Persuasion, Arguments, & Types of Arguments

PERSUASION, ARGUMENTS, & TYPES OF ARGUMENTS ● Persuasion is all about convincing people who don’t agree with you that they should agree with you. ● CORE ARGUMENTS ○ Whatever topic you’re debating, there are a few ideas you can start with that will usually get the audience to listen. ■ How will doing what you say… ● Save them [the audience] money? ● Save them time? ● Make them happier? ● Make them healthier? ● Improve the environment? ● Improve society? ● Make them safer? ● Make them smarter? ● Using Arguments (Reasons) ○ Persuasion relies on the use of arguments (reasons) to convince your audience. ○ You are more likely to persuade your audience if you have given some thought to the reasons why your side is right. ■ The more arguments you can come up with to support your main idea, the more likely you are to convince the audience. ● Pathos (Emotional Argument) ○ An emotional argument is a STORY that makes the audience feel like your side is right. ■ It might make the audience feel GOOD if they do what you say, or it might make them feel BAD if they don’t do what you say. ■ Ex: Advertising - Advertisements try to convince the audience to give away money. The best advertisements use strong arguments to accomplish this goal. ○ Humans are social creatures, wired to have sympathetic responses. ■ Emotional arguments take advantage of that to make the audience feel things. ○ BENEFITS of Emotional Arguments ■ VERY effective - they SHOW people reasons they should agree. ● People are easily swayed by their emotions, often letting them override their reasoning. ■ Humans love stories ● A well-done emotional argument tells a short story to SHOW the audience how a situation will make them happy, sad, angry, etc… it manipulates the audience’s emotions. ○ DRAWBACKS of Emotional Arguments ■ Although emotional arguments can be really effective, they are also pretty easy for the audience to swat down if you do not successfully engage their emotions. ● Emotional decisions often feel good in the short term, but have long-term consequences. ● Emotional arguments are usually built on anecdotal evidence. Anecdotes do not make good data, because they do not reflect the actual experiences of many. ● Ethos (Character Arguments) ○ Ethos: Greek word for “Character” - word “ethical” is derived from ethos. ■ A character argument tries to get the audience to believe that you are the person they should listen to because you are the most trustworthy. ● This is done by providing a trustworthy SOURCE of information about the topic. ○ BENEFITS ■ Character arguments rely on someone’s expertise, position, reputation, or credentials. ● Ex: We usually take our doctor’s advice because we trust that they know what they are talking about when it comes to our health. ■ The strongest character arguments include info about the source that helps demonstrate its trustworthiness. ● Ex: “As a doctor, I am qualified to tell you that this course of treatment will likely generate the best results.” ● Ex: “My three decades of experience in public service, my tireless commitment to the people of this community, and my willingness to reach across the aisle and cooperate with the opposition, make me the ideal candidate for your mayor.” ○ DRAWBACKS ■ The problem with character arguments is that it can be very difficult to know who to trust as a credible and reliable source of information. ■ People tend to believe character arguments that confirm what they already believe to be true. ● Logos (Logical Arguments) ○ A logical argument tries to get the audience to think carefully about the facts of the topic. This is done by reasoning with the audience, usually by drawing on facts, statistics, or comparisons to previous situations. ○ YOU MUST CHECK THE RELIABILITY OF ANY SOURCE YOU USE. ■ Some “logical” arguments are built on flawed logic. ○ Examples: Logical Arguments ■ “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: we have not only the fingerprints, the lack of an alibi, a clear motive, and an expressed desire to commit the robbery… we also have a video of the suspect breaking in. The case could not be more open and shut.” - RELIABLE: Multiple points of evidence ■ “More than one hundred peer-reviewed studies have been conducted over the past decade, and none of them suggests that this is an effective treatment for hair loss.” - RELIABLE - Peer-reviewed ■ “He has a track record of success with this company, culminating in some of our most acclaimed architecture to date and earning us Firm of the Year nine times in a row.” - RELIABLE - Specific records from history ■ “Research compiled by analysts from NASA, as well as organizations from five other nations with space programs, suggests that a moon colony is viable with international support.” RELIABLE - Confirmed by experts ■ “History has shown time and time again that absolute power corrupts absolutely.” FLAWED - Different people in different circumstances behave differently than history suggests ■ “You won’t find any deer along this road. In 25 years of driving the same route, I haven’t seen a single one.” FLAWED - How many times has the speaker driven this road? What time of day? If the speaker doesn’t SEE deer, does that mean there aren’t any? ○ NOTE: Data and statistics can be manipulated or misrepresented to mislead the audience. ○ Look at the example: ○ What do you notice? What’s wrong? ○ The graph is not WRONG… ■ But it is set up in the opposite of the way we’d normally expect to see the data presented. ■ Did you notice the group that put out the graph? (Credited at the bottom of the graph) ● THINK: Why might that group might want to make the data look different than it actually is?