argument in speech

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10 Developing Strong Arguments

Josh miller, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, learning objectives.

• Understand the principles of argumentation.
• Identify the parts of an argument.
• Understand the different types of arguments, and how to make an effective argument.
• Explain the techniques for creating and the benefits of having counter arguments.

When you think of the word argument, you might also think of intense shouting matches where one person attempts to yell louder than the other person. You might imagine someone’s feelings getting hurt or relationships falling apart. Or, perhaps a scene emerges in your mind where one friend decides to stop speaking with another friend after an altercation. You might even think of physical violence. In general, people tend to have a negative impression about arguing, thinking that arguments are destructive and harmful. We want to avoid arguments. This chapter, however, takes a different approach to argument. As you will learn in this chapter, effective public speeches develop around arguments, and arguments do not need to be considered harmful things to be avoided. Instead, someone engaged in an argument gives logical reasons to other people—reasons that might enable those people to change their own minds about a particular topic or issue.

This chapter will first equip you with some basic principles for understanding the importance of arguments in public speaking. Based on those principles, you will learn why speeches must have arguments and how to determine the success of an argument. Then, you will learn about the basic structure of an argument, so you have the tools to develop compelling arguments. The chapter will also discuss several types of arguments that you can make, and it will warn you several types of argumentative strategies that you will want to avoid. You will also learn about the significance of knowing what other people might think about your topic and why it is important to address other people’s potential concerns with your topic in your speech itself.

Principles of Argumentation

Before we examine the structure of an argument, it might be helpful to first cover some essential principles of argumentation. These principles help us to be better equipped to answer the following questions: why do we argue? What is argumentation and what is an argument? How do I know that I have made a successful argument? There are four principles in total: (1) argumentation solves problems, (2) argumentation involves uncertainty, (3) arguments are a process and a product, and (4) success is determined by the audience.

Principle #1: Argumentation as Solutions to Problems

Why do we make arguments and why do we engage in argumentation? At the most basic level, we engage in arguments to solve problems. In your local community, you might believe that the roads are littered with too many potholes, so you decide to convince your neighbors and your local city council to raise taxes to fix all of those potholes. To convince your neighbors and city council members to make the change, you need to engage in argumentation. In other words, you need to give your audience, members of your local city council and neighbors, good reasons as to why they should make a change and taxes should be increased. What distinguishes argumentation from other ways to solve problems is that arguers will use evidence and logical reasoning to convince others that there is a problem and that they know the best way to fix the problem. [i] In public speaking, argumentation is not a zero-sum game where there is a clear winner and loser because the goal of argumentation is connection and problem-solving. In short, arguments are used to inspire action and solutions to fix problems.

Principle #2: Argumentation involves Uncertainty

Arguments are necessary when there is uncertainty about what people can do or should do at some point in the future. Arguments work to reduce that uncertainty. When we face a problem in our daily lives, in our communities, or as a nation, we have many different options about what we can do. Some might not even recognize or believe that a problem is occurring and thus believe that we do not need to do anything. Some people might believe that one possible solution is better than the other solutions, and some might disagree with that assessment. Moreover, we generally need to decide how to respond to the problem with limited information, and we can never be certain what the proper course of action entails. If the solution were obvious, we would not need to make arguments to convince others of the best course of action. When we face problems, we can try to agree on the best course of action by giving each other reasons why we should prefer one action over another. Because of the uncertainty inherent in argumentation, arguments require people to take “inferential leaps” or leaps of faith. People make these leaps of faith because they believe that a strong rationale exists for believing in one point of view over another. [ii]

Principle #3: Arguments as Products/Process

We can understand arguments as being both a product and a process. To view an argument as a product is to understand that an argument is something that is made and has a structure. As a public speaker, you will make an argument to convince someone to agree with your point of view. You will give evidence and use that evidence to make an argument about why your point of view is correct. However, arguments are something that you will also have with other people. Arguments do not occur in a vacuum. So, to view argument as a process means to understand that arguments happen in interactions with others. Through that process, you might tell your audience why you believe your evidence justifies a particular position over another, but your audience members might also tell you why they think their point of view is superior to others. Throughout that interaction and exchange of ideas and evidence, hopefully, you and your fellow arguers will arrive and agree upon the best course of action.

In order for the process of argumentation to work, both you and your audience members have to be open to persuasion. This openness is known as the principle of reciprocity . True argumentation can only occur if both you and your audience are open to being persuaded and willing to admit that you may be wrong. [iii] You and your audience members have to be willing to examine the evidence and be willing to compromise. That is, engagement with others is necessary for productive argumentation. [iv] Otherwise, even though you might be exchanging points of view and evidence supporting those points of view, both you and your audience members will not be able to arrive at a collective course of action that will solve the problems you face. In short, arguments are things that we make (produce), but arguments are also things that we do with others (process).

The principle of reciprocity is when both you and your audience members are open to persuasion.

Principle #4: Success is Determine by Your Audience

Being correct is not the same thing as having a strong or successful argument. Success is based on earning agreement of your audience. When we argue, it is because we want others to share our point of view and act with us to solve a problem. Ultimately, it is up to our audience to decide if they want to agree with our point of view and act collectively with us. So, even if we are confident that we are correct in what we believe, we cannot consider our arguments to be successful until we convince others to agree with our point of view. The process of earning agreement from your audience can be long and difficult. However, merely repeating what you believe to be correct will not foster a successful argument. It is not until you realize that your audience determines whether or not your argument is correct that you can begin to work to earn that agreement. As such, creating a successful argument often takes time, effort, research, and a willingness to engage with ideas and beliefs with which you disagree.

Now that we have covered some of the basic principles of argumentation, let us examine the parts of an argument. Knowing the parts of every argument will help you recognize whether or not you are crafting an effective argument for your speech.

The Parts of an Argument

A well-structured argument contains at least three parts: the claim, the data, and the reasoning. The claim is the initial statement with which you would like your audience to agree. The data is the supporting material and evidence that you present to your audience that you believe shows that your claim is accurate. The reasoning is the logical connection between your data and claim. In other words, the reasoning shows your audience why your data supports your claim. [i] For example, if you are attempting to convince your friend to go eat lunch with you at a local burger place, you might say “we should go to that burger place for lunch today.” You want your friend to agree with that statement, and it is thus your claim. Your friend might ask “why?” And, you might respond by stating “it has the best fries.” This statement is your data because it is the supporting material that you provided to your friend to prove that your claim (“we should go to the burger place”) is correct. Your reasoning is the logical connection between your claim and the data. In this case, your reasoning might be that “restaurants that have the best fries are the best places to eat.” This statement connects your data (that the burger place has the best fries) to your claim (that you should eat at the burger place). Thus, your complete argument: “Places that have the best fries are the best places to eat lunch. So, we should eat at the burger place, because they have the best fries.” This statement includes your claim, data, and reasoning.

In everyday conversation, speakers do not always explicitly state the reasoning of the argument. When you talk to your friends about where to eat lunch, you might only say “we should eat at the burger place, because they have great fries.” If you ever said this statement, you would have only explicitly stated the claim and data. The reasoning is implied, and you would have assumed that your friends would understand the logical connection between having good fries and going to a place to eat. Based on this example, we might infer that not everyone will explicitly state their reasoning. However, for your argument to be effective, your audience needs to understand and agree with the logical connection between your claim and data. As such, if you do not state the reasoning explicitly, you must be confident that the logical connection is obvious enough that your audience will understand what it is. To be on the safe side, you should be as explicit as possible about how your data supports your claim in your speech, especially if your argument is complex or new to your audience. Remember that without a clear connection between your data and claim your argument will fall flat.

The claim is the intial statement with which you would like your audience to agree.

The data is the supporting material and evidence that you present to your audience that you believe shows that your claim is accurate.

The reasoning is the logical connection between your data and claim.

The basic structure of an argument includes a claim, data, and reasoning. To know how to develop as many diverse arguments as possible, it is helpful to know about the many different ways the reasoning process works in an argument. Let’s examine the different types of argument.

Try It: “Because” Test

Strong data is critical to developing strong arguments. To ensure that you include evidence in every argument, use the “because” test. The word because usually signals that a clause in your sentence will contain data supporting the other clause in the sentence. As such, one way to identify your claim and data is to add the word “because.” Examine the topic sentence of each paragraph (or main point) of your speech. If those sentences do not contain the word “because,” try to rewrite them to include the word “because.” If you cannot, then it is likely that your sentence needs data to support your claim and be a complete argument. Think of the burger place example once again. In this hypothetical, if your sentence was only “we should go to the burger place,” you will notice that you cannot rewrite this sentence to include the word “because.” As such, this sentence is only the claim. However, if your statement was “The burger place has great fries. We should go to it.” You can rewrite that statement as “we should go to the burger place because it has great fries.” This statement includes both the claim (“we should go to the burger place”) and data (“it has great fries”); the “because” in the sentence signals a connection between the claim and data.

Types of Arguments

Understanding different reasoning patterns can help you construct better arguments.  We will examine six ways you might reason as you develop and articulate an argument: (1) arguments by induction, (2) arguments from deduction, (3) arguments of cause, (4) arguments by analogy, (5) arguments by sign, and (6) arguments from authority.

Arguments from Induction

When arguing by induction , speakers take specific instances of an occurrence and generalize to a general principle based on their observation of those specific instances. [i] This process of going from specific instances and information to generalizing is also called developing an argument from example. During election seasons, pollsters use reasoning by example to make arguments about which candidate the general population prefers or wants to vote for at a given time. Pollsters ask a sample number of people to determine what they are thinking about the election. Based on the results from that sample, pollsters generalize and draw conclusions about what the general population thinks about the election and the candidates.

When developing an argument from example, your data is a specific instance of a larger phenomenon. You might use your personal experience to make your generalization. For example, if you are giving a speech about the need for public libraries, you can use your personal experience of using the public library to use the internet, check out a book, or have a quiet place to work. Based on your personal experience (your data) of needing to use the library, you generalize (your reasoning) to make the argument that libraries are an essential facet of your community (your claim). Other types of data that might be relevant to an argument from example include testimonies of other and statistics. For instance, if you want to argue that the economy of your state is doing poorly, you might find statistics that three of the largest cities in the state have growing unemployment and have a shrinking economy. Based on those three statistics (your data), you generalize (your reasoning) to conclude that the economy in the entire state is likely weaker than it should be (your claim).

If you decide to use inductive reasoning in your speech, you should ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I have enough examples to support the generalization? (2) Will my audience members find my examples typical and representative? [ii] Your argument from example may not be persuasive without enough examples to support your conclusion. For instance, if you are giving a speech about funding for libraries and you tell your audience that you use the libraries, your audience will not accept your generalization that the library is important because many people use it. Instead, you could provide your audience with a statistic stating the total number of people that use the libraries to generalize that many people use them. Arguments from example also fail when the examples are outliers or isolated instances. You may not like chocolate cake, but that does not mean that we can then conclude that most people dislike chocolate cake.

Arguments from Deduction

Whereas reasoning by example involves moving from specific instances to a general principle, when using deductive reasoning , speakers take a general principle and apply that principle to a specific case. For example, if you have evidence proving that in general students who attend a preschool do better in their K-12 education than students who do not, you might make an argument that your child should attend preschool so they can do better in their K-12 education. In this example, your claim would be that “my child should attend preschool.” Your data is the study you found saying, attending preschool correlates with more success in K-12 education. The reasoning that connects the data and claim is the belief that what is generally true for other children will be true for your child. When you make an argument that starts with a general principle and then apply that principle to a specific example, you are reasoning by deduction.

Data that supports an argument from deduction can include both facts and values derived from expert testimony, statistics, and revered documents. For example, when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, he cited two revered documents: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. On that hot summer’s day in 1963, King exclaimed:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” [iii]

The argument that King develops in this passage is one based on deduction. King starts with the data that the Declaration of Independence proclaims that all people are created equal. King then applies the general value principle established by the Declaration of Independence to the issue of racial segregation. When he does that, he can conclude that all races should be treated equally under the law and granted the guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Because the Declaration of Independence generally concludes that all people are created equal (data), King argues that in the specific instance (reasoning) of racial segregation that the law should treat all races equally (claim).

When developing an argument from deduction, you need to be confident that the general principle on which you base your argument is accurate and that your audience will believe that it is accurate. If you do not believe that your audience will agree with the general principle, then you would want to include additional evidence justifying that the general principle is accurate before you apply that general principle to a specific situation.

Arguments of Cause

Arguments based on causal reasoning attempt to establish a cause and effect relationship between two items. So, based on an assumption about a relationship between the two items, your argument predicts that something will occur based on the data that you have. That is, you believe that one of the items influences the other items in some way. For instance, if a friend noticed you studying three hours a day for a whole week, that friend might make the following prediction: “you are going to do well on your exam because you have been putting in so many hours of studying.” In this example, your friend’s claim is that you will do well on the exam. The data is your friend’s observation of all of the studying that you have been doing. The reasoning in this argument is that a cause and effect relationship exists between studying and doing well on an exam. When speakers and audiences believe that one thing causes the other thing, they assume that the observation of one of the things allows us to predict that the other thing will occur.

Another example of reasoning by cause would be the argument that “you should stop smoking, so you do not develop lung disease.” In this argument, the claim would be “you should stop smoking.” The speaker making this argument would be using causal reasoning because the argument assumes that a causal relationship between smoking and lung disease exists. The argument assumes that smoking does cause lung disease. To strengthen arguments by cause, you should clearly articulate evidence that supports the cause and effect relationship between the two items. In the instance of the smoking example, citing evidence that establishes the connection between smoking and lung cancer would make the causal argument stronger. Moreover, strong arguments by cause usually include an explanation about how one item influences the other item. For instance, in the example about smoking, saying that smoking damages lung cells which increases the likelihood of lung disease explains to the audience how smoking and lung disease are connected.

Causal arguments fail when they are based on correlation rather than causation. Correlation means that two things tend to happen at the same time—they have a connection. However, in a correlation one thing does not cause the other thing. For example, we may notice that college debt is increasing in the United States, and we may also notice that over the same period of time smoking has been decreasing in the United States. However, we cannot conclude that if more people smoked cigarettes, college debt would decrease. When two things happen at the same time, it does not prove that one causes the other.

Arguments by Analogy

Arguments by analogy assume that if two items are alike in some respects, then they will be alike in other respects. As such, reasoning by analogy connects evidence to the claim by comparing to items. [iv] Take the following argument for example: “Sweden’s health care system dramatically reduced health care costs in five years. Thus, the United States should follow Sweden’s lead and adopt a similar healthcare system.” In this example, the claim is that the United States should adopt a health care system that is similar to Sweden’s. The data is a report that Sweden’s health care costs were reduced in five years. The reasoning connects the claim and data together. In this case, the reasoning is that because the United States and Sweden are comparable countries, what worked in Sweden should work in the United States. This type of reasoning relies on the belief that the two items (in this example, Sweden and the United States) are actually comparable in ways that are relevant to the argument. If members of the audience think that one cannot make a comparison between the two countries, then the reasoning process (and the argument) fails.

Remember that when you reason by analogy, the two objects that you are comparing need to be similar and your audience needs to understand their similarities. The similarities also need to be relevant to your argument. If the two objects that you are comparing seem dissimilar, then it will be more difficult for you to convince your audience to take the “leap of faith” and accept your claim.

Arguments by Sign

When a speaker makes an argument that uses reasoning by sign , the speaker assumes that the observation of one item shows that another item is occurring. Reasoning by sign then allows us to infer the presence of something, even if that thing cannot be physically observed. One of the most common arguments based on sign is the following: “I see smoke. There must be a fire.” Even though the speaker does not see fire, the speaker reasons that the presence of smoke must mean that there is a fire. If we were to break that argument into its parts, we would say the claim is that there is fire. The data is the physical observation of smoke. The reasoning process would be that “smoke is a sign of fire.”

Reasoning by sign is distinct from reasoning by cause because reasoning by sign does not attempt to show a causal relationship between the two things. That is, when you are reasoning by sign, you are not saying that “smoke causes fire” but that “from our observation of smoke, we can assume the presence of fire.” If we were to use reasoning by cause, we might state that: “because fire causes smoke, if I start a fire, there will also be smoke.” In the example of reasoning by cause, we infer something will happen based on the occurrence of something else. In the example of reasoning by sign, we infer something is happening based on our observation of something else.

When reasoning by sign, you want to be careful to take into account alternative explanations of what might be happening. For example, if you walk outside in the morning and see a large puddle of water, you might assume that it recently rained. This assumption would be reasoning by sign because you assume that your observation of the puddle enables you to infer that rain occurred. However, other explanations might exist for why there is a large pool of water. For example, a fire hydrant might be broke nearby that is gushing water everywhere, or someone might have left on their garden hose. So, when you reason by sign, you need to take other possibilities into account and determine if your explanation is the best possible explanation for what occurred. [v]

Arguments from Authority

An argument from authority uses the expertise of someone as data to justify a claim as correct. This type of argument is one of the reasons it is important to cite qualified sources in your speech. The expertise of your sources justifies the arguments that you are making. Take the following argument: “Climate change is a real phenomenon because a vast majority of scientists indicate that it is real. In fact, in a peer-reviewed study, Doctor John Cook and his research team compiled scientific studies about climate change and found over 90% of scientists agree that the phenomenon is real.” [vi] In this argument, the claim is that climate change is real. The data is a study conducted by experts in the field stating that scientific consensus exists around the issue of climate change. The reasoning that connects the claim with the data is that what experts in their field indicate as true is likely to be true. When you reason by authority, you can either quote the authority figure or summarize the authority figure’s arguments. Regardless, you must also tell your audience who the authority figure is and why they are qualified to speak about the topic of your speech.

When developing an argument from authority, remember the following: first, you need to make sure that the person you are citing is an expert in the topic of your speech. Someone might have a doctorate in literature, but that does not mean that their testimony on a scientific process is authoritative. Conversely, someone who has a doctorate in chemistry might not have the most authoritative voice when it comes to a speech involving books that have historically been banned from public schools. Second, the strongest arguments from authority generally do not rely on only one person’s authority. Instead, they rely on the testimony of multiple sources all of which are qualified to speak on the matter of your speech. For example, if you want to make a claim about the effect of increased carbon dioxide emission on plant life, a stronger argument would cite multiple independent qualified sources rather than just one source. Lastly, always remember to cite your sources out loud in your speech. Because your argument relies on the credibility of the people you are citing, you need to make sure you tell your audience your sources’ qualifications.

Arguments and Multiple Types of Reasoning

Not every member of your audience will be persuaded by the same argument. Some people connect better with a clear example. Some people are more trusting of authority figures than others. Because of this, you will want to include several types of arguments in your speech. For example, if you wanted to convince your neighbors to increase taxes to reduce potholes, you might want to both include personal testimonies of people who say that they damaged their cars (reasoning by example) and evidence from car mechanics that detail how potholes can damage cars (reasoning by authority). When you include a few types of reasoning in your speech, the chance that at least one of your arguments will convince your audience of your thesis will increase. To strengthen your argument, you might use multiple pieces of evidence and reason in different ways to justify the same claim.

Additionally, you might cite evidence to support the reasoning process of an argument in your speech. Recall the example above about convincing someone to quit smoking. If you said, “you should quit smoking because you do not want to get cancer,” you would be reasoning by cause. Your claim is the person should quit smoking. The data is that it is bad to get cancer. The argument assumes a causal relationship between smoking and cancer. Thus, the argument reasons by cause. Now, imagine that you made the following argument: “you should quit smoking because you do not want to get cancer. According to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking leads to lung cancer.” [vii] In this statement, you have provided evidence supporting the reasoning of your argument. Think of the second sentence “according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking leads to lung cancer” as a new argument. In this argument, the claim is that smoking leads to lung cancer which is the reasoning from the first sentence of the argument. The data for the second sentence is the CDC’s report. The reasoning that connects the claim and data is reasoning by authority because the argument assumes that what experts state as true is likely to be true. So, when you are constructing your arguments for your speech, if you ever think that the reasoning of your argument is unclear or might not convince others, you should find additional evidence to support the logical connection between your claim and data.

Inductive reasoning is when a speaker takes specific instances of occurrence and generalizes to a general principle based on their observation of those specific instances.

Deductive reasoning is when speakers take a general principle and apply that principle to a specific case.

Arguments based on causal reasoning attempt to establish a cause and effect relationship between two items.

Arguments by analogy assume that if two items are alike in some respects, then they will be alike in other respects.

When reasoning by sign , the speaker assumes that the observation of one item shows that another item is occurring.

An argument that reasons from authority uses the expertise of someone as data to justify a claim as correct.

Counter Arguments

Effective speakers recognize that their audience members’ points of view often differ from their own. As a speaker, you will, of course, attempt to prove that your point of view is the one that your audience should adopt. However, because audience members have their own points of view and beliefs about many issues, it is vital for you to brainstorm what those other beliefs and views about your topic might be and how you might address those beliefs in your speech. It might be easy to ignore divergent points of view, but doing so does a disservice to both your speech and your audience. As a speaker, you need to take other points of view into account as you develop your speech.

To ensure that you are considering other points of view, your speech should address potential counter arguments. Counter arguments are positions with which your audience might hold that contradict or oppose your arguments. [i] For example, if you were to give a speech in which you argue that taxes should be increased to maintain public libraries in your hometown, someone else might think “why would we do that? No one uses libraries anymore.” The belief that no one uses libraries anymore may challenge the main argument of your speech. Thus, it is a counter-argument to your speech.

It is important for you to remember that at least one counter argument will exist whenever you give a speech. If there are no counter arguments and everyone in the audience already agrees with your thesis, you would have no reason to deliver the speech. The best speakers, knowing there are likely to be counter arguments present whenever they speak, anticipate and respond to potential beliefs or positions that run contrary to their thesis. For instance, if you were delivering the speech mentioned above about increasing funding for libraries, you would want to tailor your speech to highlight why people might use libraries and provide data to support your claim. You might find reports that show people use libraries for internet access if they do not have internet at home, or you might also find newspaper articles that discuss summer reading program that libraries hold for children. You can then incorporate those pieces of evidence into your speech to address the counter-argument that people do not use libraries anymore. For instance, you might say something like this: “Some of you might think that not enough people use our public libraries to justify the increased expenditures, but a recent Pew Research Institute poll found that people still frequently use public libraries to check out books, take classes about how to use new technology, and use the internet to find jobs.” [ii] If you had delivered this statement, you would have referenced an opposing viewpoint (“not enough people use our public libraries to justify increased expenditures”), showing your audience that you are aware of potential positions that contradict your own. You also would have responded to the opposing position with evidence that shows your audience members why they do not need to be concerned about lack of library use.

You can also address counter arguments is by establishing a value hierarchy. A value hierarchy prioritizes certain values and beliefs over others while still affirming all of those values and beliefs. For example, imagine that you are involved in a debate with another person about whether or not the United States should adopt a counter-terrorism measure and increase surveillance on its citizens. One side might argue, “No, we should not increase surveillance because that undermines our freedom and right to privacy.” The other side might argue, “Yes, we should increase surveillance because that will make us safer from terror attacks.” Both sides have constructed their argument based on the need for preserving a particular value. One side wants to preserve freedom, and the other side wants to preserve safety. Both positions can establish a value hierarchy to respond to the other side’s argument. For example, the person who opposes the counter-terrorism measure might say, “Although our safety is important, we must remember that we are fighting to protect the principles and rights on which our country was founded, including the right to privacy. Give me liberty or give me death.” In this statement, the speaker values the opposing side’s safety concerns but also indicates that the right to privacy is more important than safety. So, although the speaker agrees that safety is important, the speaker concludes that the counter-terror measure should not be adopted based on another more important value. Yet, the speaker who supports the counter-terror measure might also attempt to establish a value hierarchy. That speaker might say, “You are correct that privacy is important. However, to truly enjoy the benefits of living in a free society, we must all feel that we are safe. Without a feeling of security, we will never benefit from the freedoms we have.” This speaker establishes a value hierarchy by suggesting the safety is necessary for freedom, which takes counter-argument of needing to preserve freedom into account and addresses it. Therefore, when you are constructing your speech, one way you can address counter-arguments is by considering related values and developing a value hierarchy.

In general, acknowledging counter arguments and responding to them makes you appear more credible to your audience members than if you simply ignored counter-argument. The first reason that this is the case is that addressing counter arguments makes you appear more knowledgeable about the topic and less biased. Explaining potential reasons that someone might disagree with your speech shows your audience that you did your research and tried to understand all sides of the issue as you developed your speech. Your knowledge enhances your credibility on a particular topic. Then, when you address the various sides of the issue, you show your audience that you took the time to consider other viewpoints and why your position is still the correct one. What this does is show your audience that you care about finding the correct solution to a problem, making you seem more trustworthy.

The second reason that you should address counter arguments is that audience members who agree with the counter argument will view you with skepticism if you fail to address their concerns. For example, if you attempt to get a vegetarian or someone who wants to eat healthy to join you for lunch at your local burger place, they are unlikely to be convinced by your argument that the burger place has really juicy burgers. The vegetarian would probably think “but I don’t eat meat. What is in it for me?” And, the person trying to eat healthily might think, “but don’t those have a thousand calories?” Neither one of these people would be convinced by your argument because you have not addressed the counter-arguments. Just stating the burger place has great burgers may make these members of your audience feel that you did not care about their beliefs and values or, in another sense, whether or not you actually convinced them to go to the burger place. Without taking into account your audience’s beliefs, it can be difficult for you to establish a connection with your audience. Remember, a connection is necessary for you to persuade your audience to accept your point of view.

Counter arguments are positions with which your audience might hold that contradict or oppose your arguments.

A value hierarchy holds certain values and beliefs over others while still affirming all of those values and beliefs.

Logical Fallacies: Weaknesses in Reasoning

Many potential pitfalls exist when you are creating arguments. These pitfalls, known as logical fallacies, are weaknesses in reasoning. As you read earlier in the chapter, every argument contains a claim, data, and reasoning that logically connects your data to your claim. In other words, when you craft an argument, a clear reason as to why your data supports and justifies your claim must exist. Without that clear connection, your argument will not make sense. Saying, for example, it will rain today because my finger itches does not make sense because there is not a clear connection between an itchy finger and rain. Logical fallacies are arguments in which there is not a clear connection between the claim and evidence, or there appears to be a connection between the two, but that connection is flawed. In other words, logical fallacies are weakness or flaws in the logic and reasoning of particular arguments.

Logical fallacies are fairly common. They can occur in political speeches, in arguments with friends and parents, commercials, and advertisements. An important part of being a critical listener is being able to notice the weaknesses in arguments. And, an important part of being an effective speaker is being able to avoid logical fallacies and develop the strongest arguments possible. As such, learning to identify logical fallacies will enhance your critical listening skills as well as your ability to be an effective speaker.

The Strawperson Fallacy

The strawperson fallacy exaggerates or misrepresents someone else’s argument to make that argument easier to refute. Recall the example from earlier in the chapter about giving a speech where you argued that taxes should be increased in order to pay for fixing potholes. Now, imagine that someone said, “all tax and spend liberals want is to take all your money and increase the size of government.” This statement is an example of the strawperson fallacy because your argument is not that the government should take all of the local townsfolk’s money. This person is exaggerating your argument to make it sound ridiculous and weaker than it is. The strawperson fallacy is a dishonest argumentative strategy because it fails to tell the audience the actual argument that needs to be refuted. It might be easier to “beat” a position if you misrepresent it, but doing so is unethical. Audience members who are familiar with the actual argument that you are refuting will know that you are exaggerating the argument and will view you with skepticism.

False Cause

The false cause fallacy assumes that if an actual or perceived relationship exists between two things, then one must be the cause of the other. That is, this fallacy assumes that correlation is causation. Thus, the false cause fallacy is committed when an argument is based on the mistaken belief that a causal relationship exists between two variables when no support for that relationship exists. When the false cause fallacy occurs in a speech, it is likely that causal relationship between the two variables has not been established or cannot be established. A Buzzfeed article posted in 2013 by Ky Harlin exhibits several interesting correlations and why you should not assume that one variable causes another based on a simple correlation. For example, Harlin’s article shows that there is a correlation between the amount of ice cream sold in a month and the number of murders that occur in a month. An argument using a false cause fallacy may claim that buying ice cream causes murder. Another example in Harlin’s article is a correlation exists between M. Night Shyamalan’s movie score on Rotten Tomatoes and total newspaper ad sales. [i] Assuming that people failing to buy newspaper ads makes M. Night Shyamalan worse at making movies would be a false cause fallacy. For each of these examples, other explanations likely exist for changes to each variable. In the case of ice cream and murder, perhaps the reason that both ice cream buying and murder increases in the summer is due to the weather or another variable entirely.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Meaning “after this, therefore because of this,” post hoc ergo propter hoc is a subset of the false cause fallacy. This fallacy assumes that if Event A happened before Event B, then Event A was the cause of Event B. If you ever hear people make the argument that their itchy fingers mean it is about to rain, they are likely committing this fallacy. Imagine that your finger started itching and then ten minutes later it started to rain. If you conclude that your itchy finger made it rain, then you would be assuming that an event happened first and thus caused the second event to occur. Logically, there is not a connection between the two events unless you are able to prove that connection to your audience. In other words, pointing out that two things happened in chronological order is not proof that one is connected to the other. Your audience will likely see the two things as independent of each other unless you can provide an explanation of why they are connected.

Red Herring

The red herring fallacy occurs when someone introduces irrelevant information or topics into a discussion in order to distract from the topic or debate at hand. This action is an attempt to “win” a debate by starting a discussion of another topic or by distracting those you are engaged with in an argument. For example, if you were at a local city council meeting where the topic of discussion was the road quality and potholes, someone giving a speech about the prevalence of local corruption in politics would probably distract people’s attention from the question about how to best fix the roads in the city. Red Herring is a fallacy because changing the discussion to another topic does not prove that you are correct about the previous topic. Asking yourself “does the claim that I am making clearly connect to the issue I am discussing?” will help you avoid making the red herring fallacy. [ii]

Meaning “to the person,” this logical fallacy is when someone attacks their opponent and does not respond to the opponent’s argument. Ad hominem is an attack on a person’s character, personality, or traits. For example, if you are trying to convince someone that college campuses should be tuition-free and that person responds by saying “you are stupid and have bad breath,” then that person has committed the ad hominem fallacy. This fallacy is a poor argumentative strategy because it distances the arguer from the audience. People generally avoid interacting with and listening to people who call them names or attack their character. Moreover, proving that someone else has bad character traits does not demonstrate to your audience that you are correct about a particular issue. So, instead of attempting to demean other points of view, use your speech to establish why you are correct about the topic to which you are speaking.

Either-Or Fallacy

Also called the forced dilemma fallacy, the either-or fallacy happens when someone presents two competing possibilities as the only two possibilities in a given situation. This presentation is a fallacy because it is likely that more than two possibilities exist. An example of this fallacy would be if a speaker argued for funding a new college by saying “either we fund this new college or it will close and our kids will never be able to attend college.” In that statement, the speaker only articulates two possibilities for what can happen. However, as you can probably tell, there are many other options for what could occur. Those kids could go to a different college, or funding for the new college could come from somewhere else. Using the either-or fallacy is a flawed argumentative strategy because members of your audience will recognize that other options exist. When members of your audience think of other options, you will lose credibility as a speaker because your audience will be able to tell that you did not take all other opinions and options about the issue into consideration as you developed your speech. Many issues are complex. Do not attempt to make them appear overly simplistic. Doing so does a disservice to yourself as a speaker and to your audience members.

Hasty Generalization

The hasty generalization fallacy is when a speaker reasons using examples but then jumps to a general conclusion without a sufficient number of examples. That is, the speaker uses examples to establish a general claim but uses too few examples to support that generalization. Moreover, the speaker might use examples that do not relate to the general claim that the speaker is attempting to make. Often stereotypes can arise because people reason using the hasty generalization fallacy. For instance, if someone made the argument that “one time I met a man wearing a red hat and he was really rude, therefore all men who wear red hats are rude,” that person would be using a hasty generalization to stereotype people with red hats. The hasty generalization is a weak argument strategy because members of an audience can often think of counter-examples that disprove the general claim. When making arguments based on examples, make sure that you have enough examples to demonstrate that your generalization is accurate.

The bandwagon fallacy occurs when someone assumes that something is true just because many people believe it to be true. Thus, appealing to the popularity of an idea as its primary support is the bandwagon fallacy. For example, if you wanted to convince your audience to avoid skydiving and argued that everyone knows that skydiving causes death, you have substituted actual evidence for the assertion that everyone knows you are correct. Just because people believe something is true does not mean that it is the case. Remember that a lot of people used to believe that the earth is flat and that leeches effectively cured diseases. Do not rely on the popularity of an idea to demonstrate that the idea is correct.

Logical fallacies arguments in which there is not a clear connection between the claim and evidence, or there appears to be a connection between the two, but that connection is flawed.

The strawperson fallacy exaggerates or misrepresents someone else’s argument to make that argument easier to refute.

The false cause fallacy assumes that if an actual or perceived relationship exists between two things, then one must be the cause of the other.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc , meaning “after this, therefore because of this,” is a subset of the false cause fallacy. This fallacy assumes that if Event A happened before Event B, then Event A was the cause of Event B.

The red herring fallacy occurs when someone introduces irrelevant information or topics into a discussion in order to distract from the topic or debate at hand.

Ad hominem is an attack on a person’s character, personality, or traits.

The either-or fallacy, or forced dilemma fallacy, happens when someone presents two competing possibilities as the only two possibilities in a given situation.

The hasty generalization fallacy is when a speaker reasons using examples but then jumps to a general conclusion without a sufficient number of examples.

The bandwagon fallacy occurs when someone assumes that something is true just because many people believe it to be true.

In this chapter, you learned several principles of argumentation. As you now know, arguments are about trying to solve collective problems. When we need to argue, it is because there is something needs to be changed or improved. We argue to convince people that there is a problem and that we can solve it. This mindset creates conditions where people might actually work to change and fix an issue. Moreover, arguments occur when there is uncertainty about what should happen in the future. We argue in an attempt to create more certainty by highlighting which options for the future are the best options. Finally, you learned that the success of an argument is based on whether or not it earns agreement from the audience.

This chapter also detailed the parts of the argument. Arguments contain these three parts: (1) the claim, (2) the data, and (3) the reasoning. The reasoning is the logical connection that shows why a particular piece of data supports the claim that a speaker is attempting to make. In addition, this chapter described six types of arguments that you might make in a speech: (1) arguments from examples, (2) arguments from deduction, (3) arguments of cause, (4) arguments by analogy, (5) arguments by sign, and (6) arguments from authority. It remains important to remember that your speech should develop several types of arguments in support of your thesis because certain types of arguments might be more persuasive than others. This chapter also defined and illustrated several types of weaknesses in arguments. These logical fallacies should be avoided when you develop a speech.

Whenever you need to develop an argument, other people might have different points of view on the issue. Rather than ignoring other people’s points of view, engage them and explain to your audience why they should prefer your point of view. Also, be willing to change your mind. Argumentation is not about who can yell the loudest. Instead, it is about giving your audience good reasons to believe in your point of view and engage ideas with which you may disagree. You cannot force someone to change their mind, but you can give good reasons as to why they should change their mind. That is the purpose of argumentation.

Stand up, Speak out Copyright © 2017 by Josh Miller; Marnie Lawler-Mcdonough; Megan Orcholski; Kristin Woodward; Lisa Roth; and Emily Mueller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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11.2 Persuasive Speaking

Learning objectives.

• Explain how claims, evidence, and warrants function to create an argument.
• Identify strategies for choosing a persuasive speech topic.
• Identify strategies for adapting a persuasive speech based on an audience’s orientation to the proposition.
• Distinguish among propositions of fact, value, and policy.
• Choose an organizational pattern that is fitting for a persuasive speech topic.

We produce and receive persuasive messages daily, but we don’t often stop to think about how we make the arguments we do or the quality of the arguments that we receive. In this section, we’ll learn the components of an argument, how to choose a good persuasive speech topic, and how to adapt and organize a persuasive message.

Foundation of Persuasion

Persuasive speaking seeks to influence the beliefs, attitudes, values, or behaviors of audience members. In order to persuade, a speaker has to construct arguments that appeal to audience members. Arguments form around three components: claim, evidence, and warrant. The claim is the statement that will be supported by evidence. Your thesis statement is the overarching claim for your speech, but you will make other claims within the speech to support the larger thesis. Evidence , also called grounds, supports the claim. The main points of your persuasive speech and the supporting material you include serve as evidence. For example, a speaker may make the following claim: “There should be a national law against texting while driving.” The speaker could then support the claim by providing the following evidence: “Research from the US Department of Transportation has found that texting while driving creates a crash risk that is twenty-three times worse than driving while not distracted.” The warrant is the underlying justification that connects the claim and the evidence. One warrant for the claim and evidence cited in this example is that the US Department of Transportation is an institution that funds research conducted by credible experts. An additional and more implicit warrant is that people shouldn’t do things they know are unsafe.

Figure 11.2 Components of an Argument

The quality of your evidence often impacts the strength of your warrant, and some warrants are stronger than others. A speaker could also provide evidence to support their claim advocating for a national ban on texting and driving by saying, “I have personally seen people almost wreck while trying to text.” While this type of evidence can also be persuasive, it provides a different type and strength of warrant since it is based on personal experience. In general, the anecdotal evidence from personal experience would be given a weaker warrant than the evidence from the national research report. The same process works in our legal system when a judge evaluates the connection between a claim and evidence. If someone steals my car, I could say to the police, “I’m pretty sure Mario did it because when I said hi to him on campus the other day, he didn’t say hi back, which proves he’s mad at me.” A judge faced with that evidence is unlikely to issue a warrant for Mario’s arrest. Fingerprint evidence from the steering wheel that has been matched with a suspect is much more likely to warrant arrest.

As you put together a persuasive argument, you act as the judge. You can evaluate arguments that you come across in your research by analyzing the connection (the warrant) between the claim and the evidence. If the warrant is strong, you may want to highlight that argument in your speech. You may also be able to point out a weak warrant in an argument that goes against your position, which you could then include in your speech. Every argument starts by putting together a claim and evidence, but arguments grow to include many interrelated units.

Choosing a Persuasive Speech Topic

As with any speech, topic selection is important and is influenced by many factors. Good persuasive speech topics are current, controversial, and have important implications for society. If your topic is currently being discussed on television, in newspapers, in the lounges in your dorm, or around your family’s dinner table, then it’s a current topic. A persuasive speech aimed at getting audience members to wear seat belts in cars wouldn’t have much current relevance, given that statistics consistently show that most people wear seat belts. Giving the same speech would have been much more timely in the 1970s when there was a huge movement to increase seat-belt use.

Many topics that are current are also controversial, which is what gets them attention by the media and citizens. Current and controversial topics will be more engaging for your audience. A persuasive speech to encourage audience members to donate blood or recycle wouldn’t be very controversial, since the benefits of both practices are widely agreed on. However, arguing that the restrictions on blood donation by men who have had sexual relations with men be lifted would be controversial. I must caution here that controversial is not the same as inflammatory. An inflammatory topic is one that evokes strong reactions from an audience for the sake of provoking a reaction. Being provocative for no good reason or choosing a topic that is extremist will damage your credibility and prevent you from achieving your speech goals.

You should also choose a topic that is important to you and to society as a whole. As we have already discussed in this book, our voices are powerful, as it is through communication that we participate and make change in society. Therefore we should take seriously opportunities to use our voices to speak publicly. Choosing a speech topic that has implications for society is probably a better application of your public speaking skills than choosing to persuade the audience that Lebron James is the best basketball player in the world or that Superman is a better hero than Spiderman. Although those topics may be very important to you, they don’t carry the same social weight as many other topics you could choose to discuss. Remember that speakers have ethical obligations to the audience and should take the opportunity to speak seriously.

You will also want to choose a topic that connects to your own interests and passions. If you are an education major, it might make more sense to do a persuasive speech about funding for public education than the death penalty. If there are hot-button issues for you that make you get fired up and veins bulge out in your neck, then it may be a good idea to avoid those when speaking in an academic or professional context.

Choose a persuasive speech topic that you’re passionate about but still able to approach and deliver in an ethical manner.

Michael Vadon – Nigel Farage – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Choosing such topics may interfere with your ability to deliver a speech in a competent and ethical manner. You want to care about your topic, but you also want to be able to approach it in a way that’s going to make people want to listen to you. Most people tune out speakers they perceive to be too ideologically entrenched and write them off as extremists or zealots.

You also want to ensure that your topic is actually persuasive. Draft your thesis statement as an “I believe” statement so your stance on an issue is clear. Also, think of your main points as reasons to support your thesis. Students end up with speeches that aren’t very persuasive in nature if they don’t think of their main points as reasons. Identifying arguments that counter your thesis is also a good exercise to help ensure your topic is persuasive. If you can clearly and easily identify a competing thesis statement and supporting reasons, then your topic and approach are arguable.

Review of Tips for Choosing a Persuasive Speech Topic

• Not current. People should use seat belts.
• Current. People should not text while driving.
• Not controversial. People should recycle.
• Controversial. Recycling should be mandatory by law.
• Not as impactful. Superman is the best superhero.
• Impactful. Colleges and universities should adopt zero-tolerance bullying policies.
• Unclear thesis. Homeschooling is common in the United States.
• Clear, argumentative thesis with stance. Homeschooling does not provide the same benefits of traditional education and should be strictly monitored and limited.

