PRACTICAL ARGUMENTATION

BY GEORGE K. PATTEE, A.M.

Assistant Professor of English and Rhetoric in The Pennsylvania State College

TO FRED LEWIS PATTEE

Preface

The author's aim has been to produce a book that is practical,— practical from the student's standpoint, and practical from the teacher's standpoint. The study of Argumentation has often been criticized for being purely academic, or for being a mere stepping- stone to the study of law. It has even been said that courses in Argumentation and Debate have been introduced into American colleges and universities for no other purpose than to give the intellectual student the opportunity, so long monopolized by his athletic classmate, to take part in intercollegiate contests. The purpose of this book is to teach Argumentation, which is not a science by itself but one of the four branches of Rhetoric, in such a way as to remove these criticisms.

Largely by his choice of illustrative material the author has endeavored to show that this subject is confined neither to the class room nor to any one profession. He has drawn his illustrations, for the most part, from contemporary and popular sources; he has had recourse to many current magazines, newspapers, books, and recent speeches, hoping to show thereby that Argumentation is a practical subject. On the other hand, he has carefully avoided taking a majority of his illustrations either from students' work or from legal practice, criminal cases especially being seldom used on the ground that although they afford the easiest examples a writer can give, they furnish the least help to the average student, who, unless he studies law, will rarely, perhaps never, have occasion to argue upon such subjects.