Argument Speech Writing with Examples
More than two
thousand years ago, Alexander the Great found what his great teacher, Aristotle,
had taught him about the art of persuasion, logos,
pathos, and ethos.
Persuasion is based
on three appeals. The first is reason. An appeal to reason is an appeal to your
mind. On the other hand, an one can attempt to manipulate your emotions, your
heart and not your mind. Finally, one can refer to the character of the person
making the appeal; a person of high character or integrity, obviously, is
likely to be more successful in his argument than a person of doubtful
character. A persuasive essay may use all the three appeals, or just one;
however, it is clear that an essay employing all the three appeals is likely to
succeed more in persuading the reader than an essay which is based on only one
appeal.
How the Three Appeals
Are Used
In order to
persuade readers to agree with a particular position on an issue, writers need
to think carefully about how they will appeal to their audience and what
support they will use. Depending on who their audience is, writers may want to
appeal to their reader’s reason, emotions, or sense of the writer’s character. Suppose,
if you were to argue in favor of reduction of your high tuition fee in your
university, you would make different persuasive appeals to different audiences.
Possibly, emotional appeal would serve better with your student community; in
that case, you would argue that your tuition fee is unrealistically high, and
the university is really very unfair and greedy in making such high financial
demands on you. On the other hand, such an emotive argument may not persuade university
authorities; you would do better to use your rational skill in order to
persuade university authorities to reduce your tuition fee. You may possibly
use cool reason and argue that investment on education would be a big savings
in the long run; well-educated citizens of a country are the best assets that a
nation can have.
African
American Nobel laureate, Martin Luther King, Jr. was found ‘guilty’ and jailed
for “parading without a permit” in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. From his jail
cell he wrote a letter which is an extremely effective argument that uses all three
persuasive appeals. His letter, though addressed to eight Birmingham clergymen
who deplored the demonstration in their city, is an eloquent appeal to all
humanity in the interest of equality, justice and fair play, the mark of
cultured society.
Reason
An appeal
to reason is based on fair, logical and representative evidence. King’s appeal
in the following paragraph is based on the universal truth that “one has a
moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Sample:
You express a
great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a
legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme
Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first
glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may
well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The
answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I
would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but
a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that
“an unjust law is no law at all.”
Martin
Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
Emotion
Emotional
appeal is based on language, examples and descriptions that respond to readers’
personal feelings. When presented fairly and honestly, as it is in the
following paragraph by King, an appeal to the readers’ emotions is an effective
and justifiable type of persuasion.
Sample:
We have waited for more than 340 years for
our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are
moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still
creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch
counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt stinging darts of
segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
mothers and fathers at will and drown sisters and brothers at whim; when you
have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers
and sisters … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There
comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing
to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our
legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from
Birmingham Jail
King’s appeal in
the above paragraph is effective because it is based on actual experiences and
human feelings with which his readers can identify. However, writers should not
misuse the emotional appeal by unjustly exaggerating or misrepresenting events
or emotions.
Character
The final
persuasive appeal is based on the credibility, or believability, of the
character of the writer. Your argument obviously will carry more weight if you
convince your readers that you are a fair, honest and ethical person. In the
following paragraph, King enhances his own credibility by comparing his beliefs
to those of other respected individuals.
Sample:
But though I was initially disappointed at
being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I
gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus as
extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” Was not Amos
an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like an ever-flowing stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian
gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther
an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” And John
Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make butchery of my
conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and
half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal. …” So the question is not whether we will be
extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for
hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or
for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three
men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the
same crime – the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and
thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist
for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above environment. Perhaps the
South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from
Birmingham Jail
Exercise
Read the
following paragraphs. Identify in each the writer’s position on the topic and
the primary appeal used (reason, emotion, or character).
Please note
that it is not necessary that all writers should state their position explicitly;
in some writing, the position is only implied.
Sample:
These
days the common assumption, worldwide, is that the future belongs to China, and
the rest of us are just going to have to get used to it. A huge nation is
rising, economically and in every other way, and the other nations of East Asia
will just have to sit back (if not genuflect) as Beijing takes its rightful
spot at the table’s head. It is, after all, a done deal.
Bill Powell, “Leave the Past
Behind,” Time
1. What is the writer’s position on the topic?
2. What is the writer’s primary appeal?
Sample:
Gun
control is not an easy issue. But, for me, it is a fundamental issue. My family
has been touched by violence; too many others have felt the same terrible
force. Too many children have been raised without a father or mother. Too many
widows have lived out their lives alone. Too many people have died.
E.
