General Conditions

1. you must have a clear idea of just what your case, issue, or point of view is
2. must be aware of the relation of your position on this case or issue to your position on other issues. The reason for this is obvious. You do not want to present your case on one issue in such a way that it might cause conflicts or future embarrassments when you present your position on another issue
3. clear idea of the audience to whom you are presenting your case
4. you must understand the medium you are using to convey your case
5. you must constantly keep in the forefront of your mind the purpose for which you are presenting your case

Three Main Parts

1. Arousing sympathy for your cause
2. Presenting facts, or what will be taken as facts to substantiate your case
3. Driving home the conclusion

Gaining a Sympathetic Audience

• Appeal to Pity
  • The most effective use of the appeal to pity does not involve the use of highly emotive and inflammatory language; rather, it relies upon the bare presentation of simple and unchallengeable facts. It is important that this appeal not be overdone so that members of the audience are not unnecessarily antagonized. This is especially true when the audience is not well known to you or when they are still undecided about the issue raised
  • Example:
    • The most famous, and in a way clever and ironic, use of the appeal to pity is the one directed by Socrates to the jury trying him on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. The famous trial is described in Plato’s dialogue titled the Apology.
      • “Perhaps there may be some one who is offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself, on a similar or even a less serious occasion, prayed and entreated the judges with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a host of relations and friends; whereas I, who am probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things. The contrast may occur to his mind, and he may be set against me, and vote in anger because he is displeased at me on this account. Now if there be such a person among you—mind, I do not say that there is—to him I may fairly reply: My friend, I am a man, and like other men, a creature of flesh and blood, and not “Of wood or stone,” as Homer says; and I have a family, yes, and sons, O Athenians, three in number, one almost a man, and two others who are still young; and yet I will not bring any of them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal. And why not? Not from any self-assertion or want of respect for you…. But, having regard to public opinion, I feel that such conduct would be discreditable to myself, and to you, and to the whole state…. And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who have a reputation; and if they are done, you ought not to permit them; you ought rather to show that you are far more disposed to condemn the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous, than him who holds his peace.”
• Appeal to Authority
  • To appeal to authority is to inform your audience that prominent people are in favor of the position you are urging. The appeal to authority, like the appeal to pity, is an attempt to establish a frame of reference for the rest of your case. There is nothing inherently wrong with this appeal; rather, it is essential to any discussion. No one can know everything, nor can he be everywhere at once. We are all forced to take for granted that other people are sometimes experts in their fields and that they are reliable sources of information. If the people who are engaged in a discussion, argument, or dispute cannot agree on authorities, then the prospects of a successful resolution are very dim indeed. Moreover, if you can appeal to the right authorities, you are also guaranteeing a more sympathetic hearing for your case.
  • Qualifications
    1. Not considered a liar by the audience
    2. Considered disinterested by the audience, not a vested interest
    3. conscientious about the area in which he claims expertise
    4. best to make sure that the authority is well known
    5. must be an expert in the relevant field
    6. authorities cited should be both current and historical
    7. authority cited should have an opinion that is representative of the general expertise in his field
    8. authorities should be as numerous, as diverse, and otherwise as different as possible
• Appear to Tradition (Sacred Cows)
  • The appeal to tradition, also known as the ad populum appeal, is the appeal to an ideal, a theoretical or abstract principle to which all people—or at the very least the members of your audience—pay lip service. No doubt some people take these ideals more seriously than do other people, but everyone claims to respect them. This is an important principle of argumentation because it is one that establishes the discussion’s frame of reference. If you cannot find this common point, then there cannot be any discussion at all.
    • Examples:
      • Martin Luther King’s invocation of the principle of nonviolence. While there are certainly those who would not under similar circumstances use nonviolence, or even those who do not subscribe to the principle in their heart of hearts, it is still the case that few would openly attack someone else’s advocacy of nonviolence. The appeal to nonviolence is an appeal to a tradition that has deep moral, political, social, and religious roots, ones that spread beyond any single culture or historical period. To invoke nonviolence is to gain a tremendous sympathetic reaction on the part of audiences. We might also add that this principle can frequently disarm enemies as well.
• Appeal to Precedent
  • appeal to cases or instances similar to the one being defended. It is not necessary that everyone agree with your precedent, as in the case of the appeal to tradition. Precedents must be real or actual as opposed to traditions, which are ideal. In fact, we frequently appeal to precedent when we cannot find a tradition to help us, but it must be recognized that this kind of appeal is a calculated risk in that it automatically antagonizes some part of the audience.
  • Examples:
    • Violent revolution is a precedent in American life, as is obvious from our Revolutionary War and the Civil War, but it would be odd indeed to say that violent revolution is one of our ideals. When the radical black leader H. Rap Brown, also known as Jamil Al-Amin, allegedly said that “violence is as American as apple pie,” he was appealing to precedent and not to tradition. If your audience does not place a lot of their trust in tradition, an appeal to precedent may have much greater force.

