the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and legal decisions concerning privacy are not equipped to address social network sites. For example, do police officers have the right to access content posted to Facebook without a warrant. The legality of this hinges on users’ expectation of privacy and whether or not Facebook profiles are considered public or private” (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 222). 2. From a moral/ethical perspective, the expectation of privacy on social network sites is a contentious issue. Heery and Noon’s (2008) definition of social networking Web sites in A Dictionary of Human Resource Management mentions the practice of checking on applicants and employees, noting that “there is a question as to whether this is ethical: some people argue that it is akin to poking round in a person’s home or belongings; others argue that it is information that the person concerned has chosen to make public, so it is legitimate of companies to look at this information, especially during selection.” 3. The advocate argues that social media can facilitate a job search and indicates that companies use cybervetting to screen and disqualify some applicants. If cyberspace is treated as public when a person is looking for a job, it is illogical to assume it suddenly becomes private once they are hired. III. Teaching the use of social media in the college curriculum would be unworkable. A. A wide range of social media currently exists. “Social media have become an integral part of modern society.There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries.There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there.There are sites to share photos,

234

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends. It seems there are social solutions to just about every need” (Chapman, 2009). B. The nature of social media has changed over time. When they began in the late 1970s, “public online communities such as Usenet and public discussion forums were structured by topics or according to topical hierarchies, but social network sites are structured as personal (or ‘egocentric’) networks, with the individual at the center of their own community” (boyd & Ellison, p. 219). C. The features of social media are constantly evolving. “The first recognizable social network site launched in 1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists. Each of these features existed in some form before SixDegrees, of course. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community sites” (boyd & Ellison, 2008, p. 214). D. Because the field of social media is characterized by change and diversification, it is hard to know what to teach. While Facebook is most popular, can you ignore Orkut which is big in Brazil and India with 65 million users, or any of the 1.5 million niche networks hosted by Ning? While Twitter is big, can microblogging systems like Posterous or Tumblr be safely ignored? (Chapman, 2009) Sources Cited Association of American Colleges and Universities. (1998). Statement on liberal learning. Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/About/statements/liberal_learning.cfm. Bauerlein, M. (2009). The dumbest generation. New York: Jeremy P.Tarcher/Penguin. Bowman, J. (2009, August 26). Facebook in classroom, bad idea? CBC News. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/26/f-back-to-school-social-media.html. boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definitions, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x. Chapman, C. (2009, October 7). The history and evolution of social media. Web Designer Depot. Retrieved from http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/. Davis, R. (2010, March 24). Social Media 101—Should colleges add social media to the classroom? Platform Online Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.platformmagazine.com/. Fletcher, D. (2010, May 31). Friends without borders. Time, 175, 32–38. Hansen, K. (2010). How the real-time web changes job search: The Internet as one giant job board. Retrieved from http://www.quintcareers.com/real-time_job-search.html. Heery, E., & Noon, M. (2008). A dictionary of human resource management: Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5214/views/ENTRY.html?subview= Main&entry=t162.e1538. Ito, M. et al. (2010). Introduction. In M. Ito, S. Baumer, M. Bittanti, d. boyd, R. Cody, B. HerrStephenson, H. A. Horst, P. G. Lange, D. Mahendran, K. Z. Martinez, C. J. Pascoe, D. Perkel, L. Robinson, C. Sims, & L. Tripp (Eds.), Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out (pp. 1–28). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kolowich, S. (2010, April 14). Decoding social media mysteries. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/14/hosein. Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. (2006, December 28). How should colleges prepare students to succeed in today’s global economy? Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/ leap/documents/Re8097abcombined.pdf. Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital. New York: McGraw Hill.

235

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

terms, hierarchy, and criteria) but nowhere else. It does not include a statement of philosophy, which typically offers a presummary of where the opponent stands. That would be redundant to the foregoing discussion of how the opponent went about developing his position.

Summary of Value Opposition Strategies 1. Give a statement of the opponent’s philosophy that summarizes the stand to be taken against the advocate’s case. 2. Challenge or accept the advocate’s definition of the value object. 3. Consider the criteria that should be used to measure the value object. a. Is the asserted value as good as the advocate claims? 1. Does society recognize it as good? 2. Do experts in the field recognize it as good? b. Have the value criteria been correctly identified? 1. Are there other values involved in the standard used? 2. Does the advocate provide adequate justification for the value criteria selected? 3. Is there a better standard by which to evaluate the value object? 4. Evaluate how appropriately the value object has been measured by the value criteria. a. Does the value object fit the stated criteria? b. Is the effect of the value object created by an exceptional case or extenuating circumstances? c. Is the significance temporary, inconsequential, or improperly measured? d. Is the value inherent in the value hierarchy of society or the field of the value proposition? Is there some alternate causality? Propositions of value attempt to establish how something or someone ought to be judged. It is important to remember that “because our individual and collective access to truth is imperfect, most disagreements about values call for civility, openness to other views, and reasonable argument in pursuit of truth” (Blankenhorn, 2001). Value propositions are argued by determining the criteria or standards by which the evaluation ought to be made and then determining the fit between the object being evaluated and these criteria. Advocates of value propositions must be sure their argumentation considers effect, significance, and inherency, regardless of whether they proceed by means of criteria discovery or criteria development. The opponent, besides employing techniques applicable to arguing propositions of fact, may also use the strategies of proposing different criteria and charging improper classification.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Choose an article that reviews a film from a magazine such as Entertainment Weekly or a similar source. What hierarchy does the reviewer use as a source for evaluative criteria? What specific criteria are used in evaluating this film? What arguments of effect, significance, and inherency are used?

236

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

2. In the field of communication, one area of scholarship, rhetorical criticism, is devoted to making value judgments about the relative merits of human communication. Read one of the following articles and prepare an oral or written report using the questions listed: Nick Trujillo & Leah R. Ekdom (1985, September). Sportswriting and American cultural values: The 1984 Chicago Cubs. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 2, 262–281. Janice H. Rushing (1989, February). Evolution of “the new frontier” in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchical co-optation of the feminine archetype. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 75, 1–24. a. How does the rhetorical critic identify the value hierarchy used in doing criticism? b. Is a theory of rhetoric used to discover criteria or does the critic create criteria by combining ideas from rhetorical theory and other fields? c. How are criteria applied to the communication examples of the value object? d. How does this value argumentation differ from other types you have read or heard? 3. Discuss each of the following value propositions in terms of the value(s) to be supported by the advocate, the field(s) from which value criteria could be taken, and the specific judgmental criteria that might be used in measuring the value object. a. Students will benefit from classical literature studies in grades 6 through 12. b. For most college students, going to Cancun for spring break is a waste of money. c. The rights of endangered species ought to take precedence over the rights of indigenous human populations. d. Humanitarian rather than geopolitical objectives ought to govern foreign policy decisions. 4. Examine the Value Advocate Brief in Box 1 and do the following: a. Although we have identified effect, extent, and inherency in the advocate’s first argument, do the same for the remainder of her arguments. Are any parts missing? Remember that the pattern of organization in which these three elements are handled can vary, that some parts of an argument can be implied by what is explicitly stated in others, and that the arguer may rely on the audience’s common knowledge to fill in the blanks. If something is implied, how likely is the audience to get it? If the audience is expected to supply something, how reasonable is it to assume that what is to be supplied is a matter of common knowledge? b. Classify each of the advocate's arguments as to type using the types and tests of reasoning shown in the chapter “How Do I Reason with My Audience?” Apply the tests of reasoning for that type of reasoning and determine if her reasoning is sound or if she has committed one of the fallacies of reasoning. Is anything done to preempt potential arguments by the opponent? 5. Examine the Value Opposition Brief in Box 2 and do the following: a. We showed how the value advocate demonstrated effect, extent, and inherency in her first argument. Using this as a model, do the same for the opponent’s arguments. Are any parts missing? Remember that the pattern of organization in which these three elements are handled can vary, that some parts of an argument can be implied by what is explicitly stated in others, and that the arguer may rely on the audience’s common knowledge to fill in the blanks. If something is implied, how likely is the audience to get it? If the audience is expected to supply something, how reasonable is it to assume that what is to be supplied is a matter of common knowledge? b. Classify each of the opponent's arguments as to type using the types and tests of reasoning shown in the chapter “How Do I Reason with My Audience?” Apply the tests of reasoning for that type of reasoning and determine if his reasoning is sound or if he has committed one of the fallacies of reasoning. Is anything done to preempt potential rebuttal arguments by the advocate?

237

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

REFERENCES Association of American Colleges and Universities. (1998). Statement on liberal learning. Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/About/statements/liberal_learning.cfm. Blankenhorn, D. (2001, October 23). What are American values? Reflections on September 11. Propositions. New York: Institute for American Values. Retrieved from http://www. propositionsonline.com/html/what_are_american_values_.html. Blossom, J. (2009). Content nation. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definitions, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210–230. doi: 10.1111/j.10836101.2007.00393.x Coleman, C. L. (1997). Emergence values from American Indian discourse. In C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 194–207). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Elliott, D. (1997). Universal values and moral development theories. In C. G. Christians & M. Traber (Eds.), Communication ethics and universal values (pp. 68–83). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Elliott, M. (2002, February 18). Don’t wear out old glory. Time, 159, 84. Fletcher, D. (2010, May 31). Friends without borders. Time, 175, 32–38. Halamandaris, B. (2004). The heart of America: Ten core values that make our country great. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications. Heery, E., & Noon, M. (2008). A dictionary of human resource management: Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5214/ views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t162.e1538 Jensen, J. V. (1997). Ethical issues in the communication process. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Johannesen, R. L., Valde, K. S., & Whedbee, K. E. (2008). Ethics in human communication (6th ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. McElroy, J. H. (1999). American beliefs. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Monroe, J. A. (2000). America does not face a moral crisis. In J. A. Hurley (Ed.), Opposing viewpoints: American values (pp. 89–100). San Diego: Greenhaven Press. Porter, M. E. (2000). Attitudes, values, beliefs, and the microeconomics of prosperity. In L. E. Harrison & S. P. Huntington (Eds.), Culture matters (pp. 14–28). New York: Basic Books. Rescher, N. (1969). Introduction to value theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Macmillan, Free Press. Russonello, J. (2005). Communicating values and the future of environmentalism. Belden Russonello & Stewart: Public opinion research and communication. Retrieved from http://www.brspoll.com/commentary/LCVTalk2005.htm. Slaughter, A.-M. (2007). The idea that is America: Keeping faith with our values in a dangerous world. New York: Basic Books. Smith, J. W., & Cluman, A. (1997). Rocking the ages: The Yankelovich report on generational marketing. New York: Harper Business Books. Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital. New York: McGraw Hill. van Eemeren, F H., Grootendorst, R., & Kruiger, T. (1987). Handbook of argumentation theory: A critical survey of classical backgrounds and modern studies. Providence, RI: Foris. Watson, R. (2008). Future files: The 5 trends that will shape the next 50 years. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. World Values Survey. (2009). Values change the world. Retrieved from http:// www.worldvaluessurvey.org/SebTest/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_110/files/ WVSbrochure4.pdf.