Adapting Persuasive Messages

Competent speakers should consider their audience throughout the speech-making process. Given that persuasive messages seek to directly influence the audience in some way, audience adaptation becomes even more important. If possible, poll your audience to find out their orientation toward your thesis. I read my students’ thesis statements aloud and have the class indicate whether they agree with, disagree with, or are neutral in regards to the proposition. It is unlikely that you will have a homogenous audience, meaning that there will probably be some who agree, some who disagree, and some who are neutral. So you may employ all of the following strategies, in varying degrees, in your persuasive speech.

When you have audience members who already agree with your proposition, you should focus on intensifying their agreement. You can also assume that they have foundational background knowledge of the topic, which means you can take the time to inform them about lesser-known aspects of a topic or cause to further reinforce their agreement. Rather than move these audience members from disagreement to agreement, you can focus on moving them from agreement to action. Remember, calls to action should be as specific as possible to help you capitalize on audience members’ motivation in the moment so they are more likely to follow through on the action.

There are two main reasons audience members may be neutral in regards to your topic: (1) they are uninformed about the topic or (2) they do not think the topic affects them. In this case, you should focus on instilling a concern for the topic. Uninformed audiences may need background information before they can decide if they agree or disagree with your proposition. If the issue is familiar but audience members are neutral because they don’t see how the topic affects them, focus on getting the audience’s attention and demonstrating relevance. Remember that concrete and proxemic supporting materials will help an audience find relevance in a topic. Students who pick narrow or unfamiliar topics will have to work harder to persuade their audience, but neutral audiences often provide the most chance of achieving your speech goal since even a small change may move them into agreement.

When audience members disagree with your proposition, you should focus on changing their minds. To effectively persuade, you must be seen as a credible speaker. When an audience is hostile to your proposition, establishing credibility is even more important, as audience members may be quick to discount or discredit someone who doesn’t appear prepared or doesn’t present well-researched and supported information. Don’t give an audience a chance to write you off before you even get to share your best evidence. When facing a disagreeable audience, the goal should also be small change. You may not be able to switch someone’s position completely, but influencing him or her is still a success. Aside from establishing your credibility, you should also establish common ground with an audience.

Build common ground with disagreeable audiences and acknowledge areas of disagreement.

Chris-Havard Berge – Shaking Hands – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Acknowledging areas of disagreement and logically refuting counterarguments in your speech is also a way to approach persuading an audience in disagreement, as it shows that you are open-minded enough to engage with other perspectives.

Determining Your Proposition

The proposition of your speech is the overall direction of the content and how that relates to the speech goal. A persuasive speech will fall primarily into one of three categories: propositions of fact, value, or policy. A speech may have elements of any of the three propositions, but you can usually determine the overall proposition of a speech from the specific purpose and thesis statements.

Propositions of fact focus on beliefs and try to establish that something “is or isn’t.” Propositions of value focus on persuading audience members that something is “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” or “desirable or undesirable.” Propositions of policy advocate that something “should or shouldn’t” be done. Since most persuasive speech topics can be approached as propositions of fact, value, or policy, it is a good idea to start thinking about what kind of proposition you want to make, as it will influence how you go about your research and writing. As you can see in the following example using the topic of global warming, the type of proposition changes the types of supporting materials you would need:

• Proposition of fact. Global warming is caused by increased greenhouse gases related to human activity.
• Proposition of value. America’s disproportionately large amount of pollution relative to other countries is wrong .
• Proposition of policy. There should be stricter emission restrictions on individual cars.

To support propositions of fact, you would want to present a logical argument based on objective facts that can then be used to build persuasive arguments. Propositions of value may require you to appeal more to your audience’s emotions and cite expert and lay testimony. Persuasive speeches about policy usually require you to research existing and previous laws or procedures and determine if any relevant legislation or propositions are currently being considered.

“Getting Critical”

Persuasion and Masculinity

The traditional view of rhetoric that started in ancient Greece and still informs much of our views on persuasion today has been critiqued for containing Western and masculine biases. Traditional persuasion has been linked to Western and masculine values of domination, competition, and change, which have been critiqued as coercive and violent (Gearhart, 1979).

Communication scholars proposed an alternative to traditional persuasive rhetoric in the form of invitational rhetoric. Invitational rhetoric differs from a traditional view of persuasive rhetoric that “attempts to win over an opponent, or to advocate the correctness of a single position in a very complex issue” (Bone et al., 2008). Instead, invitational rhetoric proposes a model of reaching consensus through dialogue. The goal is to create a climate in which growth and change can occur but isn’t required for one person to “win” an argument over another. Each person in a communication situation is acknowledged to have a standpoint that is valid but can still be influenced through the offering of alternative perspectives and the invitation to engage with and discuss these standpoints (Ryan & Natalle, 2001). Safety, value, and freedom are three important parts of invitational rhetoric. Safety involves a feeling of security in which audience members and speakers feel like their ideas and contributions will not be denigrated. Value refers to the notion that each person in a communication encounter is worthy of recognition and that people are willing to step outside their own perspectives to better understand others. Last, freedom is present in communication when communicators do not limit the thinking or decisions of others, allowing all participants to speak up (Bone et al., 2008).

Invitational rhetoric doesn’t claim that all persuasive rhetoric is violent. Instead, it acknowledges that some persuasion is violent and that the connection between persuasion and violence is worth exploring. Invitational rhetoric has the potential to contribute to the civility of communication in our society. When we are civil, we are capable of engaging with and appreciating different perspectives while still understanding our own. People aren’t attacked or reviled because their views diverge from ours. Rather than reducing the world to “us against them, black or white, and right or wrong,” invitational rhetoric encourages us to acknowledge human perspectives in all their complexity (Bone et al., 2008).

• What is your reaction to the claim that persuasion includes Western and masculine biases?
• What are some strengths and weaknesses of the proposed alternatives to traditional persuasion?
• In what situations might an invitational approach to persuasion be useful? In what situations might you want to rely on traditional models of persuasion?

Organizing a Persuasive Speech

We have already discussed several patterns for organizing your speech, but some organization strategies are specific to persuasive speaking. Some persuasive speech topics lend themselves to a topical organization pattern, which breaks the larger topic up into logical divisions. Earlier, in Chapter 9 “Preparing a Speech” , we discussed recency and primacy, and in this chapter we discussed adapting a persuasive speech based on the audience’s orientation toward the proposition. These concepts can be connected when organizing a persuasive speech topically. Primacy means putting your strongest information first and is based on the idea that audience members put more weight on what they hear first. This strategy can be especially useful when addressing an audience that disagrees with your proposition, as you can try to win them over early. Recency means putting your strongest information last to leave a powerful impression. This can be useful when you are building to a climax in your speech, specifically if you include a call to action.

Putting your strongest argument last can help motivate an audience to action.

Celestine Chua – The Change – CC BY 2.0.

The problem-solution pattern is an organizational pattern that advocates for a particular approach to solve a problem. You would provide evidence to show that a problem exists and then propose a solution with additional evidence or reasoning to justify the course of action. One main point addressing the problem and one main point addressing the solution may be sufficient, but you are not limited to two. You could add a main point between the problem and solution that outlines other solutions that have failed. You can also combine the problem-solution pattern with the cause-effect pattern or expand the speech to fit with Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.

As was mentioned in Chapter 9 “Preparing a Speech” , the cause-effect pattern can be used for informative speaking when the relationship between the cause and effect is not contested. The pattern is more fitting for persuasive speeches when the relationship between the cause and effect is controversial or unclear. There are several ways to use causes and effects to structure a speech. You could have a two-point speech that argues from cause to effect or from effect to cause. You could also have more than one cause that lead to the same effect or a single cause that leads to multiple effects. The following are some examples of thesis statements that correspond to various organizational patterns. As you can see, the same general topic area, prison overcrowding, is used for each example. This illustrates the importance of considering your organizational options early in the speech-making process, since the pattern you choose will influence your researching and writing.

Persuasive Speech Thesis Statements by Organizational Pattern

• Problem-solution. Prison overcrowding is a serious problem that we can solve by finding alternative rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders.
• Problem–failed solution–proposed solution. Prison overcrowding is a serious problem that shouldn’t be solved by building more prisons; instead, we should support alternative rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders.
• Cause-effect. Prisons are overcrowded with nonviolent offenders, which leads to lesser sentences for violent criminals.
• Cause-cause-effect. State budgets are being slashed and prisons are overcrowded with nonviolent offenders, which leads to lesser sentences for violent criminals.
• Cause-effect-effect. Prisons are overcrowded with nonviolent offenders, which leads to increased behavioral problems among inmates and lesser sentences for violent criminals.
• Cause-effect-solution. Prisons are overcrowded with nonviolent offenders, which leads to lesser sentences for violent criminals; therefore we need to find alternative rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders.

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence is an organizational pattern designed for persuasive speaking that appeals to audience members’ needs and motivates them to action. If your persuasive speaking goals include a call to action, you may want to consider this organizational pattern. We already learned about the five steps of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence in Chapter 9 “Preparing a Speech” , but we will review them here with an example:

• Hook the audience by making the topic relevant to them.
• Imagine living a full life, retiring, and slipping into your golden years. As you get older you become more dependent on others and move into an assisted-living facility. Although you think life will be easier, things get worse as you experience abuse and mistreatment from the staff. You report the abuse to a nurse and wait, but nothing happens and the abuse continues. Elder abuse is a common occurrence, and unlike child abuse, there are no laws in our state that mandate complaints of elder abuse be reported or investigated.
• Cite evidence to support the fact that the issue needs to be addressed.
• According to the American Psychological Association, one to two million elderly US Americans have been abused by their caretakers. In our state, those in the medical, psychiatric, and social work field are required to report suspicion of child abuse but are not mandated to report suspicions of elder abuse.
• Offer a solution and persuade the audience that it is feasible and well thought out.
• There should be a federal law mandating that suspicion of elder abuse be reported and that all claims of elder abuse be investigated.
• Take the audience beyond your solution and help them visualize the positive results of implementing it or the negative consequences of not.
• Elderly people should not have to live in fear during their golden years. A mandatory reporting law for elderly abuse will help ensure that the voices of our elderly loved ones will be heard.
• Call your audience to action by giving them concrete steps to follow to engage in a particular action or to change a thought or behavior.
• I urge you to take action in two ways. First, raise awareness about this issue by talking to your own friends and family. Second, contact your representatives at the state and national level to let them know that elder abuse should be taken seriously and given the same level of importance as other forms of abuse. I brought cards with the contact information for our state and national representatives for this area. Please take one at the end of my speech. A short e-mail or phone call can help end the silence surrounding elder abuse.

Key Takeaways

• Arguments are formed by making claims that are supported by evidence. The underlying justification that connects the claim and evidence is the warrant. Arguments can have strong or weak warrants, which will make them more or less persuasive.
• Good persuasive speech topics are current, controversial (but not inflammatory), and important to the speaker and society.
• When audience members agree with the proposal, focus on intensifying their agreement and moving them to action.
• When audience members are neutral in regards to the proposition, provide background information to better inform them about the issue and present information that demonstrates the relevance of the topic to the audience.
• When audience members disagree with the proposal, focus on establishing your credibility, build common ground with the audience, and incorporate counterarguments and refute them.
• Propositions of fact focus on establishing that something “is or isn’t” or is “true or false.”
• Propositions of value focus on persuading an audience that something is “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” or “desirable or undesirable.”
• Propositions of policy advocate that something “should or shouldn’t” be done.
• Persuasive speeches can be organized using the following patterns: problem-solution, cause-effect, cause-effect-solution, or Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
• Getting integrated: Give an example of persuasive messages that you might need to create in each of the following contexts: academic, professional, personal, and civic. Then do the same thing for persuasive messages you may receive.
• To help ensure that your persuasive speech topic is persuasive and not informative, identify the claims, evidence, and warrants you may use in your argument. In addition, write a thesis statement that refutes your topic idea and identify evidence and warrants that could support that counterargument.
• Determine if your speech is primarily a proposition of fact, value, or policy. How can you tell? Identify an organizational pattern that you think will work well for your speech topic, draft one sentence for each of your main points, and arrange them according to the pattern you chose.

Bone, J. E., Cindy L. Griffin, and T. M. Linda Scholz, “Beyond Traditional Conceptualizations of Rhetoric: Invitational Rhetoric and a Move toward Civility,” Western Journal of Communication 72 (2008): 436.

Gearhart, S. M., “The Womanization of Rhetoric,” Women’s Studies International Quarterly 2 (1979): 195–201.

Ryan, K. J., and Elizabeth J. Natalle, “Fusing Horizons: Standpoint Hermenutics and Invitational Rhetoric,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31 (2001): 69–90.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

100+ Best Argumentative Speech Topics

“Everything in the world is relative, my dear Watson”, said the legendary fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

You have accepted the rising of the sun in the East and setting in the East as a gospel. But the sun does not rise, the sun does not set. The sun just sits there; a big yellow ball in the sky. Who is right? It all comes down to who can make the right arguments.

The greatest battles are not fought among the ones who hold the swords. The greatest battles happen when the mind collides.

“God does not play dice with the universe”, said Einstein “Don’t teach god what to do with his dice”, said Neil Bohr. That is what real battle is.

So, here are the things to keep in mind while you are in an argumentative debate:

You are always right.

To doubt yourself when you are in the middle of the debate is to accept you are wrong. So, exclude all the phrases that imply compromise, self-doubt, or give the hint of you being caught in a double mind.

Speak as you mean it.

Speak like the world is listening. Have a commanding voice. Lion is the king not only because it preys on others. There are plenty of other carnivores in the jungle. It’s the authoritative roar that is its crown.

Make eye contact.

This is not new. If you don’t speak by making eye contact, then you don’t become authoritative enough. If you can’t become authoritative, even with the best of the arguments you are not going to win.

Body languages.

Body languages play an important role because it’s not always about what you say but how you say it that catches the attention . So, make sure you are on the top of that game.

Fluctuate the pitch of your voice.

Don’t be monotonous. Make your voice hit the crests, make it hit the trough. This is what will keep the people engaged and make the debate look more spontaneous.

Jokes don’t hurt.

They say the only tool one needs is a sense of humor. In the words of Ayn Rand, “one loses everything when one loses his sense of humor.” So, once you are in the middle of the debate and you’re speaking confidently, making the pitch of your voice go up and down, now a few relevant jokes won’t hurt. It helps to win over the audience and judges.

List of Argumentative Speech Topics

Constitutional issues, environment.

• Food & Drinks
• International Politics
• Relationships

1. The pros and cons of starting your own business.

2. The benefits and drawbacks of franchising.

3. Is it better to start a small or large business?

4. The government should support small businesses to improve the economy.

8. All businesses should build websites, use social media, and do online marketing.

11. Businesses need to improve on technology to improve operations.

12. What are the benefits and drawbacks of outsourcing?

13. The benefits and drawbacks of working from home.

14. The pros and cons of taking out a loan to start a business.

15. The pros and cons of starting a family-run business.

16. The benefits and drawbacks of venture capitalism.

17. Why small businesses are the backbone of the economy?

18. The pros and cons of crowdfunding.

19. Why customer satisfaction is essential for businesses?

20. Is it better to work for a small or large company?

1. The death penalty is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

2. The Second Amendment does not protect the right to own assault weapons.

3. The Affordable Care Act is constitutional.

4. States cannot ban same-sex marriage.

5. The Voting Rights Act is constitutional.

6. The Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

7. The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is constitutional.

8. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was wrongly decided.

9. Redistricting can be used to achieve racial equality.

10. Gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

11. The Electoral College should be abolished.

12. Term limits for members of Congress are constitutional.

13. The President should not have the power to declare war.

14. Congress should have the power to declare war.

15. The government should not tax the elderly.

16. The President should not be able to unilaterally order military action.

17. The use of torture is never justified, even during the war.

18. Enemy combatants should not be denied due process rights.

19. Indefinite detention is unconstitutional.

20. The government should not collect data on its citizens without a warrant.

1. The government should do more to help small businesses.

2. The national debt is not a big deal.

3. The government should spend less money on the military.

4. We need more tariffs to protect our industries.

5. Cuts to social programs are necessary for the economy.

6. Infrastructure spending is necessary for the economy.

7. The minimum wage should be increased.

8. The government should provide more incentives for businesses to invest in green energy.

9. Majority of Americans believe the economy is rigged against them.

10. Income inequality is a problem in the United States.

11. The wealthy should pay more in taxes.

12. The tax code needs to be reformed.

13. The federal reserve should be abolished.

14. The United States should return to the gold standard.

15. Bitcoin is a good investment.

1. Is homeschooling a good or bad idea?

2. Should all schools be private?

3. Are charter schools better than public schools?

4. Should children be taught sex education in schools?

5. Should prayer be allowed in school?

6. Are single-sex schools better for education than co-ed schools?

7. Should evolution be taught in school?

8. Is the No Child Left Behind Act effective?

9. Are standardized tests a good way to measure student achievement?

10. Should there be more funding for education?

11. Should the government invest more in early childhood education?

12. Are teachers paid enough?

13. Educational disparities between rich and poor students.

14. Should college be free?

15. Is online learning as effective as traditional learning?

16. Are for-profit colleges a good option for students?

17. Should student loan debt be forgiven?

18. The negative effects of homework on students.

19. The over-reliance on technology in education.

20. CPR and first aid-related courses should be mandatory in school.

1. How climate change is affecting our planet and what we can do to reduce its impact.

2. The dangers of fracking and its potential to contaminate our water supply.

3. Why the world needs to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources.

4. How overfishing is threatening global fish stocks and what can be done to halt this trend.

5. The devastating effects of deforestation and what needs to be done to stop it.

6. How air pollution is impacting our health and what measures can be taken to reduce its impact.

7. The importance of conserving energy and how we can all do our bit to save energy.

8. Why we need to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics and what alternatives are available.

9. How industrial agriculture is harming the environment and what needs to be done to address this issue.

10. The potential impacts of climate change on our food supply and what we can do to mitigate these effects.

11. The problem of plastic pollution in our oceans and what needs to be done to address it.

12. How we can all do our bit to reduce our carbon footprints and help fight climate change.

13. The importance of composting and how it can help reduce landfill waste.

14. Why we need to reduce our reliance on cars and start using more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

15. The harmful effects of pesticides and what needs to be done to stop their use.

16. How waste management practices need to change in order to protect the environment.

17. Why we need to support local farmers and buy more locally grown produce.

18. The benefits of organic gardening and how it can help the environment.

19. How solar power can be used to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

20. The potential of wind power as an alternative energy source.

1. Are some ethical ideals more important than others?

2. Does morality require belief in God?

3. Should we always tell the truth, even if it hurts someone’s feelings?

4. Should abortion be legal?

5. Is it morally wrong to cheat on a test or plagiarize an essay?

6. Torture is an acceptable measure to prevent terrorism.

7. Should animals have the same rights as humans?

8. Is it wrong to wear fur or use products made from animals?

9. Should we be allowed to experiment on animals for medical research?

10. Is it morally right to kill animals for food or sport?

11. Cultural treasures should be returned to their countries of origin.

12. Is it morally to keep animals in zoos or circuses?

13. Should we be allowed to hunt endangered animals?

14. Is it wrong to buy or sell organs or body parts?

15. Should people be allowed to clone animals or humans?

16. Hunting is unethical and should not be allowed.

17. Is it morally acceptable to use human embryos for stem cell research?

18. Are beauty pageants sexists and exploitative?

19. Is it okay to test new drugs on humans?

20. Is it morally wrong to end a life through euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide?

1. Should parents be held responsible for the actions of their children?

2. Is it necessary for couples to live together before getting married?

3. Are extended families becoming a thing of the past?

4. Is single parenting really as difficult as people make it out to be?

5. Should parents be allowed to choose their child’s gender?

6. Should more single women adopt children?

7. Should the government do more to help families in poverty?

8. Physical punishment is a good practice for raising children.

9. Is it important for families to have dinner together every night?

10. How can parents deal with their children’s screen time?

11. Should parents be allowed to monitor their children’s online activity?

12. Is homeschooling a good option for families?

13. Should there be more paternity leave for fathers?

14. Are working mothers harming their children?

15. Teenagers should have more freedom than younger kids.

16. Is it better to live in a an extended family?

17. Should families be allowed to have more than one child?

18. Parents should be role models for their children.

19. Siblings can be both friends and rivals.

20. The challenges of raising multicultural families.

Food and Drinks

1. Is it better to eat organic food?

2. Are GMOs really that bad for our health?

3. Should we all be vegan?

4. Is processed food really that bad for us?

5. Is sugar really as addictive as some people say it is?

6. Should there be a tax on sugary drinks?

7. Are organic foods worth the extra money?

8. Should we be drinking more water?

9. Is organic milk really any better for us than regular milk?

10. Are there any benefits to drinking green tea?

11. Is coffee actually good for us?

12. Is there such a thing as too much water intake?

13. Should we be eating more vegetables?

14. Is the Paleo diet a healthy way to eat?

15. Is gluten really that bad for us?

16. Are there any health benefits to drinking red wine?

17. Is dark chocolate actually good for us?

18. Why we should all be eating less meat.

19. The benefits of home cooking.

20. Is there such a thing as a “healthy” diet?

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Arguments and Information

Learning Objectives

• Define and explore brainstorming for argument selection
• Write a specific purpose statement
• Write effective thesis statements

When you’re preparing to speak, finding an argument, perspective, or topic can feel overwhelming. “Where should I start?” “What do I care about?” “Why should the audience care?” are all questions that you’ll likely encounter.

These are important queries, and we don’t want to downplay the difficulty in selecting an argument and formulating an idea that is worthwhile to the audience. Finding an argument that fits the context, is timely, well-reasoned, and interesting can be difficult. Oftentimes, when we sit down to think about ideas, brainstorm, and jot down some insights, our page feels oddly blank. “What should we talk about?” “Where do we start?” are common questions that race through our minds. You might experience this, too, and feel confused about how to begin selecting an argument or sorting through information to locate an interesting idea.

When you begin searching for an argument, you aren’t alone; you have tons of informational avenues that can direct you to different topics that are relevant in the world.

In fact, you’re experiencing interesting information all the time! You are constantly absorbing, sorting, and curating information and ideas. Think about your social media accounts. If you’re like us, you likely scroll through and click on articles that seem unique or insightful; you “like” or comment in response to posts that draw you in. There’s a constant flow of information (and potential speech topics).

In this chapter, we explore how to select and formulate the main argument for a speech. It’s often uncommon to snap our fingers and know exactly what our argument will be, and that’s OK! This chapter works to funnel you through brainstorming and searching toward writing a clear and narrow argument that is specific to your public speaking context. It’s our goal to encourage curiosity, and we hope that you’ll accept the challenge.

By the end of this chapter, you will have deeper critical thinking skills that lead you from broad topic ideas to specific arguments and thesis statements. Before brainstorming a topic can begin, however, you must zero in on the context.

Context is Key

Your context should always guide your preparatory process, including selecting an argument to present. The context defines why you’re there, how long you’re there for, when, and with whom.

By answering the “why” – i.e. “Why am I here?” – you can determine your general purpose for speaking: informing, persuading, or entertaining. While arguments can often be adapted to fit many purposes, it’s always important to begin any project by knowing the parameters and overarching goals – in this case, why am I speaking? For example, are you trying to:

• Solve a problem
• Reduce uncertainty
• Increase awareness
• Honor someone

Selecting a final topic before considering the context means “placing the cart before the horse,” so to speak. Your context will inform the general purpose which will guide your specific argument.

It’s important, too, to stay appraised of the other contextual factors, particularly the time. How much time you have to speak will influence how broad or narrow your argument can be. If you have 3 minutes, for example, you must have a specific and focused take-away for the audience within that short amount of time. Alternatively, a 20-minute speech provides more flexibility. There may be some ideas or arguments that aren’t feasible within certain time constraints.

As you’ll remember from Chapter 1, “context” also refers to the broader historical and cultural context. Being aware of larger cultural conversations and dialogues can assist in selecting arguments that are timely and relevant for your audience. In other words, it allows you to find information that is having an impact on your community/communities right now, and that information becomes significant to share.

If you aren’t sure how to locate such arguments, stay tuned! Below, we tackle brainstorming as a mechanism to locate potential arguments.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the process and practice of searching to find ideas or information. When you brainstorm, you are generating ideas to overcome a barrier or confront a problem. The problem you’re confronting is,

“What can I talk about that will sustain the audience’s attention and have an impact?” For speeches, brainstorming assists in locating and narrowing information to an accurate idea that supports the development of a well-reasoned argument.

Like we mentioned in the introduction, you are already sorting through vast amounts of information daily. We are confronted with so many ideas, research findings, memes, tweets, advertisements, and podcasts (to name a few); we develop personal strategies to find information that is meaningful and worthwhile to us.

Brainstorming is a practice that formalizes that sorting process. It asks you to make those choices more deliberately and consciously. The key to successful brainstorming is openness – you must be open to finding, locating, and narrowing down information.

Arguments are Advocacies

Topic selection and argument construction are key parts of formulating an advocacy. Speeches are meaningful and impactful communication acts. When you speak, you are supporting an idea, cause, or policy. You should approach brainstorming purposefully and intentionally with a framework in mind that “What I select matters.” Because what you select matters.

In addition, your advocacy may begin broadly, but your goal is to tailor that advocacy down to a workable argument. It’s helpful to think about your topics as orbiting an advocacy. For example, you may be interested in environmental advocacy, where environmentalism is a large and broad topic. But “environmentalism” isn’t a workable speech argument – it’s way too big! With research, critical thinking, and expertise, you’ll narrow that broad advocacy umbrella down to a workable argument – a thesis statement – and craft the remainder of your speech with that specific argument in mind.

We suggest two broad brainstorming strategies, and let’s start with the first: exploratory research.

Exploratory Research

Exploratory research encompasses brainstorming strategies that spark curiosity. When you explore, you are going on an adventure, and exploratory research is similar. You are sorting information to find broad topics or ideas (that you’ll narrow down later). Conducting a personal inventory and exploring online are two great exploratory brainstorming strategies.

Personal Inventory

An old adage states, “Write about what you know.”

To write what you know, begin by conducting a personal inventory – a process of tracking ideas, insights, or topics that you have experience with or interest in . Retail stores do regular inventories to know what is actually stocked in the business. You have much more going on in your brain and background than you can be conscious of at any one time. Being asked the right kinds of prompts can help you find ideas. Look over Table 3.1 for some prompting questions when conducting a persona inventory.

This may not be an inventory that you complete in one sitting. In fact, it’s worthwhile to jot down a few things that catch your attention throughout the day or for a series of days. Once complete, the inventory may seem long and intrusive, but digging a little deeper may help you find ideas and directions that are unique to you. Generating your list based on these questions and prompts will get you excited about your topic and talking about it to your audience.

Let’s work through a hypothetical application of the personal inventory. Imagine brainstorming for a speech, and you write the following in response to Table 3.1:

Major: Economics (for now) Goals : Complete my degree with honors; travel to Brazil Barriers to achieving those goals : Procrastination, assigned class schedules, expensive college and fees, problems with gaining a visa

As you look over these broad ideas, your next step is to highlight topics that pique your interest or are a priority. You might highlight “expensive college” as a barrier that could prohibit you from completing your economics degree on time. After all, if you are unable to afford college (or are worried about loans), you may take a semester break or drop out. Also, as an economics major, you become more interested in exploring college affordability.

As the personal inventory implies, good speech topic ideas often begin with the speaker. After all, if a speaker is intrigued by an idea, that passion is more likely to translate to an audience. But it doesn’t end there. Remember, we are just brainstorming! It’s still necessary to research and read about a topic or problem from multiple viewpoints and sources. If we only begin from ourselves, we often fail to see or learn about different perspectives, other important areas, or problems. Exploring online can help in narrowing your topic and deciding if it’s a relevant argument for your audience and community.

Explore Online

A second brainstorming technique is online exploration—searching digital information with an open mind. You can use your personal inventory as guidance or, if you’re stuck, you can read information online for ideas that spark curiosity. There are ample online locations to find an array of information, from Google News to Twitter.

When you search, look far and wide. It’s common to search and seek out information that we’re looking for, but brainstorming isn’t about finding what you already know; It’s about finding what you don’t. Use different search engines and social media platforms for help.

As you search, skim. Remember that this is an exploratory phase (we’ll talk more about searching in-depth in Chapter 4), so you don’t need to read every article that pops up on a search engine. Write down words. Write down phrases. Ask yourself questions about those words and phrases to determine how relevant and interesting they could be.

For example, if you continued brainstorming about “expensive college” – an idea on your hypothetical personal inventory—you might find a series of posts, articles, and insights that a) help you learn more and b) help narrow down the topic. You’d learn that, under the broad category of college affordability, there are a range of topics that influence students, including: student loan interest rates, textbook cost, private loans, and the depletion of Pell grants. You could attack any of these issues, of course, but some are more complicated than others. Textbooks seem like they could be a potential topic. Perhaps you recently experienced purchasing expensive college textbooks. Perhaps you loaned a friend money after their textbook bill made it difficult to pay rent. After reflecting, books seem ripe for advocacy.

Whenever you are exploring a topic online, it is important to remember that if you have one good source, you probably have several. The trick is being able to use that one good article to track down multiple sources. For example, a Vox article about textbooks, titled “The High Cost of College Textbooks, Explained,” provides opportunities for more online exploration. Below is a list of ideas or concepts to click on or research in other tabs. Look for these in every article as you brainstorm. Pretty soon, you will probably have a dozen or more tabs open, meaning you will have much more expertise and a deeper understanding of your topic.

• Hyperlinks : journalists do not cite their sources with footnotes, endnotes, or internal citations like you do for class. Instead, they hyperlink their sources to make it easier for you to track down their evidence.
• Big I deas : You can easily Google main topics of an article to see how other people are talking about it. This will allow you to see more than one perspective on a topic and to cross-check your original article against other writers.
• People : From the author to the people they talked to or about, look up people to read their credentials and determine if they are qualified to write or talk about the relevant topic.
• Jargon: If you find any words that are unfamiliar, look them up. This will help you understand the argument better and make certain the author actually knows what they are writing about. Plus, it will give you some words to use for mind-mapping.

Before we move further into narrowing and mapping our topic, let’s conclude this section by busting a few myths about online information.

Myth # 1: Wikipedia is bad. You’ve likely heard that “you can absolutely not cite Wikipedia [in a formal essay or speech].” While, yes, Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, meaning that anyone can technically add to its content, its pages can be useful for brainstorming. We recommend using Wikipedia in two ways.

First, search Wikipedia for their internally-cited material. If you’ve used Wikipedia recently, you know that the content includes references to other sources that validate the findings. Use those! The references are helpful in locating (often) credible sources for your own research on a topic.

Second, use Wikipedia to clarify complex ideas. Because Wikipedia is a community-based and collaborative encyclopedia, technical language is commonly translated to allow better comprehension. If you aren’t sure about an idea, search Wikipedia for help (but verify the information through other sources, too).

While we don’t recommend using Wikipedia as the source, their content can direct you toward reputable research and clarify difficult concepts.

Myth #2 : Information is neutral. It’s easy to believe that, because something is published online, it’s a neutral and reputable source. Sadly, that’s not the case. In our digital information age, virtually anyone can be an author, and that’s great! But it also reduces the reliability of information that’s being posted.

You’ve likely heard about “fake news,” but we’ll use the term propaganda – biased or misleading information that promotes a particular agenda. Propaganda is junk science, and it can’t be trusted as reliable. For example, you might notice a meme that posts a Harriett Tubman quote in support of strict immigration reform. Digging deeper, you’d likely find that the quote was misrepresented or made up to support an anti-immigrant agenda.

Advertising more subtly influences information. That’s because many information sorting sites, including Google, use an algorithm that’s specific to you. If you and a friend search the same thing, your search results may differ, especially after the first page.

Does that mean you can’t use Google? Of course not. We do! But you should be aware that targeted sites may be rising to the top, and when you search, dig deep and search multiple pages.

Using a Mind Map

After conducting exploratory research to dig a little deeper, a mind map is a second brainstorming strategy to narrow and isolate a topic. A mind map is a visual tool that allows you to chart and expand key topic ideas or concepts.

As you mind map, use the following tips:

• Start with a big idea.
• Break this big concept down into smaller ideas until you can’t break them down anymore.
• Look up synonyms or like words.
• Write down any words you find during your research to tap into the larger conversation.

Figure 3.2 is an example of a mind map based on “college affordability.” You can see how the topic narrowed from college affordability to textbook costs. The mind map also includes words that were used in the Vox article, such as “open textbooks.” Jotting down ideas and language that are used in source information will provide insight into common wording used by topic experts. Keep in mind, if you do not like mind maps, make a list or develop some alternative method, but make certain to keep track of everything.

You can create a mind map using a program like Popplet , Powerpoint, Word, or Google Docs. We usually just grab a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, though.

As you expand topics through a mind map, the narrower that your argument becomes. Instead of a broad approach to “college affordability,” you now have options to explore textbook costs, open textbooks, or open educational resources.

We promise this will not be a waste of your time. Writing down your ideas and thoughts will help you identify keywords for further searching, so you won’t have to come up with words on the fly. As you search, you can easily scratch off words that fail to get you any information, mark the words that seem to get you exactly what you need, or jot down new words you stumble across as you search. All of this will save you time in the long run because it won’t leave you searching for just the right word or trying the wrong word over and over.

Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement

After identifying your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain) and brainstorming key topic ideas, you can start to move in the direction of the specific purpose.

A specific purpose statement builds on your general purpose (such as to inform) and makes it more specific (as the name suggests). So, if you’re giving a persuasive speech, your general purpose will be to persuade your audience about, for example, the rising cost of textbooks. Written together, your specific purpose would read, “to persuade my audience to support campus solutions to rising textbook costs.”

Your general purpose and audience will influence how to write your specific purpose statement (see Table 3.3.)

Table 3.3. (Stand Up, Speak Out).

Table 3.3 demonstrates how to move from the general purpose to the specific purpose while keeping your audience in mind.

So far, so good, right? Before moving to your thesis, be aware these common pitfalls for writing specific purpose statements.

Being Too Broad

Specific purpose statements sometimes try to cover far too much and are too broad. You are funneling a broad topic to a specific argument, so don’t stop at the topic. Instead, ask, “am I trying to do too much?”

Consider this specific purpose statement: To explain to my classmates the history of ballet.

This subject could result in a three-hour lecture, maybe even a whole course. You will probably find that your first attempt at a specific purpose statement will need refining.

These examples are much more specific and much more manageable given the limited amount of time you will have:

To explain to my classmates how ballet came to be performed and studied in the U.S. To explain to my classmates the difference between Russian and French ballet. To explain to my classmates how ballet originated as an art form in the Renaissance. To explain to my classmates the origin of the ballet dancers’ clot h ing.

Often, broadness is signaled by the use of “and,” where a specific statement is making two arguments.

These examples cover two different topics:

To explain to my audience how to swing a golf club and choose the best golf shoes. To persuade my classmates to be involved in the Special Olympics and vote to fund better classes for the intellectually disabled.

Too Specialized

The second problem with specific purpose statements is the opposite of being too broad, in that some specific purposes statements are so focused that they might only be appropriate for people who are already extremely interested in the topic or experts in a field. For example:

To inform my classmates of the life cycle of a new species of lima bean (botanists, agriculturalists). To inform my classmates about the Yellow 5 ingredient in Mountain Dew (chemists, nutritionists). To persuade my classmates that JIF Peanut Butter is better than Peter Pan. (organizational chefs in large institutions) .

Formulating a Thesis

While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be. Your specific purpose is still not your main argument. It’s part of the funnel as you move to your main argument, or thesis statement. A thesis statement is a single, declarative statement that outlines the purpose of your speech.

The point of your thesis statement is to reveal and clarify the main argument of your speech.

This part of the process is important because it’s where your topic becomes an argument. Like we mentioned in the introduction, you will funnel your advocacy down to a specific argument that fits the context and goals of your speech.

However, as you are processing your ideas and approach, you may still be working on them. Sometimes those main points will not be clear to you immediately. As much as we would like these writing processes to be straightforward, sometimes we find that we have to revise our original approach. This is why preparing a speech the night before you are giving it is a really, really bad idea. You need lots of time for the preparation and then the practice.

Sometimes you will hear the writing process referred to as “ iterative.” This word means, among other things, that a speech or document is not always written in the same order as the audience finally experiences it. You may have noticed that we have not said anything about the introduction of your speech yet. Even though that is the first thing the audience hears, it may be one of the last parts you actually compose. It is best to consider your speech flexible as you work on it, and to be willing to edit and revise. If your instructor asks you to turn the outline in before the speech, you should be clear on how much you can revise after that. Otherwise, it helps to know that you can keep editing your speech until you deliver it, especially while you practice.

Here are some examples that pair the general purpose, specific purpose statements and thesis statements.

General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard. Thesis : Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

General Purpose : To persuade Specific Purpose: To persuade my political science class that labor unions are no longer a vital political force in the U.S. Thesis : Although for decades in the twentieth century labor unions influenced local and national elections, in this speech I will point to how their influence has declined in the last thirty years.

General Purpose : To persuade Specific Purpose: To motivate my audience to oppose the policy of drug testing welfare recipients. Thesis : Many voices are calling for welfare recipients to have to go through mandatory, regular drug testing, but this pol-icy is unjust, impractical, and costly, and fair-minded Americans should actively oppose it.

General Purpose : To inform Specific Purpose: To explain to my fellow civic club members why I admire Representative John Lewis. Thesis : John Lewis has my admiration for his sacrifices during the Civil Rights movement and his service to Georgia as a leader and U.S. Representative.

Notice that in all of the above examples that neither the specific purpose nor the central idea ever exceeds one sentence. You may divide your central idea and the preview of main points into two sentences or three sentences, depending on what your instructor directs. If your central idea consists of more than three sentences, then you probably are including too much information and taking up time that is needed for the body of the speech.

For thesis statements, remember the following few guidelines:

• Do not write the statement as a question.
• Use concrete language (“I admire Beyoncé for being a talented performer and businesswoman”), and avoid subjective terms (“My speech is about why I think Beyoncé is the bomb”) or jargon and acronyms (“PLA is better than CBE for adult learners.”)

Remember that your thesis statement cements your main argument – it’s the foundation to building the speech. A clear and focused thesis statement define the speech, and we’ll continue building the research and content around your argument.

Case Studies in Specific Purposes and Thesis Statements

Case Study One : Mitchell is taking a Fundamentals of Speech course in his second year of college. As a member of the college’s tennis team, he wants to speak on his favorite subject, tennis. He is assigned an informative speech that should be seven minutes long and use four external sources (other than his own experience). He realizes off the bat that he knows a great deal about the subject as far as how to play and be good at it, but not much about the history or origins or the international impact of the sport. He brainstorms a list of topics: 1. Famous tennis players 2. Rules of tennis 3. How to start playing tennis 4. How to buy or choose equipment for tennis 5. Why tennis is a great sport 6. Tennis organizations 7. Where tennis came from 8. Dealing with tennis injuries 9. Tennis and the Olympics 10. Famous tennis tournaments—grand slam events

However, he also wants to be sure that his audience is not bored or confused. His instructor gives him a chance to get in a small group and have four of his classmates give him some ideas about the topics. He finds out no one in his group has ever played tennis but they do have questions. He knows that everyone in his class is 18-24 years old, single, no children, enrolled in college, and all have part-time jobs.

Critique Mitch’s brainstorm topics based on what you know. What should he do? Can you come up with a good starting specific purpose?

Case Study Two : Bonita is required to give a 5- to 6-minute presentation as part of a job interview. The interview is for a position as public relations and social media director of a nonprofit organization that focuses on nutrition in a five-county region near her home. There will be five people in her audience: the president of the organization, two board members, the office manager (who is also the Human Resources director), and a volunteer. She has never met these people. Bonita has a college degree in public relations, so she knows her subject. She does as much research on the organization as she can and finds out about their use of social media and the Internet for publicity, marketing, and public relations. It does have a Facebook page but is not utilizing it well. It does not have any other social media accounts.

What would you suggest for Bonita? Here are some questions to consider. Should she be persuasive, informative, or inspiring? (General purpose) What should be her specific content area? How can she answer the two questions of the value of her topic to the audience and why would the audience think she is credible?

In this chapter, we discussed best practices for brainstorming topics that funnel to an argument. Argument selection is exciting, and use these tips alongside your other creative information gathering skills. Next up: research!

Speak Out, Call In: Public Speaking as Advocacy Copyright © 2019 by Meggie Mapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Write and Structure a Persuasive Speech

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The purpose of a persuasive speech is to convince your audience to agree with an idea or opinion that you present. First, you'll need to choose a side on a controversial topic, then you will write a speech to explain your position, and convince the audience to agree with you.

You can produce an effective persuasive speech if you structure your argument as a solution to a problem. Your first job as a speaker is to convince your audience that a particular problem is important to them, and then you must convince them that you have the solution to make things better.

Note: You don't have to address a real problem. Any need can work as the problem. For example, you could consider the lack of a pet, the need to wash one's hands, or the need to pick a particular sport to play as the "problem."

As an example, let's imagine that you have chosen "Getting Up Early" as your persuasion topic. Your goal will be to persuade classmates to get themselves out of bed an hour earlier every morning. In this instance, the problem could be summed up as "morning chaos."

A standard speech format has an introduction with a great hook statement, three main points, and a summary. Your persuasive speech will be a tailored version of this format.

Before you write the text of your speech, you should sketch an outline that includes your hook statement and three main points.

Writing the Text

The introduction of your speech must be compelling because your audience will make up their minds within a few minutes whether or not they are interested in your topic.

Before you write the full body you should come up with a greeting. Your greeting can be as simple as "Good morning everyone. My name is Frank."

