Effective Argumentation Strategies: GASCAP/T

Here is a useful way of organizing and remembering seven key argumentative strategies:

1. Argument by Generalization
2. Argument by Analogy
3. Argument by Sign
4. Argument by Consequence
5. Argument by Authority
6. Argument by Principle
7. Argument by Testimony

Richard Fulkerson notes that a single strategy is sufficient to make an argument some of the time, but it is often better to combine several strategies to make an effective argument (Fulkerson, 1996). He organized the argumentative strategies in this way to compare the differences, highlight the similarities, and allow for their discussion. This model, often called by its acronym GASCAP, is a useful strategy to summarize six key arguments and is easy to remember. Here we have adapted it, adding one argument that is often used in today’s speeches and presentations, the argument by testimony. Figure 5.5 “GASCAP/T Strategies” presents each argument, provides a definition of the strategy and an example, and examines ways to evaluate each approach.

Evidence

Now that we’ve clearly outlined several argument strategies, how do you support your position with evidence or warrants? If your premise or the background from which you start is valid, and your claim is clear and clearly related, the audience will naturally turn their attention to “prove it.” This is where the relevance of evidence becomes particularly important. Here are three guidelines to consider in order to insure your evidence passes the “so what?” test of relevance in relation to your claim. Make sure your evidence has the following traits:

1. Supportive. Examples are clearly representative, statistics are accurate, testimony is authoritative, and information is reliable.
2. Relevant. Examples clearly relate to the claim or topic, and you are not comparing “apples to oranges.”
3. Effective. Examples are clearly the best available to support the claim, quality is preferred to quantity, there are only a few well-chosen statistics, facts, or data.

Appealing to Emotions

While we’ve highlighted several points to consider when selecting information to support your claim, know that Aristotle strongly preferred an argument based in logic over emotion. Can the same be said for your audience, and to what degree is emotion and your appeal to it in your audience a part of modern life?

Emotions are a psychological and physical reaction, such as fear or anger, to stimuli that we experience as a feeling. Our feelings or emotions directly impact our own point of view and readiness to communicate, but also influence how, why, and when we say things. Emotions influence not only how you say or what you say, but also how you hear or what you hear. At times, emotions can be challenging to control. Emotions will move your audience, and possibly even move you, to change or act in certain ways.

Aristotle thought the best and most preferable way to persuade an audience was through the use of logic, free of emotion. He also recognized that people are often motivated, even manipulated, by the exploitation of their emotions. In a business context, we still engage in this debate, demanding to know the facts separate from personal opinion or agenda, but see the use of emotional appeal to sell products.

Marketing experts are famous for creating a need or associating an emotion with a brand or label in order to sell it. You will speak the language of your audience in your document, and may choose to appeal to emotion, but you need to consider how the strategy works, as it may be considered a tool that has two edges.

If we think of the appeal to emotion as a knife, we can see it has two edges. One edge can cut your audience, and the other can cut you. If you advance an appeal to emotion in your document on spaying and neutering pets, and discuss the millions of unwanted pets that are killed each year, you may elicit an emotional response. If you use this approach repeatedly, your audience may grow weary of this approach, and it will lose its effectiveness. If you change your topic to the use of animals in research, the same strategy may apply, but repeated attempts to elicit an emotional response may backfire (i.e., in essence “cutting” you) and produce a negative response called “emotional resistance.”

Emotional resistance involves getting tired, often to the point of rejection, of hearing messages that attempt to elicit an emotional response. Emotional appeals can wear out the audience’s capacity to receive the message. As Aristotle outlined, ethos (credibility), logos (logic), and pathos (passion, enthusiasm, and emotional response) constitute the building blocks of any document. It’s up to you to create a balanced document, where you may appeal to emotion, but choose to use it judiciously.

On a related point, the use of an emotional appeal may also impair your ability to write persuasively or effectively. For example, if you choose to present an article about suicide to persuade people against committing it and you start showing a photo of your brother or sister that you lost to suicide, your emotional response may cloud your judgment and get in the way of your thinking. Never use a personal story, or even a story of someone you do not know, if the inclusion of that story causes you to lose control. While it’s important to discuss relevant topics, you need to assess your relationship to the message. Your documents should not be an exercise in therapy. Otherwise, you will sacrifice ethos and credibility, even your effectiveness, if you “lose it” because you are really not ready to discuss the issue.

Recognizing Fallacies

“Fallacy” is another way of saying false logic. Fallacies or rhetorical tricks deceive your audience with their style, drama, or pattern, but add little to your document in terms of substance. They are best avoided because they can actually detract from your effectiveness. There are several techniques or “tricks” that allow the writer to rely on style without offering substantive argument, to obscure the central message, or twist the facts to their own gain. Table 5.6 “Fallacies” examines the eight classical fallacies. Learn to recognize them so they can’t be used against you, and learn to avoid using them with your audience.

Ethical Considerations in Persuasion

In his book Ethics in Human Communication, Richard Johannesen offers eleven points to consider when communicating. Although they are related to public speaking, they are also useful in business writing. You may note that many of his cautions are clearly related to the fallacies we’ve discussed. His main points reiterate many of the points across this chapter and should be kept in mind as you prepare, and present, your persuasive message (Johannesen, 1996).