238

How Are Value Propositions Argued?

Yankelovich, D. (1994). How changes in the economy are reshaping American values. In H. J. Aaron, T. E. Mann, & T. Taylor (Eds.), Values and public policy (pp. 16–53). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Yankelovich, D. (2005). Overcoming polarization: The new social morality. In N. Garfinkle & D. Yankelovich (Eds.), Uniting America: Restoring the vital center of American democracy (pp. 17–30). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Zarefsky, D. (1976, November 24). Criteria for evaluating non-policy argument. Unpublished paper, Western Speech Communication Association, San Francisco.

239

This page intentionally left blank

G L O S S A RY

From Glossary of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

241

G L O S S A RY

the specific need for knowledge identified by the wording of the proposition and discovered while analyzing the proposition that must be satisfied if belief or behavior is to change

actual issues

ad ignorantium argument the fallacy of asserting that when something has not been proven false it must therefore be true

the pattern of reasoning that relies on the credibility or expertise of a source of information to warrant acceptance of a claim; a fallacy in reasoning occurs when an ultimate source of authority is invoked to restrict further consideration of an issue

ad populum argument

the fallacy of asserting that something should be believed or done because popular opinion favors it

backing information that supports the warrant and helps legitimize the inferential leap from grounds to claim

advocate an individual who argues in favor of a change in belief or behavior

burden of proof

the fallacy of attacking the person rather than the argument ad hominem argument

analogy the pattern of reasoning that compares fundamentally dissimilar cases and asserts that what is known to be true of one is true of the other; the weakest form of reasoning

the process of discovering the actual issues in a controversy by applying the stock issues of fact, value, or policy to the particulars of a proposition

analysis

argumentation a form of instrumental communication relying on reasoning and proof to influence belief and behavior through the use of spoken or written messages

evidence in the form of actual objects, audiotapes and videotapes, photographs, or diagrams

artifacts

the arbitrary assignment of possession of the figurative ground over which argument takes place to one party to the dispute; the presumption of innocence is an artificial presumption

artificial presumption

that which prevents change from occurring in a field of argument is a consequence of the beliefs of those in the field attitudinal inherency

242

audience one or more people who have the power or ability to ensure the future influence of a belief or pattern of behavior the arguer seeks authority

the advocate’s responsibility to provide reasoning and proof sufficient to overcome presumption and warrant a change in belief or behavior

case development the process of putting together a set of arguments to be used to advocate or oppose the acceptance of a proposition by the audience

the pattern of reasoning that suggests a temporal connection between phenomena in which the first is capable of producing the second

cause

the fallacy of reasoning in which the grounds and warrant are equivalent in meaning to the claim they purport to support, thus making no inferential leap from grounds to claim

circular reasoning

a statement that does not stand alone without further proof, a conclusion the audience will not accept without verification

claim

counterproposal a nontopical and competitive proposal for change offered by the opponent that remedies the reason for change criteria the discovered or created standards by which a value judgment is made

Glossary

an indictment of the underlying philosophical premise on which the advocate’s proposal for change or the policy proposition itself rests

critique

the interpretive process audience members and other arguer use to come to an understanding of what the arguer means

decoding

denial refutation of an argument by pointing out how the person advancing it has misanalyzed the situation, overlooked important facts, given undue significance to certain facts, or drawn an unwarranted conclusion

the pattern of reasoning in which a choice between unacceptable alternatives is presented; when a true either–or situation does not exist, this pattern of reasoning leads to committing the fallacy of forcing a dichotomy

dilemma

effect the consequences of what has happened, is happening, or will happen

information taken from material of fact or opinion used to establish the probable truth of a claim

evidence

evidence that briefly describes events that have occurred example

based on a representative sample of items from the class information of fact or opinion used to verify the claim; also termed evidence

grounds

hasty generalization the fallacy of jumping to a conclusion based on too few instances or on atypical instances of particular phenomena

the use of presumption as a decision rule that determines what the advocate must prove for the proposition to be probably true

hypothesis testing

evidence that describes in detail events that have occurred

illustration

immediate cause events or circumstances in the present or recent past that focus attention on the subject of the proposition

a conclusion or decision about what is unknown based on what is known derived by reasoning

inference

inherency the societal structure or attitude responsible for causing the present state of belief or behavior to exist

key points under dispute, the resolution of which will aid in determining who prevails in an argument

issues

extenuation

refutation of an argument by focusing on the circumstances surrounding a fact or the interpretation of it, which lead to a different conclusion than the one that has been drawn

minor repairs

factual evidence information obtained by direct or indirect observation that describes or reports on events, objects, places, persons, or phenomena

modal qualifiers

assertions that seek to alter the way we view reality concerning past, present, or future events, objects, places, persons, or phenomena

natural presumption assignment of possession of the figurative ground over which argument takes place based on observation of the natural order; natural presumption automatically rests with whatever belief or behavior is being challenged

factual propositions

errors in reasoning, appeal, or language use that render a conclusion invalid

fallacies

the strategy of policy opposition in which it is suggested that naturally occurring changes in existing institutions will remove any reason for change within the foreseeable future adverbs, adverbial phrases, or prepositional phrases that modify the action suggested by the verb in a claim statement

a cause that must be present for an effect to occur but that is not itself sufficient to produce the effect without the presence of other necessary causes

field of argumentation the social or professional context in which people argue in order to build a body of knowledge or reach decisions about belief or behavior

necessary cause

generalization a form of inductive reasoning in which conclusions are drawn about an entire class of events or individuals

non sequitur an argument that is irrelevant to the issue or in which the claim does not follow from the proof offered

243

Glossary

opinion evidence a form of evidence consisting of the interpretive or evaluative statements of an expert in a field regarding facts pertinent to that field opponent the individual who argues against the change in belief or behavior sought by the advocate

reductio ad absurdum the fallacy of reducing another’s claim to absurdity rather than raising serious points to refute it

a pattern of reasoning based on examining two or more similar cases and inferring that what is known to be true of one will be true of the other

the process of responding to opposing arguments by means of denial and extenuation; refutation becomes fallacious when directed at arguments that were never raised or were not raised in the manner suggested

persuasion

a form of instrumental communication relying on emotion as well as reason to influence belief and behavior

scientific evidence reports of the results of field and laboratory experiments on the effect of one variable on another

policy propositions

assertions that seek to alter the behavior of individuals or institutions, often in regard to political, economic, or social issues

sign

preemptive argument an argument offered in anticipation of an argument from your opponent to blunt its effectiveness

significance the magnitude of an effect; the seriousness of the consequences of that which has happened, is happening, or will happen

parallel case

premises factual claims that carry the weight of evidence because the audience accepts them as true reflections of human belief or experience

describes a situation that presently exists and, naturally or artificially, grants possession of the figurative ground over which argumentation occurs to one party to the dispute or the other

presumption

prima facie case a series of arguments that, if taken at face value and left unrefuted, would be sufficient to justify a change in belief or behavior primary inference the conclusion you draw about what you believe a proposition means, based on your definition of the key terms in it probability

the likelihood of a statement

being true a statement that identifies the argumentative ground and points to the change in belief or behavior sought by the advocate

proposition

refutation

the pattern of reasoning that suggests a temporal connection between phenomena in which the first is a symptom, condition, or mark used to predict the second

solvency the ability of the advocate’s proposal in policy argumentation to resolve the reason for change statistics numerical information about people or events used to ground claims

field-invariant questions pertaining to propositions of fact, value, or policy that must be answered if belief or behavior is to change

stock issues

structural inherency that which prevents change from occurring in a field of argument is a consequence of the institutions and the formal or informal systems of behavior adopted by those in the field

a consequence of an advocate’s proposal in policy argumentation beyond its ability to resolve the reason for change that may be advantageous or disadvantageous

subsidiary effect

a statement that shows the degree of force an arguer believes a claim possesses

a cause that must be present for an effect to occur and is itself capable of producing the effect without the presence of any other causal factors

rebuttal a statement that limits a claim, showing the circumstances under which it might not be true, or a response to an

terministic screen the ability of the language used to set limits or direct attention in one way as opposed to another; for

qualifier

244

argument that refutes a claim previously made

sufficient cause

Glossary

example, sexist language creates a terministic screen about appropriate male and female roles the requirement in academic argumentation that an advocate’s proposed change in belief or behavior fit within the bounds of the proposition

topicality

the portion of the value proposition that identifies an existing idea, person, action, agency, tradition, practice, or custom to be evaluated; the subject of the sentence

value object

assertions that seek to alter belief by dealing with our subjective reactions to things and our opinions of them

value propositions

the implied or actual order imposed on a set of competing values in resolving a problem; for example, in order to be safe from criminals we may have to give up a little freedom

warrant the pattern of reasoning that justifies the inferential leap from grounds, which are known to be true or probable, to a claim

the portion of the value proposition that identifies broad criteria by which a value object is to be measured; the predicate of the sentence

workability the ability of the advocate’s proposal in policy argumentation to not only resolve the reason for change but to do so in an efficient and effective manner

value hierarchy

value judgment

245

This page intentionally left blank

What Are the Rules of the Game?

From Appendix A of Advocacy and Opposition: An Introduction to Argumentation, Seventh Edition. Karyn Charles Rybacki, Donald Jay Rybacki. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

247

APPENDIX

What Are the Rules of the Game?

A

lthough attempts to influence belief and behavior through oral and written messages take place in many fields, a means of learning about and practicing argumentation found in the academic field is called debate. The setting is formalized, and specific time limits and responsibilities are imposed on those who participate. Debates may take place in argumentation classes as a learning experience or in an intercollegiate contest between teams representing different schools. There are even national debate championship tournaments. This appendix provides an introduction to some debate formats and techniques that you might encounter in class. Because entire texts are devoted to the highly specialized tactics and strategies of competitive intercollegiate debate, we will leave that to them. Once you have learned the basic skills of arguing, you may choose to delve further into debate technique.