M. Kennedy, “The Need for Handgun Control.” Los Angeles Times
1. What is the writer’s position on the topic?
2. What is the writer’s primary appeal?
Sample:
It is clear, I think, that gun legislation
simply doesn’t work. There are already some 20,000 state and local gun laws on
the books, and they are no more effective than was the prohibition of alcoholic
beverages in the 1920s. Our most recent attempt at federal gun legislation was
… intended to control the interstate sale and transportation of firearms and
the importation of uncertified firearms; it has done nothing to check the
availability of weapons. It has been bolstered in every nook and cranny of the
nation by local gun-control laws, yet the number of shooting homicides per year
has climbed steadily since its enactment, while armed robberies have increased
60 percent.
Barry Goldwater, “Why Gun-Control Laws Don’t
Work,” Reader’s Digest
1. What is the writer’s position on the topic?
2. What is the writer’s primary appeal?
Sample:
The feminist objection to pornography is
based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women, that
pornography’s intent is to humiliate, degrade, and dehumanize the female body
for the purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure. We are unalterably opposed
to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured,
mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.
Susan
Brownmiller, Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet
1. What is the writer’s position on the topic?
2. What is the writer’s primary appeal?
Evaluating Evidence
A
persuasive writer has to present concrete evidence in support of his arguments.
Concrete evidence is made up of accurate statistics and facts, reliable
authority/sources, and illustrative incidents.
Statistics and facts:
Both
statistics and facts form effective evidence in persuasive writing because they
are based on objective evidence. Statistics are special facts based on
numerical evidence. In the following
paragraph, the writer argues that the earth has been made unlivable for many
forms of life, and he supports his argument by statistics and facts.
Argument: Far from
mitigating the earlier threats to birds and other forms of life on the earth,
man has further endangered their survival.
Sample:
Fact & Statistics: Of earth’s 9,000
species of birds, about 1,000 are already at risk. And while the old perils –
habitat destruction, pesticide poisoning, shooting, oil spills, migrant killing
TV towers, and others – continue, we are adding new threats. Especially
sinister are the gaseous byproducts of advanced technology – carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide, CFCs – the products responsible for acid precipitation,
ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect, developments whose long-term impact
on birds (and other life) we are beginning, nervously to guess at. …
- Alan Pistorius, “Species
Lost,” Country Journal
Reliable authority/sources:
Citing an authority in the relevant area makes for
convincing evidence. If the cited authority is well known, it makes the
evidence stronger still. However,
although it need not always be a famous person, it must be an expert in the
field. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s citation from St. Augustine is
not only from an expert but also from a highly respectable fifth-century
scholar and author, so it lends powerful support to his argument.
Argument: One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust
laws.
Authority: I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust
law is no law at all.”
- Martin
Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail
Illustrative
incidents:
Relevant illustrative incidents lend powerful support for an
argument.
Argument: Watching
TV violence can be seriously dangerous for little kids.
Incident: One
5-year old boy from Boston recently got up from watching a teen-slasher film
and stabbed a 2-year-old girl with a butcher knife. He didn’t mean to kill her
(and luckily he did not). He was just imitating the man on the video.
- Tipper Gore, “Curbing the Sexploitation Industry,” Raising
PG Kids in an X-Rated Society
EXERCISES
Analyzing arguments
Read the following paragraphs and decide the argument and
the type of evidence used therein, statistics and facts, reliable
authority/sources, or illustrative incident.
a) Everyone should drink at
least two liters of water everyday. Our sports coach says that becoming
dehydrated, especially during exercise, is very dangerous.
Argument:
_______________________________________________________
Type of evidence:
_______________________________________________
b) Most of the miseries in
this world are caused by war, and when the wars are over, they do not know what
they were fighting about. Disputes must be settled by peaceful negotiations
between countries and between people. Or, failing that, we need “passive
resistance,” the method advocated by Gandhi and also by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Argument:
_______________________________________________________
Type of evidence: ____________________________________________
c) China has long prided itself on having come up with many of
the world’s most important inventions. Now the country that gave us gunpowder,
paper money, and the noodle can claim responsibility for another of human
civilization’s highest achievements: we have the Chinese, or at least their
distant ancestors, to thank for cocktails. According to a report released last
week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S.,
residents of the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province were raising toasts
with fruit wines and rice spirits in 7000 B.C. – usurping Iran’s place in the
tipple timeline by at least a thousand years.