After your greeting, you will offer a hook to capture attention. A hook sentence for the "morning chaos" speech could be a question:

• How many times have you been late for school?
• Does your day begin with shouts and arguments?
• Have you ever missed the bus?

Or your hook could be a statistic or surprising statement:

• More than 50 percent of high school students skip breakfast because they just don't have time to eat.
• Tardy kids drop out of school more often than punctual kids.

Once you have the attention of your audience, follow through to define the topic/problem and introduce your solution. Here's an example of what you might have so far:

Good afternoon, class. Some of you know me, but some of you may not. My name is Frank Godfrey, and I have a question for you. Does your day begin with shouts and arguments? Do you go to school in a bad mood because you've been yelled at, or because you argued with your parent? The chaos you experience in the morning can bring you down and affect your performance at school.

Add the solution:

You can improve your mood and your school performance by adding more time to your morning schedule. You can accomplish this by setting your alarm clock to go off one hour earlier.

Your next task will be to write the body, which will contain the three main points you've come up with to argue your position. Each point will be followed by supporting evidence or anecdotes, and each body paragraph will need to end with a transition statement that leads to the next segment. Here is a sample of three main statements:

• Bad moods caused by morning chaos will affect your workday performance.
• If you skip breakfast to buy time, you're making a harmful health decision.
• (Ending on a cheerful note) You'll enjoy a boost to your self-esteem when you reduce the morning chaos.

After you write three body paragraphs with strong transition statements that make your speech flow, you are ready to work on your summary.

Your summary will re-emphasize your argument and restate your points in slightly different language. This can be a little tricky. You don't want to sound repetitive but will need to repeat what you have said. Find a way to reword the same main points.

Finally, you must make sure to write a clear final sentence or passage to keep yourself from stammering at the end or fading off in an awkward moment. A few examples of graceful exits:

• We all like to sleep. It's hard to get up some mornings, but rest assured that the reward is well worth the effort.
• If you follow these guidelines and make the effort to get up a little bit earlier every day, you'll reap rewards in your home life and on your report card.

Tips for Writing Your Speech

• Don't be confrontational in your argument. You don't need to put down the other side; just convince your audience that your position is correct by using positive assertions.
• Use simple statistics. Don't overwhelm your audience with confusing numbers.
• Don't complicate your speech by going outside the standard "three points" format. While it might seem simplistic, it is a tried and true method for presenting to an audience who is listening as opposed to reading.
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• 18 Ways to Practice Spelling Words

Critical Thinking and Reasoning

Logic and the role of arguments.

Critical thinkers tend to exhibit certain traits that are common to them. These traits are summarized in Table 6.1: [1]

“ Martha Stewart ” by nrkbeta.  CC-BY-SA .

Next, we will examine each of these skills and their role in critical thinking in greater detail. As you read through the explanation of and examples for each skill, think about how it works in conjunction with the others. It’s important to note that while our discussion of the skills is presented in a linear manner, in practice our use of each skill is not so straightforward. We may exercise different skills simultaneously or jump forward and backward.

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. – Martha Stewart

In order to understand listening, we must first understand the difference between listening and hearing . At its most basic, hearing refers to the physiological process of receiving sounds, while listening refers to the  psychological process of interpreting or making sense of those sounds.

Every minute of every day we are surrounded by hundreds of different noises and sounds. If we were to try to make sense of each different sound we would probably spend our day just doing this. While we may hear all of the noises, we filter out many of them. They pass through our lives without further notice. Certain noises, however, jump to the forefront of our consciousness. As we listen to them, we make sense of these sounds. We do this every day without necessarily thinking about the process. Like many other bodily functions, it happens without our willing it to happen.

Critical thinking requires that we consciously listen to messages. We must focus on what is being said – and not said. We must strive not to be distracted by other outside noises or the internal noise of our own preconceived ideas. For the moment we only need to take in the message.

Listening becomes especially difficult when the message contains highly charged information. Think about what happens when you try to discuss a controversial issue such as abortion. As the other person speaks, you may have every good intention of listening to the entire argument.

However, when the person says something you feel strongly about you start formulating a counter-argument in your head. The end result is that both sides end up talking past each other without ever really listening to what the other says.

Once we have listened to a message, we can begin to analyze it. In practice we often begin analyzing messages while still listening to them. When we analyze something, we consider it in greater detail, separating out the main components of the message. In a sense, we are acting like a surgeon on the message, carving out all of the different elements and laying them out for further consideration and possible action.

Let’s return to Shonda’s persuasive speech to see analysis in action. As part of the needs section of her speech, Shonda makes the following remarks:

Americans today are some of the unhealthiest people on Earth. It seems like not a week goes by without some news story relating how we are the fattest country in the world. In addition to being overweight, we suffer from a number of other health problems. When I was conducting research for my speech, I read somewhere that heart attacks are the number one killer of men and the number two killer of women. Think about that. My uncle had a heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. They hooked him up to a bunch of different machines to keep him alive. We all thought he was going to die. He’s ok now, but he has to take a bunch of pills every day and eat a special diet. Plus he had to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills. Wouldn’t you like to know how to prevent this from happening to you?

If we were to analyze this part of Shonda’s speech (see Table 6.2), we could begin by looking at the claims she makes. We could then look at the evidence she presents in support of these claims. Having parsed out the various elements, we are then ready to evaluate them and by extension the message as a whole.

When we evaluate something we continue the process of analysis by assessing the various claims and arguments for validity. One way we evaluate a message is to ask questions about what is being said and who is saying it. The following is a list of typical questions we may ask, along with an evaluation of the ideas in Shonda’s speech.

Is the speaker credible?

Yes. While Shonda may not be an expert per se on the issue of health benefits related to wine, she has made herself a mini-expert through conducting research.

Does the statement ring true or false based on common sense?

It sounds kind of fishy. Four or more glasses of wine in one sitting doesn’t seem right. In fact, it seems like it might be bordering on binge drinking.

Does the logic employed hold up to scrutiny?

Based on the little bit of Shonda’s speech we see here, her logic does seem to be sound. As we will see later on, she actually commits a few fallacies.

What questions or objections are raised by the message?

In addition to the possibility of Shonda’s proposal being binge drinking, it also raises the possibility of creating alcoholism or causing other long term health problems.

How will further information affect the message?

More information will probably contradict her claims. In fact, most medical research in this area contradicts the claim that drinking 4 or more glasses of wine a day is a good thing.

Will further information strengthen or weaken the claims?

Most likely Shonda’s claims will be weakened.

What questions or objections are raised by the claims?

In addition to the objections we’ve already discussed, there is also the problem of the credibility of Shonda’s expert “doctor.”

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. – David Hume

Inference and Interpretation or Explanation

“imply” or “infer”.

For two relatively small words, imply and infer seem to generate an inordinately large amount of confusion. Understanding the difference between the two and knowing when to use the right one is not only a useful skill, but it also makes you sound a lot smarter!

Let’s begin with imply. Imply means to suggest or convey an idea. A speaker or a piece of writing implies things. For example, in Shonda’s speech, she implies it is better to drink more red wine. In other words, she never directly says that we need to drink more red wine, but she clearly hints at it when she suggests that drinking four or more glasses a day will provide us with health benefits.

Now let’s consider infer. Infer means that something in a speaker’s words or a piece of writing helps us to draw a conclusion outside of his/her words. We infer a conclusion. Returning to Shonda’s speech, we can infer she would want us to drink more red wine rather than less. She never comes right out and says this. However, by considering her overall message, we can draw this conclusion.

Another way to think of the difference between imply and infer is: A speaker (or writer for that matter) implies. The audience infers.

Therefore, it would be incorrect to say that Shonda infers we should drink more rather than less wine. She implies this. To help you differentiate between the two, remember that an inference is something that comes from outside the spoken or written text.

The next step in critically examining a message is to interpret or explain the conclusions that we draw from it. At this phase we consider the evidence and the claims together. In effect we are reassembling the components that we parsed out during analysis. We are continuing our evaluation by looking at the evidence, alternatives, and possible conclusions.

Before we draw any inferences or attempt any explanations, we should look at the evidence provided. When we consider evidence we must first determine what, if any, kind of support is provided. Of the evidence we then ask:

• Is the evidence sound?
• Does the evidence say what thespeaker says it does?
• Does contradictory evidenceexist?
• Is the evidence from a validcredible source?

Seatbelt by M.Minderhoud, CC-BY-SA .

Even though these are set up as yes or no questions, you’ll probably find in practice that your answers are a bit more complex. For example, let’s say you’re writing a speech on why we should wear our seatbelts at all times while driving. You’ve researched the topic and found solid, credible information setting forth the numerous reasons why wearing a seatbelt can help save your life and decrease the number of injuries experienced during a motor vehicle accident. Certainly, there exists contradictory evidence arguing seat belts can cause more injuries. For example, if you’re in an accident where your car is partially submerged in water, wearing a seatbelt may impede your ability to quickly exit the vehicle. Does the fact that this evidence exists negate your claims? Probably not, but you need to be thorough in evaluating and considering how you use your evidence.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. – Oscar Wilde

Self-Regulation

The final step in critically examining a message is actually a skill we should exercise throughout the entire process. With self-regulation, we consider our pre-existing thoughts on the subject and any biases we may have. We examine how what we think on an issue may have influenced the way we understand (or think we understand) the message and any conclusions we have drawn. Just as contradictory evidence doesn’t automatically negate our claims or invalidate our arguments, our biases don’t necessarily make our conclusions wrong. The goal of practicing self-regulation is not to disavow or deny our opinions. The goal is to create distance between our opinions and the messages we evaluate.

The Value of Critical Thinking

In public speaking, the value of being a critical thinker cannot be overstressed. Critical thinking helps us to determine the truth or validity of arguments. However, it also helps us to formulate strong arguments for our speeches. Exercising critical thinking at all steps of the speech writing and delivering process can help us avoid situations like Shonda found herself in. Critical thinking is not a magical panacea that will make us super speakers. However, it is another tool that we can add to our speech toolbox.

When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself. – Plato

As we will learn in the following pages, we construct arguments based on logic. Understanding the ways logic can be used and possibly misused is a vital skill. To help stress the importance of it, the Foundation for Critical Thinking has set forth universal standards of reasoning. These standards can be found in Table 6.3.

“Sharia Law Billboard” by Matt57. Public domain.

We use logic every day. Even if we have never formally studied logical reasoning and fallacies, we can often tell when a person’s statement doesn’t sound right. Think about the claims we see in many advertisements today—Buy product X, and you will be beautiful/thin/happy or have the carefree life depicted in the advertisement. With very little critical thought, we know intuitively that simply buying a product will not magically change our lives. Even if we can’t identify the specific fallacy at work in the argument (non causa in this case), we know there is some flaw in the argument.

By studying logic and fallacies we can learn to formulate stronger and more cohesive arguments, avoiding problems like that mentioned above. The study of logic has a long history. We can trace the roots of modern logical study back to Aristotle in ancient Greece. Aristotle’s simple definition of logic as the means by which we come to know anything still provides a concise understanding of logic. [3] Of the classical pillars of a core liberal arts education of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, logic has developed as a fairly independent branch of philosophical studies. We use logic everyday when we construct statements, argue our point of view, and in myriad other ways. Understanding how logic is used will help us communicate more efficiently and effectively.

Defining Arguments

When we think and speak logically, we pull together statements that combine reasoning with evidence to support an assertion, arguments. A logical argument should not be confused with the type of argument you have with your sister or brother or any other person. When you argue with your sibling, you participate in a conflict in which you disagree about something. You may, however, use a logical argument in the midst of the argument with your sibling. Consider this example:

“Man and Woman Arguing” by mzacha. morgueFile .

Brother and sister, Sydney and Harrison are arguing about whose turn it is to clean their bathroom. Harrison tells Sydney she should do it because she is a girl and girls are better at cleaning. Sydney responds that being a girl has nothing to do with whose turn it is. She reminds Harrison that according to their work chart, they are responsible for cleaning the bathroom on alternate weeks. She tells him she cleaned the bathroom last week; therefore, it is his turn this week. Harrison, still unconvinced, refuses to take responsibility for the chore. Sydney then points to the work chart and shows him where it specifically says it is his turn this week. Defeated, Harrison digs out the cleaning supplies.

Throughout their bathroom argument, both Harrison and Sydney use logical arguments to advance their point. You may ask why Sydney is successful and Harrison is not. This is a good question. Let’s critically think about each of their arguments to see why one fails and one succeeds.

Let’s start with Harrison’s argument. We can summarize it into three points:

• Girls are better at cleaning bathrooms than boys.
• Sydney is a girl.
• Therefore, Sydney should clean the bathroom.

Harrison’s argument here is a form of deductive reasoning, specifically a syllogism. We will consider syllogisms in a few minutes. For our purposes here, let’s just focus on why Harrison’s argument fails to persuade Sydney. Assuming for the moment that we agree with Harrison’s first two premises, then it would seem that his argument makes sense. We know that Sydney is a girl, so the second premise is true. This leaves the first premise that girls are better at cleaning bathrooms than boys. This is the exact point where Harrison’s argument goes astray. The only way his entire argument will work is if we agree with the assumption girls are better at cleaning bathrooms than boys.

Let’s now look at Sydney’s argument and why it works. Her argument can be summarized as follows:

• The bathroom responsibilities alternate weekly according to the work chart.
• Sydney cleaned the bathroom last week.
• The chart indicates it is Harrison’s turn to clean the bathroom this week.
• Therefore, Harrison should clean the bathroom.

“Decorative toilet seat” by Bartux~commonswikiv. Public domain.

Sydney’s argument here is a form of inductive reasoning. We will look at inductive reasoning in depth below. For now, let’s look at why Sydney’s argument succeeds where Harrison’s fails. Unlike Harrison’s argument, which rests on assumption for its truth claims, Sydney’s argument rests on evidence. We can define evidence as anything used to support the validity of an assertion. Evidence includes: testimony, scientific findings, statistics, physical objects, and many others. Sydney uses two primary pieces of evidence: the work chart and her statement that she cleaned the bathroom last week. Because Harrison has no contradictory evidence, he can’t logically refute Sydney’s assertion and is therefore stuck with scrubbing the toilet.

Defining Deduction

Deductive reasoning refers to an argument in which the truth of its premises guarantees the truth of its conclusions. Think back to Harrison’s argument for Sydney cleaning the bathroom. In order for his final claim to be valid, we must accept the truth of his claims that girls are better at cleaning bathrooms than boys. The key focus in deductive arguments is that it must be impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false. The classic example is:

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

We can look at each of these statements individually and see each is true in its own right. It is virtually impossible for the first two propositions to be true and the conclusion to be false. Any argument which fails to meet this standard commits a logical error or fallacy. Even if we might accept the arguments as good and the conclusion as possible, the argument fails as a form of deductive reasoning.

A few observations and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth. – Alexis Carrel

Another way to think of deductive reasoning is to think of it as moving from a general premise to a specific premise. The basic line of reasoning looks like this:

“Deductive Reasoning” CC-BY-NC-ND .

This form of deductive reasoning is called a syllogism. A syllogism need not have only three components to its argument, but it must have at least three. We have Aristotle to thank for identifying the syllogism and making the study of logic much easier. The focus on syllogisms dominated the field of philosophy for thousands of years. In fact, it wasn’t until the early nineteenth century that we began to see the discussion of other types of logic and other forms of logical reasoning.

Logic: the art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. – Ambrose Bierce

It is easy to fall prey to missteps in reasoning when we focus on syllogisms and deductive reasoning. Let’s return to Harrison’s argument and see what happens.

“Applied Deductive Reasoning” CC-BY-NC-ND .

Considered in this manner, it should be clear how the strength of the conclusion depends upon us accepting as true the first two statements. This need for truth sets up deductive reasoning as a very rigid form of reasoning. If either one of the first two premises isn’t true, then the entire argument fails.

Let’s turn to recent world events for another example.

“US Invasion Deductive Reasoning Example” CC-BY-NC-ND .

In the debates over whether the United States should take military action in Iraq, this was the basic line of reasoning used to justify an invasion. This logic was sufficient for the United States to invade Iraq; however, as we have since learned, this line of reasoning also shows how quickly logic can go bad. We subsequently learned that the “experts” weren’t quite so confident, and their “evidence” wasn’t quite as concrete as originally represented.

Defining Induction

Inductive reasoning is often though of as the opposite of deductive reasoning; however, this approach is not wholly accurate. Inductive reasoning does move from the specific to the general. However, this fact alone does not make it the opposite of deductive reasoning. An argument which fails in its deductive reasoning may still stand inductively.

Unlike deductive reasoning, there is no standard format inductive arguments must take, making them more flexible. We can define an inductive argument as one in which the truth of its propositions lends support to the conclusion. The difference here in deduction is the truth of the propositions establishes with absolute certainty the truth of the conclusion. When we analyze an inductive argument, we do not focus on the truth of its premises. Instead we analyze inductive arguments for their strength or soundness.

“Inductive Reasoning Model” CC-BY-NC-ND .

Another significant difference between deduction and induction is inductive arguments do not have a standard format. Let’s return to Sydney’s argument to see how induction develops in action:

• Bathroom cleaning responsibilities alternate weekly according to the work chart.

What Sydney does here is build to her conclusion that Harrison should clean the bathroom. She begins by stating the general house rule of alternate weeks for cleaning. She then adds in evidence before concluding her argument. While her argument is strong, we don’t know if it is true. There could be other factors Sydney has left out. Sydney may have agreed to take Harrison’s week of bathroom cleaning in exchange for him doing another one of her chores. Or there may be some extenuating circumstances preventing Harrison from bathroom cleaning this week.

You should carefully study the Art of Reasoning, as it is what most people are very deficient in, and I know few things more disagreeable than to argue, or even converse with a man who has no idea of inductive and deductive philosophy. – William John Wills

Let’s return to the world stage for another example. After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, we heard variations of the following arguments:

• The terrorists were Muslim (or Arab or Middle Eastern)
• The terrorists hated America.
• Therefore, all Muslims (or Arabs or Middle Easterners) hate America.

“1993 Word Trade Center bombing” by Bureau of ATF 1993 Explosives Incident Report. Public domain.

Clearly, we can see the problem in this line of reasoning. Beyond being a scary example of hyperbolic rhetoric, we can all probably think of at least one counter example to disprove the conclusion. However, individual passions and biases caused many otherwise rational people to say these things in the weeks following the attacks. This example also clearly illustrates how easy it is to get tripped up in your use of logic and the importance of practicing self-regulation.

• Adapted from Facione, P. A. (1990). Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction, The Delphi Report (Executive Summary) . Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press. ↵
• Adapted from Facione, P. A. (1990). ↵
• Aristotle. (1989). Prior Analytics (Trans. Robin Smith). Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing. ↵
• Image of man and woman arguing. Authored by : mzacha. Provided by : MorgueFile. Located at : http://mrg.bz/ynkIUa . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Free to remix, commercial use, no attribution required. http://www.morguefile.com/license/morguefile
• Chapter 6 Logic and the Role of Arguments. Authored by : Terri Russ, J.D., Ph.D.. Provided by : Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN. Located at : http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html . Project : The Public Speaking Project. License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Martha Stewart nrkbeta. Authored by : nrkbeta. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martha_Stewart_nrkbeta.jpg . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Seat belt BX. Authored by : M.Minderhoud. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seat_belt_BX.jpg . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Sharia-Law-Billboard. Authored by : Matt57. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sharia-law-Billboard.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Decorative toilet seat. Authored by : Bartux. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Decorative_toilet_seat.jpg%20 . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Image of 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Provided by : Bureau of ATF 1993 Explosives Incident Report. Located at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WTC_1993_ATF_Commons.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Organizing Your Argument

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How can I effectively present my argument?

In order for your argument to be persuasive, it must use an organizational structure that the audience perceives as both logical and easy to parse. Three argumentative methods —the  Toulmin Method , Classical Method , and Rogerian Method — give guidance for how to organize the points in an argument.

Note that these are only three of the most popular models for organizing an argument. Alternatives exist. Be sure to consult your instructor and/or defer to your assignment’s directions if you’re unsure which to use (if any).

Toulmin Method

The  Toulmin Method  is a formula that allows writers to build a sturdy logical foundation for their arguments. First proposed by author Stephen Toulmin in  The Uses of Argument (1958), the Toulmin Method emphasizes building a thorough support structure for each of an argument's key claims.

The basic format for the Toulmin Method  is as follows:

Claim:  In this section, you explain your overall thesis on the subject. In other words, you make your main argument.

Data (Grounds):  You should use evidence to support the claim. In other words, provide the reader with facts that prove your argument is strong.

Warrant (Bridge):  In this section, you explain why or how your data supports the claim. As a result, the underlying assumption that you build your argument on is grounded in reason.

Backing (Foundation):  Here, you provide any additional logic or reasoning that may be necessary to support the warrant.

Counterclaim:  You should anticipate a counterclaim that negates the main points in your argument. Don't avoid arguments that oppose your own. Instead, become familiar with the opposing perspective.   If you respond to counterclaims, you appear unbiased (and, therefore, you earn the respect of your readers). You may even want to include several counterclaims to show that you have thoroughly researched the topic.

Rebuttal:  In this section, you incorporate your own evidence that disagrees with the counterclaim. It is essential to include a thorough warrant or bridge to strengthen your essay’s argument. If you present data to your audience without explaining how it supports your thesis, your readers may not make a connection between the two, or they may draw different conclusions.

Example of the Toulmin Method:

Claim:  Hybrid cars are an effective strategy to fight pollution.

Data1:  Driving a private car is a typical citizen's most air-polluting activity.

Warrant 1:  Due to the fact that cars are the largest source of private (as opposed to industrial) air pollution, switching to hybrid cars should have an impact on fighting pollution.

Data 2:  Each vehicle produced is going to stay on the road for roughly 12 to 15 years.

Warrant 2:  Cars generally have a long lifespan, meaning that the decision to switch to a hybrid car will make a long-term impact on pollution levels.

Data 3:  Hybrid cars combine a gasoline engine with a battery-powered electric motor.

Warrant 3:  The combination of these technologies produces less pollution.

Counterclaim:  Instead of focusing on cars, which still encourages an inefficient culture of driving even as it cuts down on pollution, the nation should focus on building and encouraging the use of mass transit systems.

Rebuttal:  While mass transit is an idea that should be encouraged, it is not feasible in many rural and suburban areas, or for people who must commute to work. Thus, hybrid cars are a better solution for much of the nation's population.

Rogerian Method

The Rogerian Method  (named for, but not developed by, influential American psychotherapist Carl R. Rogers) is a popular method for controversial issues. This strategy seeks to find a common ground between parties by making the audience understand perspectives that stretch beyond (or even run counter to) the writer’s position. Moreso than other methods, it places an emphasis on reiterating an opponent's argument to his or her satisfaction. The persuasive power of the Rogerian Method lies in its ability to define the terms of the argument in such a way that:

• your position seems like a reasonable compromise.
• you seem compassionate and empathetic.

The basic format of the Rogerian Method  is as follows:

Introduction:  Introduce the issue to the audience, striving to remain as objective as possible.

Opposing View : Explain the other side’s position in an unbiased way. When you discuss the counterargument without judgement, the opposing side can see how you do not directly dismiss perspectives which conflict with your stance.

Statement of Validity (Understanding):  This section discusses how you acknowledge how the other side’s points can be valid under certain circumstances. You identify how and why their perspective makes sense in a specific context, but still present your own argument.

Statement of Your Position:  By this point, you have demonstrated that you understand the other side’s viewpoint. In this section, you explain your own stance.

Statement of Contexts : Explore scenarios in which your position has merit. When you explain how your argument is most appropriate for certain contexts, the reader can recognize that you acknowledge the multiple ways to view the complex issue.

Statement of Benefits:  You should conclude by explaining to the opposing side why they would benefit from accepting your position. By explaining the advantages of your argument, you close on a positive note without completely dismissing the other side’s perspective.

Example of the Rogerian Method:

Introduction:  The issue of whether children should wear school uniforms is subject to some debate.

Opposing View:  Some parents think that requiring children to wear uniforms is best.

Statement of Validity (Understanding):  Those parents who support uniforms argue that, when all students wear the same uniform, the students can develop a unified sense of school pride and inclusiveness.

Statement of Your Position : Students should not be required to wear school uniforms. Mandatory uniforms would forbid choices that allow students to be creative and express themselves through clothing.

Statement of Contexts:  However, even if uniforms might hypothetically promote inclusivity, in most real-life contexts, administrators can use uniform policies to enforce conformity. Students should have the option to explore their identity through clothing without the fear of being ostracized.

Statement of Benefits:  Though both sides seek to promote students' best interests, students should not be required to wear school uniforms. By giving students freedom over their choice, students can explore their self-identity by choosing how to present themselves to their peers.

Classical Method

The Classical Method of structuring an argument is another common way to organize your points. Originally devised by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (and then later developed by Roman thinkers like Cicero and Quintilian), classical arguments tend to focus on issues of definition and the careful application of evidence. Thus, the underlying assumption of classical argumentation is that, when all parties understand the issue perfectly, the correct course of action will be clear.

The basic format of the Classical Method  is as follows:

Introduction (Exordium): Introduce the issue and explain its significance. You should also establish your credibility and the topic’s legitimacy.

Statement of Background (Narratio): Present vital contextual or historical information to the audience to further their understanding of the issue. By doing so, you provide the reader with a working knowledge about the topic independent of your own stance.

Proposition (Propositio): After you provide the reader with contextual knowledge, you are ready to state your claims which relate to the information you have provided previously. This section outlines your major points for the reader.

Proof (Confirmatio): You should explain your reasons and evidence to the reader. Be sure to thoroughly justify your reasons. In this section, if necessary, you can provide supplementary evidence and subpoints.

Refutation (Refuatio): In this section, you address anticipated counterarguments that disagree with your thesis. Though you acknowledge the other side’s perspective, it is important to prove why your stance is more logical.  

Conclusion (Peroratio): You should summarize your main points. The conclusion also caters to the reader’s emotions and values. The use of pathos here makes the reader more inclined to consider your argument.  

Example of the Classical Method:  

Introduction (Exordium): Millions of workers are paid a set hourly wage nationwide. The federal minimum wage is standardized to protect workers from being paid too little. Research points to many viewpoints on how much to pay these workers. Some families cannot afford to support their households on the current wages provided for performing a minimum wage job .

Statement of Background (Narratio): Currently, millions of American workers struggle to make ends meet on a minimum wage. This puts a strain on workers’ personal and professional lives. Some work multiple jobs to provide for their families.

Proposition (Propositio): The current federal minimum wage should be increased to better accommodate millions of overworked Americans. By raising the minimum wage, workers can spend more time cultivating their livelihoods.

Proof (Confirmatio): According to the United States Department of Labor, 80.4 million Americans work for an hourly wage, but nearly 1.3 million receive wages less than the federal minimum. The pay raise will alleviate the stress of these workers. Their lives would benefit from this raise because it affects multiple areas of their lives.

Refutation (Refuatio): There is some evidence that raising the federal wage might increase the cost of living. However, other evidence contradicts this or suggests that the increase would not be great. Additionally,   worries about a cost of living increase must be balanced with the benefits of providing necessary funds to millions of hardworking Americans.

Conclusion (Peroratio): If the federal minimum wage was raised, many workers could alleviate some of their financial burdens. As a result, their emotional wellbeing would improve overall. Though some argue that the cost of living could increase, the benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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How to Effectively Present and Defend Your Arguments

Written by Argumentful

In our contemporary world, characterized by rapid change and diverse viewpoints, the ability to proficiently articulate and justify our opinions has become increasingly crucial.

Whether it’s in a business meeting, a classroom discussion, or a political debate, the ability to articulate your thoughts and persuade others is a valuable skill.

However, many people struggle with this task and may find themselves feeling frustrated or defeated in these situations.

Consider the following scenario: You’re at a family dinner and the conversation turns to politics. Your uncle begins passionately arguing his point of view, and you find yourself disagreeing. You want to express your own beliefs, but you’re unsure how to do so without coming across as confrontational or aggressive. Sound familiar?

This article aims to provide guidance on how to effectively present and defend your arguments, whether it’s in a casual conversation or a formal debate. Through practical tips and strategies, we’ll explore how to confidently articulate your thoughts, stay focused on the issue at hand, and effectively counter opposing views.

By the end of this article, you will have a toolbox of techniques for presenting and defending your arguments in a clear, concise, and persuasive manner.

So whether you’re debating politics with family or presenting a proposal to your boss, you’ll be better equipped to confidently and effectively make your case.

• Understanding the audience and context

• Preparing and structuring your argument

• Presenting your argument

• Defending your argument

• Dealing with emotional reactions

• Conclusion

Understanding the audience and context

One of the most crucial aspects of presenting and defending arguments effectively is understanding the audience and context in which you will be making your case. By taking the time to research and analyse the values, beliefs, and backgrounds of your audience, you can tailor your argument to better resonate with their perspective and increase your chances of success.

To start, consider who your audience is and what their interests and priorities might be.

• Are they experts in your field, or are they laypeople who may not have a deep understanding of the topic?

• Are they part of a specific cultural or social group with their own unique values and beliefs?

By answering these questions, you can begin to build a more accurate picture of who you will be speaking to and how best to communicate with them.

Another important consideration is the context in which you will be presenting your argument.

• Is this a formal debate with strict rules of engagement, or a more casual conversation among friends?

• What is the cultural and social background of the context, and how might that impact the way you frame your argument?

By analysing these factors, you can adjust your language , tone , and approach to better suit the situation and increase your chances of success.

Tips and techniques for researching the audience

When researching your audience and context, consider the following tips and techniques:

• Analyse the values and beliefs of your audience : Take time to understand what your audience cares about and what they believe to be important. By framing your argument in a way that aligns with these values, you can increase your chances of persuading them to see your point of view.

Here are some examples:

• If you are presenting to a group of environmental activists , you might emphasize the environmental impact of your argument and the importance of protecting the planet for future generations.
• If your audience is composed of business executives , you might focus on the financial benefits of your argument, such as cost savings or increased profits.
• If you are presenting to a religious community , you might appeal to their shared values of compassion, kindness, and social justice, and demonstrate how your argument aligns with these beliefs.
• If your audience is composed of scientists or academics , you might use evidence-based arguments and appeal to the importance of empirical data and logical reasoning.

By understanding the values and beliefs of your audience, you can tailor your argument in a way that resonates with them and speaks to their concerns. This not only increases the likelihood that they will be persuaded by your argument, but also helps to build trust and rapport with your audience, which can be invaluable in future interactions.

• Consider the social and cultural background of the context : Different contexts may have unique social and cultural factors that impact the way people think and communicate. Take the time to understand these factors, and adjust your approach accordingly.
• If you are presenting in a multicultural setting , be mindful of cultural differences in communication styles and nonverbal cues. For example, some cultures may place a higher value on direct communication, while others may prefer indirect or more nuanced communication.
• If you are presenting in a political context , be aware of the current political climate and the potential impact that may have on your argument. Consider how your argument may be perceived through different political lenses, and be prepared to address any concerns or objections related to political ideologies.
• If you are presenting to a group with diverse backgrounds and experiences , be sensitive to the ways in which different individuals may interpret your argument based on their personal histories and identities. Avoid assumptions and stereotypes, and strive to create a safe and inclusive space where everyone feels heard and valued.

By considering the social and cultural background of the context, you can avoid potential misunderstandings and conflicts, and increase the effectiveness of your argument. This shows that you are respectful of the unique perspectives and experiences of your audience, and are committed to engaging in productive and meaningful dialogue.

• Use data and evidence that speaks to your audience : When presenting your argument, make sure to use data and evidence that is relevant and compelling to your audience. If you’re speaking to a group of scientists, for example, you may want to focus on studies and experiments that support your case.
• If you are presenting to a group of policymakers , use data and statistics that highlight the potential impact of your argument on society as a whole. Show how your proposed policy or solution can address a pressing social or economic issue, and provide concrete examples of successful implementation in similar contexts.
• If you are presenting to a group of business leaders , use financial data and market research to demonstrate the potential ROI of your argument. Show how your proposal can increase profits, improve efficiency, or enhance the reputation of the company, and provide case studies of successful implementation in other organizations.
• If you are presenting to a group of activists or advocates , use personal stories and testimonials to illustrate the human impact of your argument. Show how your proposal can make a tangible difference in the lives of individuals or communities, and provide examples of successful implementation in similar contexts.

By using data and evidence that speaks to your audience, you can demonstrate your credibility and expertise on the topic, and show that you have a deep understanding of their needs and concerns. This can help to build trust and increase the likelihood that your argument will be accepted and acted upon.

Preparing and structuring the argument

Once you have a clear understanding of your audience and context, the next step in presenting and defending your arguments is to prepare and structure your argument effectively.

A strong argument is one that is clear , concise , and well-supported with evidence .

To achieve this, there are several steps you can take to prepare and structure your argument effectively.

• Identify your main claim : The first step in preparing a strong argument is to identify your main claim or thesis. This should be a clear statement that summarizes the central point of your argument.
• Organize supporting evidence : Once you have identified your main claim, the next step is to organize supporting evidence that will help you make your case. This could include data, research studies, expert opinions, or personal experiences.
• Anticipate counter-arguments : When preparing your argument, it is important to anticipate potential counter-arguments that may be raised by your audience. This will help you address these objections in a clear and effective way.

There are several different formats that can be used to structure an argument effectively.

Argument map

An argument map is a tool that helps to identify the main claim and supporting reasons, and how they are connected to each other. By using an argument map, you can better understand the strength of your argument and identify potential weaknesses.

Outline your thesis and your main points and then use the map to create a narrative, either in a problem-solution format or persuasive speech format.

Here is what an argument map to support the building of a park could look like:

Note that the map contains supporting reasons (with backing evidence) and it also includes counter-arguments and their rebuttals.

You can then use this argument map for creating your talking points in one of the formats below.

Problem-solution format

• PROBLEM-SOLUTION format :

In this format, you should first outline a problem, and then present a solution to that problem. This can be a highly effective way of framing an argument, as it helps the audience to see the value of your proposed solution.

The problem-solution format is a common way of structuring an argument, particularly when the goal is to persuade the audience to take action on a particular issue . Here is a typical structure for a problem-solution format:

• Introduction : In the introduction, you should introduce the problem you will be addressing, and provide some background information to help the audience understand the issue. This might include statistics, personal anecdotes, or news stories that highlight the severity of the problem.
• Problem : In this section, you should describe the problem in more detail, highlighting its causes and effects. You might also discuss why the problem is particularly important, and what the consequences might be if it is not addressed.
• Solution : In this section, you should present your proposed solution to the problem. This might include a specific policy proposal, a call to action for individuals, or a description of a program or initiative that you believe could help to address the problem. Use the argument map points already drafted at the previous step.
• Benefits : In this section, you should describe the benefits of your proposed solution. This might include the positive impact it could have on individuals or communities, the economic benefits of addressing the problem, or the social benefits of promoting a particular solution.
• Objections : In this section, you should anticipate potential objections to your proposed solution, and provide counter-arguments to address these objections. This can help to strengthen your argument and make it more persuasive.
• Conclusion : In the conclusion, you should summarize your argument and urge the audience to take action. This might include a call to contact their elected officials, donate to a particular organization, or take some other concrete step to address the problem.

By following this structure, you can present a clear and compelling argument that highlights the urgency of the issue at hand.

Persuasive speech format

• PERSUASIVE SPEECH format :

In a persuasive speech, the speaker presents an argument in a structured way, using clear transitions between different parts of the argument. This format typically includes an introduction, a body where the main points are presented and supported, and a conclusion that summarizes the argument and urges the audience to take action.

The persuasive speech format is a common way of structuring an argument, particularly when the goal is to persuade the audience to take action or change their beliefs about a particular issue. Here is a typical structure for a persuasive speech format:

• Introduction : In the introduction, you should grab the audience’s attention with a strong opening statement, and provide some background information on the topic you will be addressing. You should also introduce your main argument or thesis statement .
• Body : In the body of your speech, you should present your main points in a structured way, using clear transitions to move between different parts of the argument. Each point should be supported with evidence, such as data, research studies, or expert opinions. If you’ve already built your argument map, you should use the points you already drafted there.

Here is the breakdown of the body section:

a. Point 1: In this section, you should present your first main point, and support it with evidence.

b. Point 2: In this section, you should present your second main point, and support it with evidence.

c. Point 3: In this section, you should present your third main point, and support it with evidence.

d. Transition: After presenting your main points, you should transition to the conclusion of your speech.

• Counter-arguments : In this section, you should address potential counter-arguments that your audience may raise. This can help to strengthen your argument and make it more persuasive.
• Conclusion : In the conclusion, you should summarize your main points and restate your thesis statement. You should also provide a call to action, urging the audience to take a specific action or change their beliefs about the issue.

By following this structure, you can present a clear and compelling argument that is well-supported with evidence, and that effectively persuades your audience to take action or change their beliefs.

No matter which format you choose, the key to presenting and defending your argument effectively is to be clear , concise , and well-prepared . By taking the time to structure your argument effectively, and anticipating potential counter-arguments, you can increase your chances of success and ensure that your message is heard and understood by your audience.

Presenting the argument

Once you have prepared and structured your argument, the next step is to present it in a way that engages the audience and effectively communicates your message.

Here are some techniques for presenting an argument effectively:

• Use persuasive language : Using strong, clear language can help to make your argument more persuasive. Use active voice, avoid jargon or technical language, and be concise.

For example:

• Instead of saying “The project will be completed in six months,” say “We will finish the project in six months.”

• Instead of using technical jargon, use simple language that can be easily understood by your audience. For example, instead of saying “We need to optimize the performance of our data processing pipeline,” say “We need to make our data processing faster and more efficient.”

02. Use strong, descriptive language that paints a clear picture in the minds of your audience.

For example, instead of saying “Our product is good,” say “Our product is the best on the market and will revolutionize the way you work.”

• Utilize visual aids : Visual aids such as charts, graphs, and images can help to reinforce your argument and make it more memorable. Use them sparingly, and make sure they are easy to read and understand.

For example, if you are making a presentation on the benefits of a new product, you can use a chart to illustrate the increase in sales revenue since the product was introduced.

You could also use the argument map already prepared previously to organize and visually display the logical structure of your argument.

• Tell a story : Using storytelling techniques can be an effective way to engage the audience and make your argument more relatable. Use personal anecdotes, metaphors, or case studies to illustrate your points and make them more memorable.

For example, when presenting a proposal to implement a new initiative at work, you could begin by sharing a personal story of a time when a similar initiative was successfully implemented in a different organization, and the positive impact it had on the employees and the company’s overall success. This story could help to create an emotional connection with the audience and build support for your proposal.

You could also use case studies of other organizations that have implemented similar initiatives, and show the tangible benefits they have seen as a result. This approach can help to make your argument more concrete and relatable, and make it easier for the audience to understand the potential benefits of your proposal.

• Use humour : Humour can be a powerful tool for engaging the audience and making your argument more memorable. Use it sparingly, and make sure it is appropriate for the context.

Suppose you’re presenting an argument in favour of a healthier diet. You could start by saying something like, “I used to think that kale was just a decoration on my plate at restaurants. But then I tried it and realized it’s actually a vegetable.” This can get a chuckle from the audience and help to make your point in a more relatable way. From there, you could go on to discuss the benefits of incorporating more fruits and vegetables into one’s diet.

• Engage the audience : Engaging the audience can help to build rapport and create a sense of connection. Ask questions, use rhetorical devices such as repetition or parallelism, and make eye contact to create a sense of intimacy.

Here are some examples you can use to engage your audience:

• Ask a question that requires a show of hands, such as “How many of you have ever experienced this situation?” This creates a sense of participation and involvement.
• Use rhetorical questions to make the audience think and engage with the topic. For example, “What would happen if we continue to ignore this issue?”
• Use repetition to emphasize key points and make them more memorable. For example, “We need to act now, we need to act fast, and we need to act together.”
• Make eye contact with the audience to create a sense of intimacy and connection. This can help to build trust and credibility.

By using these techniques, you can present your argument in a way that is engaging, memorable, and persuasive. Remember to practice your presentation beforehand, and to anticipate potential questions or objections that the audience may raise. By being well-prepared and confident in your argument, you can effectively defend your position and persuade others to see things your way.

Defending the argument

Defending your argument is just as important as presenting it. Here are some strategies for effectively defending your argument:

• Use evidence and logical reasoning : Evidence and logical reasoning are key to making a strong argument. Use relevant facts, statistics, and examples to support your position, and use logical reasoning to connect your evidence to your main claim.

For example, in a business setting, you may be presenting a proposal for a new product or strategy. To effectively persuade your audience, you can use data to support the potential success of your idea. You can present market research, customer feedback, or industry trends to demonstrate that your proposal is not only feasible but also profitable.

Additionally, you can use logical reasoning to explain how your proposal aligns with the company’s goals and values, and how it can address any potential challenges or concerns.

By using evidence and logical reasoning, you can build a convincing argument that is grounded in facts and reason.

• Anticipate objections : Anticipating objections can help you to prepare effective counter-arguments. Put yourself in the shoes of your opponent and try to think of potential objections or counter-arguments they may raise. Be prepared to address these objections with evidence and logical reasoning.

Here is how you can anticipate objections in the context of building a new park in a community.

For example someone may object to the new park on the basis that it will increase traffic and noise in the area. In response to this objection, you could anticipate this concern and address it by presenting evidence that the park’s design includes traffic-calming measures such as speed bumps and traffic lights, and that noise from the park will be managed through measures like the installation of sound barriers. By anticipating and addressing this objection in advance, it can help to alleviate concerns and increase the likelihood of gaining support for the park’s construction.

