ERH 302 (Ethical Argument)
Presenting an Argument
This was the second of three essays written in our Civic Discourse class, with the main purpose being how to effectively present an argument to a resistant audience in a way that addresses their concerns while simultaneously encouraging them to support your idea. The most significant thing I learned from the assignment was the fact that it is extremely difficult to fully address the concerns of your resistant audience while also trying to maintain the integrity of your own argument. In other words, I found several holes in my own argument that became very hard to fix when put up against the concerns I found. This definitely fits with the other things I have learned from my English classes because the whole purpose of the class was to effectively apply all the lessons, big or small, towards influencing an audience to come to your point of view. The assignment became extremely important to me since it showed that all of the rhetorical lessons we have studied from rhetorical traditions to rhetoric and style can be synergized into producing a meaningful argument; we got to fully apply all of the theories and concepts that we have been studying for so long. The main thing I want to do because of this essay is to keep applying those methods as much as possible, showing that these lessons in rhetoric are still extremely vital today as they have been in the past.