DEBATE FORMATS There are many different debate formats and different kinds of propositions that can be argued, but an academic debate generally has the following characteristics: 1. Teams of debaters, usually two to a side, are prepared to argue both sides of a proposition. In debate parlance, they are called affirmative and negative rather than advocate and opponent. 2. Both the affirmative and negative teams are given an equal amount of time to make their case. The time for both teams to make presentations is divided into constructive and rebuttal speeches, with more time allocated to the former than the latter. 3. The debate is judged and the winning side determined based on which team demonstrated the greater skill or had the better arguments. Whether judging is done by your instructor, other students in class, or a faculty member from another school in the case of intercollegiate debate, the judge is the audience that matters. As with all communication, debate is rule-governed behavior. One set of rules pertains to the order in which members of both teams make their presentations

248

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

and the length of time they have for each presentation. This is referred to as the format for the debate. The easiest format to understand is called the traditional format, in which each team member presents a constructive and a rebuttal speech. Although the time limits for the speeches may vary, the format looks like this:

Traditional Format First Affirmative Constructive Speech First Negative Constructive Speech Second Affirmative Constructive Speech Second Negative Constructive Speech First Negative Rebuttal Speech First Affirmative Rebuttal Speech Second Negative Rebuttal Speech Second Affirmative Rebuttal Speech

8 minutes 8 minutes 8 minutes 8 minutes 4 minutes 4 minutes 4 minutes 4 minutes

Notice that the affirmative team has the first and last speeches, and that the negative team has two speeches in a row (we will have more to say about this when we discuss the responsibilities of the speakers). We should also point out that the debate may take longer to complete, because it is customary to allow each team a total of ten minutes of preparation time during the course of the debate to compose their thoughts and check their briefs. This is time that may be used as the team members see fit. The most widely used format in intercollegiate debate competitions is the cross-examination format. The order and length of constructive and rebuttal speeches stay roughly the same as in traditional format, but both teams are given the opportunity to interrogate each other. The format looks like this:

Cross-Examination Format First Affirmative Constructive Speech Cross-Examination of First Affirmative Speaker First Negative Constructive Speech Cross-Examination of First Negative Speaker Second Affirmative Constructive Speech Cross-Examination of Second Affirmative Speaker Second Negative Constructive Speech Cross-Examination of Second Negative Speaker First Negative Rebuttal Speech First Affirmative Rebuttal Speech Second Negative Rebuttal Speech Second Affirmative Rebuttal Speech

8 minutes 3 minutes 8 minutes 3 minutes 8 minutes 3 minutes 8 minutes 3 minutes 5 minutes 5 minutes 5 minutes 5 minutes

Constructive and/or rebuttal speeches may be lengthened or shortened by a minute or so to alter the time that it takes to complete the debate, because preparation time is also provided in this format. Regardless of these subtle variations, debate formats establish fixed amounts of speaking and preparation time and give equal time to both parties to the dispute.

249

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

Other Formats Differing from these formats for debates between teams of individuals is the Lincoln–Douglas format, named after the historical one-on-one debates between these two Senate candidates. This format is often favored for in-class debating. As such, format variations are numerous and can involve cross-examination following the constructive speeches, but typically Lincoln–Douglas debates follow this model: Lincoln–Douglas Format Affirmative Constructive Negative Constructive Affirmative Rebuttal Negative Rebuttal Affirmative Rejoinder

6 minutes 7 minutes 4 minutes 6 minutes 3 minutes

Notice how the basic principle of the affirmative speaking first and last and equal time for both sides to make their case are preserved by the way time is allocated among the different number of speaking opportunities afforded both sides. Parliamentary format debating has also become popular in recent years for its emphasis on speaking skill and the use of general knowledge rather than copious research to support arguments. Featuring policy propositions such as “The president should resign” or philosophical statements of value or fact such as “The pen is mightier than the sword,” the only preparation time for a parliamentary debate is the 10 or 15 minutes before it commences when teams are given the topic they are to argue. In most other respects, parliamentary format resembles traditional format, with four constructive speeches but only two rebuttals, one to a side.

SPEAKER RESPONSIBILITIES In any style of debating, each speaker has certain duties to perform. The order of presentation, with affirmative speakers beginning and ending the debate, is based on presumption, which lies with the negative, and the requirements of the burden of proof, which fall on the affirmative. What follows is couched in terms of the speaking order in traditional and cross-examination formats, but the basic principles of what each speech tries to accomplish can be translated into the fewer speaking opportunities afforded in the other formats. The rule of thumb is that while Lincoln–Douglas and parliamentary formats truncate the number of speeches, the responsibilities we are about to describe remain unchanged and must be discharged. The debate begins with the first affirmative constructive speech in any format. This presentation establishes the basis of the affirmative case and normally includes all the claims, evidence, and reasoning that, if unanswered, would allow the judge to vote in favor of adopting the proposition. In value debate, this would involve presenting a case: identifying the value object, establishing the criteria by which it is to be evaluated, and providing arguments supporting the appropriateness of judging the value object in this manner. In a policy debate, the first affirmative speaker discusses the three stock issues: reason for change,

250

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

proposal for change, and consequences of change. Regardless of whether the proposition is one of value or policy and irrespective of the pattern of organization followed, the first affirmative speaker establishes her team’s interpretation of the proposition. The second affirmative may add arguments that further develop that interpretation, but if the first affirmative speech fails to establish a prima facie position, the affirmative has lost before the debate has even begun, provided that the negative points out this failure. Assuming a prima facie case has been presented, what are the duties of the first negative constructive speech? The first negative speaker establishes the philosophy of the negative team and its stand on the proposition. If the negative team plans to question the definitions of key terms offered by the affirmative, those questions are raised in this speech, and alternative definitions are offered. If the affirmative definitions are so outrageous that the affirmative’s case appears to be nontopical, the first negative speaker argues this as well. If the negative team intends to offer a counterplan instead of defending the present system of values or policies, the first negative presents it. If a critique of the affirmative’s proposal or the proposition itself is part of the negative’s strategy, it is initiated in this speech. This speech also responds directly to points raised in the first affirmative presentation and establishes the points of clash over them between the two teams, focusing on the parts of that presentation that seem weakest. The second affirmative constructive speech attempts to repair the damage done to the affirmative case by the first negative speaker. Because the points of clash between the two teams were defined by the first negative, the second affirmative must respond point by point, for three reasons. First, if there are arguments relating to definitions or topicality, the affirmative will be unable to carry argumentation forward successfully unless an attempt is made to resolve these disputes in the affirmative’s favor. Second, it is a rule in debate that although new evidence may be introduced by both teams during rebuttal speeches, neither team is permitted to initiate a new line of argument in rebuttals. The constructive speeches are the appropriate place for presenting original arguments, and this is the affirmative’s first and last chance to present such arguments against a counterproposal or a critique offered by the negative. Third, the negative team is about to get back-toback turns to argue. If the second affirmative does not respond to the first negative’s arguments directed against weaknesses in their case, the first affirmative rebuttalist will be swamped. In addition to repairing any damage, the second affirmative should point out arguments that still stand, arguments with which the first negative chose not to clash. This is best accomplished if the second affirmative responds to the negative arguments in terms of the basic case structure used in the first affirmative constructive speech. The second negative constructive speech is the final speech in the constructive phase of the debate, and it is followed by a rebuttal speech by his colleague. For this reason, the negative team must divide up what each member is going to cover to avoid rendering this rebuttal speech redundant. The second negative speaker must also be careful to listen to his partner so that the way in which he extends or rebuilds negative arguments in light of second affirmative responses is not contradictory. The easiest way for the affirmative team to get off the hook on an argument is to point out a contradiction or shift ground. Affirmative speakers have to listen to each other as well, but they usually do not have as much of a problem

251

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

with contradictions, because they know where they do and do not want to go with their case; they have argued it many times before. The negative may be hearing it for the first time, grasping for anything to defeat it. The first negative rebuttal speech begins the final phase of the debate. These back-to-back speeches are sometimes called the “negative block.” If the negative speakers do not maintain a clear division of labor, the first negative rebuttalist will waste time repeating what the second negative constructive speaker has just said; thus, any advantage that might have been gained from consecutive speeches will have been squandered. The first negative rebuttalist’s responsibilities are similar to the second affirmative constructive speaker’s: rebuild and extend on the points of clash established in the constructive speeches not touched on in the second negative constructive. It is important for the first negative rebuttalist to respond to the second affirmative’s arguments, not merely repeat his own. This rebuttal should identify arguments the negative has “won” outright because they were not contested by the second affirmative. It should also begin to crystallize the important arguments to which the affirmative, during its rebuttals, must respond with new evidence and further reasoning, but add no new arguments. If it suddenly dawns on the negative team that all the affirmative’s evidence is more than twenty years old, too bad. These are rebuttal speeches, and no new arguments can be advanced. The first affirmative rebuttal speech is, strategically speaking, the most important and most difficult speech in the entire debate. Attacks that took the negative team two speeches to present must be answered in substantially less time. In a policy debate, the drill goes like this: First, answer challenges on definitions and/or topicality and extend refutation on any negative counterproposal and/or critique. These are all arguments that although they appear peripheral to the affirmative’s case, can cause the judge’s decision to go against the affirmative team if they are lost. Second, respond to what appears to be the most critical negative constructive and rebuttal arguments attacking specific weaknesses in the affirmative case. Third, in the unlikely event that time permits, respond to other issues extended in the preceding negative speeches, and extend affirmative arguments that the negative has chosen not to contest or has broken off clash on. In value debate, the order of priority is the same, although the nature of the issues discussed is different. The second negative rebuttal speech is the negative team’s last speech. He should respond to what the first affirmative rebuttalist had to say about arguments presented in the negative block, but the second negative rebuttalist must remember that his primary mission is to give the judge one or more good reasons to vote for the negative team. This speech should cover the main arguments favoring rejection of the affirmative team’s arguments, regardless of whether they were extended by the second negative constructive speaker or the first negative rebuttalist. At this point in the debate, continuing to observe the division of labor between negative speakers hurts the team, so the second negative rebuttalist responds to first affirmative rebuttal arguments in a manner that synthesizes the negative position. The second affirmative rebuttal speech is the final speech in the debate. Like the second negative rebuttal, it summarizes the debate but from the affirmative team’s perspective. The second negative rebuttalist probably established reasons why the decision should favor the negative. The second affirmative rebuttalist should respond to these, as well as point out things the negative team has not contested or has stopped arguing that suggest an affirmative decision. In essence, both

252

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

final rebuttal speakers attempt to provide the judge with a set of rules or criteria that favors their side’s interpretation of the proposition.

