14. Have you ever tried to illustrate any of your expository writing with diagrams or photographs or original sketches? What are the essentials of a really serviceable illustration ?

15. Read Ernest Poole's article on How the Chicago Art Institute Reaches the People, in the Outlook, March 23, 1907, and Walter Weyl's article on The Call of America, in the same magazine, April 23, 1910. Can you find other examples of exposition done entirely or largely through the concrete? Are they effective?

16. Study the ending of Chapter XIV in The American Commonwealth. Observe the ways in which other skillful writers close their pieces of exposition. Do you ever find them using several methods in combination?

17. Independent criticism of a simple kind affords excellent training. Read Professor Brewster's Introduction to his Specimens of Modern English Literary Criticism, or Professor Gardiner's Forms of Prose Literature, pp. 88-101, in order to become familiar with the principal types of criticism. Then write out your opinions of a current novel, a volume of poems, or the whole body of an essayist's work. You need not confine yourself to books of literature if you are more deeply interested in music or painting or engineering.

18. Have you read Dean Briggs's School, College, and Character? Could you write an interesting opinion of the chapter on College Honor or the one on Fathers, Mothers, and Freshmen?

19. Could you comment informally and interestingly upon any of the following matters? Early rising, dreams, owning books, loaning books, reading aloud, umbrellas, blue Sunday, magic lines, photographs, nicknames, old-fashioned folks.

20. Do not fail to read something from the pen of each of the following present-day essayists: Samuel McChord Crothers, Henry Van Dyke, Kenneth Grahame, Augustine Birrell, Agnes Repplier, Edward Verrall Lucas.

ART WRIT. ENG.-17

CHAPTER VIII - ARGUMENTATION

I. THE FIELD OF ARGUMENTATION

A. THE RELATION OF ARGUMENTATION TO EXPOSITION ARGUMENTATION is the form of composition that seeks to produce belief or conviction concerning a matter about which there is doubt or indifference. It is like exposition in that it has explanation for its first purpose; it is unlike exposition in that it explains matters about which there is difference of belief or conviction, while exposition explains only those things about which there are different degrees of understanding. Sometimes a full explanation is all that is required to change a person's opinion or to convince him of his own error. In such cases, it may be seen at once, exposition performs the function of argumentation. Usually, however, when a person's understanding is interwoven with personal interest, personal desire, personal prejudice, and the personal indifference that sometimes results from prejudice, a successful effort to make him understand from one's own point of view involves awakening him from his indifference, breaking down his prejudice, appealing to his power of reason, and if need be, showing that the dictates of reason are favorable to his own selfish or unselfish interests. To accomplish all of these things is the work of him who would argue effectively.

The element of exposition in argumentation ought to save us from the error of confusing an argument with mere contentious strife. All of us, no doubt, are familiar with the man who is ever looking for an "argument," not in the hope that he may modify anybody's opinions, but that he may succeed in humiliating an opponent by proving him an ignoramus or a liar in the presence of others. This man ordinarily reveals his cheap

motive when he is fairly cornered. Instead of admitting his plight, he calls his opponent a fool, or if he doubts the advantage of that course, he seeks to cover up the weakness of his position by expressing surprise that anybody should thus maliciously try to misunderstand the matter at issue. Of course, petty wrangling of this character is not argument at all. It does not involve the first essential of argumentation; that is, clear and full explanation.

B. THE IMPORTANCE OF ARGUMENTATION

Occasionally we hear the assertion that an argument serves no purpose, since an arguer never convinces those who hold an opposing view. This assertion is sometimes based on the false conception we have just considered, and sometimes on a cramped or hasty view of the results of an argument. It is true, undeniably, that few persons will sacrifice their pride by admitting immediately after they have been addressed argumentatively that they have been convinced. Nevertheless, in the course of the argument, either voluntarily, or, in an unguarded moment, involuntarily, they have recognized the weakness of some part of the position they maintain or the strength of some part of that maintained by an opponent. In this manner, through his influence, they modify their views slightly. In due time they build new opinions upon those which have been modified. As time carries them farther and farther away from the heat and antagonism of the discussion, their new opinions reveal more and more of the character of the modified views. Thus, eventually, the results of the argument become clearly evident.

Few people appreciate the large place that argumentation holds in the transactions of life. Too frequently it is looked upon as being useful only in formal forensics and intercollegiate debates. This view is deplorable and false. Argumentation is used wherever persons who differ in opinion seek to stand on common ground, or where one of them strives to have his position accepted by the others. Thus, in the business man's

efforts to increase trade, in the lawyer's addresses before the court or the jury, in the editor's defense of his political or ethical ideals, in the minister's plea for religious development, in the teacher's direction of his pupils' opinions, in the countless persuasive personal letters which men and women of every calling or occupation write, and in the broken, disjointed conversation of daily life, argument must be employed. In fact, argumentative principles and argumentative procedure are involved whenever one makes an effort to increase one's influence in any direction.

Happily, the value of argumentation is not limited to the immediate influence which the arguer gains by convincing his fellow beings; it extends to the permanent shaping of his own mental powers. In following argumentative processes, he develops the habit of thinking logically and of measuring motives. Accordingly, when doubt exists in his mind, he can make a dispassionate examination of the "facts" involved, weigh and consider his own prejudices and his own weaknesses, and thereby learn how much of his uncertainty is well founded and how much of it is due merely to the universal will to doubt. Thus it may be seen that skill in argumentation serves one wherever research, original investigation, or experiment is to be made. The person who does pioneer service in any branch of knowledge or in any kind of transaction must not be wholly influenced by the traditions of the past, yet he must, for his own safety, have some regard for these traditions. As a result he is put in a position where he cannot wholly accept or wholly ignore the work of others save as he finds that this work will stand the scrutiny of argumentative examination. The tests that he is consequently called upon to make are sure to develop openmindedness, patience, and habits of unprejudiced thinking.

C. THE KINDS OF ARGUMENT

If for convenience of study we attempt to classify argumentation according to the twofold division of writing made at

the beginning of this book, we shall notice that it lies almost wholly within the field of instrumental composition. Further study will reveal the fact, too, that formal argument includes only a very small part of all argumentative writing. The occasions when people are willing to sit down and read a full discussion of a proposition, including a carefully phrased introduction, a formidable array of argument, and a well-rounded conclusion, are comparatively few. On the other hand, there are almost countless opportunities to employ the informal argumentative paragraph, the persuasive personal letter, and the expository discussion that is partly argumentative. Yet because the underlying principles of all kinds of argument are the same, and because the less formal arguments do not involve all possible processes, while the more formal ones do, it will be profitable for us to base our study largely on the latter.

II. THE ARGUMENTATIVE PROCESS

A. PHRASING THE PROPOSITION

The first step in argumentative procedure is to know definitely what we intend to write about. This step is taken by expressing our subject in the form of a clear-cut, unambiguous proposition. In exposition, if we choose to do so, we can put our subject in one word; for example, " Peace." Now in treating" Peace " in an expository essay, we might explain the origin of the movement toward international peace, we might discuss the workings of the numerous peace societies in the world to-day, or we might show the relation existing between commercial enterprise and the positive assurance of peace. In fact, we might treat any part of the subject that promised to be interesting to ourselves or our audience. But if we treat "Peace" argumentatively, the smallest unit we can employ as a starting point in our discussion is a complete sentence. It is necessary for us to affirm or deny something about "Peace"; and we must limit ourselves to this one aspect of the subject.

"Peace is desir