Yet the distinction between the two main classes is a real one, and if
one has never thought it out, one may go at an argument with a blurred
notion of what he is attempting to do. Since argument after school and
college is an eminently practical matter, vagueness of aim is risky. It
is the man who sees exactly what he is trying to do, and knows exactly
what he can accomplish, who is likely to make his point. The chief value
of writing arguments for practice is in cultivating a keen eye for the
essential. To write a good argument means, as we shall see, that the
student shall first conscientiously take the question, apart so as to
know exactly the issues involved and the unavoidable points of
difference, and then after searching the sources for information, he
shall scrutinize the facts and the reasoning both on his own side and on
the other. If he does this work without shirking the hard thinking he
will get an illuminating perception of the obscurities and ambiguities
which lurk in words, and will come to see that clear reasoning is almost
wholly a matter of sharper discrimination for unobserved distinctions.

EXERCISES

1. Find an example which might be thought of either as an argument or an
exposition, and explain why you think it one or the other.

2. Find examples in current magazines or newspapers of an argument in
which conviction is the chief element, and one in which persuasion
counts most.

3. Give three examples from your talk within the last week of a
discussion which was not argument as we use the term here.