Burden of Clash As already indicated, the order of speeches reflects the exigencies of presumption and burden of proof. The order of speaking also puts certain obligations on both teams in terms of going forward with the debate. Recall that the first affirmative speech must be prima facie; otherwise the debate is over before it really begins, even though the rest of the speeches will be given. The negative team must move the debate forward by establishing clash. The negative is obligated to respond to what the affirmative has presented in some way, even if their only argument is that the affirmative case is so far off the topic that topicality is the only thing they have to argue. Successive speakers have the responsibility of maintaining clash. Each speech moves the judge closer to making a decision by responding to what the other side has just said. The only exception occurs during the negative block. Because of division of labor, the second negative constructive speaker leaves some second affirmative constructive arguments to the first negative rebuttalist to handle. It is not sufficient merely to repeat your arguments. You must respond to your opponent’s arguments to move the controversy toward resolution. Not only must arguments be presented, but the points of clash between the two teams must be identified. In so doing, both sides have the obligation to make an honest effort to develop arguments that do not distort, deceive, or misrepresent what they know to be true. The obligations to establish and maintain clash are relevant to all formats for debating.

Cross-Examination Cross-examination gives debaters some unique opportunities. You should approach the opportunity to ask and answer questions as a chance to advance the debate in a way that favors your side. Cross-examination usually covers the speech immediately preceding it, although it might cover lines of argument extending through several preceding speeches. Use cross-examination for various purposes: 1. Cross-examination allows you to gain information about your opponent’s reasoning. What kinds of inferences link evidence to claims, and what kinds of inferences link one argument to another? If they are illogical, you can point this out in a later speech. 2. Cross-examination allows you to prevent possible misunderstandings. If you are not sure whether the speaker said “million” or “billion,” ask. In this way you ensure that the argument you advance in a later speech cannot be dismissed because it is based on a misinterpretation. 3. Cross-examination allows you to probe for and point out inconsistencies either within a single speech or between two speakers. If you are a first affirmative rebuttalist, remember that negative teams are especially vulnerable to contradictions if they do not listen to each other. Finding the contradictions makes your task much easier. 4. Cross-examination allows you to advance your own position. You can ask questions whose answers point toward the conclusion you wish the judge to draw.

253

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

Notice that all these purposes represent means to an end, rather than ends in and of themselves. Cross-examination is used to set up arguments in subsequent speeches. No one ever won a debate during cross-examination. Debates are won in the constructive and rebuttal speeches. Whatever gains you think you may have made will be realized only if you capitalize on them in your speeches. Preparation is as important to success during cross-examination as it is in the rest of the debate. Preparation begins with a thorough understanding of your topic. Cross-examination quickly exposes limited knowledge. Be prepared to take the role of both questioner and respondent. In terms of the first three purposes discussed here, you obviously have to listen to what the other team says and decide on the spot what you need to ask. However, in regard to the fourth, you can plan a series of questions in advance. A series of questions is needed, because even the dullest respondent will not readily admit to something favoring your position. If your position is that the poor are denied access to cable television because of its cost, asking “Don’t you agree that the poor are denied access to cable because of cost?” will probably elicit a no. Assuming you had the supporting evidence, you would be better served by asking the following series of questions: The poor own just as many television sets, proportionally speaking, as the rest of the population, don’t they? They watch television just about as much as everyone else, don’t they? The majority of them live in urban areas served by cable systems, don’t they? Yet few poor people are cable subscribers. Doesn’t this suggest that the cost of cable service is a barrier to access for the poor? Even though this last question might still elicit the same answer, your position would be advanced for two reasons. First, you would have planted a seed in the judge’s mind that a series of signs point to your conclusion. Second, you could always ask one more question: “OK, can you tell me why the poor don’t subscribe to cable?” You may want to think twice before you ask that question. When attempting to advance your position through cross-examination, always ask questions to which you already know the answer. Your motive is to educate the judge, not yourself. Thus, if you do not know the answer to a question, it is sometimes safer not to ask it, lest you discover, too late, that you have presented the other team with an opportunity to advance its position. Although you will be fairly sure of the answers your questions will elicit, you still need to listen to the answers and adapt subsequent questions or even abandon a line of questioning if it is going nowhere. Like the role of questioner, which allows for some prior planning, the role of respondent allows you to prepare your position. You cannot anticipate every question that might be asked, but you can anticipate the kinds of questions that will probably be asked about your affirmative case and the negative arguments you typically use. Prepare for answering by having your partner interrogate you. Just as the various speaker positions in the debate have different responsibilities, the roles of questioner and respondent carry with them specific requirements as well. Neither questioner nor respondent may confer with colleagues during the cross-examination period. The questioner is in charge during cross-examination. She asks the questions, being careful that the respondent does not try to turn the

254

Appendix: What Are the Rules of the Game?

tables. Questions should be as brief and clear as possible to encourage brief and clear responses. Although the questioner cannot require yes or no responses, she need not tolerate filibustering by the respondent. The respondent should attempt to be as direct as possible, but may qualify answers if necessary and refuse to answer questions that are patently unfair. If it becomes necessary to qualify an answer or refuse to provide one, it is important that the respondent explain why. Both the questioner and respondent should remember that the debate is a public-speaking situation. Questions and answers should be articulated clearly and distinctly so that the judge may understand both. The most important thing to remember is to remain composed. Do not become hostile or defensive, and do not do things that would produce these behaviors in the other person.

FLOW SHEETING Knowing what to ask in cross-examination, or what to argue in your next speech, requires not only argumentative skills but also a sense of what is going on in the debate as a whole. What is your team’s position? What has the other team disputed? What has the other team conceded? What has your partner said? What are you going to say? No matter how good your memory is, learning how to keep a flow sheet of the debate as it unfolds is your best memory aid. A flow sheet tracks the progress of arguments during a debate and is nothing more than a specialized form of note taking. You begin by dividing a piece of paper into as many as columns as there are speeches; the two speeches comprising the negative block are considered a single speech for flow-sheeting purposes. Moving from left to right and beginning with the first affirmative constructive speech, label each column at the top to correspond with the order of speeches in your debate format. This is where the notes you take on each speech will go. You will not be able to get everything down word for word, but you will want to write down as much as you can, arguments as well as any supporting evidence and sources. Aside from the business with columns, flow sheeting may not be all that different from what you already do when you take notes in class. Outline each successive speech in its appropriate column. Place arguments that clash opposite each other, and draw a line between them. You can preflow your own speeches by jotting down what you intend to argue against a point. This is a good way to use your preparation time, and you can facilitate your presentation by writing briefs for lines of argument you typically find yourself using. If nothing is to the right of an argument, it means it has gone uncontested. To record as much information in as little space and time as possible, use abbreviations. Some abbreviations are logical and symbolic such as meaning “increasing,” ↓ meaning “decreasing,” and → meaning whatever is to the left of the arrow causes whatever is to the right. Abbreviations can also represent common debate terms or conventions, such as 1AC standing for “first affirmative constructive,” and T, CP, and K representing “topicality,” “counterplan,” and “critique,” respectively. Other abbreviations are shorthand for the terms specific to the topic you are arguing. For example, FG or fedgov could stand for “federal government.” You will have to develop these shorthand symbols for yourself and should use what makes sense to you. ↓

255

This page intentionally left blank

Index Page references followed by "f" indicate illustrated figures or photographs; followed by "t" indicates a table.

1 1984, 6, 21, 55, 57, 87, 93, 96, 99-100, 103, 116, 131, 145, 151, 154, 156, 175, 237

A Abstraction, 57 Accuracy, 9, 29, 35-36, 41, 74, 79, 94, 107, 116, 119, 130, 163 Acronyms, 54 Action, 6, 18, 31, 38, 42, 44-47, 60, 75, 81, 89, 100, 135-136, 167, 170, 186, 196, 198, 207, 214-215, 223, 231, 243, 245 Ad hominem, 161, 242 Ad hominem argument, 161, 242 Adaptability, 183 Adaptation, 52-53, 154, 193, 195-199 Advice, 49, 94, 168, 188 advocacy, 1-2, 23, 37, 60, 61, 78, 87, 105, 133, 151, 153, 177, 191, 202-203, 205, 217, 220, 222, 227-228, 241, 247 Affirmation, 31 Age, 6, 65, 107, 111, 115, 120, 123, 146, 161, 211, 216-217, 222-224 Agenda, 95, 138 Aggression, 88, 138-139 Aggressive, 92, 138-139 Ambiguity, 171-173 Analogies, 144-146, 150 Analogy, 26-27, 134, 144-146, 150-151, 158-159, 242 figurative, 26-27, 144-146, 242 literal, 144, 146 Analysis, 28, 31, 35, 43, 47-48, 51, 61, 70, 73-74, 76-78, 80, 82, 84, 92, 102, 106, 111, 122, 129, 155, 161, 170, 172, 179, 182, 193-194, 208, 217, 225, 228, 242 of audience, 228 of problems, 225 Anecdotes, 174 Anomalies, 107 Anonymity, 124 Apologies, 169 Appeals to authority, 170 Appeals to tradition, 169-170 Appearance, 92, 161 Appropriateness, 58, 123, 167, 219-220, 230, 250 Argument, 1-3, 5-9, 11, 13, 17, 19-21, 29-30, 32-36, 37-38, 58, 62, 64, 69-70, 85, 87-103, 105-132, 133-137, 139-151, 154-167, 169-171, 173-174, 179, 182-186, 194-196, 203, 208, 217, 222-223, 229, 231, 236-237, 239, 242-244, 251, 253, 255 causal, 2, 97, 136-137, 139, 165, 244 sign, 9, 134, 137, 139-140, 146, 150, 182-184, 244 Arguments, 1, 3-9, 13-14, 16-19, 25, 28-32, 34-35, 40, 43, 49, 52-53, 58, 61-62, 71, 75-76, 79-81, 83-84, 87, 89-92, 94, 96, 99-102, 106, 112, 117, 120, 124, 129-130, 133-134, 136-137, 139, 141-145, 147-150, 154-155, 158-159, 161-164, 170, 172-173, 182-187, 190, 192-196, 202, 207, 219, 221-223, 227-231, 236-237, 242, 244, 248, 250-255 Aristotle, 7-8, 20 Arrangement, 16, 79 Articulation, 178 Artifacts, 62-65, 67-70, 72-74, 77, 79-80, 82-84, 119-120, 128, 180, 198, 207, 242 Assumptions, 154, 164 Assurance, 161 Attack, 7, 27, 71, 92, 145, 157-158, 161-162, 164, 188 personal, 162 Attention, 4, 9, 13, 39, 61-63, 68, 76, 115, 125, 141, 146, 154, 158, 160-161, 163-164, 166, 182,