Susan
Jakes, “Chen. Jiahu, With Hawthorn Accents,” Time
Argument:
_________________________________________________________
Type of evidence:
___________________________________________________
d) Khalil Ibrahim was quite desperate and ready to risk his
life; he knew there was nothing but starvation in his country, Bangladesh. So,
one day he boarded a rickety boat along with his four family members. They,
along with thirty other desperate lots, set sail in search of economic freedom
and happiness. Their voyage was a nightmare. Before they were arrested on the
coast of Tripoli, Libya, they were attacked and deprived of whatever material
goods they had by a group of pirates, and during a terrible storm, their
supplies were washed overboard. Ten of the passengers died because of lack of
food and water, and the rest were completely dazed.
Argument: ___________________________________________________________
Type of evidence:
________________________________________________
e) After nearly two years of stubborn optimism, Japan’s
economic recovery seems to be skidding to a halt. Last week’s government
figures showed that the country only narrowly avoided a return to recession –
defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic product – with
0.1% GDP growth in the third quarter following a 0.1% contraction in the
second. “We are entering a slow patch, and there is no obvious exit,” says
Peter Morgan, chief economist at HSBC Securities in Tokyo.
Argument: _________________________________________________________
Type of evidence:
________________________________________________
Avoiding False
Arguments
False arguments may seduce your readers’ emotions but will
not stand the test of logical analysis; unreliable and ineffective evidence
weakens persuasive writing. The four general types of unreliable and illogical
support that should be avoided are: oversimplification, irrelevant evidence,
unfairly emotional words, and distorted or suppressed evidence.
Oversimplification:
This refers to poor reasoning that weakens persuasive argument. The following
are some illustrations of oversimplifications resulting from poor reasoning.
Insufficient evidence:
A conclusion based on insufficient evidence is a case of oversimplification.
For example, suppose you are cheated by a person at a new place and you
conclude that all people in that place are cheats. You would most probably be
sadly mistaken. Your evidence would not
be sufficient to support that conclusion.
Illogical assumptions:
Superstitions are invariably based on illogical assumptions. Some people avoid
staying in room No. 13 in hotels thinking that it brings them bad luck;
however, the fact remains that there is no logical basis for such thinking.
Misleading comparisons:
Some writers make comparisons that are at first view attractive, but are
actually misleading. Comparing life to a chess game is attractive, but does not
make a logically convincing argument; such comparisons, as they do not stand
the test of logical analysis, eventually weaken persuasive writing.
Irrelevant evidence:
Any evidence that does not have an immediate bearing on the subject being
debated is irrelevant. For example, if you discuss the teaching performance of
your professor and cite his huge debts and his divorce as evidence of his being
an incompetent teacher, you are reflecting on his private life, which has
nothing to do with his being a good or bad teacher. Therefore, this is irrelevant evidence, and it
undermines your case.
Another example of irrelevant evidence is quoting someone simply because he or she
is famous; celebrities make false
authorities, except in their area of specialization. Celebrity endorsement
is often used as a gimmick by many advertisers to convince people that they
will be more like their favorite celebrity if only they use the same product as
that person. A football player may be an expert on sneakers, but is his
endorsement of frozen food worthy of attention?
Overly emotional words:
Words used purely for their emotional impact fail to cut any ice. While
emotional appeal is quite valid, writers should not substitute emotion for
reason. If you are against abortion, you should not call abortionists “baby
killers,” no matter how strongly you feel about it. Using name-calling
adjectives, such as crazy, silly, or stupid, also serves only to make an
argument seem desperate and emotional, not clear and logical.
Distorted or
suppressed evidence: Finally, distorted or suppressed evidence does not
make for persuasion. Taking a quotation out of its context is distortion of
facts and must be avoided. A second kind of distortion is misrepresenting an
opposing point of view before refuting it. Lastly, suppression of evidence
occurs when the opposing view is completely ignored.
EXERCISE
All the
following statements are examples of weak reasoning. Write in the blank the
kind of weak reasoning they illustrate: oversimplification, irrelevant
evidence, overly emotional words, or distorted or suppressed evidence.
a) My sister gets As in English but only Cs, and sometimes
Ds, in math. It is but apparent that girls are good at languages but terrible
with numbers.
………………………………………………………………………………………
b) Never mind the past, I’m promising no new taxes from now
on.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
c) The mayor is in favor of raising the education tax again.
She really believes in soaking people for everything they’ve got. She is no
less than a Hitler.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
d) Would you like to fix up your hair like Supermodel Tanita?
Try Glorious Shampoo and marvel at the results. You too will have soft,
manageable, shiny hair.
………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
e) I heard that a terrorist shot a person in broad-day light
in down town Paris; it must be a very dangerous place.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
f) He is a self-seeking individual who has sold the city out
to special-interest groups and racketeers.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
g) I fail to understand why people are so impressed with
Japanese technology; my grinder, made in Japan, broke down after just two days.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
h) Let’s go to the new movie. Everybody says it’s great.
………………………………………………………………………………………......
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