Negotiating the Political Conventions: Persuasive Argumentation
Everyone who's interested in the state of the union and its internaional relationships should be glued to the Democratic National Convention tonight and the Republican National Convention next week.
They are negotiating the nation's future.
Let's listen to the speakers with a critical mind and an open heart. To help us listen with a critical mind, I'm linking my readers to the Owl at Purdue on Persuasive Argumentation.
The Barack campaign has been built on narrative or, as the Owl teaches us, pathos, a word that has come to mean sentimental but simply means appealing "to an audience's needs, values and emotional sensibilities."
As the Owl Instructs,
[e]motional appeals can use sources such as interviews and individual stories to paint a more legitimate and moving picture of reality or illuminate the truth. For example, telling the story of a single child who has been abused may make for a more persuasive argument than simply the number of children abused each year because it would give a human face to the numbers. Only use an emotional appeal if it truly supports the claim you are making, not as a way to distract from the real issues of debate. An argument should never use emotion to misrepresent the topic or frighten people.
Michele Obama is speaking now, telling the story of her childhood; her parents' values and Barack's political journey. It's good.
"Isn't that the great American story?" she asks half way through her speech.