185-186, 192, 215-216, 243-244 Attitude, 10, 18, 21, 34, 88, 117, 172, 243 cultural, 18 Attitude change, 21 Attitudes, 6, 18, 31, 34, 43, 54, 117, 137, 140, 172, 184, 200, 207, 219, 223, 228, 238 of audience, 228 Audience, 1, 3-9, 11, 13-18, 24-25, 27-32, 35, 38-43, 46, 49-50, 52-55, 57-59, 70-72, 75-77, 87, 89-90, 93-101, 106, 116, 118-120, 127-128, 133-151, 154, 164-166, 169-170, 172-173, 178, 182-184, 186, 191, 193, 195-196, 203, 207, 218-219, 221-223, 228-230, 237, 242-244, 248 age of, 146 analysis of, 43, 106, 170, 228 analyzing, 8, 29, 99, 219, 221, 242 attention of, 166 beliefs of, 35, 229, 242 challenging, 230 concern for, 18, 116, 183 culture, 1, 18, 52, 55, 72, 75, 77, 184, 207 defined, 7-8, 40, 49-50, 52-55, 57-59, 71-72, 90, 119, 221-222, 228 definition of, 1, 3, 8, 11, 49-50, 52-53, 57, 71, 75, 77, 138-139, 145, 195, 218, 228, 230, 244 ethics and, 18 free speech and, 9 immediate, 70, 76, 193, 221, 243 information about, 25, 46, 57, 90, 93, 96, 119, 128, 184, 244 knowledge of, 9, 41, 54, 96, 101, 146, 228 motivation, 5 perceptions, 203 respect for, 18 secondary, 98-99, 101, 116, 127, 223 size of, 93, 97-98, 100, 119 target, 3, 40 universal, 14-15, 101, 141 values of, 40-41, 95, 150 Audience analysis, 28, 31, 172, 182 attitudes and, 172 beliefs and, 31 example of, 31 Audiences, 5-6, 9, 14, 16, 18, 25, 38, 52, 54, 126, 179, 193, 195, 219 Audiotapes, 119-120, 128, 242 Authoritative opinion, 127, 131, 184, 195 Authority, 20, 56-57, 82, 129, 134, 146-150, 162, 167-168, 170, 180, 182-183, 196, 211-213, 222-223, 242 appeals to, 167, 170 Avoidance, 160-163

B Baron, Naomi, 233 Behavior, 3-5, 7, 13-14, 16, 18-19, 24-28, 30, 32-36, 37-38, 40, 42-43, 45-47, 49, 52, 57, 71, 75, 81, 89-90, 92-93, 99, 116, 123-124, 135-136, 138-139, 141, 158, 160-161, 165, 167, 170, 172-173, 179, 206-207, 210, 215, 222, 242-245, 248 Belief, 2-7, 13-14, 19, 26-28, 30, 32-35, 37-38, 40-44, 47-49, 59, 71, 78-79, 89, 93, 98-99, 103, 120-121, 127-128, 138, 151, 162, 167, 170, 172-173, 183, 188, 207-210, 214, 229-230, 242-245, 248 Beliefs, 3, 6-7, 14, 18, 20, 24, 26, 30-31, 33-35, 41, 43, 45, 59, 90, 140, 157, 183, 185, 193, 198, 202, 207-208, 210, 228-229, 238, 242 changes in, 33 of audience, 228 Bias, 128, 148 Blame, 164 Blogs, 61, 64, 225, 233 body, 25-26, 28, 31, 37, 69, 168-169, 174, 179-180,

188, 193, 196, 200-201, 243 Books, 20, 28, 88, 106-111, 113-114, 156-157, 180, 188, 191, 202-203, 238 Bridge, 18, 53 burdens of proof, 47 Business, 15, 41, 109, 111, 113, 118, 126, 155, 162, 190, 206, 208, 232, 238, 255 Bypassing, 160

C Call for action, 215 Careerbuilder.com, 227 Carlin, George, 10 Case studies, 26 Causal reasoning, 97, 136, 139 Causality, 136-137, 150, 163-164, 185, 223, 236 Cause and effect, 136 Cause-effect reasoning, 182, 185 Ceremonial occasions, 7 Certainty, 133, 139 Changes, 33, 49, 81, 116, 121, 126, 156, 168-169, 195, 199, 215-217, 227, 235, 239, 243 Channels, 48, 61 Channels of communication, 61 Character, 10, 16, 50, 189, 195, 198-199 Chronological order, 137 Claim, 7, 9, 58, 67, 69, 72, 82, 88-90, 92-102, 106, 115, 119-120, 126, 129, 133-136, 138-148, 150, 155-156, 158-160, 163-170, 174, 183-184, 186-191, 194-200, 208, 242-245 Claims, 7, 14, 16, 18, 63, 69-70, 84, 87-89, 91-94, 96, 98-99, 101-102, 107, 114, 119-121, 128, 130, 135, 138, 145, 147, 150, 157, 159, 161-162, 164, 166, 170, 173, 178, 183-184, 186, 192, 194-196, 221, 230-231, 236, 244, 250, 253 Clarity, 15-16, 18, 53, 73, 186, 192-193, 221 Cohesion, 209 Colleagues, 108, 123, 168, 254 commentary, 60, 180, 203, 215, 238 Commitment, 31, 41, 222, 228-229, 232 Commitments, 59 Committees, 62, 64, 112 Common ground, 93, 208-209 Common knowledge, 94, 97, 237 Communication, 1, 3-5, 7-10, 12-17, 19-21, 24, 28, 35-36, 37-39, 52, 56, 60, 61, 64, 71, 77, 131, 145, 162, 193, 199, 203, 206, 215, 227, 232-235, 237-239, 242, 244, 248 channels of, 61 competence, 17 context, 4, 7-10, 14, 20, 24, 232-233 defined, 7-8, 37, 52, 56, 71, 227 definition, 1, 3, 8, 12, 38-39, 52, 56, 71, 77, 145, 232, 234, 244 definition of, 1, 3, 8, 12, 52, 71, 77, 145, 232, 234, 244 definitions of, 71, 131 effective, 4-5, 13, 20, 24, 36, 38, 56, 71, 145, 233 ethical, 7, 13-17, 19-20, 24, 206, 234, 238 ethics and, 20-21, 238 evaluative, 244 explanation of, 4 forms of, 4, 14, 52, 64, 71, 131, 233 foundations of, 7 good, 5, 7-9, 12-16, 19, 24, 28, 35-36, 52, 206 human, 1, 3-4, 7, 9-10, 13-14, 16, 19-21, 36, 38-39, 131, 227, 234-235, 237-238, 244 in society, 215, 232 interpersonal, 1, 52 intrapersonal, 52 language and, 16, 19, 21, 52 mass, 3, 37-39, 52, 56, 60, 61, 215, 237 mediated, 227, 235, 238 persuasive, 3-5, 13 principles of, 9, 24 public, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 20, 37, 52, 60, 64, 77, 131,

257

162, 206, 215, 232, 234-235, 238-239 public communication, 20 types of, 52, 61, 131 verbal, 1, 13, 15, 24, 39, 199, 233 Communication context, 20, 24 Communication ethics, 20-21, 238 Communication process, 20, 38, 238 communication skills, 7, 232-233 communicator, 7, 26, 134 elements of, 26 ethical, 7 Communities, 141, 143, 235 Comparisons, 26, 89, 119, 128, 144, 146, 150, 170 Competence, 17, 159 Competition, 1-2, 7, 15, 46, 143, 150, 199, 207 Compromise, 207-208, 210 Computer software, 115 Computer-mediated communication, 227, 235, 238 Computers, 88, 106, 233 Confirmation, 18, 184 Conflict, 1-2, 62, 78, 162, 208, 211-215, 219 competition in, 2 group, 62, 78, 215, 219 interpersonal conflict, 1 issues of, 213 online, 62 principles of, 2 process of, 1, 214 relationship, 212 superiority and, 214 Connotation, 216 Connotative meaning, 55 Consensus, 19, 95 Constraints, 83, 107 Construct, 14, 129, 150, 164, 172-173, 218, 224 Context, 4, 6-11, 14, 20, 24-26, 44, 46, 53-54, 66, 68, 74-75, 80, 82, 94, 117, 132, 138-139, 142, 144, 147-148, 159, 161, 167-168, 173, 179, 182, 200, 222, 228, 232-233, 243 characteristics of, 24, 144, 200 culture and, 68, 75, 80 explanation of, 4 of communication, 7-8, 14, 24 of messages, 4 rhetorical, 7-11, 20, 144 Contrast, 156, 201 Control, 10, 40, 50, 121-124, 150, 174, 183, 187-188 Conversation, 2, 8, 11, 15, 21, 36, 115, 223-224 principles of, 2, 223 Conversion, 59 Cooperation, 82, 208-209 counterarguments, 59, 202 Credibility, 4, 108, 111, 114, 123, 127-128, 131, 146-149, 162, 242 appeals to, 4 Critical thinking, 13, 48, 154-155, 178, 232-233 critical thinking skills, 154 Criticism, 21, 35, 168, 179-180, 191, 195, 198, 237 ethics and, 21 ethics of, 21 Cues, 18 Cultural context, 68, 74, 80, 82 Cultural values, 237 Culture, 1-2, 18, 21, 51-52, 55, 65, 67-69, 72, 74-75, 77, 79-80, 85-86, 180, 184, 198, 206-207, 212, 215, 238 defined, 52, 55, 72 groups and, 206 language and, 21, 52 masculine, 198 nonverbal, 18 time and, 74

D Data, 64, 107, 110, 116-119, 122-123, 138, 155, 162, 165, 213 audience, 116, 118-119, 138, 165 Dating, 235 Debates, 35, 46, 113, 179-180, 212, 248, 250, 254 Deception, 15, 154, 158, 194 Decoding, 16-17, 235, 243 Definition, 1, 3, 8, 11-12, 38-40, 43-44, 49-53, 55-58, 71-75, 77, 79, 83-86, 88, 102, 106, 114, 138-139, 142, 145, 159, 173, 181, 187, 192, 195, 197, 202, 211, 217-219, 224, 228-232, 234, 236, 244 explanation of, 57-58 Definitions, 11, 25, 40-42, 48-49, 51-54, 56-59, 70-76, 81, 85, 131, 181, 186, 192, 207, 227-228,

