I. The difference between a formal debate/argumentation
and an informal persuasion.
Argumentation, or debate,
means that to argue for a certain position (or a certain statement) by
- offering strong evidence
to support yourself,
- considering the current
situation as well as your audience, and
- refuting your opponent's
argument.
To win your case, you need
to:
- Present your case
clearly and support it sufficiently with statistics, evidence and examples,
- Consider and refute
the Opponents's perspectives and their Counter-Arguments
- call the audience's
attention to the importance of your issue amd make emotional appeal to your
audience, .
Informal Persuasion:
A debate usually ends with deciding which team wins the case.
In real life, however, it's not so easy to decide who wins, and it's harder
to make others agree with you in a short time and with only a speech.
It's sometimes not necessary or possible to present the full case with all the
reasons and data. This is when informal persuasion is needed. You use informal
persuasion when designing an ad, writing to an editor or to your friends and
relatives.
In such informal persuasion, you need to:
- Finds ways to get the audience to listen to you; (for instance, to move
him/her emotionally by presenting your own experience, by showing how you
understand him/her);
- Consider more your
listener's reasons, give them credits;
- Modify your statement,
and sometimes --
- Compromise a little
to find a solution acceptable to both sides.
In real life situation,
your goal may not be to win the others to your side. You've achieved
a lot simply by having them listen to you and think about the issue.
However, don't forget that whether with informal persuasion or formal argumentation,
you need:
I. a clear argument, as well as clear understanding and refutation
of the counter-arguments.
II. The skills needed for argumentation:
-
Definition--
you need to clearly define your position.
(For example, in
a debate over whether women are losers in pre-marital sex, you need to
define each of the important terms--sex, losers-- and the related terms
of love, marriage, and virginity complex.)
-
Classification: a
statement implies not just this statement. Besides carefully
defining it, we should also work on its premises, the related current
situation, and its possible consequences. Take "women are losers
in pre-marital sex" again as an example:
-
premise: Virginity
complex. a woman's body should be kept pure before marriage, should
be a gift for her husband. But this does not apply to men.
Men are not required to keep their virginity.
-
current situation:
-
how many men and women
still keep this concept about virginity.
-
the general views about
sex and pre-marital sex.
-
sex education and contraceptive
measures available.
-
recent events or arguments
related to this issue.
-
possible consequences:
-
emotional,
-
physical,
-
on future relationships
The other necessary
skills are:
-
In-Depth Analysis of
causes and effects;
-
Narration and Description
of concrete examples
-
Research into social
events and statistics needed for support
III. What to avoid: Generalization
and absoluate statement
e.g. "All women dislike
men who smoke cigars."
- How to avoid generalization:
Modify your statements
Get concrete examples or
proper statistics