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Chapter 20: Building Sound Arguments
Key Concepts
20-1 Use sound reasoning to develop your speech.
Suggested Activities and Exercises
Viewing Persuasive Speeches
This exercise parallels the viewing informative speeches exercise in the previous section. Once
Editorials
Clip several editorials from recent opinion/editorial pages. Have students form small groups and
Each group should then present its findings to the rest of the class.
Fallacy Mini-Report
Assign each student a fallacy of reasoning or language. You may want to have sources available
Fallacy Mini-Report Requirements
1. Your presentation to the class must include:
2. You must cite the source for any information you take directly from a text.
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Causal Reasoning
Prepare a list of outcomes and their possible causes (seeing smoke and then fire, and assuming
validity of the each relationship using the information in 20d.1.
Rhetorical Analysis Project
Supporting a Claim
Locating Illustrative Materials
Have students bring in examples of editorials and letters to the editor, and identify reasoning
Reasoning Puzzles
Give the students a reasoning puzzle in which they will use inductive and deductive reasoning to
Supporting a Proposition
Tests
Correct answers are marked with an asterisk. The places in the Compact Handbook where the
information was presented are shown in brackets.
True/False Questions
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Multiple Choice Questions
4. What type of reasoning would you be using when your argument consists of combining a
series of observations to lead to a probable conclusion?
5. One would be using a deductive pattern of reasoning when _____.
A. The argument consists of combining a series of observations to lead to a probable
conclusion
6. In Sheng’s persuasive speech about the need to recycle, he states, “We need to recycle in
order to save energy. In 2003, the energy savings from recycling 54 billion aluminum cans
exceeded the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil.” What type of reasoning
is Sheng using?
7. Use reasoning by analogy to _____.
8. “Your country, love it or leave it” is an example of
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9. A speaker wants to challenge the statement that the social and intellectual development of
children is harmed when both parents work outside the home. Which of the following
would discredit that causal reasoning?
Essay and Short Answer Questions
10. Identify and explain the four different forms of reasoning. Give an example of how each
type of reasoning might be used with health as the topic. [20a-21e]