258

235, 238, 251-252 etymology, 49 of communication, 52 operational definition, 57 research, 25, 48-49, 56, 58, 72, 74-76, 181, 235, 238 synonym, 51, 57 use of, 11, 49, 71, 181 democracy, 7, 28, 54, 65, 149, 208, 210, 212, 215, 239 Denial, 194-197, 202, 211, 231, 243-244 Denotation, 172 Dependent variable, 121-122, 124-125 Description, 29, 64, 115, 200, 220 Diagrams, 128, 242 Dialectics, 19 Dialogue, 6, 8-9, 11, 13, 18-19 Direct observation, 88 Directness, 18 verbal, 18 Discourse, 12, 18-21, 36, 238 Dismissal, 226 Dissatisfaction, 65, 141 Diversity, 68, 208, 229 cultural, 68 Drawings, 65, 120 Dress, 164 DVDs, 144

E Ehninger, Douglas, 36 Elaboration likelihood model, 4, 20, 211 E-mail, 54, 233 Email, 50 Emblems, 67 Emotion, 4, 117, 126, 164, 166-167, 173, 244 Emotional appeals, 4, 164, 166 Emotional states, 6 Emotions, 1, 3-4, 7, 9, 20 appeals to, 4 Emphasis, 2, 7, 9-12, 37, 59, 147, 192, 213, 216, 219, 221, 232, 250 Encyclopedias, 56, 108, 110, 113 Enlightenment, 15, 68, 79, 187, 191 Environment, 59, 75, 80, 83-84, 111, 148, 165, 186, 212, 215-217, 229 Episodes, 65 Equality, 8, 172, 181, 187, 208, 212-213 Ethical communication, 14-16 ethical standards, 13-15, 20, 24 Ethics, 13-15, 17-21, 70, 72, 238 and media, 20 audience and, 17, 70 communication and, 20-21 defined, 72 definition, 72 relationship, 19 Ethnicity, 6 Etymology, 49-50 Evaluating, 5-6, 19, 29, 41, 51, 73, 107-108, 126, 132, 144, 173, 192, 230, 236, 239 evaluation, 6, 41, 44-46, 62, 78, 88, 126, 129, 165, 211, 219-221, 227, 229, 236 Evidence, 4-6, 9, 18-20, 28-32, 72, 76, 84, 90, 93-94, 96-98, 102, 106, 109, 111, 114-116, 118-121, 123-132, 133, 136-137, 139, 141-142, 145-148, 150, 154, 159, 165-166, 172, 178-179, 182-186, 190, 196, 242-244, 250-255 Examples, 9, 25, 34-35, 46, 48, 56-58, 64, 88-89, 99-100, 102, 107-108, 115-117, 120-121, 128-131, 134, 137-138, 140-141, 146, 150, 156, 162, 164, 167, 173, 180, 183, 206, 237 analogy, 134, 146, 150 brief, 115-116, 128, 206, 237 evaluating, 107-108, 173 explanation of, 57-58 factual, 46, 88-89, 99, 107, 115, 117, 120, 128-129, 131, 141, 180, 183 illustration, 115-116, 131 using, 25, 46, 48, 56-58, 64, 99, 115, 117, 128, 130, 237 Experiments, 121, 123-125, 128, 244 Expert opinion, 17, 28, 30, 93, 114, 127, 183, 196 Expression, 11, 138, 162, 172, 209, 211, 213-214, 223 ethnic, 209

F Face, 12, 32, 34, 66, 83, 91-92, 98, 112, 144, 149,

171, 190, 216, 230, 238, 244 Facebook, 61, 64, 85, 111, 218, 225-227, 233-235 Fact, 40-41, 43-47, 49-50, 58-59, 62-63, 70, 72-73, 76-77, 80-85, 87-89, 93, 98, 101-102, 106, 110, 113-116, 119-120, 123, 128-131, 138, 146-147, 149, 157, 160-162, 168, 171, 178-185, 187, 191-192, 195, 197, 202-203, 207, 210, 223, 228-229, 236, 242-244, 250 questions of, 70, 77 facts, 16-17, 49, 93-94, 106, 108, 114-115, 117, 120, 126-127, 129, 131, 137, 139, 150, 166, 194-195, 202, 243-244 evaluating, 108, 126 using, 16, 49, 114-115, 117, 127 Fallacies, 21, 154-159, 164, 170, 173, 237, 243 definition of, 159 of evidence, 159 of language, 170, 173 Fallacy, 120-121, 132, 154-158, 161-163, 167-169, 173, 242-244 Fallacy of composition, 156 Fallacy of division, 156-158 False dilemma, 163 False dilemmas, 163 Familiarity, 200 Family, 3, 5, 15, 59, 91, 115-116, 131, 143, 149, 167, 188-189, 209, 212-213 definition of, 3 types of, 116, 131 Fantasy theme analysis, 35 fears, 3 Fields, 1, 6, 25-27, 31-35, 41, 45, 53-54, 56, 61, 70, 113-115, 128, 134, 148, 155, 166, 172, 178, 206, 208, 217, 220, 225, 230, 237, 248 films, 88, 168, 179-180, 199-200 Filtering, 144, 151 Flexibility, 41, 46, 48 Followers, 118 Force, 27, 33, 68, 98-99, 101, 122, 143, 145, 174, 244 Forcing, 163-164, 226, 243 Formal structure, 8 Forum, 8, 63, 69 Forums, 235 Frame of reference, 70, 94 free speech, 9-10

G Gaming, 118 Gaze, 200-201 Gender, 21, 122, 125, 181, 187, 198, 201-202, 213 and culture, 21 definition of, 181, 187, 202 language and, 21 General public, 208, 210 Generalization, 25-26, 134, 140-142, 146, 150, 154-158, 243 Genres, 21 Gestures, 199 government documents, 112 Grammar, 5, 71, 131, 233 Group, 3, 6, 8, 11, 52, 54, 62-64, 78, 117, 122, 140-142, 146, 156, 158, 166, 169-170, 203, 209-210, 215-216, 219, 224, 232 conflict, 62, 78, 215, 219 definition of, 3, 8, 11, 52, 224, 232 think, 3, 54, 166, 169-170, 215, 232 Groups, 2, 28, 52-53, 60, 62, 82, 118, 123-124, 146, 170, 185, 206, 209, 232

H Hasty generalization, 154-155, 157, 243 Hearing, 71, 155, 167, 211, 252 Hierarchy, 78-79, 85, 199, 211-212, 216-217, 219-221, 224, 227-230, 232, 236-237, 245 Honesty, 15-16, 18, 212 Human communication, 3, 9, 20, 131, 237-238 Humor, 168-170 Hurricane Katrina, 55, 229 Hussein, Saddam, 63

I Identification, 41, 43, 136, 149, 219 Identity, 68-69, 198, 209 Illustration, 115-116, 131, 135, 243 factual, 115, 131, 243 Illustrations, 115-117, 128, 180 Imagery, 116 Independent variable, 121-122, 124-125

Index, 85, 109-112, 114 Indexing, 111 Individualism, 207-210, 219 Inductive reasoning, 140, 243 Inference, 61, 70-74, 76, 79, 84-85, 133-134, 146, 150, 160, 178-181, 185, 191-192, 194-195, 220-221, 243-244 Inferences, 71, 133-134, 140, 144, 146, 253 from analogy, 144, 146 reasoning and, 134 Influence, 3-5, 7, 13, 17, 24, 38, 65, 103, 107, 120-121, 124, 145, 151, 190, 203, 207, 215, 231, 242, 244, 248 Information, 3-4, 7, 9, 16-18, 24-25, 28, 30-31, 39, 46, 49, 55-57, 62-64, 71, 76-77, 79, 88, 90, 93-99, 102, 106-120, 124, 126-131, 133, 145, 147-148, 150, 161-164, 168, 174, 179-182, 184-186, 195, 203, 211, 215, 217, 221, 225-226, 234, 242-244, 253, 255 definition of, 3, 49, 57, 71, 77, 79, 88, 114, 145, 181, 195, 211, 217, 234, 244 ignoring, 94, 162 negative, 46, 57, 95, 226, 253, 255 relevance of, 17 sources of, 7, 28, 30, 88, 94-95, 108, 110, 113-114, 117, 120, 127, 131, 215 Inputs, 143 Instant messaging, 54 Interaction, 8, 179, 223 Interest, 1, 5, 10-11, 61, 63, 107, 111-112, 114, 123, 148, 156, 178, 198, 211, 222-223, 234 Interference, 210 Internet, 50, 64, 88, 106-108, 110, 112, 129-131, 143-145, 155, 161, 174-175, 180, 217, 223, 225, 227, 233, 235 e-mail, 233 email, 50 Internet sources, 130 Interpersonal conflict, 1 interpretation, 6, 27, 38-41, 54, 62, 70-71, 73, 83, 87, 103, 116, 121, 127, 146, 178, 192-193, 195, 199, 202, 219, 229, 243, 251, 253 Interpreting, 41, 46, 126, 192 Interviewing, 34 survey, 34 Interviews, 156 Intrapersonal communication, 52 definition of, 52 Introductions, 113 Invasion, 88 iPod, 64 Irony, 184, 191 Issues, 5-6, 8, 11-12, 16-17, 20, 32-33, 35, 37, 41-43, 46-54, 58-59, 61, 63-65, 68, 70-85, 87, 102, 106, 112, 114, 149, 157, 160-161, 164, 166-167, 170, 172-173, 175, 179-185, 189, 191-194, 198, 201-202, 210, 213, 218-222, 228-230, 232, 238, 242-244, 250, 252

J Jargon, 25, 53-55, 87, 172-173 Jefferson, Thomas, 140 Johannesen, R. L., 20, 238 Jokes, 168, 226 Journals, 111, 124 Judgment, 29-30, 38, 43-45, 51, 55, 62, 73-75, 78-80, 88-89, 126-127, 171, 206-208, 221-222, 226-227, 229, 242, 245

K Key words, 38-41 knowledge, 1-2, 6, 9, 13, 17, 25-26, 28, 33, 41, 43, 48, 54, 58, 61-62, 64-65, 68, 70, 78-79, 83, 88, 94, 96-97, 99, 101, 106-108, 114, 146, 148, 170, 178, 182, 189, 193, 211, 216, 228, 231-233, 237, 242-243, 250, 254 of audience, 228