• Avoid fallacies : Fallacies are errors in reasoning that can weaken your argument. Common fallacies include ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and false dichotomies. Be aware of these fallacies and avoid them in your argument.
• Ad hominem : Attacking the character or personal traits of your opponent instead of addressing their argument. For example, saying “You can’t trust John’s opinion on the park proposal because he’s not even a resident of this city.”
• Straw man : Misrepresenting your opponent’s argument in order to make it easier to attack. For example, saying “Opponents of the park just want to pave over all the green space in the city and turn it into a concrete jungle.”
• False dichotomy : Presenting only two options when there are actually more. For example, saying “We can either build the park or let the land sit unused forever.” When in reality, there may be other alternatives.

In any context (including that of building a new park), it’s important to avoid these fallacies in order to make a strong, persuasive argument. By staying focused on the facts and avoiding personal attacks or misrepresentations, you can demonstrate the value of your proposal in a clear and compelling way.

• Acknowledge the opponent’s views : Acknowledging your opponent’s views can help to build credibility and create a sense of respect. Even if you disagree with their position, try to understand their perspective and acknowledge the points that they make.

Let’s use the example of proposing a new product to a potential market: if your opponents argue that the product may not appeal to the new market, you can acknowledge their concern and provide evidence that shows the product’s success in similar markets. This approach demonstrates that you have considered their viewpoint and have a well-researched argument.

Additionally, you can acknowledge that there may be challenges in introducing a new product to a new market, and propose a plan to address these challenges, such as market research, targeted advertising, or partnerships with local businesses.

By acknowledging your opponent’s views and addressing their concerns, you can build credibility and increase the likelihood of a successful proposal.

• Provide alternative evidence or counter-examples : Providing alternative evidence or counter-examples can help to strengthen your argument and refute counter-arguments. Use relevant facts, statistics, or examples to support your position and show why your argument is more persuasive.

Here are some examples that might inspire you:

• If someone argues that all processed foods are unhealthy, you can provide examples of processed foods that are actually healthy, such as fortified breakfast cereals or packaged fruits and vegetables.
• If someone argues that organic foods are too expensive, you can provide evidence that shows that the long-term health benefits of consuming organic foods outweigh the initial cost, such as reduced medical expenses and improved quality of life.
• If someone argues that renewable energy sources like solar and wind are unreliable, you can provide examples of successful implementation of renewable energy in other countries, as well as statistics showing that the cost of renewable energy is decreasing while the reliability is increasing.

By using these strategies, you can effectively defend your argument and persuade others to see things your way. Remember to stay calm and composed, and to avoid getting defensive or emotional. By remaining confident and logical, you can effectively defend your argument and convince others to accept your position.

Dealing with emotional reactions

Presenting and defending an argument can be an emotional process, for both the speaker and the audience.

Here are some tips for managing emotional reactions:

• Stay calm and respectful : If you encounter emotional reactions during your presentation or defense, it’s important to stay calm and respectful. Avoid getting defensive or angry, and try to remain objective and rational in your responses.

An interesting example is if you are presenting an argument in a public setting, and a member of the audience interrupts you with a personal attack or insult. In this situation, it can be tempting to respond with a similar attack or to become defensive, but this will only escalate the situation and detract from the argument being presented. Instead, you should calmly address the interruption and steer the conversation back to the topic at hand. For example, you could say something like, “I understand that this is a sensitive topic, but let’s focus on the facts and evidence at hand to have a productive discussion.” By staying calm and respectful, you can maintain credibility and effectively defend your position.

• Use empathetic language : Using empathetic language can help to defuse emotional reactions and create a sense of understanding. Show that you understand the emotions of the audience or your opponent, and use language that demonstrates your empathy and compassion.

A good example is when you are discussing a controversial topic such as abortion. Instead of using language that might be perceived as attacking or dismissive, use empathetic language that acknowledges the emotional weight of the issue for both sides. For instance, saying “I understand that this is a deeply personal and emotional issue for many people” can help to create a more respectful and productive conversation, rather than immediately diving into arguments and counter-arguments.

• Recognize and address underlying issues : Sometimes, emotional reactions can be a sign of underlying issues that are not directly related to your argument. If you sense that there are deeper emotions or issues at play, try to address these concerns in a respectful and empathetic way.

An interesting example is when during a debate on a controversial policy, a member of the audience becomes visibly upset and begins to shout. Instead of ignoring or dismissing their reaction, the speaker takes a moment to acknowledge their emotion and asks if they would like to share their concerns. The audience member then explains that they have personal experience with the issue at hand and feel that their perspective has been ignored. The speaker listens attentively and responds with empathy, acknowledging the validity of their experience and promising to consider it in their argument. By addressing the underlying issue and showing empathy, the speaker is able to defuse the emotional reaction and create a more constructive discussion.

• Take a break if necessary : If emotions become too heated, it may be necessary to take a break and regroup. Allow time for both yourself and the audience to calm down, and resume the discussion when emotions have subsided.

For example, during a meeting with a potential business partner, you may encounter a disagreement about a certain aspect of the partnership. If the conversation becomes heated and emotions start to rise, it may be helpful to take a break. You can suggest taking a short break to allow both parties to gather their thoughts and emotions, and come back to the discussion with a clear head. This can help to prevent the conversation from derailing and allow for a more productive discussion.

Overall, by managing emotional reactions in a calm and respectful manner, you can create a more productive and effective discussion. Remember that emotions are a natural part of the human experience, and that acknowledging and addressing them can lead to better communication and understanding.

The ability to present and defend arguments effectively is crucial, be it in professional settings, political arenas, or personal interactions. These skills of articulating and supporting points persuasively are vital for fostering constructive dialogues and making sound decisions.

Throughout this article, we’ve discussed the key elements of effective argumentation, from understanding the audience and context to presenting and defending the argument itself. We’ve explored different techniques for structuring an argument, engaging the audience, and responding to objections, as well as strategies for managing emotional reactions and maintaining a respectful and productive dialogue.

At its core, effective argumentation is about more than just winning a debate or proving a point. It’s about building trust , fostering understanding , and working towards common goals .

By approaching argumentation with an open mind and a willingness to listen and learn, we can create more meaningful and productive discussions, and ultimately make better decisions.

So the next time you find yourself in a situation where you need to present or defend an argument, remember the tips and techniques discussed in this article.

And always remember that the key to effective argumentation is not just about winning, but about finding common ground and moving forward together.

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The Most Powerful Debate Speech Strategy And Topic Ideas

Hrideep barot.

• Speech Topics

Welcome to the exciting world of debate speech and topics! Forget the fancy jargon; let’s talk about how debates aren’t just about winning arguments. Picture it as a journey where we explore ideas and connect. We’re not just tossing words around; we’re diving into the core of what makes us tick.

Think of debates as more than just convincing speeches. They’re like a doorway to understanding and connecting with people. It all begins with a strong start – our introduction. It’s not just about capturing attention; it’s about inviting everyone into a space where ideas clash and minds expand.

In this space, words aren’t just tools; they’re the architects of who we are becoming. Our journey is more than winning debates; it’s about developing critical thinking, becoming great communicators, and understanding each other better. So, let’s kick off this adventure together, where the magic of debate isn’t just in the words we say but in how they shape us along the way.

11 Greatest Debate Topics Of All Time.

• How To Write a Debate Speech?

Ways In which Debate Helps Shape Overall Personality.

10 powerful debate strategies which can never go wrong. .

•  Conclusion. 

1. The Existence of a Higher Power: God vs. Atheism

Theological Arguments: Explore philosophical and theological arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments.

Scientific Perspectives: Consider scientific perspectives that challenge traditional religious beliefs, including evolutionary theory and the Big Bang theory.

Personal Beliefs: Discuss the role of personal experiences and beliefs in shaping one’s stance on the existence of a higher power.

2. Freedom of Speech vs. Hate Speech Laws

Importance of Free Expression: Discuss the fundamental value of free expression in a democratic society and its role in fostering diversity of thought.

Harm Principle: Explore the harm principle as a criterion for limiting speech and the ethical considerations in regulating hate speech.

Balancing Rights: Consider the challenges in striking a balance between protecting individual rights and preventing harm to marginalized communities.

3. Legalization of Recreational Drugs: Pros and Cons

Individual Liberty: Discuss the argument for individual liberty, asserting that adults should have the autonomy to make choices about their bodies.

Public Health Concerns: Explore the potential negative impacts of drug legalization on public health and societal well-being.

Economic Implications: Consider the economic implications, including potential tax revenue and job creation, associated with the legalization of recreational drugs.

4. Climate Change: Human-Made vs. Natural Causes

Scientific Consensus: Examine the overwhelming scientific consensus supporting the idea that human activities contribute significantly to climate change.

Skeptic Perspectives: Discuss skeptical views that challenge the extent of human impact on climate change, considering natural climate variations.

Policy Implications: Explore the policy implications of different perspectives, including the urgency for mitigation and adaptation measures.

5. Capital Punishment: Morality and Deterrence

Retribution and Justice: Discuss the concept of retribution and whether capital punishment serves as a just response to heinous crimes.

Deterrence Effect: Examine the debate over the deterrent effect of capital punishment on potential criminals.

Risk of Wrongful Execution: Consider the ethical implications of the potential for wrongful executions and the irreversible nature of the death penalty.

6. Immigration Policies: Open Borders vs. Strict Control

Economic Contributions: Discuss the economic benefits of immigration, including contributions to the labor force and entrepreneurship.

National Security Concerns: Explore concerns related to national security, public resources, and the potential strain on social services.

Humanitarian Considerations: Consider the moral and humanitarian aspects of providing refuge to those fleeing violence or seeking a better life.

7. Assisted Suicide: Right to Die vs. Sanctity of Life

Autonomy and Dignity: Discuss the principle of autonomy and an individual’s right to make decisions about their own life, including the choice of assisted suicide.

Ethical and Religious Perspectives: Examine ethical and religious perspectives that emphasize the sanctity of life and the moral implications of assisted suicide.

Legal Implications: Consider the legal frameworks and ethical guidelines surrounding assisted suicide in different jurisdictions.

8. Privacy in the Digital Age: Security vs. Individual Rights

Surveillance Technologies: Explore the capabilities and implications of modern surveillance technologies, including mass data collection and facial recognition.

National Security Justifications: Discuss arguments that support increased surveillance for national security purposes, especially in the context of preventing terrorism.

Individual Privacy Concerns: Examine concerns related to the erosion of individual privacy rights, data breaches, and the potential for abuse of surveillance powers.

9. Universal Basic Income: Reducing Inequality vs. Economic Sustainability

Poverty Alleviation: Discuss the potential of a universal basic income (UBI) to alleviate poverty and provide financial stability to all citizens.

Economic Viability: Explore concerns about the economic feasibility and sustainability of implementing UBI, including potential impacts on workforce participation.

Social and Economic Equity: Consider how UBI might address systemic inequalities and contribute to a more equitable distribution of resources.

10. Censorship in the Arts: Protecting Morality vs. Freedom of Expression

Artistic Freedom: Discuss the importance of artistic freedom as a form of expression and creativity.

Moral and Cultural Sensitivities: Explore the need for censorship to protect societal values, moral standards, and cultural sensitivities.

Role of Cultural Context: Consider how cultural context and shifting societal norms influence the boundaries of artistic expression.

11. Animal Testing: Scientific Advancement vs. Animal Rights

Scientific Progress: Discuss the contributions of animal testing to scientific and medical advancements, including the development of new treatments and pharmaceuticals.

Ethical Treatment of Animals: Examine the ethical considerations surrounding the use of animals in research, focusing on animal rights, welfare, and alternatives to testing.

Balancing Interests: Explore the challenge of balancing scientific progress with the ethical treatment of animals, seeking common ground that respects both human and animal interests.

These elaborations provide a more in-depth understanding of each controversial debate topic, touching on various perspectives, considerations, and implications associated with each issue. Each topic reflects a complex interplay of values, ethics, and practical considerations that make them enduring subjects of discussion and debate.

How To Write A Debate Speech ?

Introduction: grabbing attention.

Begin your debate speech with a captivating introduction to immediately capture the audience’s interest. Consider using a powerful quote, a relevant anecdote, or a surprising fact related to your topic. The goal is to create an immediate connection with your listeners and set the stage for the discussion that follows. Make it clear why the topic is important and worthy of their attention. You might also include a brief overview of the main points you will cover to provide a roadmap for your audience.

Thesis Statement: Clearly State Your Position

Craft a concise and compelling thesis statement that communicates your stance on the topic. This statement should serve as the central point around which your entire speech revolves. Take the opportunity to highlight the significance of your position and why it is the most rational or ethical perspective. Additionally, consider briefly acknowledging the existence of opposing views to demonstrate your awareness of the complexity of the issue.

Main Arguments: Develop Strong Points

For each main argument, delve into detailed explanations supported by robust evidence. This evidence could include relevant research findings, real-life examples, or historical precedents. Be sure to explain the logical connections between your points and the overall thesis. Use persuasive language to underscore the importance of each argument, making it clear why the audience should find your perspective compelling.

Addressing Counter Arguments: Anticipate and Refute

Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the opposing viewpoint by anticipating counterarguments. Acknowledge these counterarguments respectfully before providing well-reasoned and persuasive refutations. This not only strengthens your position but also shows intellectual honesty and a willingness to engage with diverse perspectives. Use facts, logic, and reasoning to effectively dismantle counterarguments, leaving your audience with a sense of the robustness of your position.

Emphasize Impact: Appeal to Emotions and Values

While presenting your arguments, strategically incorporate emotional appeals to resonate with your audience. Share relatable stories, connect your points to shared values, and use language that evokes an emotional response. This not only adds depth to your speech but also helps create a memorable and impactful impression. A balance between logic and emotion can make your arguments more persuasive and relatable.

Use Persuasive Language: Enhance Convincing Power

Employ a variety of rhetorical devices and persuasive language techniques to enhance the power of your speech. Metaphors, analogies, and vivid language can make complex ideas more accessible and memorable. Consider using repetition to emphasize key points and create a rhythmic flow in your speech. Aim for clarity and precision in your language to ensure that your audience easily grasps the nuances of your arguments.

Maintain Clarity and Organization: Structured Delivery

Organize your speech in a clear and logical structure to facilitate easy comprehension. Begin with a strong introduction, followed by a clear progression of main points. Use transitions between ideas to maintain coherence and guide your audience through the flow of your arguments. A well-structured speech not only aids understanding but also enhances the overall impact of your message.

Engage the Audience: Foster Connection

Encourage active engagement by incorporating rhetorical questions, interactive elements, or moments of audience participation. Foster a sense of connection by speaking directly to the concerns and interests of your listeners. Consider using relatable examples of anecdotes that resonate with the experiences of your audience. Engaging your listeners in this way can create a more dynamic and memorable speech.

Conclusion: Reinforce Your Message

In your conclusion, re-emphasize the key points of your speech and restate your thesis with conviction. Summarize the main arguments in a way that reinforces your overall message. Conclude with a powerful and memorable statement that leaves a lasting impression on your audience. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion; instead, focus on leaving a strong and final impact that reinforces the significance of your position.

Q&A Preparation: Be Ready for Questions

Anticipate potential questions that may arise from your audience and prepare thoughtful and well-reasoned responses. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of your topic and the ability to address inquiries with confidence adds credibility to your overall presentation. Consider practicing responses to common questions to refine your ability to articulate your position effectively. During the Q&A session, maintain composure and be open to constructive dialogue, further showcasing your expertise and conviction.

Remember, the key to a successful debate speech lies not only in the strength of your arguments but also in your ability to connect with and persuade your audience. Regular practice, feedback, and a genuine passion for your topic will contribute to a compelling and influential presentation.

Check this out to learn about public speaking and debate differences. 

Critical Thinking Skills:

Engaging in debates cultivates critical thinking by training individuals to analyze information rigorously. Debaters learn to identify key arguments, evaluate evidence, and discern logical connections. This process enhances their ability to approach complex issues with a discerning and analytical mindset.

Effective Communication:

Debate serves as a powerful platform for honing effective communication skills. Participants develop the art of articulation, mastering the ability to express ideas clearly and persuasively. Regular exposure to public speaking opportunities not only boosts confidence but also refines the delivery of compelling messages.

Check this out to learn how to deliver a memorable speech:

Research and Information Retrieval:

Debates foster strong research skills as individuals delve into diverse topics, evaluate sources, and synthesize information effectively. This process not only enhances information literacy but also teaches valuable skills in data analysis and interpretation.

Empathy and Understanding:

The nature of debates, where participants engage with a variety of viewpoints, promotes empathy and a deeper understanding of different perspectives. Exposure to diverse opinions encourages individuals to appreciate cultural nuances and fosters a more inclusive worldview.

Conflict Resolution Skills:

Debates contribute to the development of conflict resolution skills by emphasizing constructive dialogue and negotiation. Participants learn to navigate differences of opinion, seek common ground, and work towards resolutions collaboratively.

Leadership Qualities:

Active participation in debates fosters leadership qualities such as confidence and initiative. Debaters often take charge of researching, organizing arguments, and leading team efforts, contributing to the development of effective leadership skills.

Time Management:

The time constraints inherent in debates teach individuals to prioritize information effectively. Participants learn to cover multiple points within a structured timeframe, enhancing their ability to manage time efficiently.

Check this out to learn how to ace a 2-minute speech:

Teamwork and Collaboration:

Debating frequently occurs in team settings, fostering teamwork and collaboration. Participants develop skills in effective communication within teams, resolving conflicts, and achieving collective goals.

Debate, as a structured and disciplined form of discourse, provides a platform for personal growth and the development of a well-rounded personality. It not only enhances cognitive and communication skills but also nurtures qualities such as empathy, adaptability, and ethical decision-making, contributing to the holistic development of individuals.

1. Solid Research And Preparation: The Foundation Of Success

In-Depth Understanding: Devote time to thoroughly understand the nuances of your chosen topic. Conduct extensive research to be well-informed on various aspects of the issue.

Counterargument Anticipation: Anticipate potential counterarguments that opponents might present. This allows you to proactively address opposing views and strengthen your position.

Factual Support: Arm yourself with concrete evidence, facts, and statistics. This not only bolsters your credibility but also adds weight to your arguments.

2. Clear And Concise Communication: Precision Matters

Clarity of Expression: Express your ideas in a straightforward and easy-to-understand manner. Avoid unnecessary complexity that might confuse the audience and dilute your message.

Key Message Emphasis: Emphasize key points with precision. Clearly articulate your thesis and ensure that each supporting argument aligns with and reinforces your central message.

Memorable Language: Use language that is both concise and memorable. Craft statements that leave a lasting impression, making it easier for the audience to recall your key arguments.

3. Active Listening: Addressing Counterarguments Effectively

Attentiveness: Actively listen to your opponents during the debate. Paying close attention allows you to respond effectively and demonstrate respect for differing viewpoints.

Acknowledgment of Valid Points: Acknowledge valid points made by the opposition. This not only showcases your fairness but also allows you to engage in a more constructive and nuanced debate.

Strategic Response: Respond thoughtfully to counterarguments. Be prepared to address opposing views with well-reasoned and compelling rebuttals.

4. Adaptability: Flexibility In The Face Of Challenges

Responsive Approach: Be prepared to adapt your strategy based on the flow of the debate. Flexibility allows you to navigate unexpected turns and respond effectively to evolving circumstances.

Open-Mindedness: Demonstrate an open-minded approach to new information. If presented with compelling evidence, be willing to adjust your stance accordingly.

Strategic Agility: Develop the ability to think on your feet and adjust your arguments and responses as the debate unfolds.

5. Emotional Intelligence: Connecting With Your Audience

Understanding Audience Emotions: Consider the emotions and values of your audience. Tailor your arguments to resonate with the experiences and concerns of the people you are addressing.

Emotional Appeals: Incorporate emotional appeals strategically. Connecting with the audience on an emotional level makes your arguments more relatable and persuasive.

Empathy in Communication: Use empathy to establish a genuine connection. Demonstrate an understanding of the perspectives and emotions of your audience.

6. Confidence And Body Language: Projecting Authority

Confident Posture: Maintain a confident and upright posture throughout the debate. Projecting confidence through body language contributes to your perceived authority.

Eye Contact: Make deliberate and consistent eye contact with the audience and opponents. This not only conveys confidence but also fosters a sense of connection.

Vocal Presence: Ensure a strong and clear vocal presence. Speak with conviction and avoid vocal patterns that may suggest uncertainty.

7. Strategic Use of Time: Maximize Impact

Time Allocation: Strategically allocate your time to cover all key points without rushing. Prioritize high-impact arguments and allocate sufficient time for their presentation.

Strategic Pauses: Use strategic pauses for emphasis. Pauses allow the audience to absorb your points and can add weight to your arguments.

Time Management Skills: Develop effective time management skills to ensure that your speech is well-paced and impactful.

8. Consistency in Messaging: Reinforce Your Core Points

Unified Message: Maintain consistency in your messaging throughout the debate. Reinforce your core arguments and thesis to create a cohesive and unified presentation.

Avoiding Contradictions: Be vigilant about avoiding contradictions in your arguments. Inconsistencies can weaken your overall position and undermine your credibility.

Repetition for Emphasis: Repetition can be used strategically to emphasize key points and ensure that your central message is reinforced.

9. Engage the Audience: Foster Connection and Interest

Relatable Examples: Connect with the audience by using relatable examples and anecdotes. Grounding your arguments in real-life situations makes your message more accessible.

Interactive Elements: Encourage audience engagement through rhetorical questions or interactive elements. Active participation fosters a sense of involvement and interest.

Addressing Audience Concerns: Speak directly to the concerns and interests of your audience. Tailor your arguments to resonate with the experiences and values of those you are addressing.

10. Grace Under Pressure: Navigate Challenges with Composure

Calm Demeanor: Remain calm and composed, especially when faced with challenging questions or counterarguments. A composed demeanor enhances your perceived competence and confidence.

Professionalism: Handle pressure with grace and professionalism. Maintain focus on the substance of your arguments rather than getting derailed by external pressures.

Effective Problem-Solving: Develop effective problem-solving skills to address unexpected challenges. Navigating pressure with composure demonstrates resilience and adaptability.

By incorporating these elaborated strategies into your debating approach, you can enhance your effectiveness, build credibility, and leave a lasting impression on your audience. Continuous practice and refinement will contribute to your growth as a skilled and persuasive debater.

In summary, the world of debate is a transformative journey that extends beyond the exchange of arguments. Crafting a debate speech is more than an exercise in persuasion; it’s an opportunity to refine our ability to connect with others. Exploring profound topics in debates prompts introspection and broadens our understanding of the world.

Powerful debate strategies go beyond winning; they teach us adaptability and the importance of emotional intelligence. It’s not just about presenting arguments; it’s about becoming individuals who can navigate life’s challenges with resilience and grace. Debate shapes our personality in multifaceted ways. It cultivates critical thinking, enhances communication skills, and instills empathy. Engaging with diverse perspectives fosters a more nuanced worldview, contributing to a well-rounded personality.

In essence, the debate is a dynamic and evolving process that leaves an unerasable mark on our character. It’s a journey that molds us into individuals capable of not only articulating ideas persuasively but also of connecting with others on a deeper level. Through debate, we become architects of our growth, equipped with the skills and perspectives needed to thrive in the ever-changing landscape of life.

Dive into this captivating resource! Uncover secrets, gain insights, and embark on a knowledge-packed journey. Your gateway to discovery awaits!

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Argumentative Speeches

Argumentative speech generator.

“Everyone who posts their own opinion is like an expert already.” Take for the example the most recent Philippine national elections. It consisted of five different parties who had their own agenda and own candidate running for president. Months before the elections took place, people have taken up to social media to voice out their opinions on which candidate is the most preferable candidate that would bring the needed change that the Philippines would like to see. Eventually, Rodrigo Duterte won the majority of the vote and remains as the nation’s president until today. You may also see argumentative writings .

• Debate speech examples
• Expository speech examples

Just like persuasive speaking , the goal of argumentative speeches is not giving an audience a wake-up call, but this type persuasive speech attempts to persuade the audience to alter their viewpoints on a controversial issue. Argumentative speeches aim to radically the opinions already held by the audience. This type of speech is extremely challenging; therefore, the speaker should be careful to choose a topic which he or she feels prepared to reinforce with a strong argument.

What is Argumentative Speeches?

Argumentative Speech Bundle Download

Argumentative Speech Format

1. introduction.

Hook : Capture the audience’s attention. Thesis Statement : Clearly state your main argument. Preview : Briefly outline the main points.

Point 1 : Present your first major point with supporting evidence.   Point 2 : Present your second major point with supporting evidence.   Point 3 : Present your third major point with supporting evidence.   Counterarguments : Address and refute opposing viewpoints.

3. Conclusion

Summary : Summarize the main points.   Restate Thesis : Reinforce your thesis in light of the evidence.   Call to Action : Encourage the audience to take a specific action or adopt your viewpoint.

Argumentative Speech Example

Introduction Good morning everyone! Imagine a world where everyone has access to clean water. Unfortunately, this is not the reality for millions of people today. Access to clean water should be a fundamental human right. Today, I will discuss the health, educational, and economic impacts of clean water and why it is essential for everyone.   Body Point 1: Health Clean water is essential for health and survival. Contaminated water leads to numerous diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid. According to the World Health Organization, over 2 billion people drink water contaminated with feces, leading to millions of deaths each year. Ensuring access to clean water can drastically reduce these health risks and save lives.   Point 2: Education Access to clean water can improve educational outcomes. When children have clean water, they are healthier and more likely to attend school regularly. UNICEF reports that children lose 443 million school days each year due to water-related illnesses. By providing clean water, we can help students stay healthy and focused on their education.   Point 3: Economy Economically, clean water access boosts productivity and reduces healthcare costs. In areas with clean water, people spend less time sick or fetching water and more time working and contributing to the economy. The World Bank estimates that every dollar invested in clean water and sanitation returns four dollars in economic benefits.   Counterarguments Some argue that providing clean water universally is too expensive. However, investing in clean water infrastructure saves money in the long run by reducing healthcare costs and improving productivity. Moreover, the moral and ethical obligation to ensure everyone has access to clean water outweighs the financial cost.   Conclusion In conclusion, clean water is essential for health, education, and economic productivity. It is a fundamental human right that we must prioritize. By ensuring access to clean water, we can save lives, improve education, and boost economies. Let’s take action today to make clean water accessible to everyone. Thank you for listening.  

Short Argumentative Speech Example

Introduction Good morning everyone! Imagine a world where everyone has access to clean water. Sadly, this is not the reality for millions of people. Access to clean water should be a fundamental human right. Today, I will discuss why clean water is crucial for health, education, and the economy.   Body Health Clean water is vital for health. Contaminated water causes diseases like cholera and typhoid. The World Health Organization reports that over 2 billion people drink unsafe water, leading to millions of deaths each year. Ensuring clean water access can save countless lives.   Education Clean water improves education. Healthy children attend school more regularly. UNICEF states that children lose 443 million school days annually due to water-related illnesses. Providing clean water keeps students in school and enhances their learning.   Economy Clean water boosts the economy. It reduces healthcare costs and increases productivity. The World Bank estimates that every dollar invested in clean water returns four dollars in economic benefits. Investing in clean water infrastructure is both ethical and economically sound.   Counterargument Some argue that universal clean water access is too expensive. However, the long-term savings in healthcare and the boost in productivity far outweigh the initial costs. We have a moral duty to ensure everyone has clean water.   Conclusion In conclusion, clean water is essential for health, education, and the economy. It is a basic human right that we must prioritize. Let’s take action today to ensure everyone has access to clean water. Thank you for listening.  

• Argumentative Speech for Students

• Argumentative Speech for High School

• Argumentative Speech on Social Media

More Argumentative Speech Topics

• Argumentative Speech about Education
• Argumentative Speech about Bullying
• Argumentative Speech on Social Issues

How to Write Argumentative Speech

Hook : Start with a statement or question that grabs attention.

Thesis Statement : Clearly state your position on the issue.

Preview : Briefly outline the main points you will discuss.

Point 1 : Present your first major point with supporting evidence.

Point 2 : Present your second major point with supporting evidence.

Point 3 : Present your third major point with supporting evidence.

Counterarguments : Address and refute opposing viewpoints.

Summary : Recap the main points of your argument.

Restate Thesis : Reinforce your thesis statement.

Call to Action : Encourage the audience to take action or adopt your viewpoint.

Uses of Argumentative Speech

• Debates : In formal debates, participants use argumentative speeches to present their stance on a given topic. They aim to convince judges and the audience by presenting well-structured arguments, backed by evidence and logical reasoning, while refuting the opposing side’s points.
• Political Campaigns : Politicians use argumentative speeches to persuade voters to support their policies and candidacy. By addressing key issues, presenting solutions, and countering opponents’ arguments, they aim to garner public support and win elections.
• Legal Proceedings : Lawyers use argumentative speeches in courtrooms to advocate for their clients. They present evidence, construct logical arguments, and address counterarguments to persuade the judge or jury to rule in their favor.
• Public Policy Advocacy : Activists and advocates use argumentative speeches to promote policy changes. They present data, personal stories, and logical arguments to persuade lawmakers and the public to support their cause.
• Academic Settings : Students use argumentative speeches in classroom debates and presentations to develop critical thinking and persuasive skills. These speeches help them learn to construct logical arguments and defend their viewpoints effectively.
• Business Presentations : In the business world, professionals use argumentative speeches to persuade stakeholders, investors, or clients to support projects, investments, or business strategies. By presenting clear arguments and evidence, they aim to influence decision-making.
• Social and Community Issues : Community leaders and activists use argumentative speeches to address social issues and mobilize support for community initiatives. They aim to raise awareness, change public opinion, and encourage collective action.
• Environmental Advocacy : Environmentalists use argumentative speeches to promote sustainability and conservation efforts. They present scientific data and logical arguments to persuade the public and policymakers to take action on environmental issues.
• Educational Outreach : Educators and speakers use argumentative speeches to inform and persuade audiences about important topics, such as health, safety, and social justice. These speeches aim to educate and inspire change.
• Media and Journalism : Journalists and media personalities use argumentative speeches in opinion pieces and editorials to influence public opinion. They present well-reasoned arguments on current events and issues to persuade their audience.

Making Claims in Argumentative Speaking

In developing a good argumentative speech, it is crucial to have solid claims and basis for your arguments. Taken from  Speech Communication,  Raymond S. Ross clarifies the following definitions present in an argumentative speech:

Claim:   The whole reason for your arguing in the first place. This is based on your opinion.

Grounds:   This is purely based on research. Facts, tables, statistical data, proof of evidence. If you have no grounds to support your claims whatsoever, you will be seen as an ignorant blabbermouth just stating random things without proof. You may also see  speech examples .

Argumentative speeches can be based on the following: a claim of fact, a claim of value, or a claim of policy.

A claim of fact   starts with an incident or a reality that is based on evidence.

A claim of value   is a belief that something is good or bad, right or wrong.

A claim of policy   is a claim that recommends the course of action.

Argumentation requires a firm stand on the positive or a negative side of the said issue. After all, the goal is not to win over your audience, but to dominate the argument as it requires the speakers to not only present their side of the issue, but to also present it with substantial evidence in making the said claim. Argumentative speaking can be carried out in debates. You may also see  motivational speech .

As you organize your said speech, you should have your strongest arguments at the first and the last sentence of your speech. First impressions among the audience are just as important as your closing statement directed to them. It is also important to avoid personal attacks. If you believe in “karma”, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to you once you engage in a fight with someone. After all, what goes around comes around. You may also see  appreciation speech .

Once you start with derogatory remarks and baseless accusations will eventually discredit you as a speaker and you will lose the trust of your audience. Get straight to the point and make use of practicalities in your speech. Don’t beat around the bush too much otherwise, you will lose the interest and the impact you might have with the crowd. You may also see  welcome speech .

Essential Components of an Argumentative Speech:

With the dominating over the argument as the main goal of an argumentative speech in the first place, it is important to understand the components that encompass the said speech in the first place. Listed below are four essential parts of an argumentative speech:

1. Find for a debatable topic

Although it can really be just any topic, make sure that it clearly has both the affirmative and negative side to remain impartial and unbiased to just a single viewpoint. For example, do pineapples really go on pizza?

2. Pick a side

If you have the option to pick a side, that is great as you have picked with a side that is most suited to your beliefs and perceptions about that certain issue. But if not, you will just have to stick with what is given to you and make the most of it. Once you stick with that certain side, make sure to provide all related information surrounding that issue, otherwise, it would confuse the audience on what side you truly belong to. You may also see  appreciation speech .

3. Give some supportable arguments

Research, research, research! And afterwards, conduct more research and verify the gathered data. It cannot be simply your opinions alone, you have to try to include the opinions of other people as well, what other people have to say about it, by providing figures and data that is relevant. Nobody likes an unsupported argument with baseless hearsay. You may also  welcome speech .

4. Refute alternate positions

When an argument is being thrown at you, you learn to throw one back. Are you just going to let the opposing party trample over your side of the argument like a powerless ant? Or, are you going to put up a fight by throwing in arguments of your own? In doing so, you have to provide supporting facts that support your argument. You may also see  leadership speech .

Tips for delivering an argumentative speech:

• Search for a concrete and controversial argument to use as your base.
• Arrange your points properly from the first to the last. If it’s in a debate setting, you normally would be assigned to teams of four (first speaker to third speaker, and the person who summarizes everything). Try to coordinate with your members on what points each person would like to throw to the opposition.
• Sacrifice most of your time and effort for research. All that preparation will have been for nothing, if it is baseless.

Why is an argumentative speech important?

It develops critical thinking, persuasive skills, and the ability to present and defend a viewpoint logically.

How do you choose a topic for an argumentative speech?

Choose a topic that is controversial, interesting, and has sufficient evidence available to support your argument.

What are the key components of an argumentative speech?

An argumentative speech includes an introduction, clear thesis, body with supporting evidence, counterarguments, and a conclusion.

How do you structure an argumentative speech?

Begin with an introduction, state your thesis, provide evidence and reasoning in the body, address counterarguments, and conclude effectively.

What makes a strong thesis statement in an argumentative speech?

A strong thesis is clear, specific, and presents a debatable stance that guides the direction of your speech.

How do you gather evidence for an argumentative speech?

Use reliable sources such as academic articles, books, reputable websites, and expert opinions to gather evidence.

Why is addressing counterarguments important?

Addressing counterarguments strengthens your position by demonstrating awareness and refuting opposing viewpoints.

How do you refute counterarguments in an argumentative speech?

Refute counterarguments by presenting evidence and logical reasoning that disproves or diminishes the opposing viewpoints.

What role does the introduction play in an argumentative speech?

The introduction grabs attention, introduces the topic, and states the thesis clearly.

How do you conclude an argumentative speech?

Summarize key points, restate the thesis in light of the evidence presented, and end with a strong closing statement.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Write an Argumentative Speech on the necessity of renewable energy.

Create an Argumentative Speech advocating for universal healthcare.

My Speech Class

Public Speaking Tips & Speech Topics

613 Original Argumentative Speech Topics Ideas

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

Argumentative speeches generally concern topics which are currently being debated by society , current controversial issues . These topics are often derived from political debates and issues which are commonly seen in the media. The chosen topic may be political, religious, social, or ethical in nature. The audience should be challenged to re-examine their long-held values, and will be asked to alter deeply held convictions based on new evidence or viewpoints on the issue.

Obviously, selecting a topic that is debatable is key to creating an effective speech. The topic should not be something which is generally already proven, or would require an enormous leap of faith or logic in order to convince the audience. The speaker should already possess a strong interest and have a deeply-held opinion on the subject, or else his arguments will probably not come across as believable to the audience.

Topics below are not our personal opinion, they are just samples of a topic. You can flip them to create a different topic. For example, if the topic is “Eating meat and dairy is bad for your body” and you believe the opposite, just make your topic “Eating meat and dairy is good for your body”.

Our list is updated often; huge thank you to all of you who send us topic ideas. Do you have an idea? Use “Send us your idea” form, and we will publish it. And don’t forget to take a look at our extensive list of argumentative essay topics for topics more suited to the written word.

List of Argumentative Speech Topics

Constitutional issues, environment, food and drink, international politics, relationships.

• How poor accounting methods cause businesses to lose money.

See this page for a full list of  Speech Topics for Business .

Can We Write Your Speech?

Get your audience blown away with help from a professional speechwriter. Free proofreading and copy-editing included.

• Does the government have the right to tax its citizens?
• Torture is an acceptable measure to prevent terrorism.
• Banning some books and movies can help society.
• Guns should be made illegal.
• The legal drinking age should be changed to 18 for hard liquor and spirits, and to 16 for beer and wine.
• Should the government be able to access cell phone data?
• Paying waiters a hourly rate below minimum wage is unfair.
• Illegal immigrants are good for the economy.
• Decreasing the wealth tax is good for the economy.
• What caused the recession in the USA?
• Rich people should have tax breaks.
• Should students sometimes teach the class about a subject they are an expert on?
• Should schools offer sign language in addition to foreign languages?
• Any student caught cheating on an examination should be automatically dismissed from college.
• Should there be a dress code to prevent students from wearing revealing clothes?
• Government aid for students should be based purely on academic performance.
• Mobiles phones should be banned in schools for both students and teachers.
• How No Child Left Behind has not been implemented correctly.
• Foreign language instruction should begin in kindergarten.
• College students should have the freedom to choose their own courses.
• Should schools have single sex education?

See this page for a full list of Education Argumentative Speech Topics .

• How the USA can use renewable energy, and what role oil companies can play.
• How renewable energy technologies became economically and politically viable in the late 1990s.
• Destruction of the world’s forest is justified by human need for land and food.
• The racing industry should be forced to use environmentally-friendly fuel.
• The government should support and subsidize alternative energy sources.
• Alternative energy and hybrid vehicles can help save our planet.
• Penalties for crimes against the environment should be tougher.
• Vegetarianism is an ecologically thoughtful lifestyle.
• Has marine engineering increased pollution?
• Working from home is good for the environment.
• Rainforest logging should be banned.
• Hunting is good for the environment.
• The advantages of recycling water.

See this page for a full list of Environmental Argumentative Speech Topics .

• Should celebrities be held to a higher moral standard since they are often viewed as role models by children and teens?
• Convicted prisoners should not have better living conditions than those not in prison.
• Clothing and other items produced using child labor should not be imported and sold in the USA.
• Denying health insurance because of pre-existing conditions violates human rights.
• Using animals for scientific research is inhumane.
• DNA experiments on human embryos are unethical and should not be allowed.
• Zoos, aquariums, and circuses violate animal rights and should be shut down.
• Are beauty pageants exploitive?
• Should scientists bring back extinct species through cloning?
• People should not be allowed to keep exotic animals as pets.
• Should there be world population control?
• Stand up for what is right, even if you stand alone.
• Hunting is unethical and should not be allowed.
• Everyone in the world should have civil rights!
• Do you agree that honesty is the best policy?
• Assassination can never be justified.
• The sale of human organs should be legal.
• Euthanasia is not morally acceptable.
• Euthanasia should be legalized.
• Is human cloning ethical?
• Wearing fur is unethical.
• We shouldn’t eat meat.
• Every family with children filing for divorce must go through a mandatory ‘cooling off’ period.
• Adoptive parents should be legally bound to allow biological parents access to their children.
• Should babies younger than one get their ears pierced?
• Those who want children should take parenting classes and pass tests before having a child.
• Both parents should assume equal responsibility in raising a child.
• Strict parenting raises strong-hearted, resilient kids.
• Why both parents should be a part of their child’s life.
• Do curfews keep teens out of trouble?
• Why children should be respected.
• Should we have to pay to adopt a child?
• Teenagers should have more freedom than younger kids.
• Should kids under 13 be allowed on social media sites?
• Should children get to choose their living environment at age 13?
• Should parents be held responsible for actions of their children?

See this page for a full list of Family Argumentative Speech Topics . We also have a page with Speech Topics for Kids .

• The only difference between normal and organic food is the cost.

See this page for a full list of Speech Topic Ideas On Food, Drink, and Cooking .

• Why veterans should have more government support.
• Should the president have served in the military?
• Is the American criminal justice system racist?
• Democracy is the best form of government.
• Women make better presidents.
• Is our election process fair?
• Tap water is safer than bottled water in countries where the quality of tap water is regulated.
• Breastfeeding is one of the most important things a mother can do for a child.
• Should children born with birth defects have surgery?
• Lapses in food safety result from a complex interplay of factors.
• Should fast food restaurants stop adding chemicals to their food?
• Taxes should be imposed on unhealthy foods to combat obesity.
• GMOs are bad for health and should be avoided at any cost.
• Advertising of prescription drugs should not be allowed.
• Fast food advertisements and promotions should be banned.
• Terminally ill patients should be allowed to use heroin.
• Why people should smile when they’re happy, and pretend they are happy when feeling sad.
• Our identity is shaped by how others view us.
• The benefits of having friends.

See this page for a full list of  Argumentative Speech Topics on Health and Fitness . We also have a page with Medical Topics and Psychology topics.

• Was Mao Zedong a great leader?
• Adolf Hitler was a great leader.
• The negative effects of Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs.”

See this page for a full list of History Speech Topics .

