You should of course try to interest
your hearers, and above all, you should impart to what you say complete
clarity.
In analyzing you should select as your topic a process fairly obscure, the
implications of a certain statement or argument, the results to be
expected from some action or policy that has been advocated, or the exact
matter at issue between two disputants. Any topic for discussion,
explanation, or argument may be treated analytically. Your analysis in its
final form should be so carefully considered that its soundness cannot be
impeached.
In arguing you may take any subject under the sun, from baseball to
Bolshevism, for all of them are debated with vehemence. Any topic for
discussion or explanation becomes, when approached from some particular
angle, material for argument. Thus the initial topic in the exercise that
follows is "The aeroplane's future as a carrier of mail." You may convert
it into a question for debate by making it read: "The aeroplane is
destined to supplant the railroad as a carrier of mail," or "The aeroplane
is destined to be used increasingly as a carrier of transcontinental
mail." In arguing you may propose for ourself either of two objectives:
(1) to silence your opponent, (2) to refute, persuade, and win him over
fairly.
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