L Language, 3, 5, 10-11, 16, 19, 21, 25-26, 38-39, 42, 46, 48-49, 52-55, 60, 71-72, 88-89, 108, 117, 131, 154, 168, 170-173, 189, 243-245 abstract, 10 appropriate, 5, 10, 26, 52, 170, 245 concrete, 16 culture and, 72 definition of, 3, 11, 49, 52-53, 71, 88, 244 denotation, 172

descriptive, 52, 117 elements of, 16, 25-26 fallacies of, 170, 173 formal, 5, 89, 244 functions, 10 grammar, 5, 71, 131 immediate, 243 importance of, 25, 39, 46, 170 informal, 244 jargon, 25, 53-55, 172-173 jargon and, 53 meaning, 11, 16, 39, 42, 49, 53-55, 170-171 offensive, 10-11, 171 power of, 46 sexist, 39, 245 technical, 52-55, 172-173 technology, 54 vulgar, 11, 52 words, 10-11, 38-39, 42, 53-55, 60, 170-171 Language use, 26, 38-39, 42, 243 Leader, 60 Leaders, 28, 34, 62, 67, 113, 146, 166, 210, 216 Libraries, 107-108, 110-112 periodicals in, 107 Lighting, 80 Lincoln, Abraham, 85 LinkedIn, 234 Links, 64, 72, 79, 159 listeners, 4, 10, 29, 35, 43, 93, 116, 123, 133, 143, 155, 163, 172, 220 role of, 4, 29 Listening, 12, 43, 59, 146, 161, 168 defined, 59 definition of, 12 depth, 59 effective, 43, 59 process of, 59, 168 Loaded language, 49, 172-173 Love, 18, 200, 210, 212 Lying, 15, 199

M Magazines, 52, 88, 110, 112, 127 Main points, 15, 45-46, 87, 102, 181, 186 development of, 102 organization of, 87 Management, 31, 43, 47-48, 218, 222, 224-225, 227, 234-235, 238 Mania, 198 Maps, 16 Marriage, 29, 43, 187, 189-191, 196-197 Marriages, 197 Mass communication, 37, 237 defined, 37 television, 37 Mean, 16-17, 34-35, 38, 42, 49, 51, 53-54, 58, 71-72, 76-77, 94-96, 115-116, 118, 121, 124, 127, 136, 140, 158-159, 162, 166, 171, 173, 212, 222, 229 Meaning, 9, 11, 16, 29, 39-40, 42, 49-50, 53-58, 70, 76, 83, 125, 130, 160, 164, 169-171, 197, 207, 212, 217-218, 242, 255 connotative, 39, 55 denotative, 39, 55 multiple, 171 surface, 29 Media, 3, 11, 20, 37-45, 50, 52-53, 56-57, 60, 61-62, 64, 86, 88, 138-139, 144-145, 166, 173, 206, 209, 215, 217-219, 221-228, 230-235 and children, 38 messages, 3, 144-145 movies, 138, 144-145 study of, 232 Media literacy, 144-145 Median, 118 Mediated communication, 227, 235, 238 Mediation, 36 Memory, 189, 255 Men, 2, 7, 14, 34, 37, 39, 65, 187, 190-193, 196-197, 200-201, 209, 215, 226 Message, 4-8, 12, 16-17, 91, 154, 191, 197, 211, 233 Messages, 3-5, 14, 17, 113, 144-145, 185, 211, 242, 248 ambiguous, 17 content, 17, 144-145 context of, 14 explanation of, 4 in conflict, 211 relationship, 3-4, 144-145, 185

Metaphor, 25 Mode, 6, 36, 118, 207 Models, 57, 111, 165, 203 Motivation, 5, 124, 168 Movement, 40, 67, 82-84, 90, 98, 180-184, 187, 193 Movies, 138, 143-145, 201-202 MySpace, 61, 218, 225-226

N Narrative, 35-36, 116, 132 National identity, 198 Needs, 7, 17, 48-50, 71, 83, 101, 134, 141, 172, 200, 209, 225 Networking, 111, 218, 225, 227, 233-234 New media, 56, 64 defined, 56 News sources, 127 Newspapers, 52, 88, 110, 112, 127, 155 Noise, 80, 164 emotional, 164 Non sequitur, 159, 243 Non sequiturs, 159, 164 Nonverbal cues, 18 Norms, 15, 18, 97 Notes, 188, 210, 255

O open question, 159, 217, 234 opening statement, 141, 168 Open-mindedness, 48 Openness, 236 Operational definition, 57 Operational definitions, 57, 76 Opinion leaders, 28, 34, 62 Oral reports, 179, 185 Organization, 16, 54, 57, 67, 87, 207, 237, 251 definition of, 57 explanation of, 57 Others, 1-5, 7-8, 13, 16, 19, 24, 27, 38, 65, 67, 77-79, 95, 102, 107, 109, 111, 114-115, 117, 121, 124-125, 130, 160, 164, 166-167, 170, 173, 199, 209-212, 216, 218, 222, 224, 234, 237 Outlining, 223

P Pace, 206 Panel, 3 Panels, 86 Paradox, 212 Paraphrase, 50 Paraphrasing, 94 Patterns of organization, 16 choosing, 16 Perception, 1, 126, 145, 195, 198 communication, 1, 145 definition of, 1, 145, 195 gender, 198 internet, 145 interpretation, 195 media, 145 understanding of, 195 Perceptions, 203 Periodicals, 106-107, 109-111 Personal experience, 17, 234 Personality, 123, 161 Perspective, 7-13, 15, 21, 28, 39-40, 49-50, 80, 154, 179, 185, 195-196, 198-200, 228-230, 234, 252 cultural studies, 50 definition of, 8, 11-12, 49-50, 195, 228, 230, 234 Persuasion, 3-4, 7, 21, 164, 167, 181, 187, 189, 191, 200, 244 explanation of, 4 persuasive communication, 13 Photographs, 119, 128, 242 Plato, 8 Play, 25-26, 28-29, 34, 40-41, 111, 118, 120-122, 124, 126, 130, 138, 155, 207, 212 Polarization, 239 Political beliefs, 7 Population, 50, 93, 97, 100, 113, 117-118, 125-126, 141, 157, 165, 213, 234, 254 Position, 2, 19, 27, 38, 41-42, 47, 62, 65-66, 68, 87, 90, 99, 116, 138, 145, 148, 162-164, 171, 183-186, 190, 193, 201, 203, 225, 228, 230, 236, 251-255 Power, 17, 34, 46, 67, 69, 172, 187-188, 192, 196-197, 210, 217, 227, 242

259

expert, 17, 196 information, 17, 46, 217, 242 principles of, 187 Practicing, 19, 198, 248 process of, 19 Pragma, 19, 21 Prediction, 120, 139, 217 Prejudice, 79, 117, 181, 183-184, 187-191, 196-197, 200-201 Prejudices, 3, 6, 20, 140, 164, 166 premises, 120-121, 128, 131, 169, 207, 244 Presentation, 12, 32, 34, 50, 85, 133, 150, 186, 249-251, 255 beginning, 250, 255 ending, 250 outline, 186, 255 Presentations, 179, 196, 248 Pressure, 149, 158 Presumption, 26-32, 34-36, 37, 40-41, 43, 45, 47, 64, 70-74, 77, 83, 91-92, 96, 166, 170, 182, 186, 192-194, 202, 228, 242-244, 250, 253 Preview, 228 Primary sources, 184 Print media, 52 Production, 41, 54, 59, 178 Profanity, 56 Proof, 3-5, 9, 12-13, 16-17, 20, 24-26, 30-32, 35-36, 37, 39-40, 42-43, 45-48, 52-53, 76-77, 81, 83-84, 88, 91, 93, 98, 106, 108, 116, 118, 120, 126-127, 129-131, 136, 138, 159, 162, 165-166, 170, 173, 179, 185-186, 191-192, 194, 220, 222, 228, 230-231, 242-243, 250, 253 Proximity, 73, 80 Psychology, 132, 168, 233 Public communication, 20 argumentation and, 20 ethics, 20 Public space, 230-232, 234 Public speaking, 5, 7 defined, 7 Punctuality, 207 Purpose, 2-4, 7, 13, 15, 25, 64, 73, 79, 83, 95, 107, 129, 150, 161, 172, 186, 228 general, 25, 83, 95, 107, 129 of communication, 3, 7, 13, 15, 64 specific, 73, 79, 129, 150, 228 statement, 64, 73, 129

Q questionnaire, 122 Questions, 5, 8, 20, 28, 35, 38, 42, 47, 61-62, 66, 70, 76-78, 93, 95, 116, 118, 122, 124, 136-137, 158, 169, 178-179, 183, 188, 215, 229, 237, 244, 251, 253-255 of fact, 62, 70, 76-77, 116, 179, 183, 244 of policy, 47 of value, 78, 178, 215, 229, 251 responding to, 158, 244, 253 rhetorical, 8, 20, 35, 237 survey, 124 Questions of fact, 70

R Race, 119, 122-123, 157-158, 168, 212, 226 Radio, 9-12, 40, 42, 52, 55, 64, 88, 112, 121, 161, 167-168 Reasoning, 2-5, 9, 12-13, 17-21, 24-26, 29-31, 49, 52, 76-77, 84, 88-90, 94, 96-99, 101, 103, 133-134, 136-140, 142, 145-146, 148-151, 154, 156, 159-160, 162-164, 166-167, 170, 172-173, 175, 181-187, 191, 194, 203, 220, 228-233, 237, 242-245, 250, 252-253 by examples, 9 causal, 2, 97, 136-137, 139, 244 fallacies, 21, 154, 156, 159, 164, 170, 173, 237, 243 inductive, 140, 243 proof and, 4-5, 9, 12-13, 17, 25, 52, 76, 84, 88, 98, 186, 191, 194, 220, 228, 230-231 signs, 137, 139 Rebuttal, 101-102, 142, 237, 244, 248-254 Receiver, 4 Receivers, 4 Receiving, 32 reference list, 111 References, 20, 36, 60, 85, 103, 108, 131, 150, 174, 203, 238

