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3.8 Discussion Questions for Chapter 3
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Students and teachers of debate need to have a common understanding of concepts that are central to debate. Some concepts have common meanings used in ordinary language and others do not. The following sections are intended to ensure that all readers of this text share a common understanding of some of the most important concepts.
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3.1 Two Sets of Related Concepts
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A clear understanding of key concepts is necessary prior to a more in-depth discussion of the general process of debating. Sometimes people use terms and concepts loosely and such lax use of those terms leaves debaters and judges alike confused.
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Persuasion and debate are two of the most important concepts that need to be defined. These two constitute the first of the two sets of related concepts. The second set of concepts includes arguments and argumentation.
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3.1.1 Persuasion and Debate
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Persuasion and debate have much in common yet they are different in certain ways. Persuasion is a symbolic process that people use to convince others to change their position (or sometimes to reinforce their own current position) about some issue, idea, or action. Debate is a process in which at least two persons who are engaged in some kind of a conflict over ideas or actions use persuasion to try to resolve their disagreement.
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Persuasion is the broader of these two related concepts. All persuasion does not include debate but all debate involves persuasion. Consider for instance, the case of a corporation advertising a product to the general public. Apple, for example, tries to convince consumers to purchase the iPhone, the iPod, or a Macintosh computer. Such an advertising campaign is clearly an example of persuasion, but hardly can be considered a debate. On the other hand, if a lawyer tries to convince a judge that her client is not guilty of a crime, the lawyer is directly engaged with another lawyer in a conflict of ideas and thus the two lawyers are in a debate. These two lawyers are trying to persuade the judge to resolve the disagreement (guilty or not guilty) in their favor. So, persuasion sometimes, but not always includes what is called debate but sometimes includes symbolic acts that are not in the category of debate.
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Both persuasion and debate take place in a variety of situations using different forms. Situations that are described as persuasion include circumstances such as a wife trying to persuade her husband to take a holiday, a child trying to persuade a parent to purchase a toy, or a lawyer trying to persuade a judge that a client is guilty (or innocent) of a charge. Although all of these three examples can be accurately described as persuasion, only the example of the lawyer and the judge can reasonably be described as a debate because it involves two persons engaged in a conflict of ideas. Debate always includes persuasion, however, persuasion frequently exists outside of debate.
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In addition to existing in a variety of situations, persuasion comes in many forms. For example, narrative can be used as a form of persuasion. An advocate may narrate a story to convince someone else to behave in ways that are prescribed in the story. A child trying to convince a parent to purchase a toy might tell a story about a friend who already has a similar toy. The story might include how the friend not only has fun with the toy but how the toy makes the friend seem important to other friends. Another example of persuasion involves the use of an extended metaphor. In such an extended metaphor, a person talks about a familiar example to convince the other person of the wisdom of an idea or course of action. A wife talking to her husband about a holiday that the two of them took years ago to reveal why they ought to take a holiday this year would constitute an example of an extended metaphor. So, narrative and metaphor are just two examples of persuasion—argument (another key concept to be explained later) is another. As will be shown in the upcoming section, argument is the central form of persuasion that is used in what will be called debate.
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Thus, both persuasion and debate exist in various situations and use different forms. One of the key features that generally differentiate persuasion in general from debate in particular is the presence of an external adjudicator. When two parties engaged in a conflict are unable to reach an agreement, those two take the conflict to an adjudicator who is not a party to the conflict. That requirement may be voluntary in that the two persons agree to seek adjudication of their conflict, or it may be compulsory whereby the two parties are compelled by law to seek adjudication. In either event, the two parties must take their positions to an adjudicator who has or is given the right to decide which position should prevail. Debate is the process that the two parties use to convince the adjudicator that their position is best.
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In summary, persuasion is a symbolic process whereby people try to convince others to change their ideas about ideas, issues, or actions. Debate is one kind of persuasion, but debate is limited to situations where at least two participants are directly engaged with one another about some conflict. In most cases, debate includes external adjudicators whose role is to decide the outcome of the conflict. Thus, persuasion is the broader of the two concepts and debate is one kind of persuasion.
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3.1.2 Arguments and Argumentation
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Argumentation can be defined as the process whereby an advocate uses arguments to advocate a position. During the process of argumentation, a person uses what are called arguments to communicate their views about the positions they advocate. Arguments includes specific claims, along with their supporting material, that a debater introduces during the process of argumentation. Specifically, when debaters want to convince an adjudicator to accept their side of an issue, they do so by engaging the process of argumentation, specifically by using arguments.
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The process of argumentation also includes other elements such as refutation, delivery, etc. The illustration below shows the argumentation process along with some other elements included in the process. Those other elements of the argumentation process will be discussed later.
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The fact that arguments constitute the basic tools of persuasion used in debate does not negate the usefulness of narrative, metaphor or other processes of persuasion. As the above illustration shows, narratives and metaphors can be a part of the argumentation process and, as will be discussed in later chapters, can be used as resources to support particular arguments. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the process that a debater engages to construct basic arguments when engaging in argumentation to convince an adjudicator of the wisdom of that debater’s position.
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3.2 Components of Arguments
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In subsequent chapters, this text will introduce four components of an argument. For the purposes of this chapter, those four components have been simplified and reduced to two components: a claim and supporting material. Fundamentally, an argument consists of a claim that is substantiated by some kind of supporting material: evidence, explanation, logic, another claim, etc. The following diagram illustrates that basic idea of an argument:
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A claim is the main point or thesis of your argument. Chapter 15 will identify several different kinds of claims. However, for the purposes of this chapter, a claim is any controversial statement that a debater uses to convince the adjudicator that his or her position is worthwhile. Examples include statements like “Capital punishment is immoral,” “China’s one-child policy is obsolete,” “A university education is unimportant,” etc. Each of these statements can become part of an argument.
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