Do not

• use false, fabricated, misrepresented, distorted, or irrelevant evidence to support arguments or claims;
• intentionally use unsupported, misleading, or illogical reasoning;
• represent yourself as informed or an “expert” on a subject when you are not;
• use irrelevant appeals to divert attention from the issue at hand;
• ask your audience to link your idea or proposal to emotion-laden values, motives, or goals to which it is actually not related;
• deceive your audience by concealing your real purpose, your self-interest, the group you represent, or your position as an advocate of a viewpoint;
• distort, hide, or misrepresent the number, scope, intensity, or undesirable features of consequences or effects;
• use emotional appeals that lack a supporting basis of evidence or reasoning;
• oversimplify complex, gradation-laden situations into simplistic, two-valued, either-or, polar views or choices;
• pretend certainty where tentativeness and degrees of probability would be more accurate;
• advocate something that you yourself do not believe in.

Aristotle said the mark of a good person, well spoken, was a clear command of the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. He discussed the idea of perceiving the various points of view related to a topic and their thoughtful consideration. While it’s important to be able to perceive the complexity of a case, you are not asked to be a lawyer and defend a client.

In your message to persuade, consider honesty and integrity as you assemble your arguments. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful consideration of more than one view and your understanding of the complexity of the issue, thus building your ethos, or credibility, as you present your document. Be careful not to stretch the facts, or assemble them only to prove your point; instead, prove the argument on its own merits. Deception, coercion, intentional bias, manipulation and bribery should have no place in your message to persuade.

Elements of an Argument

Anything you read that includes an attempt to persuade you to think a certain way is likely to include a logical argument as part of that persuasion. Philosophers are trained to study arguments, the reasoning and logic behind them, and the validity of their claims. Knowing the basic elements of an argument will help you identify the logic behind any arguments you read and also help you construct effective arguments in your own writing.

An argument is a claim that contains premises which support a conclusion. In analyzing arguments, you can first look for the claim, or a statement or opinion on a topic. Claims are also called statements or propositions. For example, all of the following are claims:

1. 1. • This class is easy.
      • The Detroit Lions have the potential to make the NFL playoffs.
      • Democratic socialism is superior to a pure democracy.

Each of these could be the start of an argument, but they are incomplete arguments as-in; an argument needs both a claim and a conclusion. A premise is a claim, or piece of evidence, that supports the conclusion, and a conclusion is the main idea (or the “so what?”) of the argument, which is supported by the premises. Now let’s look at the examples above as premises, and we add in a conclusion to make them an argument. For example:

1. 1. • This class is easy so it should not be mandatory.
      • The Detroit Lions have the potential to make the NFL playoffs because they have three of the best players in the league.
      • Democratic socialism is superior to a pure democracy because it results in better outcomes and greater equality for more people.

An argument is an assertion that contains both a conclusion and a supporting premise. It is a statement of fact or opinion that is based on evidence, or premises. Keep in mind that not all statements are arguments, and some statements may contain multiple arguments.

A conclusion is the main claim of an argument that is supported by one or more premises. It is the logical result of the relationship between the premises. Identifying the conclusion is the first step in understanding the argument.

But how do you identify the conclusion? Follow these steps:

1. 1. 1. Ask, “Is the statement the main point, or is it a claim given to support another statement in the argument?”
      2. Identify the indicator word that often precedes the conclusion, such as:
         • therefore
         • thus
         • this means
         • this shows
         • as a result
         • it follows that
         • that’s why
         • this suggests
         • consequently
         • hence
         • so
         • accordingly

A premise is a reason offered as support, or evidence, for another claim. It is often indicated by these words:

1. 1. • because
      • for
      • as
      • since
      • inasmuch as
      • as shown by
      • given that
      • as indicated by
      • the reason is that

Consider the following statement:

1. 1. • Today’s freshmen cannot write very well. Joe is a freshman, so he must be a poor writer.

The premises and conclusion are identified as follows:

Premise	Today’s freshmen cannot write very well
Premise	Joe is a freshman,
Conclusion	so he must be a poor writer.

Practice identifying the premises and conclusions

In order to identify the premises and conclusion, you should first rewrite the argument in standard form. You do this by identifying which claim is the conclusion, then working backward to identify which claims are premises that support the conclusion. It should look like this:

Standard Form
Premise 1:
Premise 2:
Conclusion:

Figure 5.7. Breaking down an argument into the standard form can help you identify the premises and conclusion.

Evaluating Arguments

A formal argument may be set up so that, on its face, it looks logical. However, no matter how well-constructed the argument is, the premises must be true or any inferences based on the premises will be unsound.

One way to test the accuracy of a premise is to determine whether the premise is based upon a sample that is both representative and sufficiently large, and ask yourself whether all relevant factors have been taken into account in the analysis of data that leads to a generalization. Another way to evaluate a premise is to determine whether its source is credible. Are the authors identified? What is their background? Was the premise something you found on an undocumented website? Did you find it in a popular publication or a scholarly one? How complete, how recent, and how relevant were the studies or statistics discussed in the source? Take all of these things into consideration when evaluating an argument.