Understanding the Persuasive Techniques in Developing Arguments How a speech can soothe and inspire a grieving population.

Why do you need to understand arguments?  Arguments come in all types of contexts.  Personal conversations  Discussion of current events  Commercials  Print Media  News  Political Campaigns  Law Cases  Customer Service Complaints  The list goes on and on and on and on and on…….

Three Types of Arguments  Deductive  Inductive  Abductive or Hypothetico-Deductive But we are only going to worry about 1 & 2 for now.

Deductive Arguments  A Deductive Argument is an argument where the conclusion follows validly from the premises.  In other words, an argument where truth of the premises guarantees truth of the conclusion. Example: All men are mortal Socrates is a man Therefor Socrates is mortal

Inductive Argument  Inductive Argument: An argument where the premises point several cases of some pattern, and the conclusion states that this pattern will hold in general.  An inductive argument will not be deductively valid, because even if a pattern is found many times, that doesn’t guarantee it will always be found. Therefore, an inductive argument provides weaker, less trustworthy support for the conclusion than a deductive argument does. Example: We have seen 1000 swans, and all of them have been white ________________________________________________ All swans are white

Purposes of Writing Arguments  Purpose 1: To change people’s points of view or persuade them to accept a new point of view  Purpose 2: to persuade people to a particular action or new behavior.

Why do we have to write arguments?  Since people don't always agree on what's right or reasonable, appropriately constructed argument helps us arrive at what's fair or true.  It is used to settle disputes and discover truth.  Teachers assign argumentative writing so students can learn to examine their own and other's ideas in a careful, methodical way.

What do they teach us?  Argument teaches us how to evaluate:  Evaluate Conflicting Claims  Judge evidence and Methods of investigation  Helps us learn to clarify our thoughts and articulate them honestly and accurately  To consider the ideas of others in a respectful and critical manner.

What is our task ?  You will need to determine the author’s purpose and delineate and evaluate an argument.  What is Purpose?  The reason for writing the work – what he or she hopes to achieve.

Types of purposes  Inform  Persuade  Express Opinion  Influence an audience’s emotions Persuasive Techniques  Emotional Appeals  Appeals to Loyalty  Appeals by Association

Academic vocabulary you need to know:  Premise – an assertion or statement on which additional affirmation (truth) or denials (false) are based  Claim – the author’s position  Reasoning – what premises the author is using  Evidence – facts, examples, details  Denotation – dictionary definition of a word/phrase  Connotation – a shade of associated meaning of a word.

Types of Evidence  Remember! Evaluating an argument involves judging whether the evidence used to support the claim is:  Sufficient – one or two pieces of evidence might not be enough to support an argument.  Relevant – Evidence may not apply nor closely connect to the argument.  Credible – Evidence might come from an unreliable source.