Ratings5
Average rating3.6
Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill. The time-tested secrets the book discloses include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to actionNas well as Honest Abe's Shameless Trick of lowering an audience's expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it's also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians' use of "code" language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges, including:The Eddie Haskell PloyEminem's Rules of DecorumThe Belushi ParadigmStalin's Timing SecretThe 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. Written by one of today's most popular online language mavens, it's warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening. It not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis and a chiasmus when you hear them, but also how to wield such handy and persuasive weapons the next time you really, really want to get your own way.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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I felt that is was an ok book. To me that is saying a lot considering that I had heard several people in the discipline of rhetoric use this book as a reference or go-to material. At least in the electronic version the interjecting text boxes to provide either examples or additional superfluous details were so cumbersome that it detracted from the reading. Furthermore on a content level a significant portion of the book was intuitive in nature (don't ruin your ethos, talk to what others want, make sure to listen , etc.)
There was also a couple of portions of the book that I think are problematic in nature. These would be the focus of rhetoric above all and concepts like truthiness. Granted, there are two sections of the book that work to remedy this concern but given that at one point the author condones lying so long as the ends justify the means, I am hesitant to use this as a blanket recommendation.
I will say that there are certain sections of the book that are actually very useful. These would be concepts of tensing, concessions, and reframing.