Presenting the Facts

• Statistics
  • most convincing evidence is statistical
  • Guidelines
    1. come from a reliable source
    2. since statistical data are rarely uniform, they may be grouped or “interpreted” in different ways. Do not hesitate to use only that part of the statistical data that suits your ease, especially if you do not expect to be challenged
    3. “getting on the bandwagon.” If you can show that most people, or the majority, support your position or opinion, then not only invoke that information as support or evidence that you are right, but also invite people or the audience, at least implicitly, to join the majority. No one likes to be left out in the cold.
    4. large numbers impress people much more than small numbers
    5. just as large numbers tend to impress, so small numbers tend to be overlooked. This means that you may openly discount a small number or minimize its importance
  • The important principle that we have seen at work time and time again is that the same information may be presented in different ways. The trick is to choose the way most useful to your case
• Theoretical Constructs
  • are not things one can check by simple observation. They are the product of intellectual activity and are freely used to help integrate raw data.
  • The interesting thing about theoretical constructs is that they refer to nothing observable, yet we use them to explain what we do observe. Since they refer to nothing observable, they cannot literally be shown to be false
  • Example:
    • French Revolution, not referring to a single event
  • conspiracies always appeal to people. The trick here is to find theoretical constructs already in use and widely accepted by your audience and to use them as if they were the same thing as raw data. Despite the fact that it has no standing among many in the scientific community, Freudian psychoanalysis has so infected the popular mind that most people, or a good many, literally believe in such things as the unconscious, repression, and the Oedipus complex. Successive generations of college students have implicitly accepted Marxist theories of history, economics, and politics even though they are not always aware that these theoretical constructs are Marxist in origin. In argumentation, it is always a question of what your audience will fall for
• Classification
  • we must classify or organize it. Theoretical constructs are just one way of organizing or classifying information
  • All and Some.
    • Avoid—if you can—using the quantifiers “all” and “some.”
    • You want to avoid using “some” in your own presentation because your case will then sound too weak. The word “all,” even implicitly, is much stronger sounding. At the same time, by not actually using the word, you leave open the alternative of saying that you meant to say only “some,” especially if your opponents challenge your statement later.
  • Continuum
    • There are some vague classificatory terms that form part of a spectrum or continuum rather than extremes of a clear-cut division.
  • Golden Mean
    • It is part of our general store of wisdom that the mean between two extremes is the most desirable position. Hence one should always aim to describe his position as a mean—a golden mean—between two undesirable extremes.
• Definition
  1. there is the case of truth by definition. If your terms are defined carefully enough, and if your other factual data are correct, then your case is foolproof
  2. matter of equivocation. A specific term is said to be equivocal when it has more than one meaning
     1. It is sometimes advantageous to specify the exact sense in advance if there is no alternative term and if you wish to capitalize on the possible value of that particular equivocal term
     2. On the other hand, it is sometimes advantageous not to specify the exact sense in which you wish a term to be taken
  3. concerns the possibility of really creative thinking (euphemism). The advance of human knowledge requires new concepts invented by man
• Analogy
  • we are claiming that two things that are similar in one or more respects will be similar in another or in a future respect.
  • Literal
    • A has properties p1, p2,…pn…and px; B has properties p1, p2,…pn…; therefore, B has the property px
    • There is a difference between saying that A and B have different properties and saying that A and B have incompatible properties. When the analogy between A and B breaks down, it is not because they have different properties but rather because they have incompatible properties.
  • Figurative
    • literary devices for dramatically exemplifying a point. If you use figurative analogies, you should make sure that the analogy is definitely positive and favorable to your case
    • ad populum appeal is the so-called ship of state
    • Examples:
      • 1. Thomas Carlyle: “Running a government is like running a ship; we need a strong hand at the helm.”
      • 2. Henrik Ibsen: “Society is like a ship; everyone must be prepared to take the helm.”
      • 3. Alexis de Tocqueville: “Like the navigator he [the statesman] may direct the vessel which bears him along but he can neither change its structure nor raise the winds nor lull the waters which swell beneath him.” 4. J. M. Beck: “The constitution is neither, on the one hand, a Gibraltar Rock, which wholly resists the ceaseless washing of time and circumstance, nor is it, on the other hand, a sandy beach which is slowly destroyed by the erosions of the waves. It is rather to be likened to a floating dock, which, while firmly attached to its moorings, and not therefore at the caprice of the waves, yet rises and falls with the tide of time and circumstances.”

Driving Home the Conclusion

• Keep in mind that even a sympathetic and highly attentive audience will retain only about a quarter of what you say, so the most crucial “takeaway” point(s) must be repeated and emphasized to help ensure your audience draws the right conclusion from your speech.
• The following key words and phrases should be used profusely when stating the conclusion:
  • 1. obviously
  • 2. certainly
  • 3. there is no question that
  • 4. of course
  • 5. surely
  • 6. it is clearly evident that
• general -> specific
  • conclusion is a generalization, and the evidence consists of specific instances that support the conclusion
• specific -> general
  • evidence consists of generalizations under which the specific instance falls
• It is, of course, possible to defend a position or a conclusion by using both general and specific information. In fact, the strongest arguments usually have this double-barreled kind of support.
• In the initial presentation, only positive evidence should be presented on behalf of your case.
• In addition to presenting evidence for why your position or point of view is correct, there is no reason in the world why you should not point out the residual benefits of your solution. In fact, a long list of residual benefits frequently serves as the deciding factor

1. Act as if your solution had only positive residual benefits
2. know what problems outside the one under discussion are most on the minds of the audience
3. claim that each and every one of these major problems will also be solved, or at the very least ameliorated, by adopting your position on the specific issue discussed.

• The real clincher to any conclusion is the use of emotive language, either positively toward what you favor or negatively toward what you oppose. If you are absolutely sure that your audience is with you, then you can wrap up your presentation by simply restating your conclusion in emotive terminology.

Nonverbal Devices

• Clothing is important
• Voice is important
  • Deep
• Surroundings
• Video

References

The Art of Deception - Nicholas Capaldi, page 47 (file not included in this release)