260

Refutation, 156, 158, 194-196, 230-231, 243-244, 252 Relationships, 14-15, 43, 53, 57, 89, 150, 178, 191-192, 197 definition of, 53, 57, 192, 197 development of, 178, 192 ethical, 14-15 primary, 191-192 Reliability, 94, 99, 101, 116, 118, 183 Religion, 14, 190, 206, 210 Remembering, 230 Repeating, 125, 160, 252 Reporting, 62, 116-117, 119, 123, 127, 182 Representations, 50, 198 representative sample, 119-120, 154, 243 Reproach, 19 Research, 14, 25, 29, 33-34, 48-49, 56, 58, 61-64, 72, 74-76, 80, 83-84, 93-95, 106-108, 111, 113-115, 118, 124, 126, 128-130, 132, 135, 138-140, 144-147, 156, 162, 165-166, 179-182, 184, 193, 196, 208, 211, 218, 221, 231-232, 235, 238, 250 accuracy of, 29 books, 106-108, 111, 113-114, 156, 180, 238 documents, 64, 114, 138, 146, 208, 235 examples, 25, 34, 48, 56, 58, 64, 107-108, 115, 128-130, 138, 140, 146, 156, 162, 180 indexes, 108, 111 interviews, 156 museums, 62-63, 74, 80, 83-84 online, 49, 62-64, 84, 107-108, 113-114, 132, 218, 235, 238 periodicals, 106-107, 111 principles of, 58, 179, 181, 250 statistics, 93, 113, 118, 126, 128-129, 138-139 strategy for, 181 testimony, 93, 135, 138, 140, 156, 162, 165 topic, 14, 29, 33, 48, 56, 58, 61-62, 64, 76, 83-84, 94, 106-107, 114, 124, 129, 147, 162, 180, 218, 221, 250 Resonance, 199 Responding, 3, 10, 73, 158, 163, 165, 196, 244, 253 Response, 4, 36, 56, 122, 157-158, 160, 162-163, 183, 188, 203, 229, 244 Retrieval, 130 Rhetoric, 7-8, 13, 20-21, 35-36, 67, 103, 164, 179, 185, 237 defined, 7-8 Rhetorical act, 20 Rhetorical critic, 237 Rhetorical criticism, 35, 237 Roles, 24-26, 28-29, 35, 245, 254 research, 25, 29 Romanticism, 200 Roosevelt, Franklin, 67 Rules, 5-6, 8-9, 12, 14, 17, 19, 24-28, 33, 35, 49, 52-53, 57, 59, 71, 97, 120, 134, 165, 167-168, 174, 192, 202, 207, 247-255 cultural, 6

S Sarcasm, 191 Satisfaction, 150 Scholarly journals, 111 Scientific method, 26, 29, 121, 125, 155 Self, 6, 11, 18-20, 58, 99, 122, 148-149, 161, 208-211, 213-214, 216, 225 material, 11 open, 6, 18-19 social, 6, 11, 122, 208-209, 211, 213, 216, 225 spiritual, 210 Self-censorship, 11 Self-respect, 20 Separation, 210 Sex, 6, 124, 188, 199, 215, 226 Sexist language, 39, 245 Sign reasoning, 9, 137-139, 183-184 Signs, 1, 137, 139, 219, 254 Similarity, 68, 126, 144, 158, 184, 188 Sincerity, 216 Social comparison, 122 Social movement, 181, 187 Social networking, 218, 225, 227, 233-234 Social networking sites, 233 Source, 28, 39, 41, 45, 50, 55-58, 65, 73, 75, 84-85, 94-95, 97, 100, 108-109, 112-114, 116, 118-119, 121, 125-131, 146-148, 150, 161-162, 166-167, 170, 180, 195-196, 199, 210, 212-214, 225, 230, 236, 242 Source credibility, 162

Sources, 7, 16, 20, 28, 30, 41, 43, 51, 56, 58-59, 88, 94-95, 106, 108-114, 117-118, 120, 127, 129-131, 147, 162, 180, 184, 191, 193, 201, 215, 227, 231, 235, 255 Space, 56, 85, 107, 110, 190, 230-232, 234, 255 personal, 107, 190, 234 Speaker, 15, 249-254 Speakers, 249-253 speaking, 5, 7, 15, 20, 32, 58, 67, 102, 148, 159-160, 172, 186, 226, 249-250, 252-255 speaking outline, 186 developing, 186 Specificity, 48 Speech, 8-12, 14, 35-36, 42, 49, 54, 59, 103, 133-134, 151, 157, 186, 198, 203, 237, 239, 249-253, 255 racist, 157 Speeches, 64, 112, 150, 248-255 examples in, 150 practicing, 248 purpose of, 150 Spontaneity, 18 Star, 55, 60, 131, 201 statements, 2, 7, 11, 13, 24, 34, 55, 62, 89, 92, 94, 97, 101-102, 120, 123, 126, 128-129, 131, 141, 147-148, 160, 164, 171, 173, 186, 191, 207, 235, 238, 244, 250 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 113 Statistics, 93, 113, 117-120, 126-129, 137-139, 142, 157, 244 evaluating, 126 explanation of, 126 use of, 113, 118-119, 126-127 using, 117-118, 127-128, 142 Status, 6, 122, 148, 160, 162, 172, 182, 198, 233, 235 Stereotypes, 37 Stories, 61, 107, 179, 212 Straw man, 158-159, 196, 202 Stress, 130 Style, 65, 134, 144-145, 169, 188, 203, 250 Subheadings, 113 Superiority, 74, 214, 219 Support, 3, 7, 11-12, 19, 26, 30-32, 40, 63-64, 69-70, 75, 79, 82, 90-101, 116, 118, 121-122, 133, 135, 138, 141, 148, 157-160, 162, 164-165, 169, 173, 184-186, 190-191, 195, 198, 202, 208, 219, 221, 231, 242, 250 Suppression, 12 Surprise, 46 Survey research, 34 Surveys, 165 Symbol, 39, 49, 63, 65, 67-69, 77-78, 80, 82, 131 Symbols, 9, 38-39, 43, 68, 80, 210, 255 Sympathy, 166, 170, 190 Symposium, 163 Synonyms, 51, 55 System, 7-8, 10, 26-30, 32-34, 39, 44, 50, 57, 59, 79, 88-89, 96, 101-102, 108-110, 112, 129-130, 149, 155, 169, 207, 215, 218, 223-224, 229, 251

T tables, 255 Taboo, 215 Team, 29, 65-66, 98, 156, 174, 226, 248-249, 251-255 Technical terms, 54-56 Technological advances, 120 Technology, 1, 44, 50-51, 54, 56, 61-62, 64, 79, 83, 106, 110-111, 118-119, 151, 178, 215, 217-218, 232, 235 communication and, 56 Television, 11, 37-38, 40-42, 44-45, 50-52, 54-55, 68, 88, 112, 119-120, 138, 140, 143, 146, 161-164, 166, 172, 175, 179-180, 193-198, 200, 202-203, 215-216, 254 Territory, 25, 40, 92 Test, 19, 28-29, 32, 48, 72, 90, 95, 117-118, 120-122, 124-125, 127, 130, 133, 138-139, 141-143, 147-148, 193, 203 Testimonials, 167 Testimony, 31-32, 93, 119, 135, 138, 140, 142, 156, 158, 161-162, 165, 167, 219, 222 Thesis, 58 Thought, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 28, 31, 47-48, 87, 90-91, 103, 145, 154, 163, 183, 187-188, 197, 207, 210, 217 Time, 4-5, 11, 14, 16-17, 19, 24-25, 27-28, 33-34, 37, 43, 50, 56, 60, 61, 65-66, 68, 74, 77, 79, 89-91, 93, 97, 100, 102, 106-108, 110,

114-117, 119-120, 123, 125-129, 132, 134, 136, 138, 147, 155-156, 159-161, 165-166, 168, 170-174, 179-180, 187, 190, 195, 199, 208, 213, 215, 218, 221, 226-227, 231, 233, 235, 238, 248-250, 252, 255 Topic, 5, 8, 14, 29, 32-33, 35, 37, 46, 48, 56, 58-59, 61-62, 64-65, 70, 76, 78, 83-85, 87-88, 90, 92, 94, 99, 102, 106-107, 110, 112, 114, 124, 129, 131, 133, 141, 147, 160, 162, 169, 172, 174, 180, 185, 218, 221, 229, 250, 253-255 choosing, 61, 76 constraints of, 107 statement of, 48 Topics, 46-47, 61, 113-114, 119, 150, 166, 203, 235 Toulmin model, 87, 90, 93, 96, 98-99, 101-102, 133, 145, 150, 155, 186 Toulmin, Stephen, 13, 25, 87 Transfer fallacy, 158 Trust, 15-16, 66, 70, 75, 77, 82, 166, 213 Truth-telling, 15 Twitter, 61, 64-65, 85-86, 225, 227, 233-235

U Uncertainty, 9, 83, 171, 228 Understanding, 3, 6-8, 10-11, 13, 16, 25-27, 40, 44, 50, 53-54, 58, 60, 64, 68, 70, 72, 74, 79, 83, 94-95, 128, 134, 170, 178, 180, 189, 195, 207, 214, 221, 228-229, 243, 254 United States, 39-40, 42, 46, 52-53, 57, 59, 67, 82, 88, 95, 102, 109-110, 113, 117, 119, 155, 162, 208-210, 213-214, 232

V Valde, K. S., 20, 238 Validity, 9, 96, 98, 115, 133-134, 138, 146, 149-150, 156, 161, 170, 192, 229, 231 Value judgments, 45-46, 48-49, 54, 62, 73, 207, 222, 237 Value(s), 237 Values, 6, 18, 20-21, 33-34, 37, 40-41, 65, 78-80, 85, 95-97, 140, 150, 161, 178, 206-217, 219-221, 228-230, 236-239, 245, 251 of audience, 228 Van Eemeren, F. H., 21, 36 Variety, 2, 5, 56, 84, 91, 110, 112-113, 115, 118, 147, 180, 203, 221-222, 224-225, 230 Video, 47, 50-51, 115, 120, 196, 226 videos, 235 Videotapes, 119-120, 128, 242 Violation, 27, 89, 170 Violence, 138-142, 144, 163-164, 172-175 Voice, 20, 38, 189, 198 Volume, 21, 110, 114, 188 Vulgar language, 52

W Warrant, 35, 87, 90-92, 94, 96-102, 106, 120, 129-130, 133-135, 138-139, 141-148, 150, 155, 157, 159-160, 167, 188-191, 194-195, 197-201, 221, 223, 227, 234, 242, 245 Websites, 218, 225 Whately, Richard, 27, 36 Whedbee, K. E., 20, 238 Winfrey, Oprah, 55 Women, 2, 14-15, 20, 34, 37, 115, 168, 170, 180-185, 187-193, 196-201, 209, 216 Words, 9-13, 17, 38-42, 45, 51, 53-55, 59-60, 73, 124, 138, 160, 165, 167, 170-171, 178, 185, 208, 231 function of, 10, 39 World Wide Web, 50 Written communication, 233

Y Yankelovich, Daniel, 208 YouTube, 85

261