• Is inequality in South Africa a suitable topic to use for public speaking?
• Should the world become one nation and have a council for leadership?
• The war in Iraq was justified.
• Terrorism is a major issue in the world because innocent people are affected.
• Cultural treasures should be returned to their countries of origin.
• Invading other countries, as long as for a good cause, is justified.
• The New Zealand flag should not be changed.
• War is an instrument of foreign policy.
• Driving speed limits should be lifted in areas with a low accident risk.
• People who use file-sharing sites to download content illegally should be found and prosecuted.
• Should the government give tax exemptions to those who drive electric or hybrid vehicles?
• Elderly drivers should be required to take a driving test each year after a certain age.
• Should colleges be allowed to use affirmative action to create a more diverse campus?
• Garbage disposal should not be free to encourage recycling (example: Switzerland).
• Salaries of actors, professional athletes and CEOs should be regulated and capped.
• Any products that are believed to cause cancer should have a warning label.
• Fast food, soda, chips and other unhealthy food should be heavily taxed.
• Making drugs illegal creates an environment for crime and violence.
• Should it be harder to get a divorce?
• Should the death penalty exist?
• Laws to protect the victims of domestic abuse should be enforced.
• Pitbulls and other aggressive dog breeds should not be allowed.
• Gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples.
• Should the EPA make it illegal to modify your car for racing?
• DUI offenders should lose their license for a year.
• Should you have to take a training class to purchase fireworks?
• Workers should get four weeks paid vacation each year.
• Plastic surgery should be illegal for anyone under 18.
• Retirement should be made compulsory at the age of 60.
• Abortions should be legal in cases of rape and incest.
• The cost of prescription drugs should be regulated.
• Couples should be banned from adopting overseas.
• Banning smoking in public places is undemocratic.
• Spaying and neutering pets should be mandatory.
• Minors should be tried for murder at any age.
• Voting should be compulsory for all citizens.
• Illegal immigrants should receive asylum.
• Organ donation should be mandatory.
• Vaccinations should be compulsory.
• Prostitution should be legalized.
• Should abortion be made illegal?
• The smoking age should be lowered.
• The voting age should be lowered.
• Why smoking should be banned.
• Talking on the phone while driving should be banned.
• There should be equal pay for equal work.
• Does Shakespeare romanticize youth suicide in the tragic play Romeo and Juliet?
• Edgar Allen Poe’s career as an author benefitted from his difficult, grief-filled life.
• Popular literature is not as valuable as classical literature.
• Why books are better than their movies.
• Reality television makes people stupid and should be regulated.
• Does media violence lead to behavioral problems?
• TV cop shows are too intense for children.
• Watching television makes people smarter.
• Are kids having too much screen time?
• Is watching TV good or bad for children?
• Has the television become obsolete?
• Reality TV is not reality.
• Vulgar scenes in films should be reduced.
• Can anyone play an instrument with the right materials and instruction?
• The beneficial physiological effects of music.
• Americans should not get involved in conflicts that don’t concern the national interest.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid reform are non-negotiable ways out of the debt crisis.
• Famous people (actors, athletes) should not be allowed to become politicians.
• Is the government doing justice to the taxpayers?
• Does age matter in relationships?
• Social networks are killing sincere relationships.
• Polygamy creates healthy relationships.
• If nothing happens without a cause, then the big bang must have been caused by God.
• Why it is better to have many religions.
• Banning burkhas or other religious clothing is against human rights.
• The world would be more peaceful without religions.
• Churches should be required to pay taxes.
• Are there any alternatives to evolution?
• Religion is a force for evil.

See this page for a full list of  Topics on Religion and Spirituality .

• Mobile phones shouldn’t be allowed at school.
• There is no place for religion in school.
• Technology is a distraction.
• Homework should be scrapped.
• High Schools need armed guards.
• Test scores reflect how good the teacher is.
• Refrain from dating in high school.
• Student ID cards should have tracking devices.
• Random drug tests need to be done in high schools.
• Teachers should also be graded.

See this page for a full list of  School Speech Topics  (Elementary, Middle School, High School).

• Genetically modified food should be the answer to the world’s hunger problem.
• Is Mars the next planet for human habitation?
• The NASA moon landing was a hoax.
• Space exploration is a waste of money.

See this page for a full list of  Science Speech Topics .

• Permits should not be needed to build small, permanent structures in the city of Baldwin.
• Technological progress signifies the decline of human moral, spiritual, and traditional values.
• Men and women face unequal pressure to change their bodies to look good.
• Sexual immorality in our society is a result of the influence of foreign films.
• People are not satisfied with what they have.
• Compulsory military service is good for society and the country.
• Christmas is just a way for businesses to increase sales.
• Billboards should not be allowed on interstate highways.
• Men should be forced to take paternity leave from work.
• Violent video games and toys should not be allowed.

See this page for a full list of Argumentative Society Speech Topics .

• Athletes caught using steroids should be banned from professional sports for life.
• Why cheerleading should be part of the Olympics.
• Why hockey should allow fights.
• Is marching band a sport?
• Is cheerleading a sport?
• Sports should be obligatory at school.

See this page for a full list of  Sports Speech Topics .

• Students should not have to learn cursive because technology is making it irrelevant.
• Social media has changed us for the worse.
• Modern technology has increased material wealth but not happiness.
• Has the internet made research easier and more convenient?
• How nuclear power shaped 21st century electrical generation.
• Technology makes us lose most of our traditions and culture.
• Life was better when technology was more simple.
• Human beings are becoming slaves of modern technology.
• Is the internet a good or a bad thing?
• Technology is making people less creative.
• The positive effects of technology on society.
• Are phones essential?
• Nuclear power is better than solar power.
• New technologies create problems.
• The impact of technology on society.
• How electronics affect our body.
• The pros and cons of Facebook.
• The pros and cons of plastic.
• Are children smarter or more socialized because of the internet?
• Modern offices should have facilities for an afternoon nap.
• Should tattoos be in the workplace?

List of Argumentative Essay Topics

• Dieting makes people fat.
• Romantic love is a poor basis for marriage.
• The war on terror has contributed to the growing abuse of human rights.
• High school graduates should take a year off before entering college.
• All citizens should be required by law to vote.
• All forms of government welfare should be abolished.
• Americans should have more holidays and longer vacation.
• Participating in team sports helps to develop good character.
• The production and sale of cigarettes should be made illegal.
• People have become overly dependent on technology.
• Censorship is sometimes justified.
• Privacy is not the most important right.
• Drunk drivers should be imprisoned on the first offence.
• The lost art of letter-writing deserves to be revived.
• Government and military personnel should have the right to strike.
• Most study-abroad programs should be renamed “party abroad”: they are a waste of time and money.
• The continuing decline of CD sales along with the rapid growth of music downloads signals a new era of innovation in popular music.
• College students should have complete freedom to choose their own courses.
• The solution to the impending crisis in Social Security is the immediate elimination of this anachronistic government program.
• The primary mission of colleges and universities should be preparing students for the workforce.
• Financial incentives should be offered to high school students who perform well on standardizing tests.
• All students in high school and college should be required to take at least two years of a foreign language.
• College students in the U.S. should be offered financial incentives to graduate in three years rather than four.
• College athletes should be exempted from regular class-attendance policies.
• To encourage healthy eating, higher taxes should be imposed on soft drinks and junk food.
• Students should not be required to take physical education courses.
• To conserve fuel and save lives, the 55 miles-per-hour national speed limit should be restored.
• All citizens under the age of 21 should be required to pass a driving education course before receiving a license to drive.
• Freshmen should not be required to purchase a meal plan from the college.
• Zoos are internment camps for animals and should be shut down.
• University students should not be penalized for illegally downloading music, movies, or other protected content.
• Government financial aid for students should be based solely on merit.
• Nontraditional students should be exempted from regular class-attendance policies.
• At the end of each term, student evaluations of faculty should be posted online.
• A student organization should be formed to rescue and care for the feral cats on campus.
• People who contribute to Social Security should have the right to choose how their money is invested.
• Professional baseball players convicted of using performance-enhancing drugs should not be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame.
• Any citizen who does not have a criminal record should be permitted to carry a concealed weapon.
• Is global climate change man-made?
• Do colleges put too much stock in standardized test scores?
• Is torture ever acceptable?
• Should men get paternity leave from work?
• Is a lottery a good idea?
• Do we have a fair taxation system?
• Is cheating out of control?
• Are parents clueless about child predators on the Internet?
• Are cell phones dangerous?
• Are law enforcement cameras an invasion of privacy?
• Are test scores a good indication of a school’s competency?
• Do we have a throw-away society?
• Is child behavior better or worse than it was years ago?
• Should companies market to children?
• Should the government have a say in our diets?
• Does access to condoms prevent teen pregnancy?
• Does access to condoms lead to irresponsible, dangerous, or bad behavior?
• Are actors and professional athletes paid too much?
• Are CEOs paid too much?
• Do violent video games cause behavior problems?
• Should creationism be taught in public schools?
• Should the racing industry be forced to use biofuels?
• When should parents let teens make their own decisions?
• Should the military be allowed to recruit at high schools?
• Should the alcohol drinking age be increased or decreased?
• What age is appropriate for dating?
• Are there benefits to attending a single-sex school?
• Does boredom lead to trouble?
• Does participation in sports keep teens out of trouble?
• Is competition good?
• Does religion cause war?
• Should the government provide health care?
• Should girls ask boys out?
• Is fashion important?
• Are girls too mean to each other?
• Is homework harmful or helpful?
• Should students be allowed to grade their teachers?
• Is college admission too competitive?
• There is no such thing as a superfood!
• American football is better than rugby.
• Abused children grow up to be abusers
• Women priests have further weakened the influence of the church today
• Britain should exit the EU and concentrate on its special relationship with America
• Most asylum seekers are simply seeking a better life
• Who was the better wartime Prime Minister – Churchill or Thatcher?
• Insurance is a waste of money
• North Korea postulates but will never go to war
• Lady Gaga is a better role model than Madonna
• Celebrities adopting multi-racial kids is merely another cog in their publicity wheel
• Sororities do nothing to enhance the cause of womanhood
• All phobias can be cured
• America is seen as a safe haven for victims of persecution from all over the world
• There are more benefits to working in a small company than a large one
• Men do not understand the term “fashionista”
• Scottish independence would be a good thing for the UK
• Seeds are not a health food. They are bird food.
• Government spying on personal communication is an infringement of civil liberty
• Payday loans are the worst financial product ever
• What is the point of massive R&D projects like the Hadron Collider and space exploration when people are starving?
• All immigrants to English speaking countries should pass a test before being allowed rights to settle and be re-tested after 10 years.
• Only the supermarkets win in price wars
• The Burkha is a lasting symbol that Islam is divisive
• Space travel should be a rich man’s plaything and government funds diverted to things that matter
• Pipe smoking is less harmful than cigarette smoking
• Politicians don’t have a “calling” – it is merely a well paid job
• Ireland would be no better if it were one country
• Global warming is just a phase in the planet’s life cycle
• Cigarettes will never be banned completely because Governments couldn’t work without the income they generate
• Beauty pageants are exploitative
• Condoms should be dispensed free in high schools
• Professional athletes are paid too much
• Most schools fail at adequate sex education
• Aids is the forgotten disease now that it affects mainly African countries
• Legalizing some drugs will not combat the scourge
• The legal limit of 21 encourages underage drinking
• Video games do not cause violent behavior: Violence comes from values
• Should creationism be taught in schools
• High school is not competitive enough and does not encourage high standards of achievement in everyone
• CEOS of public service industries are paid too much
• Britain should adopt a new voting system
• In a society that calls for equality, men should receive a decent period of paternity leave
• Torture has a place in the fight against terrorism
• Many parents have no idea of what their child is doing on the computer
• Standardized test scores are not the best indication of a student’s aptitude for a certain course.
• Should we have a national high school exam?
• Is Private school tuition (elementary, high school or college) really worth it?
• Does state wide testing like TAKS/STAAR test in Texas really increase student knowledge?
• Should colleges abolish reliance on SAT and ACT scores in admissions?
• How should our school system in America be reformed?
• Should America adopt an educational system more like Europe?
• What causes students to graduate high school without basic skills?
• How do American students compare with students from other countries?
• What Role should technology play in Education?
• What is the value of a liberal arts education?
• Should students be required to take foreign language courses (or any other type of specific course)?
• Does adding school days really improve learning?
• Should schools continue to spend money on fine arts?
• How should students whose first language is not English be taught in public schools?
• Should college athletes be paid?
• Does smoking help make acquaintances?
• Should students add their teachers as friends on Facebook?
• Is the first impression of a person always right?
• Are conflicts necessary for healthy relationships?
• Should lecture attendance be optional?
• Is business ethics an obsolete concept?
• Should companies try to copy what their competitors do?
• Can businesses learn from their customers’ complaints?
• Should all energy drinks be banned?
• Is China a new superpower?
• Should employees be allowed to use social media sites at work?
• Should companies send ‘happy birthday’ messages to clients?
• Would Shakespeare’s plays be more interesting if shortened?
• Should internet slang, like ‘LOL’ and ‘IMHO’ be included in dictionaries?
• Does the English language need to be simpler?
• Should kids be allowed to draw on walls?
• Do modern schools depend too much on technology?
• Do online students have better chances to cheat?
• Should hospitals use placebo treatments?
• Do innovations really make us lazier?
• Can college athletes be smart?
• Should students have profiles on all major social networks?
• Should people abandon cash and use plastic cards only?
• Should countries have ‘1 car per family’ policies?
• Should we preserve old buildings as historical monuments?
• Are some TV ads objects of art?
• Is music in shopping malls harmful to employees’ wellbeing?
• Can listening to favorite music heal?
• Should journalists who distort the truth to make the news more sensational be punished?
• Should all TV channels have censorship?
• Do SOPA and PIPA make pirates more skilful?
• Is negative PR the secret behind Justin Bieber’s success?
• Should Wikipedia give diplomas to their most faithful readers?
• Can diamonds be girls’ best friends?
• Is the way to a man’s heart through his stomach?
• Should couples live together before marriage?
• Should parents tell their kids stories about birds and bees?
• Can virtual reality be dangerous for kids?
• Can we call any war ‘a peacemaking operation’?
• Is too much political correctness making communication more confusing?
• Are early marriages more likely to end in divorces?
• Do elderly people receive better care in retirement homes than with family members?
• Should hyperactive kids receive treatment?
• Should mind reading during poker games be banned?
• Should parents pass tests before homeschooling their kids?
• Should parents lie to their kids about Santa Claus?
• Does Beavis and Butthead  have a negative impact on youth?
• Is it fair to use the results of standardized tests to define schools’ budgets?
• Are optimism and success infectious?
• Is the Bermuda triangle a creation of our imagination?
• Advertising: Information Or Manipulation?
• Should Affirmative Action Be Abolished?
• Should Minors Be Executed For Murder?
• Should Parents Be Held Responsible For Their Minor’s Crimes?
• Should Gay Clubs Be Allowed In High Schools?
• Should High School Education Be Mandatory?
• Should Affirmative Action be abolished?
• Should schools place more emphasis on disciplining?
• To what extent has the traditional male role changed in the last 20 years?
• Dieting Does Not Help People Lose Weight
• Is gender equality a myth or a sustainable reality?
• Should divorce be harder to obtain?
• Should marijuana be legalized in the United States?
• Should the legalization of marijuana be a state law or left up to the federal government to enforce?
• Are colleges and schools just for either all girls or all boys fair or are they sexist?
• Should corporal punishment be used to punish children?
• Should the US drinking age be lowered or raised from age 21?
• How young is too young to have your own cellphone?
• Should immigrants to the US be required to learn English before being granted citizenship?
• Should those applying for Welfare be drug tested?
• Are fast food chains killing people?
• Should those receiving government assistance have a limit on the number of children they can receive help for?
• Should news reporters be required to share their sources with viewers?
• What role, if any, should the federal government take in dealing with the problem of homelessness?
• Should women also be required to sign up for the draft at age 18 in the US?
• Should those younger than 13 be allowed to have a Facebook or Myspace (or other social networking account)?
• Should public school teachers be randomly drug tested as a condition for employment?
• Is year-round school a good idea or bad?
• Should gay couples be allowed to adopt children?
• Should the families of organ donors be compensated for their loved one’s donation?
• Damage to the environment is an inevitable consequence of worldwide improvements in the standard of living.
• Are famous people treated unfairly by the media? Should they be given more privacy, or is the price of their fame an invasion into their private lives?
• Are women better parents than men?
• Are zoos necessary for education?
• Children learn best by observing the behavior of adults and copying it.
• Children should never be educated at home by their parents.
• Computers can translate all kinds of languages well. Do our children need to learn more languages in the future?
• Advantages and disadvantages of giving international aid to poor countries.
• Do the benefits of study abroad justify the difficulties?
• Do we become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported?
• Does foreign aid helps donor countries more than the recipients?
• Does travel help to promote understanding and communication between countries?
• Education is the single most important factor in the development of a country.
• The destruction of the world’s forests is inevitable as our need for land and food grows.
• A vegetarian diet is as healthy as a diet containing meat.
• If children behave badly, should their parents accept responsibility and also be punished?
• In what ways has information technology changed work and working practices in the past 10 years?
• Should government intervene in the rights of the individual with regard to family planning?
• In your opinion what factors contribute to a good movie?
• Most high level jobs are done by men. Should the government encourage a certain percentage of these jobs to be reserved for women?
• News editors should decide what to broadcast on TV and what to print in newspapers.
• Should developing countries concentrate on improving industrial skills or should they promote education first?
• Should money be spent on space exploration?
• Should retirement be compulsory at 65 years of age?
• Should rich countries forgive all debts for poor countries?
• Should rich countries pay more for environmental damage?
• Should sports classes be dropped in secondary school so students can concentrate on academic subjects?
• Should the same laws which prohibit the sale and consumption of heroin be applied to tobacco?
• To what extent should universities function as training grounds for employment?
• To what extent should university courses be geared to the economic needs of society?
• What are factors which are related to academic success in high-school students?
• What should a government do for a country to become successful?
• Free meals should be provided in every school.
• Citizens should be taxed a percentage to send towards medical research.
• All motor vehicles should be pushed towards electric power.
• Prisoners should be used in the workforce.
• Dieting does more harm than good.
• Chivalry has no place in modern society.
• Sexism is still a major problem in the workplace.
• Government welfare is an excuse for laziness.
• Capitalism is another name for evil.
• National security is an excuse for war.
• 9/11 was an excuse for continuous war.
• Privacy is a luxury not a right.
• The age of consent should be raised.
• The federal government should control the laws of each state.
• Average workplace hours are too long.
• Oppressive regimes shouldn’t be given any monetary aid.
• The death penalty should be reintroduced.
• All people should be allowed to strike.
• The music industry needs to get with the times.
• A college education needs to be about preparing for the world of work.
• There are too many degree options in colleges.
• All citizens should speak a second language.
• People should be encouraged to holiday abroad.
• Restrictions on fuel consumption need to be implemented.
• People should be encouraged to start their own businesses.
• All citizens should dedicate an hour a week to community service.
• Cheating on an examination should be a criminal offense.
• Pornography should be illegal.
• Brothels should be legalised.
• All states should gain equal representation in elections.
• Presidential elections should be held every five years.
• The restriction on consecutive presidential terms should be removed.
• Financial aid shouldn’t be given to people with a criminal record.
• People should have a bigger say in how the country is run.
• The military needs to see major cuts.
• An emphasis on sport in college should be removed.
• Social Security Numbers should be abolished.
• Elderly people shouldn’t drive.
• The rich should pay more tax.
• Tax avoidance should be clamped down upon.
• Essays are not an accurate reflection of a student’s ability.
• There are too many people in the U.S.
• Immigration caps should be tightened.
• Should people be able to choose to have health care or not?
• Are we too dependent on foreign oil?
• Is the education policy ‘No Child Left behind’ working?
• The media affects young children’s minds
• Does the ‘old boy network’ still exist?
• Should prostitution be legalized?
• Divorced parents should always share custody of their children
• Social media is ruining relationships
• Convicted prisoners have a better life in prison than out
• Society and laws are too lenient on Child Sex offenders
• Should racial profiling be legal?
• Are Americans sexual prudes?
• Is euthanasia inhumane?
• Is Michael Jordan the best basketball player of all time?
• Should people have to take a test to become parents?
• Italians are healthier because they drink red wine
• Are humans solely responsible for GlobalWarming?
• Cheating helps children learn.
• Are vampires real or only in the novels characters?
• File-sharing programs on the Internet should/ not be banned.
• What is the relationship between illegal immigration and crime
• People who download from file sharing websites should be prosecuted.
• Rich people should be allowed to pay off their crimes.
• Corruption in society is an unstoppable force.
• Doctors should learn about religion before practicing.
• Rationing of fuel is a good idea.
• Sodomy isn’t a sin.
• Political figures are out of touch with society.
• Public figures should be struck off if they break the law.
• All men and women should complete a year of civil service.
• Community service isn’t a punishment.

509 Informative Speech Ideas and Topics

243 Easy and Simple Speech Topics

7 thoughts on “613 Original Argumentative Speech Topics Ideas”

can money buy happiness?

I like this page

I think you’re ideas are from the far left, the “topics” you have are just so one sided im yawning just reading them. COME ON!

Most of these “topics” you list aren’t original. I’ve heard these be argued on the news and in class many times before. Only about 10 of these topics even peaked my interest.

Stand up for what is right even if you stand alone

how does one have a pet?

Only 7 of these actually had me thinking. Some aren’t even original. I’ve seen the ‘Should the death penalty exist’ on almost every single site I’ve tried before this.

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Counterarguments

A counterargument involves acknowledging standpoints that go against your argument and then re-affirming your argument. This is typically done by stating the opposing side’s argument, and then ultimately presenting your argument as the most logical solution. The counterargument is a standard academic move that is used in argumentative essays because it shows the reader that you are capable of understanding and respecting multiple sides of an argument.

Counterargument in two steps

Respectfully acknowledge evidence or standpoints that differ from your argument.

Refute the stance of opposing arguments, typically utilizing words like “although” or “however.”

In the refutation, you want to show the reader why your position is more correct than the opposing idea.

Where to put a counterargument

Can be placed within the introductory paragraph to create a contrast for the thesis statement.

May consist of a whole paragraph that acknowledges the opposing view and then refutes it.

• Can be one sentence acknowledgements of other opinions followed by a refutation.

Why use a counterargument?

Some students worry that using a counterargument will take away from their overall argument, but a counterargument may make an essay more persuasive because it shows that the writer has considered multiple sides of the issue. Barnet and Bedau (2005) propose that critical thinking is enhanced through imagining both sides of an argument. Ultimately, an argument is strengthened through a counterargument.

Examples of the counterargument structure

• Argument against smoking on campus:  Admittedly, many students would like to smoke on campus. Some people may rightly argue that if smoking on campus is not illegal, then it should be permitted; however, second-hand smoke may cause harm to those who have health issues like asthma, possibly putting them at risk.
• Argument against animal testing:  Some people argue that using animals as test subjects for health products is justifiable. To be fair, animal testing has been used in the past to aid the development of several vaccines, such as small pox and rabies. However, animal testing for beauty products causes unneeded pain to animals. There are alternatives to animal testing. Instead of using animals, it is possible to use human volunteers. Additionally, Carl Westmoreland (2006) suggests that alternative methods to animal research are being developed; for example, researchers are able to use skin constructed from cells to test cosmetics. If alternatives to animal testing exist, then the practice causes unnecessary animal suffering and should not be used.

Harvey, G. (1999). Counterargument. Retrieved from writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/counter- argument

Westmoreland, C. (2006; 2007). “Alternative Tests and the 7th Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive.” Hester, R. E., & Harrison, R. M. (Ed.) Alternatives to animal testing (1st Ed.). Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Barnet, S., Bedau, H. (Eds.). (2006). Critical thinking, reading, and writing . Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Contributor: Nathan Lachner

Philosophical Disquisitions

Things hid and barr'd from common sense

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Mill's argument for free speech: a guide.

..the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.

• (1) The truth (and a clear and lively impression thereof) is valuable; we ought to allow/enable people to arrive at true beliefs about the world.
• (2) Freedom of speech enables/allows people to arrive at a clear and lively understanding of truths about the world (or, what is the same thing, the silencing or censorship of expression prevents people from arriving at a clear and lively understanding of true beliefs about the world).
• (3) Therefore, we ought to promote freedom of speech (and prevent the silencing or censorship of expression).
• (4) If we censor an expression, and if that expression is true, then people are denied the opportunity to exchange truth for error.

The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded… This is the amount of certainty attainable by a fallible being, and this is the sole way of attaining it.

Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either.

• (5) Objection to (4) : Censorship does not necessarily undermine the pursuit of truth: we could trust the censor to filter out the untrue opinions and allow the true ones to get through.
• (6) Reply to (5) : This assumes an infallible censor: we have ample evidence from our own experiences and from history to suggest that censors are not, and cannot be trusted to be, infallible.
• (7) Reply to (5) : The only check against infallibility (and the only reason to feel confident in our grasp of the truth) is the testing of our opinions in the fire of free expression.
• (8) Objection to (4) : Even if we did censor the truth, the truth will eventually win out over the censorship.
• (9) Reply to (9) : There is no guarantee of this. We are not more zealous for the truth than for error and if the social penalty is sufficiently high the truth will be blocked.

• (10) If we censor expressions that are false, then our beliefs will be ‘held as a dead dogma[s], not living truth[s]', i.e. we will not have a clear and lively understanding of the truth.

So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up.

Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral?… Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of.

• (11) Objection to (10) : We can get a clear and lively understanding of the truth by considering the arguments for the truth by themselves (i.e. without considering contrary falsehoods)
• (12) Reply to (11) : This is only possible in a narrow range of cases; in the great majority of cases understanding is only possible by considering and engaging with the contrary point of view.
• (13) Objection to (10) : Even if we need to engage falsehoods to grasp the truth, this does not support free expression: an epistemic elite could be given the task of engaging the falsehoods on our behalf.
• (14) Reply to (13) : There would still need to be some freedom of expression for this elite.
• (15) Reply to (13) : We should not limit freedom of expression to an epistemic elite: everyone should be allowed to achieve the mental stature they are capable of; and we may be depriving the world of something by not encouraging promising intellects to vigorously pursue the truth.

I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest expression but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents.

… it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil. There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend to only to one that errors harden into prejudices.

• (16) Objection to (2) : Allowing free expression of partial truths will simply lead to the polarisation and entrenchment of opinion.
• (17) Reply to (16) : This will only be true for certain ideologues and is the lesser of two evils: there is more hope and less chance of prejudice if people are forced to listen to both sides.

6 comments:

Very clear and systematic. Thanks!

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Really interesting work on Mill. Fantastic! If you're interested, we too write about political theory, check us out! https://theamormundi.blogspot.com/

Haven't read much on JSM sice collage. I did my final essay on JSM Subjection of Women along with the somewhat of a compnion essay by Harriet Taylor Mill's: The Enfranchisement of Women. Good to read you analysis...

I appreciate the summarization of Mill's argument, as it is one which I have struggled a touch in understanding. Thank you!

Thanks for posting this article. Its Very Unique!! https://cheatingspouse.my/

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Argument and Argumentation

Argument is a central concept for philosophy. Philosophers rely heavily on arguments to justify claims, and these practices have been motivating reflections on what arguments and argumentation are for millennia. Moreover, argumentative practices are also pervasive elsewhere; they permeate scientific inquiry, legal procedures, education, and political institutions. The study of argumentation is an inter-disciplinary field of inquiry, involving philosophers, language theorists, legal scholars, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, and political scientists, among many others. This entry provides an overview of the literature on argumentation drawing primarily on philosophical sources, but also engaging extensively with relevant sources from other disciplines.

1. Terminological Clarifications

2.1 deduction, 2.2 induction, 2.3 abduction, 2.4 analogy, 2.5 fallacies, 3.1 adversarial and cooperative argumentation, 3.2 argumentation as an epistemic practice, 3.3 consensus-oriented argumentation, 3.4 argumentation and conflict management, 3.5 conclusion, 4.1 argumentation theory, 4.2 artificial intelligence and computer science, 4.3 cognitive science and psychology, 4.4 language and communication, 4.5 argumentation in specific social practices, 5.1 argumentative injustice and virtuous argumentation, 5.2 emotions and argumentation, 5.3 cross-cultural perspectives on argumentation, 5.4 argumentation and the internet, 6. conclusion, references for the main text, references for the historical supplement, other internet resources, related entries.

An argument can be defined as a complex symbolic structure where some parts, known as the premises, offer support to another part, the conclusion. Alternatively, an argument can be viewed as a complex speech act consisting of one or more acts of premising (which assert propositions in favor of the conclusion), an act of concluding, and a stated or implicit marker (“hence”, “therefore”) that indicates that the conclusion follows from the premises (Hitchcock 2007). [ 1 ] The relation of support between premises and conclusion can be cashed out in different ways: the premises may guarantee the truth of the conclusion, or make its truth more probable; the premises may imply the conclusion; the premises may make the conclusion more acceptable (or assertible).

For theoretical purposes, arguments may be considered as freestanding entities, abstracted from their contexts of use in actual human activities. But depending on one’s explanatory goals, there is also much to be gained from considering arguments as they in fact occur in human communicative practices. The term generally used for instances of exchange of arguments is argumentation . In what follows, the convention of using “argument” to refer to structures of premises and conclusion, and “argumentation” to refer to human practices and activities where arguments occur as communicative actions will be adopted.

Argumentation can be defined as the communicative activity of producing and exchanging reasons in order to support claims or defend/challenge positions, especially in situations of doubt or disagreement (Lewiński & Mohammed 2016). It is arguably best conceived as a kind of dialogue , even if one can also “argue” with oneself, in long speeches or in writing (in articles or books) for an intended but silent audience, or in groups rather than in dyads (Lewiński & Aakhus 2014). But argumentation is a special kind of dialogue: indeed, most of the dialogues we engage in are not instances of argumentation, for example when asking someone if they know what time it is, or when someone shares details about their vacation. Argumentation only occurs when, upon making a claim, someone receives a request for further support for the claim in the form of reasons, or estimates herself that further justification is required (Jackson & Jacobs 1980; Jackson, 2019). In such cases, dialogues of “giving and asking for reasons” ensue (Brandom, 1994; Bermejo Luque 2011). Since most of what we know we learn from others, argumentation seems to be an important mechanism to filter the information we receive, instead of accepting what others tell us uncritically (Sperber, Clément, et al. 2010).

The study of arguments and argumentation is also closely connected to the study of reasoning , understood as the process of reaching conclusions on the basis of careful, reflective consideration of the available information, i.e., by an examination of reasons . According to a widespread view, reasoning and argumentation are related (as both concern reasons) but fundamentally different phenomena: reasoning would belong to the mental realm of thinking—an individual inferring new information from the available information by means of careful consideration of reasons—whereas argumentation would belong to the public realm of the exchange of reasons, expressed in language or other symbolic media and intended for an audience. However, a number of authors have argued for a different view, namely that reasoning and argumentation are in fact two sides of the same coin, and that what is known as reasoning is by and large the internalization of practices of argumentation (MacKenzie 1989; Mercier & Sperber 2017; Mercier 2018). For the purposes of this entry, we can assume a close connection between reasoning and argumentation so that relevant research on reasoning can be suitably included in the discussions to come.

2. Types of Arguments

Arguments come in many kinds. In some of them, the truth of the premises is supposed to guarantee the truth of the conclusion, and these are known as deductive arguments. In others, the truth of the premises should make the truth of the conclusion more likely while not ensuring complete certainty; two well-known classes of such arguments are inductive and abductive arguments (a distinction introduced by Peirce, see entry on C.S. Peirce ). Unlike deduction, induction and abduction are thought to be ampliative: the conclusion goes beyond what is (logically) contained in the premises. Moreover, a type of argument that features prominently across different philosophical traditions, and yet does not fit neatly into any of the categories so far discussed, are analogical arguments. In this section, these four kinds of arguments are presented. The section closes with a discussion of fallacious arguments, that is, arguments that seem legitimate and “good”, but in fact are not. [ 2 ]

Valid deductive arguments are those where the truth of the premises necessitates the truth of the conclusion: the conclusion cannot but be true if the premises are true. Arguments having this property are said to be deductively valid . A valid argument whose premises are also true is said to be sound . Examples of valid deductive arguments are the familiar syllogisms, such as:

All humans are living beings. All living beings are mortal. Therefore, all humans are mortal.

In a deductively valid argument, the conclusion will be true in all situations where the premises are true, with no exceptions. A slightly more technical gloss of this idea goes as follows: in all possible worlds where the premises hold, the conclusion will also hold. This means that, if I know the premises of a deductively valid argument to be true of a given situation, then I can conclude with absolute certainty that the conclusion is also true of that situation. An important property typically associated with deductive arguments (but with exceptions, such as in relevant logic), and which differentiates them from inductive and abductive arguments, is the property of monotonicity : if premises A and B deductively imply conclusion C , then the addition of any arbitrary premise D will not invalidate the argument. In other words, if the argument “ A and B ; therefore C ” is deductively valid, then the argument “ A , B and D ; therefore C ” is equally deductively valid.

Deductive arguments are the objects of study of familiar logical systems such as (classical) propositional and predicate logic, as well as of subclassical systems such as intuitionistic and relevant logics (although in relevant logic the property of monotonicity does not hold, as it may lead to violations of criteria of relevance between premises and conclusion—see entry on relevance logic ). In each of these systems, the relation of logical consequence in question satisfies the property of necessary truth-preservation (see entry on logical consequence ). This is not surprising, as these systems were originally designed to capture arguments of a very specific kind, namely mathematical arguments (proofs), in the pioneering work of Frege, Russell, Hilbert, Gentzen, and others. Following a paradigm established in ancient Greek mathematics and famously captured in Euclid’s Elements , argumentative steps in mathematical proofs (in this tradition at least) must have the property of necessary truth preservation (Netz 1999). This paradigm remained influential for millennia, and still codifies what can be described as the “classical” conception of mathematical proof (Dutilh Novaes 2020a), even if practices of proof are ultimately also quite diverse. (In fact, there is much more to argumentation in mathematics than just deductive argumentation [Aberdein & Dove 2013].)

However, a number of philosophers have argued that deductive validity and necessary truth preservation in fact come apart. Some have reached this conclusion motivated by the familiar logical paradoxes such as the Liar or Curry’s paradox (Beall 2009; Field 2008; see entries on the Liar paradox and on Curry’s paradox ). Others have defended the idea that there are such things as contingent logical truths (Kaplan 1989; Nelson & Zalta 2012), which thus challenge the idea of necessary truth preservation. It has also been suggested that what is preserved in the transition from premises to conclusions in deductive arguments is in fact warrant or assertibility rather than truth (Restall 2004). Yet others, such as proponents of preservationist approaches to paraconsistent logic, posit that what is preserved by the deductive consequence relation is the coherence, or incoherence, of a set of premises (Schotch, Brown, & Jennings 2009; see entry on paraconsistent logic ). Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the view that deductive validity is to be understood primarily in terms of necessary truth preservation is still the received view.

Relatedly, there are a number of pressing philosophical issues pertaining to the justification of deduction, such as the exact nature of the necessity involved in deduction (metaphysical, logical, linguistic, epistemic; Shapiro 2005), and the possibility of offering a non-circular foundation for deduction (Dummett 1978). Furthermore, it is often remarked that the fact that a deductive argument is not ampliative may entail that it cannot be informative, which in turn would mean that its usefulness is quite limited; this problem has been described as “the scandal of deduction” (Sequoiah-Grayson 2008).

Be that as it may, deductive arguments have occupied a special place in philosophy and the sciences, ever since Aristotle presented the first fully-fledged theory of deductive argumentation and reasoning in the Prior Analytics (and the corresponding theory of scientific demonstration in the Posterior Analytics ; see Historical Supplement ). The fascination for deductive arguments is understandable, given their allure of certainty and indubitability. The more geometrico (a phrase introduced by Spinoza to describe the argumentative structure of his Ethics as following “a geometrical style”—see entry on Spinoza ) has been influential in many fields other than mathematics. However, the focus on deductive arguments at the expense of other types of arguments has arguably skewed investigations on argument and argumentation too much in one specific direction (see (Bermejo-Luque 2020) for a critique of deductivism in the study of argumentation).

In recent decades, the view that everyday reasoning and argumentation by and large do not follow the canons of deductive argumentation has been gaining traction. In psychology of reasoning, Oaksford and Chater were the first to argue already in the 1980s that human reasoning “in the wild” is essentially probabilistic, following the basic canons of Bayesian probabilities (Oaksford & Chater 2018; Elqayam 2018; see section 5.3 below). Computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers have also developed a strong interest in non-monotonic reasoning and argumentation (Reiter 1980), recognizing that, outside specific scientific contexts, human reasoning tends to be deeply defeasible (Pollock 1987; see entries on non-monotonic logic and defeasible reasoning ). Thus seen, deductive argumentation might be considered as the exception rather than the rule in human argumentative practices taken as a whole (Dutilh Novaes 2020a). But there are others, especially philosophers, who still maintain that the use of deductive reasoning and argumentation is widespread and extends beyond niches of specialists (Shapiro 2014; Williamson 2018).

Inductive arguments are arguments where observations about past instances and regularities lead to conclusions about future instances and general principles. For example, the observation that the sun has risen in the east every single day until now leads to the conclusion that it will rise in the east tomorrow, and to the general principle “the sun always rises in the east”. Generally speaking, inductive arguments are based on statistical frequencies, which then lead to generalizations beyond the sample of cases initially under consideration: from the observed to the unobserved. In a good, i.e., cogent , inductive argument, the truth of the premises provides some degree of support for the truth of the conclusion. In contrast with a deductively valid argument, in an inductive argument the degree of support will never be maximal, as there is always the possibility of the conclusion being false given the truth of the premises. A gloss in terms of possible worlds might be that, while in a deductively valid argument the conclusion will hold in all possible worlds where the premises hold, in a good inductive argument the conclusion will hold in a significant proportion of the possible worlds where the premises hold. The proportion of such worlds may give a measure of the strength of support of the premises for the conclusion (see entry on inductive logic ).

Inductive arguments have been recognized and used in science and elsewhere for millennia. The concept of induction ( epagoge in Greek) was understood by Aristotle as a progression from particulars to a universal, and figured prominently both in his conception of the scientific method and in dialectical practices (see entry on Aristotle’s logic, section 3.1 ). However, a deductivist conception of the scientific method remained overall more influential in Aristotelian traditions, inspired by the theory of scientific demonstration of the Posterior Analytics . It is only with the so-called “scientific revolution” of the early modern period that experiments and observation of individual cases became one of the pillars of scientific methodology, a transition that is strongly associated with the figure of Francis Bacon (1561–1626; see entry on Francis Bacon ).

Inductive inferences/arguments are ubiquitous both in science and in everyday life, and for the most part quite reliable. The functioning of the world around us seems to display a fair amount of statistical regularity, and this is referred to as the “Uniformity Principle” in the literature on the problem of induction (to be discussed shortly). Moreover, it has been argued that generalizing from previously observed frequencies is the most basic principle of human cognition (Clark 2016).

However, it has long been recognized that inductive inferences/arguments are not unproblematic. Hume famously offered the first influential formulation of what became known as “the problem of induction” in his Treatise of Human Nature (see entries on David Hume and on the problem of induction ; Howson 2000). Hume raises the question of what grounds the correctness of inductive inferences/arguments, and posits that there must be an argument establishing the validity of the Uniformity Principle for inductive inferences to be truly justified. He goes on to argue that this argument cannot be deductive, as it is not inconceivable that the course of nature may change. But it cannot be probable either, as probable arguments already presuppose the validity of the Uniformity Principle; circularity would ensue. Since these are the only two options, he concludes that the Uniformity Principle cannot be established by rational argument, and hence that induction cannot be justified.

A more recent influential critique of inductive arguments is the one offered in (Harman 1965). Harman argues that either enumerative induction is not always warranted, or it is always warranted but constitutes an uninteresting special case of the more general category of inference to the best explanation (see next section). The upshot is that, for Harman, induction should not be considered a warranted form of inference in its own right.

Given the centrality of induction for scientific practice, there have been numerous attempts to respond to the critics of induction, with various degrees of success. Among those, an influential recent response to the problem of induction is Norton’s material theory of induction (Norton 2003). But the problem has not prevented scientists and laypeople alike from continuing to use induction widely. More recently, the use of statistical frequencies for social categories to draw conclusions about specific individuals has become a matter of contention, both at the individual level (see entry on implicit bias ) and at the institutional level (e.g., the use of predictive algorithms for law enforcement [Jorgensen Bolinger 2021]). These debates can be seen as reoccurrences of Hume’s problem of induction, now in the domain of social rather than of natural phenomena.

An abductive argument is one where, from the observation of a few relevant facts, a conclusion is drawn as to what could possibly explain the occurrence of these facts (see entry on abduction ). Abduction is widely thought to be ubiquitous both in science and in everyday life, as well as in other specific domains such as the law, medical diagnosis, and explainable artificial intelligence (Josephson & Josephson 1994). Indeed, a good example of abduction is the closing argument by a prosecutor in a court of law who, after summarizing the available evidence, concludes that the most plausible explanation for it is that the defendant must have committed the crime they are accused of.

Like induction, and unlike deduction, abduction is not necessarily truth-preserving: in the example above, it is still possible that the defendant is not guilty after all, and that some other, unexpected phenomena caused the evidence to emerge. But abduction is significantly different from induction in that it does not only concern the generalization of prior observation for prediction (though it may also involve statistical data): rather, abduction is often backward-looking in that it seeks to explain something that has already happened. The key notion is that of bringing together apparently independent phenomena or events as explanatorily and/or causally connected to each other, something that is absent from a purely inductive argument that only appeals to observed frequencies. Cognitively, abduction taps into the well-known human tendency to seek (causal) explanations for phenomena (Keil 2006).

