Thank You for Arguing

Introduction. Open your eyes : the invisible argument OFFENSE. Set your goals : Cicero's lightbulb ; Control the tense : Orphan Annie's law ; Soften them up : character, logic, emotion ; Get them to like you : Eminem's rules of decorum ; Make them listen : the Lincoln gambit ; Use your craft : the Belushi paradigm ; Show you care : Quintilian's useful doubt ; Control the mood : the Aquinas maneuver ; Turn the volume down : the scientist's lie ; Gain the high ground : Aristotle's favorite topic ; Persuade on your terms : the sister frame ; Control the argument : Homer Simpson's canons of logic-- DEFENSE. Spot fallacies : the seven deadly logical sins ; Call a foul : Nixon's trick ; Know whom to trust : persuasion detectors ; Find the sweet spot : more persuasion detectors ; Deal with a bully : Socrates' smile-- ADVANCED OFFENSE. Get instant cleverness : Monty Python's treasury of wit ; Change reality : bag full of eyeballs ; Speak your audience's language : the rhetorical ape ; Make them identify with your choice : the mother-in-law ruse ; Recover from a screw-up : Apple's fall ; Seize the occasion : Stalin's timing secret ; Use the right medium : the Jumbotron blunder-- ADVANCED AGREEMENT. Give a persuasive talk : the oldest invention ; Capture your audience : the Trump period ; Write a persuasive essay : the French experiment ; Use the right tools : the Brad Pitt factor ; Run an agreeable country : rhetoric's revival-- Appendices: Argument lab ; The tools.--

A master class in the art of persuasion, as taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill, newly revised and updated. ; The time-tested secrets taught in this book include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action, and Honest Abe's Shameless Trick for lowering an audience's expectations. And it's also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians' use of code language to appeal to specfic groups and an eye-opening assortment of persuasive tricks, including the Eddie Haskell Ploy, the Belushi Paradigm, Stalin's Timing Secret, and the Yoda Technique. ; Whether you're an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening, it not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis when you hear it, but also how to wield the weapons of persuasion the next time you really, really, want to get your own way. ; ; JAY HEINRICHS spent twenty-six years as a writer, editor, and magazine-publishing executive before becoming a full-time advocate for the lost art of rhetoric. He now lectures widely on the subject, to audiences ranging from Ivy League students to NASA scientists to Southwest Airlines executives, and runs the language blog figarospeech.com