Fighting With Your Pen

Being able to effectively argue someone is a great skill to have under your belt. Some people are born with the skill of arguing and some people work very hard to achieve it. Having greater skill in making a better argument than your opponent is like being faster in a race or stronger in a fight. In writing it is much more difficult because your words are concrete and is impossible to backtrack on your argument. When entering an argument Stuart Greene has a few points you should cover. The most important of all of them is “identifying an issue” for if you enter upon an argument and have no idea what the issue is it will look like the video above. People when taking up arms in an argument have a certain bias and background knowledge that supports this “bias”. When joining an argument you must figure out what the bias is of the people you are arguing. So with this knowledge you will be able to more accurately argue your point.

            Greene also said that when coming up with an argument for your paper you must first ask a question. Greene says there are certain criteria for asking a question. One is that you can answer it  because if the question you ask isn't able to be answered then you have to do extra research. This makes sense because if you aren't able to make a valid argument you will sound like your just spouting out nonsense just like the babies from the video above. An argument in writing is just looking for how others have defined problems and then using their words to predict possible counter arguments they may have. A quality argument is like a game of chess; those best at arguing will be two moves ahead of their opponent. But those that are better at arguing aren't guaranteed to win they first must frame their argument and if the argument they chose to frame is a bad one your argument may be dead before you even started it. When you frame  your argument Greene says you get numerous benefits but what I felt like was the most important was that framing helps organize your thoughts and the points you will be making. For without organization in your argument your opponent could have a checkmate within seconds.