What is an

1
What is an argument?

• Anger Fight or quarrel
• Debate Pro and con
• Programming
• A parameter is a variable which takes on the
  meaning of a corresponding argument passed in a
  call to a subroutine.
• Although parameters are also commonly referred to
  as arguments, arguments are more properly the
  actual values or references assigned to the
  parameter variables when the subroutine is called
  at runtime.

2

• An argument isn't just contradiction.
•  It can be.
•      No it can't. An argument is a connected
  series of statements intended to establish a
  proposition.
• No it isn't.
•      Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
• Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a
  contrary position.
•      Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it
  isn't.'
• Yes it is!
•      No it isn't! Argument is an intellectual
  process. Contradiction is just the automatic
  gainsaying of any statement the other person
  makes.
• No it isn't.
•      It is.

3
Arguments can be explicit or implicit

• Implicit
• Describe a photograph that would create an
  implicit argument persuading
• The general public toward banning handguns
• The general public against banning handguns
• Advertising
• Psychology, communication

4
Explicit Argument

• Requires Justification of its claims
• Recall the Monty Python Argument clinic skit
• An argument?
• Argument is an intellectual process.
  Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of
  any statement the other person makes.

5
Truth seeking persuasion
Inquiry Think out loud
Dialog seeking common ground
One-sided preaching to the choir
Propaganda
Exploratory Essay
Classical Argument aimed as skeptic
Aggressive one-sided Political rally
6
Reading Arguments5 strategies

• Read as a believer
• Read as a doubter
• Explore how the rhetorical context and genre are
  shaping the argument.
• Seek alternative views and analyze sources of
  disagreements
• Use disagreement productively to prompt further
  investigation

7
Read as a believer

• Empathetic listening
• Suspend your doubt when summarizing
• Give the other side its BEST shot
• Dont be afraid to offer positive examples etc.
• What you are trying to say is
• Say it in such a way that THEY agree that is what
  they said
• Make implicit assumptions explicit
• THEN proceed to argue

8
Read as a believer

• E.g CS needs a code of ethics (or not).
• Cyberethics does NOT introduce new ethical
  issues.
• Evidence?
• Best example?

9
Read as a doubter

• Seek not the answers, but to understand the
  QUESTIONS
• List assumptions, and challenge
• Categorize counter-examples (and support)
• Focus on key terminology that
• reveals bias
• too strong
• Loaded (value laden, ideology, etc.)

10
Rhetorical context and Genre

• Personal correspondence
• Letter to editor
• Op-ed
• Niche magazine (e.g. Beginners Guides)
• Scholarly journal
• White papers
• Proposals
• Legal briefs
• Advocacy
• Advertisement
• Blogs, forums
• Visual argument
• Speech

11
Questions to ask

• What is the authors interests / investment?
• Who is the audience?
• What is motivating the writing?
• What genre?
• What info about the publication helps explain the
  angle?

12
Seeking Alternative Views

• Disagreement about facts
• Global warming?
• Disagreement about Values
• Ethics? Politics? Religion?

13
Using disagreements productively

• Accept ambiguity or uncertainty
• Consider synthesis as a solution
• Describe as a dilemma
• You have 2 (or more) choices
• You MUST make a choice
• ALL of your choices stink
• Sources, References for facts / data
• Statistics
• Studies
• Context of data

14
Sources, facts, data

• Statistics, Studies
• Stories
• Testimony / witness
• Memory
• Evidence
• Physical
• Analogical / Model
• Circumstantial (indirect inference from another
  fact)
• Opinions
• Description, analysis, decomposition, logic?

15
Consider ways to synthesize views

• Define YOUR values
• Reader Response Theory
• recognizes the reader as an active agent who
  imparts "real existence" to the work and
  completes its meaning through interpretation. (no
  meaning w/out reader if a tree falls)
• Reader-response criticism argues that literature
  should be viewed as a performing art in which
  each reader creates his or her own, possibly
  unique, text-related performance.
• It stands in total opposition to the theories of
  formalism and the New Criticism, in which the
  reader's role in re-creating literary works is
  ignored (meaning is objective).
• There is NO authoritative or privileged
  interpretation
• Take a 3rd position that reconciles two sides
• Provide multiple or hypothetical resolutions