As noted, deduction and induction have been recognized as important classes of arguments for millennia; the concept of abduction is by comparison a latecomer. It is important to notice though that explanatory arguments as such are not latecomers; indeed, Aristotle’s very conception of scientific demonstration is based on the concept of explaining causes (see entry on Aristotle ). What is recent is the conceptualization of abduction as a special class of arguments, and the term itself. The term was introduced by Peirce as a third class of inferences distinct from deduction and induction: for Peirce, abduction is understood as the process of forming explanatory hypotheses, thus leading to new ideas and concepts (whereas for him deduction and induction could not lead to new ideas or theories; see the entry on Peirce ). Thus seen, abduction pertains to contexts of discovery , in which case it is not clear that it corresponds to instances of arguments, properly speaking. In its modern meaning, however, abduction pertains to contexts of justification , and thus to speak of abductive arguments becomes appropriate. An abductive argument is now typically understood as an inference to the best explanation (Lipton 1971 [2003]), although some authors contend that there are good reasons to distinguish the two concepts (Campos 2011).

While the main ideas behind abduction may seem simple enough, cashing out more precisely how exactly abduction works is a complex matter (see entry on abduction ). Moreover, it is not clear that abductive arguments are always or even generally reliable and cogent. Humans seem to have a tendency to overshoot in their quest for causal explanations, and often look for simplicity where there is none to be found (Lombrozo 2007; but see Sober 2015 on the significance of parsimony in scientific reasoning). There are also a number of philosophical worries pertaining to the justification of abduction, especially in scientific contexts; one influential critique of abduction/inference to the best explanation is the one articulated by van Fraassen (Fraassen 1989). A frequent concern pertains to the connection between explanatory superiority and truth: are we entitled to conclude that the conclusion of an abductive argument is true solely on the basis of it being a good (or even the best) explanation for the phenomena in question? It seems that no amount of philosophical a priori theorizing will provide justification for the leap from explanatory superiority to truth. Instead, defenders of abduction tend to offer empirical arguments showing that abduction tends to be a reliable rule of inference. In this sense, abduction and induction are comparable: they are widely used, grounded in very basic human cognitive tendencies, but they give rise to a number of difficult philosophical problems.

Arguments by analogy are based on the idea that, if two things are similar, what is true of one of them is likely to be true of the other as well (see entry on analogy and analogical reasoning ). Analogical arguments are widely used across different domains of human activity, for example in legal contexts (see entry on precedent and analogy in legal reasoning ). As an example, take an argument for the wrongness of farming non-human animals for food consumption: if an alien species farmed humans for food, that would be wrong; so, by analogy, it is wrong for us humans to farm non-human animals for food. The general idea is captured in the following schema (adapted from the entry on analogy and analogical reasoning ; S is the source domain and T the target domain of the analogy):

• S is similar to T in certain (known) respects.
• S has some further feature Q .
• Therefore, T also has the feature Q , or some feature Q * similar to Q .

The first premise establishes the analogy between two situations, objects, phenomena etc. The second premise states that the source domain has a given property. The conclusion is then that the target domain also has this property, or a suitable counterpart thereof. While informative, this schema does not differentiate between good and bad analogical arguments, and so does not offer much by way of explaining what grounds (good) analogical arguments. Indeed, contentious cases usually pertain to premise 1, and in particular to whether S and T are sufficiently similar in a way that is relevant for having or not having feature Q .

Analogical arguments are widely present in all known philosophical traditions, including three major ancient traditions: Greek, Chinese, and Indian (see Historical Supplement ). Analogies abound in ancient Greek philosophical texts, for example in Plato’s dialogues. In the Gorgias , for instance, the knack of rhetoric is compared to pastry-baking—seductive but ultimately unhealthy—whereas philosophy would correspond to medicine—potentially painful and unpleasant but good for the soul/body (Irani 2017). Aristotle discussed analogy extensively in the Prior Analytics and in the Topics (see section 3.2 of the entry on analogy and analogical reasoning ). In ancient Chinese philosophy, analogy occupies a very prominent position; indeed, it is perhaps the main form of argumentation for Chinese thinkers. Mohist thinkers were particularly interested in analogical arguments (see entries on logic and language in early Chinese philosophy , Mohism and the Mohist canons ). In the Latin medieval tradition too analogy received sustained attention, in particular in the domains of logic, theology and metaphysics (see entry on medieval theories of analogy ).

Analogical arguments continue to occupy a central position in philosophical discussions, and a number of the most prominent philosophical arguments of the last decades are analogical arguments, e.g., Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument purportedly showing the permissibility of abortion (Thomson 1971), and Searle’s Chinese Room argument purportedly showing that computers cannot display real understanding (see entry on the Chinese Room argument ). (Notice that these two arguments are often described as thought experiments [see entry on thought experiments ], but thought experiments are often based on analogical principles when seeking to make a point that transcends the thought experiment as such.) The Achilles’ heel of analogical arguments can be illustrated by these two examples: both arguments have been criticized on the grounds that the purported similarity between the source and the target domains is not sufficient to extrapolate the property of the source domain (the permissibility of disconnecting from the violinist; the absence of understanding in the Chinese room) to the target domain (abortion; digital computers and artificial intelligence).

In sum, while analogical arguments in general perhaps confer a lesser degree of conviction than the other three kinds of arguments discussed, they are widely used both in professional circles and in everyday life. They have rightly attracted a fair amount of attention from scholars in different disciplines, and remain an important object of study (see entry on analogy and analogical reasoning ).

One of the most extensively studied types of arguments throughout the centuries are, perhaps surprisingly, arguments that appear legitimate but are not, known as fallacious arguments . From early on, the investigation of such arguments occupied a prominent position in Aristotelian logical traditions, inspired in particular by his book Sophistical Refutations (see Historical Supplement ). The thought is that, to argue well, it is not sufficient to be able to produce and recognize good arguments; it is equally (or perhaps even more) important to be able to recognize bad arguments by others, and to avoid producing bad arguments oneself. This is particularly true of the tricky cases, namely arguments that appear legitimate but are not, i.e., fallacies.

Some well-know types of fallacies include (see entry on fallacies for a more extensive discussion):

• The fallacy of equivocation, which occurs when an arguer exploits the ambiguity of a term or phrase which has occurred at least twice in an argument to draw an unwarranted conclusion.
• The fallacy of begging the question, when one of the premises and the conclusion of an argument are the same proposition, but differently formulated.
• The fallacy of appeal to authority, when a claim is supported by reference to an authority instead of offering reasons to support it.
• The ad hominem fallacy, which involves bringing negative aspects of an arguer, or their situation, to argue against the view they are advancing.
• The fallacy of faulty analogy, when an analogy is used as an argument but there is not sufficient relevant similarity between the source domain and the target domain (as discussed above).

Beyond their (presumed?) usefulness in teaching argumentative skills, the literature on fallacies raises a number of important philosophical discussions, such as: What determines when an argument is fallacious or rather a legitimate argument? (See section 4.3 below on Bayesian accounts of fallacies) What causes certain arguments to be fallacious? Is the focus on fallacies a useful approach to arguments at all? (Massey 1981) Despite the occasional criticism, the concept of fallacies remains central in the study of arguments and argumentation.

3. Types of Argumentation

Just as there are different types of arguments, there are different types of argumentative situations, depending on the communicative goals of the persons involved and background conditions. Argumentation may occur when people are trying to reach consensus in a situation of dissent, but it may also occur when scientists discuss their findings with each other (to name but two examples). Specific rules of argumentative engagement may vary depending on these different types of argumentation.

A related point extensively discussed in the recent literature pertains to the function(s) of argumentation. [ 3 ] What’s the point of arguing? While it is often recognized that argumentation may have multiple functions, different authors tend to emphasize specific functions for argumentation at the expense of others. This section offers an overview of discussions on types of argumentation and its functions, demonstrating that argumentation is a multifaceted phenomenon that has different applications in different circumstances.

A question that has received much attention in the literature of the past decades pertains to whether the activity of argumentation is primarily adversarial or primarily cooperative. This question in fact corresponds to two sub-questions: the descriptive question of whether instances of argumentation are on the whole primarily adversarial or cooperative; and the normative question of whether argumentation should be (primarily) adversarial or cooperative. A number of authors have answered “adversarial” to the descriptive question and “cooperative” to the normative question, thus identifying a discrepancy between practices and normative ideals that must be remedied (or so they claim; Cohen 1995).

A case in point: recently, a number of far-right Internet personalities have advocated the idea that argumentation can be used to overpower one’s opponents, as described in the book The Art of the Argument: Western Civilization’s Last Stand (2017) by the white supremacist S. Molyneux. Such aggressive practices reflect a vision of argumentation as a kind of competition or battle, where the goal is to “score points” and “beat the opponent”. Authors who have criticized (overly) adversarial practices of argumentation include (Moulton 1983; Gilbert 1994; Rooney 2012; Hundleby 2013; Bailin & Battersby 2016). Many (but not all) of these authors formulated their criticism specifically from a feminist perspective (see entry on feminist perspectives on argumentation ).

Feminist critiques of adversarial argumentation challenge ideals of argumentation as a form of competition, where masculine-coded values of aggression and violence prevail (Kidd 2020). For these authors, such ideals encourage argumentative performances where excessive use of forcefulness is on display. Instances of aggressive argumentation in turn have a number of problematic consequences: epistemic consequences—the pursuit of truth is not best served by adversarial argumentation—as well as moral/ethical/political consequences—these practices exclude a number of people from participating in argumentative encounters, namely those for whom displays of aggression do not constitute socially acceptable behavior (women and other socially disadvantaged groups in particular). These authors defend alternative conceptions of argumentation as a cooperative, nurturing activity (Gilbert 1994; Bailin & Battersby 2016), which are traditionally feminine-coded values. Crucially, they view adversarial conceptions of argumentation as optional , maintaining that the alternatives are equally legitimate and that cooperative conceptions should be adopted and cultivated.

By contrast, others have argued that adversariality, when suitably understood, can be seen as an integral and in fact desirable component of argumentation (Govier 1999; Aikin 2011; Casey 2020; but notice that these authors each develop different accounts of adversariality in argumentation). Such authors answer “adversarial” both to the descriptive and to the normative questions stated above. One overall theme is the need to draw a distinction between (excessive) aggressiveness and adversariality as such. Govier, for example, distinguishes between ancillary (negative) adversariality and minimal adversariality (Govier 1999). The thought is that, while the feminist critique of excessive aggression in argumentation is well taken, adversariality conceived and practiced in different ways need not have the detrimental consequences of more extreme versions of belligerent argumentation. Moreover, for these authors, adversariality in argumentation is simply not optional: it is an intrinsic feature of argumentative practices, but these practices also require a background of cooperation and agreement regarding, e.g., the accepted rules of inference.

But ultimately, the presumed opposition between adversarial and cooperative conceptions of argumentation may well be merely apparent. It may be argued for example that actual argumentative encounters ought to be adversarial or cooperative to different degrees, as different types of argumentation are required for different situations (Dutilh Novaes forthcoming). Indeed, perhaps we should not look for a one-fits-all model of how argumentation ought to be conducted across different contexts and situation, given the diversity of uses of argumentation.

We speak of argumentation as an epistemic practice when we take its primary purpose to be that of improving our beliefs and increasing knowledge, or of fostering understanding. To engage in argumentation can be a way to acquire more accurate beliefs: by examining critically reasons for and against a given position, we would be able to weed out weaker, poorly justified beliefs (likely to be false) and end up with stronger, suitably justified beliefs (likely to be true). From this perspective, the goal of engaging in argumentation is to learn , i.e., to improve one’s epistemic position (as opposed to argumentation “to win” (Fisher & Keil 2016)). Indeed, argumentation is often said to be truth-conducive (Betz 2013).

The idea that argumentation can be an epistemically beneficial process is as old as philosophy itself. In every major historical philosophical tradition, argumentation is viewed as an essential component of philosophical reflection precisely because it may be used to aim at the truth (indeed this is the core of Plato’s critique of the Sophists and their excessive focus on persuasion at the expense of truth (Irani 2017; see Historical Supplement ). Recent proponents of an epistemological approach to argumentation include (Goldman 2004; Lumer 2005; Biro & Siegel 2006). Alvin Goldman captures this general idea in the following terms:

Norms of good argumentation are substantially dedicated to the promotion of truthful speech and the exposure of falsehood, whether intentional or unintentional. […] Norms of good argumentation are part of a practice to encourage the exchange of truths through sincere, non-negligent, and mutually corrective speech. (Goldman 1994: 30)

Of course, it is at least in theory possible to engage in argumentation with oneself along these lines, solitarily weighing the pros and cons of a position. But a number of philosophers, most notably John Stuart Mill, maintain that interpersonal argumentative situations, involving people who truly disagree with each other, work best to realize the epistemic potential of argumentation to improve our beliefs (a point he developed in On Liberty (1859; see entry on John Stuart Mill ). When our ideas are challenged by engagement with those who disagree with us, we are forced to consider our own beliefs more thoroughly and critically. The result is that the remaining beliefs, those that have survived critical challenge, will be better grounded than those we held before such encounters. Dissenters thus force us to stay epistemically alert instead of becoming too comfortable with existing, entrenched beliefs. On this conception, arguers cooperate with each other precisely by being adversarial, i.e., by adopting a critical stance towards the positions one disagrees with.

The view that argumentation aims at epistemic improvement is in many senses appealing, but it is doubtful that it reflects the actual outcomes of argumentation in many real-life situations. Indeed, it seems that, more often than not, we are not Millians when arguing: we do not tend to engage with dissenting opinions with an open mind. Indeed, there is quite some evidence suggesting that arguments are in fact not a very efficient means to change minds in most real-life situations (Gordon-Smith 2019). People typically do not like to change their minds about firmly entrenched beliefs, and so when confronted with arguments or evidence that contradict these beliefs, they tend to either look away or to discredit the source of the argument as unreliable (Dutilh Novaes 2020c)—a phenomenon also known as “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998).

In particular, arguments that threaten our core beliefs and our sense of belonging to a group (e.g., political beliefs) typically trigger all kinds of motivated reasoning (Taber & Lodge 2006; Kahan 2017) whereby one outright rejects those arguments without properly engaging with their content. Relatedly, when choosing among a vast supply of options, people tend to gravitate towards content and sources that confirm their existing opinions, thus giving rise to so-called “echo chambers” and “epistemic bubbles” (Nguyen 2020). Furthermore, some arguments can be deceptively convincing in that they look valid but are not (Tindale 2007; see entry on fallacies ). Because most of us are arguably not very good at spotting fallacious arguments, especially if they are arguments that lend support to the beliefs we already hold, engaging in argumentation may in fact decrease the accuracy of our beliefs by persuading us of false conclusions with incorrect arguments (Fantl 2018).

In sum, despite the optimism of Mill and many others, it seems that engaging in argumentation will not automatically improve our beliefs (even if this may occur in some circumstances). [ 4 ] However, it may still be argued that an epistemological approach to argumentation can serve the purpose of providing a normative ideal for argumentative practices, even if it is not always a descriptively accurate account of these practices in the messy real world. Moreover, at least some concrete instances of argumentation, in particular argumentation in science (see section 4.5 below) seem to offer successful examples of epistemic-oriented argumentative practices.

Another important strand in the literature on argumentation are theories that view consensus as the primary goal of argumentative processes: to eliminate or resolve a difference of (expressed) opinion. The tradition of pragma-dialectics is a prominent recent exponent of this strand (Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004). These consensus-oriented approaches are motivated by the social complexity of human life, and the attribution of a role of social coordination to argumentation. Because humans are social animals who must often cooperate with other humans to successfully accomplish certain tasks, they must have mechanisms to align their beliefs and intentions, and subsequently their actions (Tomasello 2014). The thought is that argumentation would be a particularly suitable mechanism for such alignment, as an exchange of reasons would make it more likely that differences of opinion would decrease (Norman 2016). This may happen precisely because argumentation would be a good way to track truths and avoid falsehoods, as discussed in the previous section; by being involved in the same epistemic process of exchanging reasons, the participants in an argumentative situation would all come to converge towards the truth, and thus the upshot would be that they also come to agree with each other. However, consensus-oriented views need not presuppose that argumentation is truth-conducive: the ultimate goal of such instances of argumentation is that of social coordination, and for this tracking truth is not a requirement (Patterson 2011).

In particular, the very notion of deliberative democracy is viewed as resting crucially on argumentative practices that aim for consensus (Fishkin 2016; see entry on democracy ). (For present purposes, “deliberation” and “argumentation” can be treated as roughly synonymous). In a deliberative democracy, for a decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic public deliberation—a discussion of the pros and cons of the different options—not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting. Moreover, in democratic deliberation, when full consensus does not emerge, the parties involved may opt for a compromise solution, e.g., a coalition-based political system.

A prominent theorist of deliberative democracy thus understood is Jürgen Habermas, whose “discourse theory of law and democracy” relies heavily on practices of political justification and argumentation taking place in what he calls “the public sphere” (Habermas 1992 [1996]; 1981 [1984]; see entry on Habermas ). He starts from the idea that politics allows for the collective organization of people’s lives, including the common rules they will live by. Political argumentation is a form of communicative practice, so general assumptions for communicative practices in general apply. However, additional assumptions apply as well (Olson 2011 [2014]). In particular, deliberating participants must accept that anyone can participate in these discursive practices (democratic deliberation should be inclusive), and that anyone can introduce and challenge claims that are made in the public sphere (democratic deliberation should be free). They must also see one another as having equal status, at least for the purposes of deliberation (democratic deliberation should be equal). In turn, critics of Habermas’s account view it as unrealistic, as it presupposes an ideal situation where all citizens are treated equally and engage in public debates in good faith (Mouffe 1999; Geuss 2019).

More generally, it seems that it is only under quite specific conditions that argumentation reliably leads to consensus (as also suggested by formal modeling of argumentative situations (Betz 2013; Olsson 2013; Mäs & Flache 2013)). Consensus-oriented argumentation seems to work well in cooperative contexts, but not so much in situations of conflict (Dutilh Novaes forthcoming). In particular, the discussing parties must already have a significant amount of background agreement—especially agreement on what counts as a legitimate argument or compelling evidence—for argumentation and deliberation to lead to consensus. Especially in situations of deep disagreement (Fogelin 1985), it seems that the potential of argumentation to lead to consensus is quite limited. Instead, in many real-life situations, argumentation often leads to the opposite result; people disagree with each other even more after engaging in argumentation (Sunstein 2002). This is the well-documented phenomenon of group polarization , which occurs when an initial position or tendency of individual members of a group becomes more extreme after group discussion (Isenberg 1986).

In fact, it may be argued that argumentation will often create or exacerbate conflict and adversariality, rather than leading to the resolution of differences of opinions. Furthermore, a focus on consensus may end up reinforcing and perpetuating existing unequal power relations in a society.

In an unjust society, what purports to be a cooperative exchange of reasons really perpetuates patterns of oppression. (Goodwin 2007: 77)

This general point has been made by a number of political thinkers (e.g., Young 2000), who have highlighted the exclusionary implications of consensus-oriented political deliberation. The upshot is that consensus may not only be an unrealistic goal for argumentation; it may not even be a desirable goal for argumentation in a number of situations (e.g., when there is great power imbalance). Despite these concerns, the view that the primary goal of argumentation is to aim for consensus remains influential in the literature.

Finally, a number of authors have attributed to argumentation the potential to manage (pre-existing) conflict. In a sense, the consensus-oriented view of argumentation just discussed is a special case of conflict management argumentation, based on the assumption that the best way to manage conflict and disagreement is to aim for consensus and thus eliminate conflict. But conflict can be managed in different ways, not all of them leading to consensus; indeed, some authors maintain that argumentation may help mitigate conflict even when the explicit aim is not that of reaching consensus. Importantly, authors who identify conflict management (or variations thereof) as a function for argumentation differ in their overall appreciation of the value of argumentation: some take it to be at best futile and at worst destructive, [ 5 ] while others attribute a more positive role to argumentation in conflict management.

To this category also belong the conceptualizations of argumentation-as-war discussed (and criticized) by a number of authors (Cohen 1995; Bailin & Battersby 2016); in such cases, conflict is not so much managed but rather enacted (and possibly exacerbated) by means of argumentation. Thus seen, the function of argumentation would not be fundamentally different from the function of organized competitive activities such as sports or even war (with suitable rules of engagement; Aikin 2011).

When conflict emerges, people have various options: they may choose not to engage and instead prefer to flee; they may go into full-blown fighting mode, which may include physical aggression; or they may opt for approaches somewhere in between the fight-or-flee extremes of the spectrum. Argumentation can be plausibly classified as an intermediary response:

[A]rgument literally is a form of pacifism—we are using words instead of swords to settle our disputes. With argument, we settle our disputes in ways that are most respectful of those who disagree—we do not buy them off, we do not threaten them, and we do not beat them into submission. Instead, we give them reasons that bear on the truth or falsity of their beliefs. However adversarial argument may be, it isn’t bombing. […] argument is a pacifistic replacement for truly violent solutions to disagreements…. (Aikin 2011: 256)

This is not to say that argumentation will always or even typically be the best approach to handle conflict and disagreement; the point is rather that argumentation at least has the potential to do so, provided that the background conditions are suitable and that provisions to mitigate escalation are in place (Aikin 2011). Versions of this view can be found in the work of proponents of agonistic conceptions of democracy and political deliberation (Wenman 2013; see entry on feminist political philosophy ). For agonist thinkers, conflict and strife are inevitable features of human lives, and so cannot be eliminated; but they can be managed. One of them is Chantal Mouffe (Mouffe 2000), for whom democratic practices, including argumentation/deliberation, can serve to contain hostility and transform it into more constructive forms of contest. However, it is far from obvious that argumentation by itself will suffice to manage conflict; typically, other kinds of intervention must be involved (Young 2000), as the risk of argumentation being used to exercise power rather than as a tool to manage conflict always looms large (van Laar & Krabbe 2019).

From these observations on different types of argumentation, a pluralistic picture emerges: argumentation, understood as the exchange of reasons to justify claims, seems to have different applications in different situations. However, it is not clear that some of the goals often attributed to argumentation such as epistemic improvement and reaching consensus can in fact be reliably achieved in many real life situations. Does this mean that argumentation is useless and futile? Not necessarily, but it may mean that engaging in argumentation will not always be the optimal response in a number of contexts.

4. Argumentation Across Fields of Inquiry and Social Practices

Argumentation is practiced and studied in many fields of inquiry; philosophers interested in argumentation have much to benefit from engaging with these bodies of research as well.

To understand the emergence of argumentation theory as a specific field of research in the twentieth century, a brief discussion of preceding events is necessary. In the nineteenth century, a number of textbooks aiming to improve everyday reasoning via public education emphasized logical and rhetorical concerns, such as those by Richard Whately (see entry on fallacies ). As noted in section 3.2 , John Stuart Mill also had a keen interest in argumentation and its role in public discourse (Mill 1859), as well as an interest in logic and reasoning (see entries on Mill and on fallacies ). But with the advent of mathematical logic in the final decades of the nineteenth century, logic and the study of ordinary, everyday argumentation came apart, as logicians such as Frege, Hilbert, Russell etc. were primarily interested in mathematical reasoning and argumentation. As a result, their logical systems are not particularly suitable to study everyday argumentation, as this is simply not what they were designed to do. [ 6 ]

Nevertheless, in the twentieth century a number of authors took inspiration from developments in formal logic and expanded the use of logical tools to the analysis of ordinary argumentation. A pioneer in this tradition is Susan Stebbing, who wrote what can be seen as the first textbook in analytic philosophy, and then went on to write a number of books aimed at a general audience addressing everyday and public discourse from a philosophical/logical perspective (see entry on Susan Stebbing ). Her 1939 book Thinking to Some Purpose , which can be considered as one of the first textbooks in critical thinking, was widely read at the time, but did not become particularly influential for the development of argumentation theory in the decades to follow.

By contrast, Stephen Toulmin’s 1958 book The Uses of Argument has been tremendously influential in a wide range of fields, including critical thinking education, rhetoric, speech communication, and computer science (perhaps even more so than in Toulmin’s own original field, philosophy). Toulmin’s aim was to criticize the assumption (widely held by Anglo-American philosophers at the time) that any significant argument can be formulated in purely formal, deductive terms, using the formal logical systems that had emerged in the preceding decades (see (Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: ch. 4). While this critique was met with much hostility among fellow philosophers, it eventually gave rise to an alternative way of approaching argumentation, which is often described as “informal logic” (see entry on informal logic ). This approach seeks to engage and analyze instances of argumentation in everyday life; it recognizes that, while useful, the tools of deductive logic alone do not suffice to investigate argumentation in all its complexity and pragmatic import. In a similar vein, Charles Hamblin’s 1970 book Fallacies reinvigorated the study of fallacies in the context of argumentation by re-emphasizing (following Aristotle) the importance of a dialectical-dialogical background when reflecting on fallacies in argumentation (see entry on fallacies ).

Around the same time as Toulmin, Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca were developing an approach to argumentation that emphasized its persuasive component. To this end, they turned to classical theories of rhetoric, and adapted them to give rise to what they described as the “New Rhetoric”. Their book Traité de l’argumentation: La nouvelle rhétorique was published in 1958 in French, and translated into English in 1969. Its key idea:

since argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced. (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958 [1969: 19])

They introduced the influential distinction between universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed at a specific individual or group, the concept of a universal audience serves as a normative ideal encapsulating shared standards of agreement on what counts as legitimate argumentation (see Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: ch. 5).

The work of these pioneers provided the foundations for subsequent research in argumentation theory. One approach that became influential in the following decades is the pragma-dialectics tradition developed by Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst (Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984, 2004). They also founded the journal Argumentation , one of the flagship journals in argumentation theory. Pragma-dialectics was developed to study argumentation as a discourse activity, a complex speech act that occurs as part of interactional linguistic activities with specific communicative goals (“pragma” refers to the functional perspective of goals, and “dialectic” to the interactive component). For these authors, argumentative discourse is primarily directed at the reasonable resolution of a difference of opinion. Pragma-dialectics has a descriptive as well as a normative component, thus offering tools both for the analysis of concrete instances of argumentation and for the evaluation of argumentation correctness and success (see Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: ch. 10).

Another leading author in argumentation theory is Douglas Walton, who pioneered the argument schemes approach to argumentation that borrows tools from formal logic but expands them so as to treat a wider range of arguments than those covered by traditional logical systems (Walton, Reed, & Macagno 2008). Walton also formulated an influential account of argumentation in dialogue in collaboration with Erik Krabbe (Walton & Krabbe 1995). Ralph Johnson and Anthony Blair further helped to consolidate the field of argumentation theory and informal logic by founding the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric in Windsor (Ontario, Canada), and by initiating the journal Informal Logic . Their textbook Logical Self-Defense (Johnson & Blair 1977) has also been particularly influential.

The study of argumentation within computer science and artificial intelligence is a thriving field of research, with dedicated journals such as Argument and Computation and regular conference series such as COMMA (International Conference on Computational Models of Argument; see Rahwan & Simari 2009 and Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: ch. 11 for overviews).

The historical roots of argumentation research in artificial intelligence can be traced back to work on non-monotonic logics (see entry on non-monotonic logics ) and defeasible reasoning (see entry on defeasible reasoning ). Since then, three main different perspectives have emerged (Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: ch. 11): the theoretical systems perspective, where the focus is on theoretical and formal models of argumentation (following the tradition of philosophical and formal logic); the artificial systems perspective, where the aim is to build computer programs that model or support argumentative tasks, for instance, in online dialogue games or in expert systems; the natural systems perspective, which investigates argumentation in its natural form with the help of computational tools (e.g., argumentation mining [Peldszus & Stede 2013; Habernal & Gurevych 2017], where computational methods are used to identify argumentative structures in large corpora of texts).

An influential approach in this research tradition is that of abstract argumentation frameworks , initiated by the pioneering work of Dung (1995). Before that, argumentation in AI was studied mostly under the inspiration of concepts coming from informal logic such as argumentation schemes, context, stages of dialogues and argument moves. By contrast, the key notion in the framework proposed by Dung is that of argument attack , understood as an abstract formal relation roughly intended to capture the idea that it is possible to challenge an argument by means of another argument (assertions are understood as a special case of arguments with zero premises). Arguments can then be represented in networks of attacks and defenses: an argument A can attack an argument B , and B in turn may attack further arguments C and D (the connection with the notion of defeaters is a natural one, which Dung also addresses).

Besides abstract argumentation, three other important lines of research in AI are: the (internal) structure of arguments; argumentation in multi-agent systems; applications to specific tasks and domains (Rahwan & Siwari 2009). The structural approach investigates formally features such as argument strength/force (e.g., a conclusive argument is stronger than a defeasible argument), argument schemes (Bex, Prakken, Reed, & Walton 2003) etc. Argumentation in multi-agent systems is a thriving subfield with its own dedicated conference series (ArgMAS), based on the recognition that argumentation is a particularly suitable vehicle to facilitate interaction in the artificial environments studied by AI researchers working on multi-agent systems (see a special issue of the journal Argument & Computation [Atkinson, Cerutti, et al. 2016]). Finally, computational approaches in argumentation have also thrived with respect to specific domains and applications, such as legal argumentation (Prakken & Sartor 2015). Recently, as a reaction to the machine-learning paradigm, the idea of explainable AI has gotten traction, and the concept of argumentation is thought to play a fundamental role for explainable AI (Sklar & Azhar 2018).

Argumentation is also an important topic of investigation within cognitive science and psychology. Researchers in these fields are predominantly interested in the descriptive question of how people in fact engage in argumentation, rather than in the normative question of how they ought to do it (although some of them have also drawn normative conclusions, e.g., Hahn & Oaksford 2006; Hahn & Hornikx, 2016). Controlled experiments are one of the ways in which the descriptive question can be investigated.

Systematic research specifically on argumentation within cognitive science and psychology has significantly increased over the last 10 years. Before that, there had been extensive research on reasoning conceived as an individual, internal process, much of which had been conducted using task materials such as syllogistic arguments (Dutilh Novaes 2020b). But due to what may be described as an individualist bias in cognitive science and psychology (Mercier 2018), these researchers did not draw explicit connections between their findings and the public acts of “giving and asking for reasons”. It is only somewhat recently that argumentation began to receive sustained attention from these researchers. The investigations of Hugo Mercier and colleagues (Mercier & Sperber 2017; Mercier 2018) and of Ulrike Hahn and colleagues (Hahn & Oaksford 2007; Hornikx & Hahn 2012; Collins & Hahn 2018) have been particularly influential. (See also Paglieri, Bonelli, & Felletti 2016, an edited volume containing a representative overview of research on the psychology of argumentation.) Another interesting line of research has been the study of the development of reasoning and argumentative skills in young children (Köymen, Mammen, & Tomasello 2016; Köymen & Tomasello 2020).

Mercier and Sperber defend an interactionist account of reasoning, according to which the primary function of reasoning is for social interactions, where reasons are exchanged and receivers of reasons decide whether they find them convincing—in other words, for argumentation (Mercier & Sperber 2017). They review a wealth of evidence suggesting that reasoning is rather flawed when it comes to drawing conclusions from premises in order to expand one’s knowledge. From this they conclude, on the basis of evolutionary arguments, that the function of reasoning must be a different one, indeed one that responds to features of human sociality and the need to exercise epistemic vigilance when receiving information from others. This account has inaugurated a rich research program which they have been pursuing with colleagues for over a decade now, and which has delivered some interesting results—for example, that we seem to be better at evaluating the quality of arguments proposed by others than at formulating high-quality arguments ourselves (Mercier 2018).

In the context of the Bayesian (see entry on Bayes’ theorem ) approach to reasoning that was first developed by Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater in the 1980s (Oaksford & Chater 2018), Hahn and colleagues have extended the Bayesian framework to the investigation of argumentation. They claim that Bayesian probabilities offer an accurate descriptive model of how people evaluate the strength of arguments (Hahn & Oaksford 2007) as well as a solid perspective to address normative questions pertaining to argument strength (Hahn & Oaksford 2006; Hahn & Hornikx 2016). The Bayesian approach allows for the formulation of probabilistic measures of argument strength, showing that many so-called “fallacies” may nevertheless be good arguments in the sense that they considerably raise the probability of the conclusion. For example, deductively invalid argument schemes (such as affirming the consequent (AC) and denying the antecedent (DA)) can also provide considerable support for a conclusion, depending on the contents in question. The extent to which this is the case depends primarily on the specific informational context, captured by the prior probability distribution, not on the structure of the argument. This means that some instances of, say, AC, may offer support to a conclusion while others may fail to do so (Eva & Hartmann 2018). Thus seen, Bayesian argumentation represents a significantly different approach to argumentation from those inspired by logic (e.g., argument schemes), but they are not necessarily incompatible; they may well be complementary perspectives (see also [Zenker 2013]).

Argumentation is primarily (though not exclusively) a linguistic phenomenon. Accordingly, argumentation is extensively studied in fields dedicated to the study of language, such as rhetoric, linguistics, discourse analysis, communication, and pragmatics, among others (see Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: chs 8 and 9). Researchers in these areas develop general theoretical models of argumentation and investigate concrete instances of argumentation in specific domains on the basis of linguistic corpora, discourse analysis, and other methods used in the language sciences (see the edited volume Oswald, Herman, & Jacquin [2018] for a sample of the different lines of research). Overall, research on argumentation within the language sciences tends to focus primarily on concrete occurrences of arguments in a variety of domains, adopting a largely descriptive rather than normative perspective (though some of these researchers also tackle normative considerations).

Some of these analyses approach arguments and argumentation primarily as text or self-contained speeches, while others emphasize the interpersonal, communicative nature of “face-to-face” argumentation (see Eemeren, Garssen, et al. 2014: section 8.9). One prominent approach in this tradition is due to communication scholars Sally Jackson and Scott Jacobs. They have drawn on speech act theory and conversation analysis to investigate argumentation as a disagreement-relevant expansion of speech acts that, through mutually recognized reasons, allows us to manage disagreements despite the challenges they pose for communication and coordination of activities (Jackson & Jacobs 1980; Jackson 2019). Moreover, they perceive institutionalized practices of argumentation and concrete “argumentation designs”—such as for example randomized controlled trials in medicine—as interventions aimed at improving methods of disagreement management through argumentation.

Another communication scholar, Dale Hample, has further argued for the importance of approaching argumentation as an essentially interpersonal communicative activity (Hample 2006, 2018). This perspective allows for the consideration of a broader range of factors, not only the arguments themselves but also (and primarily) the people involved in those processes: their motivations, psychological processes, and emotions. It also allows for the formulation of questions pertaining to individual as well as cultural differences in argumentative styles (see section 5.3 below).

Another illuminating perspective views argumentative practices as inherently tied to broader socio-cultural contexts (Amossy 2009). The Journal of Argumentation in Context was founded in 2012 precisely to promote a contextual approach to argumentation. Once argumentation is no longer only considered in abstraction from concrete instances taking place in real-life situations, it becomes imperative to recognize that argumentation does not take place in a vacuum; typically, argumentative practices are embedded in other kinds of practices and institutions, against the background of specific socio-cultural, political structures. The method of discourse analysis is particularly suitable for a broader perspective on argumentation, as shown by the work of Ruth Amossy (2002) and Marianne Doury (2009), among others.

Argumentation is crucial in a number of specific organized social practices, in particular in politics, science, law, and education. The relevant argumentative practices are studied in each of the corresponding knowledge domains; indeed, while some general principles may govern argumentative practices across the board, some may be specific to particular applications and domains.

As already mentioned, argumentation is typically viewed as an essential component of political democratic practices, and as such it is of great interest to political scientists and political theorists (Habermas 1992 [1996]; Young 2000; Landemore 2013; Fishkin 2016; see entry on democracy ). (The term typically used in this context is “deliberation” instead of “argumentation”, but these can be viewed as roughly synonymous for our purposes.) General theories of argumentation such as pragma-dialectic and the Toulmin model can be applied to political argumentation with illuminating results (Wodak 2016; Mohammed 2016). More generally, political discourse seems to have a strong argumentative component, in particular if argumentation is understood more broadly as not only pertaining to rational discourse ( logos ) but as also including what rhetoricians refer to as pathos and ethos (Zarefsky 2014; Amossy 2018). But critics of argumentation and deliberation in political contexts also point out the limitations of the classical deliberative model (Sanders 1997; Talisse 2019).

Moreover, scientific communities seem to offer good examples of (largely) well-functioning argumentative practices. These are disciplined systems of collective epistemic activity, with tacit but widely endorsed norms for argumentative engagement for each domain (which does not mean that there are not disagreements on these very norms). The case of mathematics has already been mentioned above: practices of mathematical proof are quite naturally understood as argumentative practices (Dutilh Novaes 2020a). Furthermore, when a scientist presents a new scientific claim, it must be backed by arguments and evidence that her peers are likely to find convincing, as they follow from the application of widely agreed-upon scientific methods (Longino 1990; Weinstein 1990; Rehg 2008; see entry on the social dimensions of scientific knowledge ). Other scientists will in turn critically examine the evidence and arguments provided, and will voice objections or concerns if they find aspects of the theory to be insufficiently convincing. Thus seen, science may be viewed as a “game of giving and asking for reasons” (Zamora Bonilla 2006). Certain features of scientific argumentation seem to ensure its success: scientists see other scientists as prima facie peers, and so (typically at least) place a fair amount of trust in other scientists by default; science is based on the principle of “organized skepticism” (a term introduced by the pioneer sociologist of science Robert Merton [Merton, 1942]), which means that asking for further reasons should not be perceived as a personal attack. These are arguably aspects that distinguish argumentation in science from argumentation in other domains in virtue of these institutional factors (Mercier & Heintz 2014). But ultimately, scientists are part of society as a whole, and thus the question of how scientific and political argumentation intersect becomes particularly relevant (Kitcher 2001).

Another area where argumentation is essential is the law, which also corresponds to disciplined systems of collective activity with rules and principles for what counts as acceptable arguments and evidence. legal reasoning ).--> In litigation (in particular in adversarial justice systems), there are typically two sides disagreeing on what is lawful or just, and the basic idea is that each side will present its strongest arguments; it is the comparison between the two sets of arguments that should lead to the best judgment (Walton 2002). Legal reasoning and argumentation have been extensively studied within jurisprudence for decades, in particular since Ronald Dworkin’s (1977) and Neil MacCormick’s (1978) responses to HLA Hart’s highly influential The Concept of Law (1961). A number of other views and approaches have been developed, in particular from the perspectives of natural law theory, legal positivism, common law, and rhetoric (see Feteris 2017 for an overview). Overall, legal argumentation is characterized by extensive uses of analogies (Lamond 2014), abduction (Askeland 2020), and defeasible/non-monotonic reasoning (Bex & Verheij 2013). An interesting question is whether argumentation in law is fundamentally different from argumentation in other domains, or whether it follows the same overall canons and norms but applied to legal topics (Raz 2001).

Finally, the development of argumentative skills is arguably a fundamental aspect of (formal) education (Muller Mirza & Perret-Clermont 2009). Ideally, when presented with arguments, a learner should not simply accept what is being said at face value, but should instead reflect on the reasons offered and come to her own conclusions. Argumentation thus fosters independent, critical thinking, which is viewed as an important goal for education (Siegel 1995; see entry on critical thinking ). A number of education theorists and developmental psychologists have empirically investigated the effects of emphasizing argumentative skills in educational settings, with encouraging results (Kuhn & Crowell 2011). There has been in particular much emphasis on argumentation specifically in science education, based on the assumption that argumentation is a key component of scientific practice (as noted above); the thought is that this feature of scientific practice should be reflected in science education (Driver, Newton, & Osborne 2000; Erduran & Jiménez-Aleixandre 2007).

5. Further Topics

Argumentation is a multi-faceted phenomenon, and the literature on arguments and argumentation is massive and varied. This entry can only scratch the surface of the richness of this material, and many interesting, relevant topics must be left out for reasons of space. In this final section, a selection of topics that are likely to attract considerable interest in future research are discussed.

In recent years, the concept of epistemic injustice has received much attention among philosophers (Fricker 2007; McKinnon 2016). Epistemic injustice occurs when a person is unfairly treated qua knower on the basis of prejudices pertaining to social categories such as gender, race, class, ability etc. (see entry on feminist epistemology and philosophy of science ). One of the main categories of epistemic injustice discussed in the literature pertains to testimony and is known as testimonial injustice : this occurs when a testifier is not given a degree of credibility commensurate to their actual expertise on the relevant topic, as a result of prejudice. (Whether credibility excess is also a form of testimonial injustice is a moot point in the literature [Medina 2011].)

Since argumentation can be viewed as an important mechanism for sharing knowledge and information, i.e., as having significant epistemic import (Goldman 2004), the question arises whether there might be instances of epistemic injustice pertaining specifically to argumentation, which may be described as argumentative injustice , and which would be notably different from other recognized forms of epistemic injustice such as testimonial injustice. Bondy (Bondy 2010) presented a first articulation of the notion of argumentative injustice, modeled after Fricker’s notion of epistemic injustice and relying on a broadly epistemological conception of argumentation. However, Bondy’s analysis does not take into account some of the structural elements that have become central to the analysis of epistemic injustice since Fricker’s influential work, so it seems further discussion of epistemic injustice in argumentation is still needed. For example, in situations of disagreement, epistemic injustice can give rise to further obstacles to rational argumentation, leading to deep disagreement (Lagewaard 2021).

Moreover, as often noted by critics of adversarial approaches, argumentation can also be used as an instrument of domination and oppression used to overpower and denigrate an interlocutor (Nozick 1981), especially an interlocutor of “lower” status in the context in question (Moulton 1983; see entry on feminist approaches to argumentation ). From this perspective, it is clear that argumentation may also be used to reinforce and exacerbate injustice, inequalities and power differentials (Goodwin 2007). Given this possibility, and in response to the perennial risk of excessive aggressiveness in argumentative situations, a normative account of how argumentation ought to be conducted so as to avoid these problematic outcomes seem to be required.

