Argumentation, Rhetoric and Topoi

Argumentation: The art of substantiating your claims • Now why is argumentation important? Well it is important because in order to convince someone about a certain thing you have to be good at reasoning you have to have a good explanation. • It is not enough to tell your listeners how they should think and act. It is also very essential to be able to justify your standpoint.

What is an argument? • An argument is a claim supported by a reason or an explanation

For example:
People should start using hydrogen cars because it does not pollute nature unlike normal petroleum cars.

In this context people should start using hydrogen cars is the claim, wherein because it does not pollute nature unlike normal petroleum car is the reason.

What is rhetoric?
Rhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade.
Now as I said before argumentation is about justifying your claims right, however to argue rhetorically is more than that. When you argue rhetorically it is simply just not enough to justify your claims.

The explanations you choose to use in your presentation should also be very convincing in order to persuade your listeners to believe in your words.

To every claim there can be numbers of reasons that you can choose from, however if you want to argue convincingly it is important for the speaker to determine which reason is essential to a given situation.

So the main challenge is to basically find the right reason(s) to support your claim and thereby convince your listeners.

Let’s take the example I used before:
People should start using hydrogen cars. This claim can have numbers of reasons as to why people should buy these cars. It can be because it benefits the environment, it is cheaper in the long run and so on.

Now if you are talking with environmentally oriented audience it would be a good idea to talk about the environmental benefits of buying a hydrogen car. However if you are talking with people who might