Elements of Debating. Leverett S. Lyon

Now examine the cards which you have on the top of each pile. See if the proof of these statements would convince any person that you are right. If so you have probably found the issues.

      Always think first, then read, then think again.

      If you have determined the issues wisely, it will be easy in the debate itself to show the audience and the judges what those issues are. You will have a tremendous advantage over your opponent, who in his haste or laziness may have chosen what are not the real issues of the question. He may present well the material that he has, but if that material does not support the fundamental issues of the question, you are right in calling the attention of the judges to that fact.

      Few debates are won on the platform. They are won by thoughtful preparation. Be prepared.

      SUGGESTED EXERCISES

       1. Give in your own words, as briefly as you can, a definition of the term "the issues of a question."

       2. Give one illustration of your own of the issues of a question.

       3. What is meant by "determining the issues"?

       4. Will the affirmative and the negative teams always agree on the issues?

       5. Can a question have two entirely different sets of issues? Why, or why not?

       6. If there can be only one correct set of issues for a question, and you believe that you have determined those, what must you do in the debate if your opponents advance different issues?

       7. Think over carefully and set down what you believe are the issues of one of the following propositions. Frame the issues as questions.

       (1)a) Football Should Be Abolished in This [your own] School.b) Football Should Be Installed as a Regular Branch of Athletics in This [your own] School.(2)a) Manual Training /Should Be Established in This Domestic Science \ [your own] School.b) Manual Training / /Boys /Should Be Made Compulsory | For| |in This [your own] Domestic Science \ \Girls \ School.

       8. Are there any terms in any of the above propositions which should be made more clear to an average audience? Are there any terms on the meaning of which two opposing teams might disagree?

       9. Define one such term so that it would be clear and convincing to an audience not connected with the school.

       10. Give two reasons why you believe it is or is not beneficial to study argumentation and debating.

       11. If you were debating the question, "This [your own school] Should Establish a School Lunch-Room," would you take as one of the issues, "All students could obtain a warm meal at noon." Why, or why not?

LESSON V

       Table of Contents

HOW TO PROVE THE ISSUES

       Table of Contents

       I. What "proof" is.

       II. A consideration of how "proof" of anything is accomplished.

       III. An infallible test of what the audience will believe.

       IV. The material of proof-evidence.

       V. Evidence and proof compared.

      Having determined what the issues are, and having shown the audience why the establishment of these issues should logically win belief in your proposition, all that remains is to prove the issues.

      Now it is clear that neither the audience nor the judges can be led to agree with us and to accept our issues as proved, by our telling them that we should like to have them believe in the soundness of our views. Neither can we succeed in convincing them by telling them that they ought to believe as we wish. The modern audience is not to be cajoled or browbeaten into belief. How, then, are we to persuade our hearers to accept our assertions as true? The only method is to give them what they demand—reasons. We must tell why every statement is true. This process of telling why the issues are true so effectively that the audience and judges believe them to be true is called the proof.

      Naturally, the reasons that we give in support of the issues will be no better than the issues themselves, unless we know what reasons the audience will believe. And how are we to know what reasons the audience will believe? We can best answer that question by determining why we ourselves believe those things which we accept. Why do we believe anything? We believe that water is wet; the sky, blue; fire, hot; and sugar, sweet, because in our experience we have always found them so. These things we believe because we have experienced them ourselves. There are other things that we believe in a similar way. We believe that not every newspaper report is reliable. We believe that a statement in the Outlook, the Review of Reviews, or the World's Work is likely to be more trustworthy than a yellow headline in the Morning Bugle. Our own experience, plus what we have heard of the experience of others, has led us to this belief. But there are still other things that we believe although we have not experienced them at all. We believe that Columbus visited America in 1492, that Grant was a great general, that Washington was our first president. Directly, these things have never been experienced by us, but indirectly they have. Others, within whose experience these things have fallen, have led us to accept them so thoroughly that they have become our experience second hand.

      If we are told that a man who was in the Iroquois Theater fire was seriously burned, it seems reasonable to us because our experience recognizes burning as the result of such a situation. But if we are told that a man who fell into the water emerged dry, or that a general who served under Washington was born in 1830, we discredit it because such statements are not in accord with our experience. We are ready, then, to answer our question: "What reasons will those in the audience believe?" They will believe those statements which harmonize with their own experience, and will discredit those which are at variance with their experience. This experience, as we have seen, may be first hand, or direct; or it may be indirect, or second hand.

      In every case, the speaker's argument must base every issue upon reasons that rest on what the hearers believe because of their own direct or indirect experience. Suppose I assert: "John Quinn was a dangerous man." Someone says: "Prove that statement." I answer: "He was a thief." Someone says: "If that is true, he was a bad man, but can you prove him a thief?" Then I produce a copy of a court record which states that, on a certain day, a duly constituted court found John Quinn guilty of robbing a bank. All my hearers now admit, not only that he was a thief, but also that he was a dangerous person. I have given them a reason for my statement, and a reason for that reason, until at last I have shown them that my assertion, that John Quinn is a dangerous citizen, rests on what they themselves believe—that a court record is reliable.

      Sometimes an issue cannot be supported by a reason that will come at once within the experience of the audience. It is then necessary to support the first by a second reason that does come within its experience. Remember, then, as the fundamental rule, that the judges and audience will believe the issues of the proposition, and, as a result, the proposition itself, only when we show them, by the standard of their own experience, that we are right.

      The reasons that we give in support of the issues are, in debating, called evidence. Evidence is not proof; evidence is the material out of which proof is made. Evidence is like the separate stones of a solid wall: no one alone makes the wall; each one helps make it strong. Evidence is like the small rods and braces of the truss bridge: no one alone supports the weight; each helps to sustain the great beams that are the real support of the bridge.

      Suppose we had the proposition: "The Honor System of Examinations Should Be Established in the Greenburg High School." We assert: "There is but one issue: Will the students be honest in the examination?" Now, what evidence