One such approach is virtue argumentation theory . Drawing on virtue ethics and virtue epistemology (see entries on virtue ethics and virtue epistemology ), virtue argumentation theory seeks to theorize how to argue well in terms of the dispositions and character of arguers rather than, for example, in terms of properties of arguments considered in abstraction from arguers (Aberdein & Cohen 2016). Some of the argumentative virtues identified in the literature are: willingness to listen to others (Cohen 2019), willingness to take a novel viewpoint seriously (Kwong 2016), humility (Kidd 2016), and open-mindedness (Tanesini 2020).

By the same token, defective argumentation is conceptualized not (only) in terms of structural properties of arguments (e.g., fallacious argument patterns), but in terms of the vices displayed by arguers such as arrogance and narrow-mindedness, among others (Aberdein 2016). Virtue argumentation theory now constitutes a vibrant research program, as attested by a special issue of Topoi dedicated to the topic (see [Aberdein & Cohen 2016] for its Introduction). It allows for a reconceptualization of classical themes within argumentation theory while also promising to provide concrete recommendations on how to argue better. Whether it can fully counter the risk of epistemic injustice and oppressive uses of argumentation is however debatable, at least as long as broader structural factors related to power dynamics are not sufficiently taken into account (Kukla 2014).

On some idealized construals, argumentation is conceived as a purely rational, emotionless endeavor. But the strong connection between argumentative activities and emotional responses has also long been recognized (in particular in rhetorical analyses of argumentation), and more recently has become the object of extensive research (Walton 1992; Gilbert 2004; Hample 2006: ch. 5). Importantly, the recognition of a role for emotions in argumentation does not entail a complete rejection of the “rationality” of argumentation; rather, it is based on the rejection of a strict dichotomy between reason and emotion (see entry on emotion ), and on a more encompassing conception of argumentation as a multi-layered human activity.

Rather than dispassionate exchanges of reasons, instances of argumentation typically start against the background of existing emotional relations, and give rise to further affective responses—often, though not necessarily, negative responses of aggression and hostility. Indeed, it has been noted that, by itself, argumentation can give rise to conflict and friction where there was none to be found prior to the argumentative engagement (Aikin 2011). This occurs in particular because critical engagement and requests for reasons are at odds with default norms of credulity in most mundane dialogical interactions, thus creating a perception of antagonism. But argumentation may also give rise to positive affective responses if the focus is on coalescence and cooperation rather than on hostility (Gilbert 1997).

The descriptive claim that instances of argumentation are typically emotionally charged is not particularly controversial, though it deserves to be further investigated; the details of affective responses during instances of argumentation and how to deal with them are non-trivial (Krabbe & van Laar 2015). What is potentially more controversial is the normative claim that instances of argumentation may or should be emotionally charged, i.e., that emotions may or ought to be involved in argumentative processes, even if it may be necessary to regulate them in such situations rather than giving them free rein (González, Gómez, & Lemos 2019). The significance of emotions for persuasion has been recognized for millennia (see entry on Aristotle’s rhetoric ), but more recently it has become clear that emotions also have a fundamental role to play for choices of what to focus on and what to care about (Sinhababu 2017). This general point seems to apply to instances of argumentation as well. For example, Howes and Hundleby (Howes & Hundleby 2018) argue that, contrary to what is often thought, anger can in fact make a positive contribution to argumentative encounters. Indeed, anger may have an important epistemological role in such encounters by drawing attention to relevant premises and information that may otherwise go unnoticed. (They recognize that anger may also derail argumentation when the encounter becomes a full-on confrontation.)

In sum, the study of the role of emotions for argumentation, both descriptively and normatively speaking, has attracted the interest of a number of scholars, traditionally in connection with rhetoric and more recently also from the perspective of argumentation as interpersonal communication (Hample 2006). And yet, much work remains to be done on the significance of emotions for argumentation, in particular given that the view that argumentation should be a purely rational, dispassionate endeavor remains widely (even if tacitly) endorsed.

Once we adopt the perspective of argumentation as a communicative practice, the question of the influence of cultural factors on argumentative practices naturally arises. Is there significant variability in how people engage in argumentation depending on their sociocultural backgrounds? Or is argumentation largely the same phenomenon across different cultures? Actually, we may even ask ourselves whether argumentation in fact occurs in all human cultures, or whether it is the product of specific, contingent background conditions, thus not being a human universal. For comparison: it had long been assumed that practices of counting were present in all human cultures, even if with different degrees of complexity. But in recent decades it has been shown that some cultures do not engage systematically in practices of counting and basic arithmetic at all, such as the Pirahã in the Amazon (Gordon 2004; see entry on culture and cognitive science ). By analogy, it seems that the purported universality of argumentative practices should not be taken for granted, but rather be treated as a legitimate empirical question. (Incidentally, there is some anecdotal evidence that the Pirahã themselves engage in argumentative exchanges [Everett 2008], but to date their argumentative skills have not been investigated systematically, as is the case with their numerical skills.)

Of course, how widespread argumentative practices will be also depends on how the concept of “argumentative practices” is defined and operationalized in the first place. If it is narrowly defined as corresponding to regimented practices of reason-giving requiring clear markers and explicit criteria for what counts as premises, conclusions and relations of support between them, then argumentation may well be restricted to cultures and subcultures where such practices have been explicitly codified. By contrast, if argumentation is defined more loosely, then a wider range of communicative practices will be considered as instances of argumentation, and thus presumably more cultures will be found to engage in (what is thus viewed as) argumentation. This means that the spread of argumentative practices across cultures is not only an empirical question; it also requires significant conceptual input to be addressed.

But if (as appears to be the case) argumentation is not a strictly WEIRD phenomenon, restricted to Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan 2010), then the issue of cross-cultural variability in argumentative practices gives rise to a host of research questions, again both at the descriptive and at the normative level. Indeed, even if at the descriptive level considerable variability in argumentative practices is identified, the normative question of whether there should be universally valid canons for argumentation, or instead specific norms for specific contexts, remains pressing. At the descriptive level, a number of researchers have investigated argumentative practices in different WEIRD as well as non-WEIRD cultures, also addressing questions of cultural variability (Hornikx & Hoeken 2007; Hornikx & de Best 2011).

A foundational work in this context is Edwin Hutchins’ 1980 book Culture and Inference , a study of the Trobriand Islanders’ system of land tenure in Papua New Guinea (Hutchins 1980). While presented as a study of inference and reasoning among the Trobriand Islanders, what Hutchins in fact investigated were instances of legal argumentation in land courts by means of ethnographic observation and interviews with litigants. This led to the formulation of a set of twelve basic propositions codifying knowledge about land tenure, as well as transfer formulas governing how this knowledge can be applied to new disputes. Hutchins’ analysis showed that the Trobriand Islanders had a sophisticated argumentation system to resolve issues pertaining to land tenure, in many senses resembling argumentation and reasoning in so-called WEIRD societies in that it seemed to recognize as valid simple logical structures such as modus ponens and modus tollens .

More recently, Hugo Mercier and colleagues have been conducting studies in countries such as Japan (Mercier, Deguchi, Van der Henst, & Yama 2016) and Guatemala (Castelain, Girotto, Jamet, & Mercier 2016). While recognizing the significance and interest of cultural differences (Mercier 2013), Mercier maintains that argumentation is a human universal, as argumentative capacities and tendencies are a result of natural selection, genetically encoded in human cognition (Mercier 2011; Mercier & Sperber 2017). He takes the results of the cross-cultural studies conducted so far as confirming the universality of argumentation, even considering cultural differences (Mercier 2018).

Another scholar who has been carrying out an extensive research program on cultural differences in argumentation is communication theorist Dale Hample. With different sets of colleagues, he has conducted studies by means of surveys where participants (typically, university undergraduates) self-report on their argumentative practices in countries such as China, Japan, Turkey, Chile, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United States (among others; Hample 2018: ch. 7). His results overall show a number of similarities, which may be partially explained by the specific demographic (university students) from which participants are usually recruited. But interesting differences have also been identified, for example different levels of willingness to engage in argumentative encounters.

In a recent book (Tindale 2021), philosopher Chris Tindale adopts an anthropological perspective to investigate how argumentative practices emerge from the experiences of peoples with diverse backgrounds. He emphasizes the argumentative roles of place, orality, myth, narrative, and audience, also assessing the impacts of colonialism on the study of argumentation. Tindale reviews a wealth of anthropological and ethnographic studies on argumentative practices in different cultures, thus providing what is to date perhaps the most comprehensive study on argumentation from an anthropological perspective.

On the whole, the study of differences and commonalities in argumentative practices across cultures is an established line of research on argumentation, but arguably much work remains to be done to investigate these complex phenomena more thoroughly.

So far we have not yet considered the question of the different media through which argumentation can take place. Naturally, argumentation can unfold orally in face-to-face encounters—discussions in parliament, political debates, in a court of law—as well as in writing—in scientific articles, on the Internet, in newspaper editorials. Moreover, it can happen synchronically, with real-time exchanges of reasons, or asynchronically. While it is reasonable to expect that there will be some commonalities across these different media and environments, it is also plausible that specific features of different environments may significantly influence how argumentation is conducted: different environments present different kinds of affordances for arguers (Halpern & Gibbs 2013; Weger & Aakhus 2003; see entry on embodied cognition for the concept of affordance). Indeed, if the Internet represents a fundamentally novel cognitive ecology (Smart, Heersmink, & Clowes 2017), then it will likely give rise to different forms of argumentative engagement (Lewiński 2010). Whether these new forms will represent progress (according to some suitable metric) is however a moot point.

In the early days of the Internet in the 1990s, there was much hope that online spaces would finally realize the Habermasian ideal of a public sphere for political deliberation (Hindman 2009). The Internet was supposed to act as the great equalizer in the worldwide marketplace of ideas, finally attaining the Millian ideal of free exchange of ideas (Mill 1859). Online, everyone’s voice would have an equal chance of being heard, everyone could contribute to the conversation, and everyone could simultaneously be a journalist, news consumer, engaged citizen, advocate, and activist.

A few decades later, these hopes have not really materialized. It is probably true that most people now argue more —in social media, blogs, chat rooms, discussion boards etc.—but it is much less obvious that they argue better . Indeed, rather than enhancing democratic ideals, some have gone as far as claiming that instead, the Internet is “killing democracy” (Bartlett 2018). There is very little oversight when it comes to the spreading of propaganda and disinformation online (Benkler, Faris, & Roberts 2018), which means that citizens are often being fed faulty information and arguments. Moreover, it seems that online environments may lead to increased polarization when polemic topics are being discussed (Yardi & Boyd 2010), and to “intellectual arrogance” (Lynch 2019). Some have argued that online discussions lead to more overly emotional engagement when compared to other forms of debate (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock 2014). But not everyone is convinced that the Internet has only made things worse when it comes to argumentation, or in any case that it cannot be suitably redesigned so as to foster rather than destroy democratic ideals and deliberation (Sunstein 2017).

Be that as it may, the Internet is here to stay, and online argumentation is a pervasive phenomenon that argumentation theorists have been studying and will continue to study for years to come. In fact, if anything, online argumentation is now more often investigated empirically than other forms of argumentation, among other reasons thanks to the development of argument mining techniques (see section 4.2 above) which greatly facilitate the study of large corpora of textual material such as those produced by online discussions. Beyond the very numerous specific case studies available in the literature, there have been also attempts to reflect on the phenomenon of online argumentation in general, for example in journal special issues dedicated to argumentation in digital media such as in Argumentation and Advocacy (Volume 47(2), 2010) and Philosophy & Technology (Volume 30(2), 2017). However, a systematic analysis of online argumentation and how it differs from other forms of argumentation remains to be produced.

Argument and argumentation are multifaceted phenomena that have attracted the interest of philosophers as well as scholars in other fields for millennia, and continue to be studied extensively in various domains. This entry presents an overview of the main strands in these discussions, while acknowledging the impossibility of fully doing justice to the enormous literature on the topic. But the literature references below should at least provide a useful starting point for the interested reader.

• Aberdein, Andrew, 2016, “The Vices of Argument”, Topoi , 35(2): 413–422. doi:10.1007/s11245-015-9346-z
• Aberdein, Andrew and Daniel H. Cohen, 2016, “Introduction: Virtues and Arguments”, Topoi , 35(2): 339–343. doi:10.1007/s11245-016-9366-3
• Aberdein, Andrew and Ian J Dove (eds.), 2013, The Argument of Mathematics , Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6534-4
• Aikin, Scott, 2011, “A Defense of War and Sport Metaphors in Argument”, Philosophy & Rhetoric , 44(3): 250–272.
• Amossy, Ruth, 2002, “How to Do Things with Doxa: Toward an Analysis of Argumentation in Discourse”, Poetics Today , 23(3): 465–487. doi:10.1215/03335372-23-3-465
• –––, 2009, “Argumentation in Discourse: A Socio-Discursive Approach to Arguments”, Informal Logic , 29(3): 252–267. doi:10.22329/il.v29i3.2843
• –––, 2018, “Understanding Political Issues through Argumentation Analysis”, in The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics , Ruth Wodak and Bernard Forchtner (eds.), New York: Routledge, pp. 135–149.
• Askeland, Bjarte, 2020, “The Potential of Abductive Legal Reasoning”, Ratio Juris , 33(1): 66–81. doi:10.1111/raju.12268
• Atkinson, Katie, Federico Cerutti, Peter McBurney, Simon Parsons, and Iyad Rahwan (eds), 2016, Special Issue on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems , of Argument & Computation , 7(2–3).
• Bailin, Sharon and Mark Battersby, 2016, “DAMed If You Do; DAMed If You Don’t: Cohen’s ‘Missed Opportunities’”, in Proceedings of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation Conference , Vol. 11. [ Bailin and Battersby 2016 available online ]
• Ball, Linden J and Valerie A. Thompson (eds.), 2018, International Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning , London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315725697
• Bartlett, Jamie, 2018, The People vs Tech: How the Internet is Killing Democracy (and How We Can Save It) , London: Ebury Press.
• Beall, Jc, 2009, Spandrels of Truth , Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199268733.001.0001
• Benkler, Yochai, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, 2018, Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics , New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001
• Bermejo Luque, Lilian, 2011, Giving Reasons: A Linguistic-Pragmatic Approach to Argumentation Theory (Argumentation Library 20), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-1761-9
• –––, 2020, “What Is Wrong with Deductivism?”, Informal Logic , 40(3): 295–316. doi:10.22329/il.v40i30.6214
• Betz, Gregor, 2013, Debate Dynamics: How Controversy Improves Our Beliefs , Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4599-5
• Bex, Floris, Henry Prakken, Chris Reed, and Douglas Walton, 2003, “Towards a Formal Account of Reasoning about Evidence: Argumentation Schemes and Generalisations”, Artificial Intelligence and Law , 11(2/3): 125–165. doi:10.1023/B:ARTI.0000046007.11806.9a
• Bex, Floris and Bart Verheij, 2013, “Legal Stories and the Process of Proof”, Artificial Intelligence and Law , 21(3): 253–278. doi:10.1007/s10506-012-9137-4
• Biro, John and Harvey Siegel, 2006, “In Defense of the Objective Epistemic Approach to Argumentation”, Informal Logic , 26(1): 91–101. doi:10.22329/il.v26i1.432
• Bondy, Patrick, 2010, “Argumentative Injustice”, Informal Logic , 30(3): 263–278. doi:10.22329/il.v30i3.3034
• Brandom, Robert B., 1994, Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Campos, Daniel G., 2011, “On the Distinction between Peirce’s Abduction and Lipton’s Inference to the Best Explanation”, Synthese , 180(3): 419–442. doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9709-3
• Casey, John, 2020, “Adversariality and Argumentation”, Informal Logic , 40(1): 77–108. doi:10.22329/il.v40i1.5969
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abduction | analogy: medieval theories of | analogy and analogical reasoning | Aristotle | Aristotle, General Topics: logic | Aristotle, General Topics: rhetoric | Bacon, Francis | Bayes’ Theorem | bias, implicit | Chinese Philosophy: logic and language in Early Chinese Philosophy | Chinese Philosophy: Mohism | Chinese Philosophy: Mohist Canons | Chinese room argument | cognition: embodied | critical thinking | Curry’s paradox | democracy | emotion | epistemology: virtue | ethics: virtue | fallacies | feminist philosophy, interventions: epistemology and philosophy of science | feminist philosophy, interventions: political philosophy | feminist philosophy, topics: perspectives on argumentation | Habermas, Jürgen | Hume, David | induction: problem of | legal reasoning: precedent and analogy in | liar paradox | logic: inductive | logic: informal | logic: non-monotonic | logic: paraconsistent | logic: relevance | logical consequence | Peirce, Charles Sanders | reasoning: defeasible | scientific knowledge: social dimensions of | Spinoza, Baruch | Stebbing, Susan | thought experiments

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Merel Talbi, Elias Anttila, César dos Santos, Hein Duijf, Silvia Ivani, Caglar Dede, Colin Rittberg, Marcin Lewiński, Andrew Aberdein, Malcolm Keating, Maksymillian Del Mar, and an anonymous referee for suggestions and/or comments on earlier drafts. This research was supported by H2020 European Research Council [771074-SEA].

Copyright © 2021 by Catarina Dutilh Novaes < cdutilhnovaes @ gmail . com >

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Consider the following thesis for a short paper that analyzes different approaches to stopping climate change:

Climate activism that focuses on personal actions such as recycling obscures the need for systemic change that will be required to slow carbon emissions.

The author of this thesis is promising to make the case that personal actions not only will not solve the climate problem but may actually make the problem more difficult to solve. In order to make a convincing argument, the author will need to consider how thoughtful people might disagree with this claim. In this case, the author might anticipate the following counterarguments:

• By encouraging personal actions, climate activists may raise awareness of the problem and encourage people to support larger systemic change.  
• Personal actions on a global level would actually make a difference.  
• Personal actions may not make a difference, but they will not obscure the need for systemic solutions.  
• Personal actions cannot be put into one category and must be differentiated.

In order to make a convincing argument, the author of this essay may need to address these potential counterarguments. But you don’t need to address every possible counterargument. Rather, you should engage counterarguments when doing so allows you to strengthen your own argument by explaining how it holds up in relation to other arguments. 

How to address counterarguments 

Once you have considered the potential counterarguments, you will need to figure out how to address them in your essay. In general, to address a counterargument, you’ll need to take the following steps.

• State the counterargument and explain why a reasonable reader could raise that counterargument.  
• Counter the counterargument. How you grapple with a counterargument will depend on what you think it means for your argument. You may explain why your argument is still convincing, even in light of this other position. You may point to a flaw in the counterargument. You may concede that the counterargument gets something right but then explain why it does not undermine your argument. You may explain why the counterargument is not relevant. You may refine your own argument in response to the counterargument.  
• Consider the language you are using to address the counterargument. Words like but or however signal to the reader that you are refuting the counterargument. Words like nevertheless or still signal to the reader that your argument is not diminished by the counterargument. 

Here’s an example of a paragraph in which a counterargument is raised and addressed.

Image version

The two steps are marked with counterargument and “counter” to the counterargument: COUNTERARGUMENT/ But some experts argue that it’s important for individuals to take action to mitigate climate change. In “All That Performative Environmentalism Adds Up,” Annie Lowery argues that personal actions to fight climate change, such as reducing household trash or installing solar panels, matter because change in social behavior can lead to changes in laws. [1]  

COUNTER TO THE COUNTERARGUMENT/ While Lowery may be correct that individual actions can lead to collective action, this focus on individual action can allow corporations to receive positive publicity while continuing to burn fossil fuels at dangerous rates.

Where to address counterarguments 

There is no one right place for a counterargument—where you raise a particular counterargument will depend on how it fits in with the rest of your argument. The most common spots are the following:

• Before your conclusion This is a common and effective spot for a counterargument because it’s a chance to address anything that you think a reader might still be concerned about after you’ve made your main argument. Don’t put a counterargument in your conclusion, however. At that point, you won’t have the space to address it, and readers may come away confused—or less convinced by your argument.
• Before your thesis Often, your thesis will actually be a counterargument to someone else’s argument. In other words, you will be making your argument because someone else has made an argument that you disagree with. In those cases, you may want to offer that counterargument before you state your thesis to show your readers what’s at stake—someone else has made an unconvincing argument, and you are now going to make a better one. 
• After your introduction In some cases, you may want to respond to a counterargument early in your essay, before you get too far into your argument. This is a good option when you think readers may need to understand why the counterargument is not as strong as your argument before you can even launch your own ideas. You might do this in the paragraph right after your thesis. 
• Anywhere that makes sense  As you draft an essay, you should always keep your readers in mind and think about where a thoughtful reader might disagree with you or raise an objection to an assertion or interpretation of evidence that you are offering. In those spots, you can introduce that potential objection and explain why it does not change your argument. If you think it does affect your argument, you can acknowledge that and explain why your argument is still strong.

[1] Annie Lowery, “All that Performative Environmentalism Adds Up.” The Atlantic . August 31, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/your-tote-bag-can-mak…

• picture_as_pdf Counterargument

[A01] What is an argument?

Module: Argument analysis

• A02. The standard format
• A03. Validity
• A04. Soundness
• A05. Valid patterns
• A06. Validity and relevance
• A07. Hidden Assumptions
• A08. Inductive Reasoning
• A09. Good Arguments
• A10. Argument mapping
• A11. Analogical Arguments
• A12. More valid patterns
• A13. Arguing with other people

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A crucial part of critical thinking is to identify, construct, and evaluate arguments .

In everyday life, people often use "argument" to mean a quarrel between people. But in logic and critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the conclusion and the others are the premises or assumptions of the argument.

Before proceeding, read this page about statements.

To give an argument is to provide a set of premises as reasons for accepting the conclusion. To give an argument is not necessarily to attack or criticize someone. Arguments can also be used to support other people's viewpoints.

Here is an example of an argument:

If you want to find a good job, you should work hard. You do want to find a good job. So you should work hard.

The first two sentences here are the premises of the argument, and the last sentence is the conclusion. To give this argument is to offer the premises as reasons for accepting the conclusion.

A few points to note:

• Dogmatic people tend to make assertions without giving reasons. When they are criticized they often fail to give arguments to defend their own opinions.
• To improve our critical thinking skills, we should develop the habit of giving good arguments to support our opinions.
• To defend an opinion, think about whether you can give more than one argument to support it. Also, think about potential objections to your opinion, e.g. arguments against your opinion. A good thinker will consider the arguments on both sides of an issue.

See if you can give arguments to support some of your beliefs.

• For example, do you think the economy is going to improve or worsen in the next six months? Why or why not? What arguments can you give to support your position?
• Or think about something different, do you think computers can have emotions? Again, what arguments can you give to support your viewpoint? Make sure that your arguments are composed of statements.

§1. How to look for arguments

How do we identify arguments in real life? There are no easy mechanical rules, and we usually have to rely on the context in order to determine which are the premises and the conclusions. But sometimes the job can be made easier by the presence of certain premise or conclusion indicators. For example, if a person makes a statement, and then adds "this is because ...", then it is quite likely that the first statement is presented as a conclusion, supported by the statements that come afterwards. Other words in English that might be used to indicate the premises to follow include :

• firstly, secondly, ...
• for, as, after all,
• assuming that, in view of the fact that
• follows from, as shown / indicated by
• may be inferred / deduced / derived from

Of course whether such words are used to indicate premises or not depends on the context. For example, "since" has a very different function in a statement like "I have been here since noon", unlike "X is an even number since X is divisible by 4".

Conclusions, on the other hand, are often preceded by words like:

• therefore, so, it follows that
• hence, consequently
• suggests / proves / demonstrates that
• entails, implies

When people sweat a lot they tend to drink more water. [Just a single statement, not enough to make an argument.]

Once upon a time there was a prince and a princess. They lived happily together and one day they decided to have a baby. But the baby grew up to be a nasty and cruel person and they regret it very much. [A chronological description of facts composed of statements but no premise or conclusion.]

Can you come to the meeting tomorrow? [A question that does not contain an argument.]

Do these passages contain arguments? If so, what are their conclusions?

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Counter Argument

One way to strengthen your argument and demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the issue you are discussing is to anticipate and address counter arguments, or objections. By considering opposing views, you show that you have thought things through, and you dispose of some of the reasons your audience might have for not accepting your argument. Ask yourself what someone who disagrees with you might say in response to each of the points you’ve made or about your position as a whole.

If you can’t immediately imagine another position, here are some strategies to try:

• Do some research. It may seem to you that no one could possibly disagree with the position you are taking, but someone probably has. Look around to see what stances people have and do take on the subject or argument you plan to make, so that you know what environment you are addressing.
• Talk with a friend or with your instructor. Another person may be able to play devil’s advocate and suggest counter arguments that haven’t occurred to you.
• Consider each of your supporting points individually. Even if you find it difficult to see why anyone would disagree with your central argument, you may be able to imagine more easily how someone could disagree with the individual parts of your argument. Then you can see which of these counter arguments are most worth considering. For example, if you argued “Cats make the best pets. This is because they are clean and independent,” you might imagine someone saying “Cats do not make the best pets. They are dirty and demanding.”

Once you have considered potential counter arguments, decide how you might respond to them: Will you concede that your opponent has a point but explain why your audience should nonetheless accept your argument? Or will you reject the counterargument and explain why it is mistaken? Either way, you will want to leave your reader with a sense that your argument is stronger than opposing arguments.

Two strategies are available to incorporate counter arguments into your essay:

Refutation:

Refutation seeks to disprove opposing arguments by pointing out their weaknesses. This approach is generally most effective if it is not hostile or sarcastic; with methodical, matter-of-fact language, identify the logical, theoretical, or factual flaws of the opposition.

For example, in an essay supporting the reintroduction of wolves into western farmlands, a writer might refute opponents by challenging the logic of their assumptions:

Although some farmers have expressed concern that wolves might pose a threat to the safety of sheep, cattle, or even small children, their fears are unfounded. Wolves fear humans even more than humans fear wolves and will trespass onto developed farmland only if desperate for food. The uninhabited wilderness that will become the wolves’ new home has such an abundance of food that there is virtually no chance that these shy animals will stray anywhere near humans.

Here, the writer acknowledges the opposing view (wolves will endanger livestock and children) and refutes it (the wolves will never be hungry enough to do so).

Accommodation:

Accommodation acknowledges the validity of the opposing view, but argues that other considerations outweigh it. In other words, this strategy turns the tables by agreeing (to some extent) with the opposition.

For example, the writer arguing for the reintroduction of wolves might accommodate the opposing view by writing:

Critics of the program have argued that reintroducing wolves is far too expensive a project to be considered seriously at this time. Although the reintroduction program is costly, it will only become more costly the longer it is put on hold. Furthermore, wolves will help control the population of pest animals in the area, saving farmers money on extermination costs. Finally, the preservation of an endangered species is worth far more to the environment and the ecological movement than the money that taxpayers would save if this wolf relocation initiative were to be abandoned.

This writer acknowledges the opposing position (the program is too expensive), agrees (yes, it is expensive), and then argues that despite the expense the program is worthwhile.

Some Final Hints

Don’t play dirty. When you summarize opposing arguments, be charitable. Present each argument fairly and objectively, rather than trying to make it look foolish. You want to convince your readers that you have carefully considered all sides of the issues and that you are not simply attacking or caricaturing your opponents.

Sometimes less is more. It is usually better to consider one or two serious counter arguments in some depth, rather than to address every counterargument.

Keep an open mind. Be sure that your reply is consistent with your original argument. Careful consideration of counter arguments can complicate or change your perspective on an issue. There’s nothing wrong with adopting a different perspective or changing your mind, but if you do, be sure to revise your thesis accordingly.

Table of Contents

Rooting out bad arguments against free speech.

• Carrie Robison

Shutterstock.com

Kudzu growing up the post of a sign along the side of the road.

If you find yourself almost anywhere in the southeastern United States in warmer months, you are bound to encounter great swaths of landscape entirely covered by big, leafy  kudzu vines. In some places, it looks pretty. The vines can easily take over hillsides, powerlines, and abandoned buildings, and the resulting soft green landscape can be picturesque. But beneath the kudzu is suffocation. The invasive vines, which can grow up to  a foot a day , smother trees and other plants by blocking their light and monopolizing root space. 

While most of my Kentucky yard is kudzu-free, keeping it that way seems to require constant vigilance, and my daily walks almost always involve ripping up at least half a dozen kudzu sprouts. Chemical treatments can help (though often at the expense of other plants), but even in areas of the yard where my home’s previous owners religiously used herbicide, the kudzu comes back. 

In this constant pruning of an invasive species, I find myself thinking about defending free speech. Like kudzu, sometimes arguments against free speech look appealing from afar, but up close, they’re suffocating. The arguments opposing or misunderstanding free speech take various forms, often masquerading as protective measures, such as advocating censorship of  “ hate speech ” or supporting restrictions on “ misinformation .” But when these arguments are successful, they stifle our understanding of our world and those around us. 

Advocates for restricting expression often claim that certain speech can cause mental distress and emotional harm. They argue that “words are violence” and must be tightly controlled. However, while it’s true that words  can hurt, grappling with difficult and even offensive speech is part of living in a pluralistic society, and there will always be a clear and important difference between offensive words and a blow to the head.  

The reality is that free speech is the antithesis of violence. Broadly speaking, we have only two ways of getting our fellow citizens to see things from our perspective: persuasion and force. Illiberal societies use violence or the power of the state to enforce compliance with a set of views, but in our liberal democracy, we debate ideas. Equating even ugly and offensive speech with violence suggests that real violence is a reasonable response to speech, setting off a vicious cycle that destroys the foundations of a free civilization. 

Similarly, “hate speech isn't free speech” deserves a lot of pruning. It’s a  common   misconception , and it often comes from a place of compassion, but a fundamental issue remains: Who gets to decide what “hate speech” is? 

One person’s impassioned advocacy for Palestinian statehood is another person’s  call for the genocide of Jewish people. One person’s advocacy for the rights of women and girls is another’s  transphobia . There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment because it’s dangerous to outsource deciding what counts as hate speech to government officials. After all, to whom would you entrust the power of deciding what you are allowed to say or hear? 

Likewise, the idea that “lies aren’t protected by the First Amendment” sprouts up every few years, especially during election season. Of course, some lies — such as defamation and fraud —  aren’t constitutionally protected . But, generally, lies — or  misinformation and disinformation , as they’re often called today —  are protected because it’s up to each of us to suss out what’s true. Some lies protected by the First Amendment may be harmful, but giving the government broad authority to decide what’s true would be a far greater disaster. 

Free speech advocates like FIRE are committed to perpetually fighting for a healthy, vibrant landscape for free expression, even though it’s a fight that will never be fully won. 

Think about satire and parody. Comedy often relies on an  element of untruth to make us laugh . But when those in power are given the authority to decide what’s true and what’s false, they define it in a way that benefits them — and that insulates them from being the butt of anyone’s joke. 

Slapping terms like “misinformation” or “disinformation” on the arguments against free speech is intended to make them seem new,  but they’ve all been around for decades — more often centuries . Blasphemy, heresy,  lese-majeste — these are ancient concepts. Censorship is a universal human instinct that we each have to repeatedly resist if we are to live in a liberal society. Even when it looks like people have finally understood the dangers of censorship after being subjected to it, they often unlearn the lesson quickly once their opposition starts saying things they find ugly or wrong. 

For example, FIRE has long argued that even when instances of cancel culture do not violate the First Amendment because they involve private rather than government actors, punishing people for their speech undermines the  culture of free expression that undergirds our free speech laws. For years, many conservatives understood this, as they railed against individuals losing their livelihoods for stepping over the newly narrowed cultural boundaries of acceptable speech. Yet when many of those conservatives find themselves in positions of power,  they rush to punish people who offend their side of the ideological spectrum — even when the offense ultimately amounts to nothing more than a single, off-color joke. 

Hate speech laws backfire: Part 3 of answers to bad arguments against free speech from Nadine Strossen and Greg Lukianoff

FIRE co-founder Harvey Silverglate  has talked about how he thought the organization would have a 10-year lifespan. A well-known civil liberties lawyer, he believed that the absurdity of campus speech codes was so obvious that administrators would quickly see the problems and free speech would be restored on campus. But 25 years later, America’s campuses still roil with free speech controversies, and FIRE has  expanded its role to tackle the growing crop of off-campus free speech issues — not in search of further dragons to slay, but in response to growing cries for help in the world off-campus

My yard will likely never be entirely free of kudzu. Even if I somehow manage to dig out all of the sprouts that pop up in my own yard, the vines often sneak over from my neighbor’s field. Still, it’s worth the constant effort on those daily walks, because I am committed to a healthy, vibrant yard. 

Free speech advocates like FIRE are committed to perpetually fighting for a healthy, vibrant landscape for free expression, even though it’s a fight that will never be fully won. By perpetually pushing back on those pesky and stubborn arguments against free speech, we can nurture an environment where diverse perspectives can grow and flourish. 

• Free Speech

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Hate Speech Laws: The Best Arguments for Them—and Against Them

Hate speech is a problem, but hate speech laws are not a solution..

What is hate speech, and why is it so controversial?

Hate speech is tricky to define (more on that later), but a workable definition is:

“ Any form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color[,] sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin.”

Hate speech can have severely negative impacts on its targets, which is one reason people on every side of this issue condemn it.

Yet whether or not hate speech should be prohibited by force of law is less clear.

Those who would ban hate speech cite the impact it has on victims. They also contend that a culture of hate speech leads to criminal violence, even genocide.

Most defenders of free speech condemn hate speech but defend the right to utter it. They contend that legislating hate speech doesn’t work, and often backfires. They also argue that we should distinguish vices from crimes , and that vices are better handled through non-governmental action.

Vices vs Crimes

What is a vice, and how is it different from a crime? This distinction is at the heart of why so many free speech supporters consider it unjust for the government to imprison, fine, or censor someone over hateful speech.

As the great abolitionist lawyer Lysander Spooner wrote in his essay Vices Are Not Crimes , “Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.”

A vice also may cause distress to those around us, but doing something someone dislikes is not in and of itself a rights violation.

Spooner argued that only acts that violate someone else’s rights—that is, their person or property—should be considered crimes.

Lying around the house all day in a drunken stupor is a vice. It’s obnoxious, and it imposes social costs on your friends and family. But it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights. If your friends and family get tired of you, they can simply exercise their own right to stop spending time with you.

Burning down your neighbor’s house, by contrast, is a crime. It violates your neighbor’s property rights. Those who commit crimes are subject to the use of force (including governmental force) so as to defend and restore victims.

Hate speech is a vice. Like daily drunkenness, it’s bad behavior that can be distressful to those who associate with you.

But vices are not crimes. The relevant question is not, “is X vice good or bad?” The relevant question is, “are we justified in sending people with guns to threaten and imprison people who do X vice?”

The answer is an emphatic no . The use of government force (such as the state sending police to haul someone off to jail) is only justified in response to rights violations (such as murder or arson). Imprisoning someone for using a racial slur is morally indefensible; it’s a solution that’s far worse than the problem it tries to solve.

The Right to Freedom of Speech

How do we distinguish crimes from non-crimes (including both vices and virtues)? We spoke above about rights , but what exactly does that mean?

According to classical liberalism—the political philosophy underpinning the US Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights—the foundational right from which all other rights spring is the right to ownership. The right to ownership isn’t merely the right to own land. Instead, this right is composed of two elements:

1) Self-ownership. As a human being, you have an inalienable right to your own person. Anyone who physically assaults you, holds you captive, or coerces you violates that right.

2) Property in goods. You also have the right to own external goods. For example, if you make a printing press, you have a right to use that press as you see fit. Now maybe you didn’t make the press yourself, but bought it. In that case you still have an inalienable right to it, because you traded the products of your body (the goods or services you produced) for money which you used to purchase the printing press.

The great philosopher John Locke puts it succinctly in The Second Treatise of Government : “every Man has a Property [that is, ownership] in his own Person . This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” (emphasis in original).

In this conception, free speech flows inevitably from the concept of ownership rights. You have absolute ownership over your own vocal cords, therefore you can speak whatever words you wish. You can also acquire ownership of a printing press (or a website) and use those tools however you wish.

In this sense, the right to say words that most people consider vile or blasphemous—including the right to publish those words using tools you own, or contract with others who own those tools—cannot morally be curtailed. The right over your own body is fundamental to what it means to be a human.

By contrast, while some people are (justifiably) offended by racial and sexual slurs, there is not and cannot be a right to not be offended.

On a moral level, you cannot be held responsible for someone else’s thoughts and feelings. The assumption of that positive right (a positive right is one that imposes burdens on other people’s behaviors) would curtail your own rights.

On a practical level, laws based on a supposed positive right to not be offended are a disaster. The reason is that offense is inherently subjective; speech that offends one person can make another simply shrug (and vice versa).

The United Kingdom provides a chilling example of what happens when the law authorizes throwing people in jail for causing offense. The Hampshire government recently passed a law banning , “malicious communication,” that is, communication sent, “with the intent to cause the recipient distress or anxiety.” The criteria for determining what constitutes malicious communication are inherently subjective: they depend on the communication’s “potential impact” and (most concerning) “how the other party might interpret your behavior.”

What was the result of this law? People started being arrested for making memes on social media. One man made a meme of the trans rights flag that’s shaped like a Swastika. Police officers showed up to take him into custody. As they explained to the meme-maker, “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re getting arrested.”

Beyond being a gross violation of civil liberties, the idea that causing anxiety should be illegal is hardly a good legal standard. One wonders if the victim of the arrest could have the officers themselves arrested, on the grounds that throwing him in jail caused him anxiety.

The First Amendment

Speech is not a crime; that is, even hateful speech doesn’t violate anyone else’s rights. By contrast, throwing someone in prison for speech would be a crime, because it unjustly curtails their right over their own person and property.

The First Amendment is grounded in this classical liberal idea of ownership rights. As George Stephens notes in an article with the classical liberal John Locke Foundation, Locke’s ideas of ownership rights (what Locke called property rights) were foundational to the United States’ founding documents.

When the Amendment was written, governments already had a long history of imprisoning citizens for speech they didn’t approve of. As Jacob Mchangama documents in his book Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media , England’s King Henry VIII outlawed books and other writings that insulted the royal person or made claims that Henry VIII determined to be false.

By guaranteeing the rights to speech and assembly and the press, the Founding Fathers hoped to protect the fledgling country from any government that tried to throw citizens in jail for speaking their mind.

But defense of the First Amendment isn’t just a libertarian principle. The left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has defended the speech rights of Nazis and of KKK members . One reason for the ACLU’s decades of principled defense is this: if we empower the government to censor people whose views we find abhorrent, sooner or later that same power will be turned against people whose views we find noble.

As Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, puts it , “It is precisely those who lack political or economic power who are the most dependent on robust freedom of speech.”

Liberal titan Noam Chomsky puts it even more bluntly : “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for those we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

Why Do People Want to Ban Hate Speech?

Why do some people want to ban hate speech? Their arguments, in brief, are as follows:

1) The idea that hate speech can cause physical harm to its victims

2) The idea that hate speech has nothing to offer the marketplace of ideas

3) The idea that legal hate speech creates a cultural norm supporting racial slurs, demoralizing current and potential victims

4) The idea that hate speech primes the pump for violence and genocide

5) The idea that legalizing hate speech is defending the bad guys

Let’s consider each of these arguments in turn.

1) The Idea That Hate Speech Can Cause Physical Harm to Its Victims

The first argument is the idea that hate speech isn’t just irritating; it can cause real damage to its victims. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic lay out the case in their article “Four Observations about Hate Speech” published by Wake Forest Law Review :

“Although some courts and commentators describe the injury of hate speech as mere offense, the harm associated with the face-to-face kind, at least, is often far greater than that and includes flinching, tightening of muscles, adrenaline rushes, and inability to sleep. Some victims may suffer psychosocial harms, including depression, repressed anger, diminished self-concept, and impairment of work or school performance. Some may take refuge in drugs, alcohol, or other forms of addiction, compounding their misery.”

In a New York Times op-ed titled “When is speech violence?”, clinical psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett makes a similar argument : “If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech—at least certain types of speech—can be a form of violence.”

If the targets of hate speech suffer physical harm—by causing stress, by robbing them of sleep, by increasing their blood pressure —then, the argument goes, perhaps we are justified in using the power of the state to protect victims from that harm.

Counterpoint to This Claim

The claim that we should ban hate speech because it can cause harm to its victims rests on a confusion of two terms. In reality, hate speech can (but doesn’t always) lead to distress ; it does not lead to harm .

What’s the difference? Harm, in the classically liberal sense, is a rights violation. Being punched in the nose causes harm. Distress is unpleasant, but a feeling of distress does not mean that your rights were violated.

Hate speech can lead to distress, but it doesn’t follow that we should ban hate speech.

Writing in The Atlantic , social psychologist Jonathan Haidt acknowledges that hateful speech can cause distress while rejecting the idea that we should therefore ban said speech. As Haidt notes, other behaviors that can cause distress include, “gossiping about a rival” or “giving one’s students a lot of homework.” As Haidt explains, “Both practices can cause prolonged stress to others, but that doesn’t turn them into forms of violence [i.e. harm].”

Haidt’s examples further illustrate the central distinction between vices and crimes. Banning crimes (i.e. things that cause harm) is important in a free society. A ban on vices, be it hateful speech or gossiping about a rival, would be a tyrannical restriction of people’s freedom. Essential to the very concept of freedom is the freedom of others to do and say things that we personally do not approve of.

