II. OTHER SUGGESTED TOPICS 1. Wrong is Finally Punished. 2. Obey the Still Small Voice. 6. 7. An Empty Sack Cannot Stand Upright. 38. 39. 40. 41. America's Greatest Woman. The True Philanthropist. The Fool-Killer Still Has a Job. The Best Book I ever Read. 42. My Favorite Poem. 43. Why Some People Have no Friends. The First Girl I Loved. 44. A good plan is to permit the student to speak for five minutes, and then for the next three minutes, while still on the floor, to answer questions presented by the class. This plan demands adequate preparation and is a good drill in thinking quickly and accurately while on one's feet. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER IX DEBATING No form of public speaking can equal debating in importance. He who has the ability to arrange logically and adequately and to present clearly and forcefully truths that convince and persuade, is indeed a master among men. The treatment of this subject in a single chapter will necessarily be confined to a statement of essential elements, with some brief suggestions as to methods. Some standard text on argumentation and debate should be used with a class, whenever time permits. DEFINITIONS. Argumentation is the kind of speech or writing which aims to establish the truth or the falsity of a proposition. A Debate is a formal arrangement agreed upon by two or more persons to discuss under set rules opposite sides of a proposition. These formal principles and rules will be tersely outlined in this chapter. Facts are entities and relationships as they actually exist in the universe. Opinions are merely man's conception of these facts. When our opinions agree with the facts they are called truths. A proposition is the expression of relationship between two or more facts. It is a statement that something is or is not. You cannot debate a single fact. You must debate a proposition. An assertion is an affirmation or denial without ex pressed or logical grounds. Assumptions are truths accepted without proof. Presumptions are statements considered true until proved otherwise. Proof is sufficient reason for asserting a proposition as true. It includes evidence and argument. I. Evidence. Evidence is any matter from which an inference may be drawn. It is the basis of proof. There are three sources of evidence: 1. Experience, 2. Testimonial, and 3. Circumstantial. 1. Much of the evidence we use in arguing comes from our personal knowledge of facts. These facts we have learned A. through Observation, and B. through Experiment. 2. The second great source of material comes to us from what others have found out, or from witnesses, as they are often called. Such testimonial evidence varies in value, as is pointed out below. Expert Testimony is the opinion of a person of recognized standing in his profession upon matters relative to his special line of work which makes him competent to form an accurate judgment. A person whose expert testimony is generally accepted is said to be an authority. Evidence from authority should stand the following tests: C. Has he had sufficient opportunity to know the facts? D. Is he generally considered an authority in this particular field? Testimony that is especially valuable: A. That used by an opposing witness. B. Concurrent testimony-or testimony substantiated by other authorities. C. Unwilling testimony—or that which is given against one's own interest. D. Negative testimony-or the omission of facts which would have been mentioned had they existed. E. Undesigned testimony-an unintentional admission of circumstances which were meant to have been kept secret. F. Consistent testimony-consistent (1) with itself, (2) with other facts, (3) with ordinary experience. This 3. The third source of evidence is circumstantial. is secured through a process of reasoning. The value of evidence secured in this way depends upon (1) the basic facts from which we draw inferences, and (2) the correctness of the reasoning process. II. Argument. Argument is the process of gaining the unknown from the known evidence. In debating, the methods used in convincing the minds of the audience of the validity of your conclusions are, 1. Constructive proof, and 2. Refutation. 1. Constructive Proof. Constructive arguments may be either A. Direct, or argument from authority, or B. Indirect, or through a process of reasoning. There are two kinds of reasoning, a. Inductive, and b. Deductive. a. When we reason Inductively we gather all the facts possible and then arrive at general truths or laws governing these particular facts. There are two general kinds of inductive reasoning, (I) Causal relationship, and (II) Resemblance, or Example. (I) Causal Relationship. This is a very common method of reasoning. The two main divisions are: (1) From cause to effect, technically called Antecedent Probability; and (2) from effect to cause, often called Argument from Sign. The best way to make this clear is to give examples. We reason from cause to effect when we say that one result of the moving picture shows is that they lead boys to become bandits. We reason from effect to cause when we say that the cause of the great number of unemployed in |