The argument that we should ban hate speech because of the distress that hate speech can cause also rests on the mistaken view of “naive statism.” It assumes that hate speech laws (or any law, for that matter) will work precisely as intended: X is bad, so you ban X and that’s the end of the story. In this fairy tale, there are no unintended consequences, and bans on X don’t backfire.

In reality, the impact of hate speech laws is very different from what proponents imagine. What is their actual impact?

Hate Speech Laws Empower Politicized Censors

First off, hate speech has no agreed-upon definition. It’s inherently subjective. Further, these laws cannot be narrowly tailored. The law is a blunt instrument, made more blunt when it goes after behavior that cannot—by its very nature—be nailed down.

To see precisely how hard it is to nail down what is and isn’t hate speech, let’s consider some examples.

Should the n-word be banned? Many people consider that a clear-cut example of hate speech. But what about when it’s uttered by a professor who’s reading verbatim from the James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time (a book about racial injustice in the 20th century)?

Should anti-trans speech be banned? Many commentators seem to think so, but what would that mean? Would “deadnaming” a trans person (referring to them by their pre-transition name or gender) qualify? What about a parent refusing to call their trans child by preferred pronouns; should that parent be locked in prison ( as has happened in Canada )?

These are just a couple of the endless edge cases that cannot be decided in advance and that any hate speech law must therefore leave to the broad discretion of state authorities.

Bans against XYZ hate speech are enforced by those in power. Any bans will be politicized by their very nature, because one person’s righteous anger is another person’s hate speech. We can see this on Twitter, which combines censorious impulses with far-left politics to create shockingly politicized bans. Sarah Jeong, former editorial writer for the New York Times , made hateful tweets such as , “Are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins,” and, “oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.”

In spite of the fact that Jeong’s tweets vilified people on the basis of race, Jeong is still active on Twitter.

Across the aisle, though, the Christian satire outlet The Babylon Bee wrote an article naming Rachel Levine (a transgender woman and US Assistant Secretary For Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services) as “Man of the Year.” Twitter decided that that satire was more hateful than Jeong’s tweets, and suspended The Babylon Bee for their post. ( The Bee was reinstated after Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter.) 

When censorious laws are applied by people with political biases (that is, by human beings) they will inherently be applied unevenly. Imagine your political opponents having the power to ban subjective hate speech. Republicans might ban any discussion of Critical Race Theory. Democrats might ban any criticism of the transgender rights movement.

This isn’t hypothetical, and it doesn’t just happen on Twitter. These kinds of laws are always applied by those in power to punish ideas they don’t like. In the United States in the 1950s, “criminal syndicalism” statutes made it a crime to advocate violence in order to achieve a certain political end. These laws were weaponized against political ideas that US rulers didn’t like. Writing for the American Enterprise Institute , Tom Snyder notes that :

“While framed in general terms, those statutes were mostly intended to make it illegal to advocate the adoption of Marxism, communism, and most forms of socialism – all of which preached the need for a violent workers revolution – in the US. Criminal syndicalism statutes could thus criminalize not only pure speech advocating Marxism, but also being a member of a party that advocated Marxism.”

The result was the widespread purge of leftists known as McCarthyism. Censorship advocates should be wary of ushering in another purge.

Hate Speech Laws Drive Bigots Underground

Even when hate speech laws actually target genuine hatred, they don’t eliminate it; they just drive bigots underground. This actually makes it harder to root out bigotry and to confront prejudiced people with the ideas necessary to help them move past their prejudice.

Daryl Davis is a black jazz musician who befriends KKK members and convinces them to disavow their racist beliefs. He finds them, talks to them in earnest, listens to their hatred…and changes their minds. To date, he’s convinced more than 200 KKK members to hang up their robes, including an Imperial Wizard (the highest-ranking member of the Klan).

In a world where white supremacists weren’t free to utter their noxious beliefs, Davis’ work would be impossible. He wouldn’t know who to target.

Davis’ work requires that KKK members be free to express their ideas, because only then can he counter them. He tells the story of a KKK member who told him that, “Well we all know that all black people have within them a gene that makes them violent.” By listening to the white supremacist, Davis was able to flip the script and offer a counterargument. Davis responded, “Well, we all know that all white people have a gene within them that makes them a serial killer.” When the KKK member got offended, Davis responded with, “What I said was stupid, but no more stupid than what you said to me.”

According to Davis, after his rejoinder the white supremacist, “got very, very quiet and changed the subject. Five months later, based on that conversation he left the Klan.”

If bigots don’t air their ideas in public, they’re less likely to be exposed to a solid refutation of those ideas. If the KKK member who told Davis that all black people had a violent gene inside of them had never been able to air his ideas, Davis never would have been able to rebut them. Rather than hanging up his robes, the man would likely still be a part of the Klan.

Here’s the flip side of the same concept: driving bigots underground radicalizes them. In a world where their hateful ideas are banned, these men and women will only feel free to express their thoughts to people who already agree with them. That creates echo chambers.

Hate Speech Laws Rob Minorities of Key Information

Driving bigotry underground also robs minorities of important information.

For example, if you force Christians who think homosexuality is a sin to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples, then same-sex couples cannot discriminate in their choice of a cake maker. They cannot vote with their dollars and give money to more tolerant Americans, while avoiding giving money to homophobes.

They also cannot factor a cake-maker’s beliefs about homosexuality into their decision of which cake maker to hire, even though those beliefs are highly relevant. A cake-maker who supports gay marriage is more likely to pour dedication and craftsmanship into the cake. A cake maker who opposes gay marriage, and resents being forced by law to violate his religious beliefs, is more likely to spit in the cake…or at least not put in his best work.

Hate Speech Laws Turns Bigots Into Martyrs

At the same time that hate speech laws drive many bigots underground—preventing the rest of society from being able to engage with and cure their prejudice—it turns the few who stand against the laws into martyrs.

Weimar Germany tried to censor Hitler and the Nazis before they rose to power. The state used hate speech laws aggressively in an attempt to crack down on Nazi ideology. The Weimar Republic shut down hundreds of Nazi newspapers and actually banned Hitler himself from speaking in many parts of Germany from 1925 until 1927.

Far from being crippled by these laws, the Nazis leveraged this censorship to build awareness and support for their ideas. One poster read, “Why is Adolf Hitler not allowed to speak? Because he is ruthless in uncovering the rulers of the German economy, the international bank Jews and their lackeys, the Democrats, Marxists, Jesuits, and Free Masons! Because he wants to free the workers from the domination of big money!” A 1920s cartoon said of Hitler, “He alone of two billion people on Earth may not speak in Germany.”

Greg Lukianoff, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, explains the net effect : “Far from being an impediment to the spread of National Socialist ideology, Hitler and the Nazis used the attempts to suppress their speech as public relations coups. The party waved the ban [on Hitler speaking] like a bloody shirt to claim they were being targeted for exposing the international conspiracy to suppress ‘true’ Germans.”

This was especially effective because Nazi ideology already posited an international Jewish conspiracy to disempower Aryan Germans. Hitler was able to spin the censorship as evidence of those claims: the powers that be wanted him silenced because he was exposing their secrets.

Reporting on hate speech trials similarly empowers hateful actors by elucidating the bigots’ ideas. In Canada, where denying the Holocaust is seen as a criminal offense, a Holocaust denier was brought to court in 1985. Journalists at the New York Times who covered the case had to explain his ideas and reasoning in order to inform their readers of the controversy. It is hard to imagine a more effective PR vehicle.

Crucially, this reporting amplifies bigots’ ideas in a way that doesn’t encourage meaningful discussion. More people were exposed to the claim that the Holocaust wasn’t real, but Holocaust deniers weren’t given a chance to discuss their arguments and therefore change their minds. It therefore represents the worst of both worlds: media coverage elevates bigots’ ideas without providing a vehicle to cure them of their prejudice.

Hate Speech Laws Create More Bigotry

Hate speech laws can backfire in another way, too: they can create the illusion that prejudice is both popular and based on sound ideas, inadvertently strengthening the case of bigots in society.

In an email to me, Lukianoff described how hate speech laws can create the illusion that hatred is widely popular in society.

“…[B]anning certain opinions often leads many people to believe that those opinions are so dangerous and sufficiently widely held that they must be banned with the extraordinary force of law…This not only can but will send a message that more people hold certain views than actually do.

This results in what John L. Jackson dubbed ‘racial paranoia,’ the sense that the only reason why white people aren’t espousing hateful rhetoric is because of the force of law, rather than because they do not in fact agree with such opinions and rhetoric.”

Speech suppression can embolden people with hateful views, because it creates the mistaken impression that the silent majority agrees with their prejudice. Even worse, this “racial paranoia” can actually lead people towards bigotry. Humans are social animals, after all. If we believe that most of our peers hold XYZ belief, we’re more likely to at least consider the belief in a positive light.

Bans against hate speech can also send the message that hateful ideas are too effective to counter with reasoned argument. As Tyrion Lannister said in A Clash of Kings (the second book in the A Song of Fire and Ice series that inspired the popular Game of Thrones TV show), “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” Hate speech laws send the message that bigotry cannot be rebutted in the marketplace of ideas. After all, an idea that can be easily rebutted isn’t so dangerous it needs to be banned; it’s merely dumb.

Or as Lukianoff puts it: hate speech laws “can actually prompt people into seeking evidence for why the ‘bad guys’ might be onto something.”

This isn’t just theory. Many countries in Western Europe have passed aggressive hate speech laws, but their peoples are far more intolerant than US citizens. 24 percent of the total population in Western Europe harbors anti-Semitic attitudes, according to an index of anti-Semitism created by the Anti-Defamation League (a nonprofit dedicated to measuring and combating anti-Semitism). This is in spite of the fact that many Western European hate speech laws explicitly prohibit Holocaust denial.

In the United States, the number of folks who harbor anti-Semitic attitudes is just 10 percent.

Hate speech laws may even contribute to bigotry. As Lukianoff explains, “…[I]n practically every country that passed laws against anti-Semitism in Europe reported rates of anti-Semitism have gone up, and substantially. America which has not enacted such laws has not seen a similar increase.”

In 1987, the United Kingdom passed a law against , “words or behaviour … likely to stir up racial hatred.” In the following years, racial tolerance actually declined .

According to a 2017 study published in the European Journal of Political Research , the recent rise in Western European extremism was partly fueled by, “extensive public repression of radical right actors and opinions.”

2) The Idea That Hate Speech Has Nothing to Offer the Marketplace of Ideas

The second argument used by proponents of hate speech bans is that hate speech isn’t useful to society, so we lose nothing by banning it.

Understanding this argument fully requires us to back up for a moment, into one of the defenses of free speech. Some free speech defenders argue that we shouldn’t ban certain words or ideas, because freedom is essential to the “marketplace of ideas.” That is, if we create an open marketplace wherein ideas of all kinds are free to battle it out, then we as a society will eventually move closer to truth. Everyone benefits.

But proponents of banning hate speech argue that hate speech doesn’t contribute anything of value to this marketplace. It doesn’t improve us as a society, and it doesn’t help society get anywhere we should want to go; so there’s no downside to banning it. As David Shih writes for NPR , “It might mean that racist hate speech is not a ‘necessary evil’ that jumpstarts racial justice within a liberal marketplace but is — for the foreseeable future — nothing more than state-sanctioned injury of people of color.”

Counterargument to This Claim

The idea that so-called hate speech contributes nothing of value to society rests on two mistaken premises.

First, “hate speech” doesn’t just mean racial slurs. Hate speech laws are applied selectively by those in power, and throughout history governments have criminalized lots of ideas that we now think have value.

In 2014, a Brooklyn graffiti artist was arrested on hate crime charges. Her alleged crime? Spraypainting messages like, “NYPD pick on the harmless” and “a wrongful arrest is a crime.”

Across the aisle, radical feminists in England have run afoul of hate crime laws. Their alleged crime? Insisting that men and women are marked by biological differences. Say what you will about trans rights, but it’s hard to see how stating biological facts doesn’t contribute at least something to our national discourse.

A few years ago, the “lab leak” theory of the COVID-19 outbreak (that the virus might have originated from a lab in Wuhan, China) was dubbed a hateful and racist idea . Now evidence is emerging that the theory might be true . This showcases a fundamental problem with attempts to outlaw hate speech: yesterday’s fringe conspiracy theories can become today’s plausible arguments. Prominent journalists smeared and dismissed the “lab leak” theory, which hurt our overall understanding of the pandemic.

But even if we only look at racist and sexist slurs, the idea that hate speech has no value to society rests on a flawed understanding of why free speech is important.

It’s true that racial epithets don’t contribute to the marketplace of ideas, but that’s not the only value of free speech. There’s another value in letting people speak freely, which is that free speech helps us all understand each other—and the society in which we live—a little better.

Greg Lukianoff calls this the “Lab in the Looking Glass” theory. As he describes it :

“Imagine being a scientist and showing up to a new fully staffed laboratory with all of the best equipment that’s ever been invented. You have not been told about the project you will be working on, but there is a huge curtain in front of you. The director of the project announces that the study is the most challenging that has ever been undertaken and you will not be able to finish it in your lifetime, but even knowing a little bit more about the subject will be of nearly limitless value. He pulls back the curtain to reveal a gigantic mirror looking right back at you.”

“You and your colleagues are to be the subjects. The project: to know everything about you and everything related to you.” (emphasis in original).

If we want to understand human nature, and the society that we live in, then of course letting bigots speak is essential. Prejudice is an unfortunate part of many folks’ psychology, and understanding that prejudice requires listening to them.

This understanding isn’t just useful for abstract philosophy either. More practically, we can only treat an illness when we fully understand it. If data came out tomorrow that 30 percent of Americans think black people are inferior, that would be terrible. It would also represent essential information for us to know about our society, because only when we are armed with this information can we craft any kind of useful response.

Curing prejudice requires understanding it. Understanding it requires letting the carriers of that prejudice speak.

3) Hate Speech Creates Social Contagion of Bigotry

The third argument used by proponents of hate speech bans represents a “social contagion” view of hate speech. The idea is that if John calls a black man the n-word in public, then people around John will start to think this kind of rhetoric is acceptable. Bigots will feel more free to express themselves, and social norms will change to encourage racism as white folks on the fence start to wonder if John is on to something with his racial hatred.

Delgado and Stefancic sum up this perspective: John’s actions may “giv[e] onlookers the impression that baiting minorities is socially acceptable, so that they may follow suit.” For Delgado and Stefancic, this open acceptance of racial slurs can even produce racism: “many Americans harbor measurable animus toward racial minorities. Might it be that hearing hate speech, in person or on the radio, contributes to that result?”

The biggest problem with this “social contagion” theory is that it gets the facts precisely backwards. Hearing hateful speech doesn’t make someone more likely to become prejudiced. In his book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media , Jacob Mchangama makes this point using one of the most starkly hateful regimes from human history. Nazi Germany didn’t just legalize anti-Semitic hate speech, they used government organs to pump out non-stop propaganda about Jews. If the “social contagion” theory was remotely true, this firehose of state-sponsored hatred should have driven anti-Semitism through the roof.

What actually happened? Measures of anti-Semitism barely budged. Nazi propaganda got a foothold “in districts where anti-Semitism was already prevalent before the Nazi takeover.” In other parts of Germany—for example, among the working class and Catholics—Nazi propaganda didn’t generate the hoped-for hatred of Jewish people.

Why didn’t a flood of hate speech generate widespread anti-Semitism among the German people? Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World , described the limits of propaganda in 1936:

“Propaganda gives force and direction to the successive movements of popular feeling and desire; but it does not do much to create these movements. The propagandist is a man who canalizes an already existing stream. In a land where there is no water, he digs in vain.”

Hate speech—even when made pervasive and pushed with all the power of a totalitarian government—can empower bigots to speak more openly, but is ineffective at actually creating more prejudice.

By contrast, as we saw in looking at Western Europe, banning hate speech can create more prejudice. There’s a reason that Western Europe has over twice the anti-Semitism on average as the United States.

It’s also worth noting that unlike Nazi Germany—or even large swathes of Western Europe—the United States is not a particularly hateful place. A white man shouting the n-word at a black man in a crowded area is unlikely to be met with cheers and applause. He’s far more likely to be met with boos, social condemnation, and even fists in certain parts of the country.

As Lukianoff, himself a liberal who’s never voted for a Republican, explained to me, “I think people like Delgado have misled young people into thinking that nobody thought about racism prior to 2020. Meanwhile, growing up in the 1980s, at least in the circles I was in, racism was already taken for granted to be a great evil. No law forced us to think that way.”

What about the idea that if we as a country allow hate speech, then those in power (i.e. We the People in a republic) are giving their tacit approval to bigotry? Lukianoff finds that argument more than a little absurd:

“The argument that if one opposes making any sort of speech illegal that he or she somehow agrees with or condones it is hard to take seriously. Even assuming the most constrained, minimal interpretation of free speech in which it only goes as far as absolutely necessary to maintain a democratic republic and therefore should only apply to speech relating to self-government, you still do not end up in a place where a decision not to make opinions, views, or kinds of speech illegal is the same as approving of them.”

As Lukianoff explained to me, the idea that if something is legal, it must follow that those in power support it, is hard to square with the ideals of a republic. That sort of logic might fly in a monarchy: the king dislikes something, ergo it is banned. But in a republic, we understand that freedom means the freedom to do things that those in power don’t approve of.

4) Hate Speech ‘Primes the Pump’ For Violence and Genocide

The fourth argument used by proponents of hate speech bans is that racist violence flows from racist speech. The demonization of one group in society encourages hatred against that group. Violence and genocide flow downstream from this hatred.

Or as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it , “One of the key warning signs [of genocide] is the spread of hate speech in public discourse and the media that targets particular communities.” Based on this claim, he called for governments to “stand firm against hate speech and those who incite division and violence.”

Ban Ki-moon cited the 1994 Rwandan genocide as evidence that hate speech lays the groundwork for violence. Other commentators have cited the Third Reich’s demonization of Jews to back up the notion that hate speech leads to violence.

Both of these examples seem a little strange, because they’re examples of state-sponsored propaganda. That’s a completely different beast from simply legalizing hate speech.

Nazi Germany illustrates the difference well. As discussed above, Nazi propaganda was ineffective at generating anti-Semitic attitudes among adults. But there was one group where it was successful: young people.

Mchangama writes that, “Studies have shown that Nazi propaganda was most effective on young Germans—more impressionable, with little experience of living in a free society and subject to institutional indoctrination in schools and Hitler Youth organizations….”

This makes sense. If you take young people and subject them to endless propaganda from teachers and other leaders about how XYZ population is awful and must be scourged from the earth, then many of those young people will start to believe it. Schools mold minds.

But does anyone think that’s remotely applicable to a discussion of hate speech regulation? Do Delgado and Stafancic believe that, in the absence of laws banning hate speech, our schools are simply propaganda organs indoctrinating young people in the idea that racial minorities are inferior? The comparison is absurd.

The idea that the 1994 Rwandan genocide—in which Hutus, the ethnic majority, slaughtered an estimated half a million members of the Tutsi ethnic minority—represents an argument in favor of hate speech laws is similarly more than a little strange.

It’s true that the genocide was accompanied by a wave of speech demonizing the Tutsis. As former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power described the genocide, the killers , “carried a machete in one hand and a transistor radio in the other.”

But this speech was created and propagated by state outlets. Radio stations that didn’t tow the governmental line were banned. There was an official state radio station, and most other stations were controlled by pro-government forces.

Lukianoff describes the importance of this distinction . “To use the authorized media of a genocidal state as evidence of the danger posed by excessive liberty suggests a failure to understand the core concept of liberty.”

Even if the radio messages had come from private individuals, they wouldn’t qualify as protected speech in the United States. These messages provided the names and addresses of Tutsis along with a call to kill them. That’s not protected speech; that’s incitement to commit murder, which is already illegal under existing United States law.

But what about the messages that didn’t rise to the level of incitement, but did still carry toxic messages about Tutsis? Here proponents of hate speech laws are on stronger ground, but only slightly.

It’s possible that this expression laid the groundwork for the genocide, but that claim is tenuous and experts are split on whether or not it’s plausible.

Political scientist Scott Strauss performed a deep analysis of radio reception and genocidal violence in Rwanda in order to ascertain to what effect radio messages drove the murders.

He found that radio broadcasts only reached 5-10 percent of the population. In 1994, only 10 percent of the population even owned a radio, and coverage was uneven. Further, the initial violence didn’t correlate with areas of broadcast coverage. He concluded that radio broadcasts had “marginal and conditional” effects, but that “radio alone cannot account for either the onset of most genocidal violence or the participation of most perpetrators.”

Richard Carver, who worked with both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, concluded that , “[t]he massacres would have taken place with or without the RTLM [Radio Television des Mille Collines, the primary radio station in Rwanda at the time] broadcasts.”

When we look at the impact of actual hate speech laws, rather than government propaganda designed to incite murder, the idea that private hate speech leads to violence just doesn’t hold up.

Denmark , Germany , and the United Kingdom all have strong hate speech laws, while the United States does not. If legal hate speech truly primed the pump for violence, then we should expect the United States to have more hate crimes than these three countries.

In fact, we see the opposite pattern. In Denmark in 2019, there were 8.08 hate crimes per 100,000 people. In Germany, the number was 10.34 per 100,000 people. In the United Kingdom, it was a staggering 157.67 per 100,000 people.

The United States saw just 2.61 hate crimes per 100,000 people . That’s still far too many, but it paints a clear picture: hate speech laws don’t reduce violence against minorities, and might just create more of it.

5) The Idea That Legalizing Hate Speech Is Defending the Bad Guys

The fifth argument put forward by proponents of banning hate speech conceptualizes the fight against racism as a simplistic struggle in which you are either helping racists or hurting them. In this view, free speech isn’t the universal principle that Chomsky and Strossen describe. Rather, free speech is a tool that some groups of people use to gain power. Supporting the rights of X group thus entails supporting the group itself. Restricting their speech is a way to restrict the power of X group.

Noah Berlatsky summarizes this view in an article for NBC News calling for new hate speech laws, subtitled, “Maybe it’s time we stop defending Nazis.”

Going deeper on his “us versus them” conception of how law works, Berlatsky writes, “”Free speech!’ is a battle cry that has been picked up by neo-Nazis and white supremacists . They see First Amendment advocates as allies—and it’s not because they love freedom.”

In this view, if “neo-Nazis and white supremacists” see First Amendment advocates as allies, maybe it means there’s something wrong with the First Amendment. If a tool empowers our enemies, then we should reform or gut that tool.

This argument rejects the Enlightenment perspective of law as a universal principle. It rejects the idea that the law should treat everyone equally, and instead sees the law as a tool to empower or disempower certain groups.

Such an argument is deeply mistaken. Defending the free speech of neo-Nazis doesn’t just protect skinheads; it protects all of us, because that’s how freedoms work. If you empower censors to target your opponents, then soon those same censors will target your friends. That’s especially true in a republic, in which power changes hands on a regular basis.

When the ACLU defended the rights of Nazis to march, they protected that same freedom for future marginalized groups such as Black Lives Matter.

There Can Be No Free Speech Without the Freedom to Utter Hate Speech

The essence of the argument against hate speech laws is this: without legal hate speech, there can be no free speech.

Hate speech laws are subjective and are therefore employed at the discretion of those in power. In practice, hate speech is essentially saying things that those in power do not like.

China, for instance, recently made it a crime to mock the country’s heroes. The Chinese Communist Party routinely arrests people who criticize communism.

It’s not just China; governments always and everywhere use censorship as a tool to crack down on the types of speech they don’t like. Human rights activist and staunch liberal Glenn Greenwald published a lengthy article detailing how hate speech laws are used to punish progressives. After citing examples from a half-dozen countries, he notes that :

“This is how hate speech laws are used in virtually every country in which they exist: not only to punish the types of right-wing bigotry that many advocates believe will be suppressed, but also a wide range of views that many on the left believe should be permissible, if not outright accepted. Of course that’s true: Ultimately, what constitutes ‘hate speech’ will be decided by majorities, which means that it is minority views that are vulnerable to suppression.”

There can be no freedom of speech without the right to say what those in power do not want said.

Is Hate Speech Constitutionally Protected?

In the United States, the First Amendment clearly protects speech that some people deem hateful.

The Supreme Court has long considered free speech to be a bedrock American principle that can only be curtailed in very narrow cases. These cases include defamation, harassment, obscenity, fighting words, and true threats. The Court has wisely not interpreted the First Amendment to ban hate speech, for many of the reasons cited in this article, including that such a ban would be inherently subjective and morally wrong.

Of course, the question of whether X behavior is legal is a different question than whether it’s moral. Racist and sexual slurs are deeply immoral. But the Supreme Court has widely and consistently recognized that there are more effective ways to counteract hate speech than blunt laws.

If Hate Speech Laws Don’t Work, What Can We Do to Reduce Bigotry In Society?

There are two powerful ways to combat bigotry, which don’t rely on governmental force: counterspeech, and giving bigots enough rope to hang themselves.

Counterspeech—essentially calling out hateful speech when we see it, and producing powerful arguments against hateful ideas—is the best way to combat prejudice. Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy describes it well :

“The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth.”

Counterspeech is more effective than laws banning hate speech, because counterspeech offers the possibility of convincing people out of their bad ideas rather than simply threatening them into silence. As the United Nations puts it , “ As the key means to counter hate speech, the United Nations supports more speech – not less – and holds the full respect of freedom of expression as the norm .” (emphasis in original)

As Lukianoff said in an email to me, “I don’t think even the most strident proponents of hate speech laws would argue that a highly tolerant culture, one that rejects racism, is more effective at impeding racism than a law imposed on an intolerant people.”

The second way to combat prejudice is to give bigots a microphone. Most Americans are decent people, and even supporters of white nationalists like Richard Spencer are quick to distance themselves once the speakers’ more odious views become known.

Hate Speech Is a Problem, But Hate Speech Laws Aren’t the Solution

Bigotry is a real problem in any large society, but hate speech laws aren’t the solution.

They drive prejudice underground and let it fester. There’s strong evidence that they may actually foster prejudice rather than reduce it.

Hate speech laws also represent unethical curtailments of our inalienable rights. No human is truly free who can be imprisoned for saying something the powers-that-be do not like.

What we need to combat hate speech is counterspeech and a culture of respect towards our fellow human, not enforced silence.

Julian is a former political op-ed writer and current nonprofit marketer. His work has been featured in FEE, National Review, Playboy, and Lawrence Reed's economics anthology  Excuse Me, Professor .

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Column: Kamala Harris faced a high bar for her DNC acceptance speech. She soared past it

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On the final night of the Democratic National Convention, expectations were high and rumors were rampant.

Speculation of a surprise guest — Taylor Swift? Beyoncé? — turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking.

Kamala Harris crushed it.

The vice president was always the main attraction of the four-day event and her Thursday night acceptance speech was always intended as its grand finale.

From the moment she strode out flashing her high-wattage smile, Harris commanded the stage with a purpose and passion that eluded her the last time she ran, aimlessly and unsuccessfully, for the White House.

Photos: DNC underway in Chicago with an energized Harris-Walz ticket

Los Angeles Times photojournalists Robert Gauthier and Myung J. Chun are on the ground in Chicago to capture behind-the-scenes visuals and candid moments.

Aug. 22, 2024

In just over 37 minutes, Harris capped what’s been a remarkable monthlong run of luck and political success with a powerful address that strongly positions her for the last stretch of this fiercely fought presidential campaign.

Our columnists Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria — who, combined, have attended precisely zero Swift or Beyoncé concerts — overcame their disappointment at the no-show and collected themselves to share these thoughts.

Barabak : Previewing this convention, I’d made fun of the breathless most-important-speech-of-her-career hype that anticipated Harris’ Thursday night closer. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was so predictable and trite.

That said, it was a hugely consequential political moment, and Harris delivered flawlessly. I’ve followed her career going back to her days as San Francisco district attorney and never saw her give a better speech.

She was tough. She was authoritative. She was substantive. And, yes, she was joyful.

Your thoughts?

Chabria : There was little to criticize with this speech. To put it simply, she looked presidential — which was the whole point.

Throughout the week, we’ve seen dozens of loud, yelling speeches — the kind that are a staple of rallies and meant to inspire with their energy. But on this arena stage, with its made-for-television sound system, many of those have seemed over-the-top theatrical and just plain loud to at-home viewers.

Harris took a different approach. This was a speech meant to inspire with content as much as delivery. She was confident. She was cool — and most of all, she was in control. This was her moment to sell herself to undecided voters, and she gave a flawless pitch.

Barabak : The Democrats’ indulgent and sloppy scheduling pushed other speakers way past TV’s prime time when, crucially, the most people are watching.

That wasn’t a problem Thursday night.

Harris, a former courtroom prosecutor, knows how to hone an argument. She had much ground to cover — she is that odd combination of famous and largely unknown — and she did so crisply and with forensic precision.

She offered her life story, starting as a little girl, outlined her career as politician and prosecutor — leaning heavily into her role as California attorney general, fighting crime and protecting consumers — and outlined a vision of what a Harris presidency would look like.

Buttressing and broadening the middle class would be, Harris vowed, “the defining goal of my presidency.”

She promised a middle-class tax cut, to fight to restore a nationwide right to abortion, to “end America’s housing shortage” — the presidency comes with no magic wand, so good luck with that one — and to fix the nation’s broken immigration system by signing bipartisan legislation that Donald Trump tanked for political purposes.

Chabria: But she also didn’t shy away from the tough stuff. Gaza and the U.S. response to the Israel-Palestine conflict has been a subtext of this convention. While the huge, disruptive protests that many either feared or expected didn’t materialize, there were protests. And there was a hard but unsuccessful push to include a Palestinian speaker on the agenda.

Harris hit the issue head-on, with clear position statements.

“I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on Oct. 7,” she said.

Then she turned to Gaza.

“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating,” Harris said. “President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

This part of the speech garnered some of the loudest and longest applause. One speech doesn’t make this issue go away for her, of course, and it shouldn’t — Biden and Harris both need to deliver on those promises.

But hitting it directly and with clarity shows the kind of accountability we look for in leaders.

She also went directly after Trump. What did you think of that part of her remarks, Mark?

Barabak: She lacerated Trump, citing his role inciting the Jan. 6 riot, his felony conviction for election interference and a jury’s finding he was liable for sexual abuse.

“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” she said, citing the get-out-of-jail-free card handed him by a pliant Supreme Court.

But Harris didn’t leave it to the imagination, outlining a litany of barbarities that await should Trump slink back into the Oval Office: Journalists and his political opponents jailed. Jan. 6 insurrectionists turned loose. The military sicced on the country’s citizens to clamp down on dissent.

Strong stuff.

Chabria : She certainly gave us a sense of what she must have been like in a courtroom. And it drove Trump nuts. He was over on his Truth Social platform posting like a madman . What struck me was how stale Trump’s comebacks were — labeling her a communist, blaming her for the border — compared with what Harris was saying on stage.

For those all-important undecided voters, she really is offering something fresh, something that wasn’t on the ticket with Biden. Undecided voters are always a mystery because you don’t know if they are just not paying attention, have already made up their minds and don’t want to say or are just working off their own idiosyncratic criteria. But if there are voters out there searching for a candidate with a new feel, she’s it.

Beyond Harris, the convention did a good job last night with the speakers who led up to her. Her grand-nieces did a cute bit on how to pronounce her name (which even Bill Clinton flubbed). Comma-la. Not hard.

Four of the Central Park Five, now known as the Exonerated Five , also gave a powerful speech — reminding us how Trump continues to believe in their guilt decades after DNA and identifying the real rapist cleared them. I was struck by how much of Trump’s language around that case, and those Black teens, now mirrors his language around immigrants.

But the one that got me was sexual abuse survivor and advocate Courtney Baldwin , a Californian who was “bought and sold” via the website Backpage.com while she was a teen, she said.

It was the attorney general’s office under Harris (and Assistant Atty. Gen. Maggy Krell, who is now running for California Assembly ) that shut down that site with a novel legal strategy and a lot of relentlessness.

Harris is a champion of sexual abuse victims, and it’s a part of her background that she’s mentioned but is still little understood — for all the trafficking panic on the right, Harris has actually put a lot of pimps behind bars.

“She protected people like me her whole life,” Baldwin said. “I know she will fight for us all as president.”

Was there anything else that stood out to you, Mark?

Barabak: Let’s be real. As a woman, Harris faces doubts about her toughness, especially when it comes to defense and foreign policy. But Trump, with his weird suck-up approach to authoritarianism, made it easy for the vice president to draw a pointed contrast.

She vowed never to be a pushover to flattery, like a certain vain ex-president, and said she would always make sure America has “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”

Take that, Putin!

One of the most interesting things to watch in recent years has been the political role reversal under Trump’s Russia-loving, isolationist Republican Party. Now it’s Democrats who are the Cold Warriors.

Look at all the American flags filling the convention hall and hear those recurrent chants of “USA!” “USA!” and you’d have thought you were at one of Ronald Reagan’s GOP conventions.

Chabria: Republicans love to demonize women, individually and collectively. Remember how they treated Hillary? They literally accused her of staying artificially young by sacrificing children in a secret lair beneath a pizza parlor .

No doubt, Harris will see the pressure to label her as something beyond just a bad politician — something evil — increase.

But that kind of individual attack can’t be separated from the collective attack anymore. Women in general now feel under assault with the abortion issue, and that makes aggression toward Harris’ gender feel different than with Clinton.

As Harris put it, “One must ask why exactly is it that they don’t trust women. Well, we trust women. We trust women.”

Any final thoughts, Mark?

Barabak: Harris has always prepared herself to within an inch of her life. So her boffo performance — it is, after all, a performance — was not surprising.

The vice president’s forte is the big set piece — a major speech, a congressional hearing — where the climate is controlled.

When she leaves Chicago, it’s back to the messy and unpredictable campaign trail and at least one debate with the feral, unpredictable Trump.

Who knows what crisis may present itself in the next 70–odd days or what gaffes Harris might commit. Can her luck continue?

The path from here to November is unclear. But she’s certainly stepping off from the convention on the right foot.

And in a brief programming note, that’s it from Chicago. Thanks for joining us and we hope you’ll stick around for more to come.

More to Read

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Column: Donald Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Convention Week

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Mark Z. Barabak is a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times, focusing on California and the West. He has covered campaigns and elections in 49 of the 50 states, including a dozen presidential contests and scores of mayoral, legislative, gubernatorial and congressional races. He also reported from the White House and Capitol Hill during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations.

Anita Chabria is a California columnist for the Los Angeles Times, based in Sacramento. Before joining The Times, she worked for the Sacramento Bee as a member of its statewide investigative team and previously covered criminal justice and City Hall.

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Is Telegram CEO Pavel Durov a Free-Speech Martyr or a Profiteer Who Holds Online Garden Parties for Bad Guys?

I’m willing to hear arguments from both sides, but when the free-speech advocates include Elon Musk and former Russian political love goddess Maria Butina, I might do so with both hands on my wallet.

There could be a lot more still to unfold from the arrest of Pavel Durov, the cofounder and CEO of Telegram, by French authorities last week. The charges against Durov involve the use of his messaging platform by certain nefarious actors, including sex traffickers and terrorists. From The New York Times:

Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said on Monday that the investigation was opened on July 8 “against person unnamed” on a raft of potential charges related to child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, fraud, money laundering, abetting criminal transactions and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement. The investigation is being handled by cybercrime and anti-fraud specialists. It is unclear whether any of the charges will be held against Mr. Durov. In a statement on Telegram on Sunday, the company said that “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

And thereby hangs an interesting question. Is Durov a martyr to free speech online, or a profiteer who holds online garden parties at which bad actors do business? I’m willing to hear arguments from both sides, but when the free-speech advocates include Elon Musk and, of all people, former Russian political love goddess Maria Butina , then I listen to the arguments with both hands on my wallet. (Butina, it seems, is now a deputy in the Duma, a step up from making goo-goo eyes at pudgy members of the NRA.) From Reuters:

“Pavel Durov is a political prisoner—a victim of a witch-hunt by the West,” Butina told Reuters. “The arrest of Pavel Durov means there is no freedom of speech—it means that freedom of speech in Europe is dead.”

Forgive me if I decline to take seriously the free-speech advocacy from a representative of the government that locked up Alexei Navalny until he died in an Arctic prison of “sudden death syndrome” in a country that has seen dozens of journalists killed in mysterious ways since the notorious (and still unsolved) murder of Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. I feel no compulsion to resist the temptation to tell la Butina to shut the fck up on this particular subject.

Durov apparently is one of those messianic tech heroes who seem to believe that the future of human development and the full blossoming of human freedom will come one post at a time—guarded at all times by pseudonyms. He was chased out of Russia for his anti-government activities. Then Telegram was the beneficiary of a massive migration of users when Twitter and Facebook cracked down in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. With that flood of new users, authorities claim, Telegram became a haven for criminals and terrorists. Durov hand-waves this criticism away.

Telegram has long been underpinned by Mr. Durov’s anti-authority ethos and commitment to free speech. A devout techno-optimist with a flair for trolling authorities online, the 39-year-old has said he believes strongly that governments should not censor what people say or do on the internet. That guiding maxim helped Telegram become a popular chat app for Russians, Iranians and others living under authoritarian governments. But Mr. Durov’s laissez-faire approach to policing the platform has also attracted terrorists, extremists, gun runners, scammers and drug dealers.

Secrecy trumps the closer policing of online speech, he has said. “Privacy, ultimately, is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism,” he posted in 2015. “To be truly free, you should be ready to risk everything for freedom,” Mr. Durov wrote on Instagram in 2018 beneath a photo of himself atop a horse in the desert.

During the interview [with Tucker Carlson], one of his first in years, he sat in front of a bookcase that held two sculptures of chairs, one covered in knives and the other with phalluses—an apparent allusion to a Russian prison joke.

That’s all just too adorable.

Debates on free expression aside, a lot of somebodies around the world have got to be nervous at the prospect of Telegram’s being pried open by the French legal system. I don’t think I’m too far away from the pack to wonder if there aren’t more than a few folks in this country with ties to the events of January 6 who are sweating as well.

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Prosecutors in Arizona’s fake electors case dispute defendants’ allegations of a political motive

FILE - Kris Mayes smiles before a debate on Sept. 28, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

FILE - Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, speaks at a campaign rally, June 6, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)

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PHOENIX (AP) — A three-day hearing on whether to dismiss charges against Republicans accused of plotting to overturn the results of the close 2020 presidential race in Arizona concluded Wednesday with prosecutors insisting their case is not politically motivated after defendants argued their alleged conduct was constitutionally protected free speech.

What’s the case about?

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen is considering requests from at least a dozen of 18 people indicted in April to dismiss charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery. Those charged in the case include 11 people who submitted a document falsely claiming Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to Trump, including Rudy Giuliani .

Trump was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.

The indictment alleges that Giuliani pressured Maricopa County officials and state legislators to change the election results and encouraged Republican electors in the state to vote for Trump in mid-December 2020. The indictment says Giuliani spread false claims of election fraud in Arizona and presided over a downtown Phoenix gathering where he claimed officials made no effort to determine the accuracy of presidential election results.

Prosecutors insist the case is not politically motivated

Prosecutor Nicholas Klingerman told the judge Wednesday that it was an Arizona grand jury that issued the indictments and that the prosecution is not driven by animus for Republicans.

“This prosecution involves nothing more than enforcing the law against those who are alleged to have committed frauds, forgeries and conspiracies to change the outcome of a lawful election because they were unsatisfied with the results,” Klingerman said. “And like all criminal prosecutions, it seeks to punish prior behavior, educate the public, and deter future efforts to do the same thing.”

“The fact is that the state asked the grand jury to consider not indicting more Republicans than the grand jury actually indicted,” Klingerman added. “The state asked the grand jury to consider not indicting Donald Trump.”

In a statement issued after the hearing, Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes described the defendants’ motions as an effort to “deflect from the facts of this case and muddy the waters in the public eye.”

“Let me be clear: the indictments in this case were not politically motivated,” Mayes said.

Defense attorneys base their case on a free speech argument

Defense attorneys argued this week that Mayes has used the indictment to silence their clients’ constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to its outcome.

They cited an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics. They also said Mayes campaigned on investigating fake electors and showed a bias against Trump and his supporters.

What is the law being cited by defense attorneys?

The law in question, commonly referred to as an anti-SLAPP statute, had long offered protections from civil lawsuits before it was amended in 2022 by the Republican-led Legislature to cover people facing most criminal charges.

It states that in a legal action involving lawful exercise of certain rights, such as speech, individuals can file a motion to dismiss and they must show that the legal action is “substantially motivated” by a “desire to deter, retaliate against or prevent the lawful exercise of a constitutional right.”

The anti-SLAPP law has not been used in a criminal case since it was modified in 2022, according to a spokesperson for Mayes.

Prosecutors contend that the Arizona law does not apply to this case. But the judge pressed Klingerman Wednesday about what he considered to be illegal acts allegedly committed by the defendants.

“I’m really concerned about the difference between speech and acts,” Cohen said.

When will the judge decide on the motions to dismiss?

Cohen said Tuesday he would rule separately on each motion — potentially at different times — but did not indicate Wednesday when he would issue the rulings.

Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

The remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty. Their trial is scheduled to start Jan. 5, 2026.

Former Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows is trying to move his charges to federal court, where his lawyers say they will seek a dismissal.

This story has been corrected to show that defense attorneys did not make arguments on Wednesday.

Associated Press writer Gabriel Sandoval in Phoenix contributed to this report.