Opinion

How to create a structured and logical argument

All too often during the day, I come across a number of argumentative conversations that take place over Internet forums and such. Most of these arguments are crudely thrown together consisting of too many fallacies, unproven statements, spelling and grammatical errors, and even a resort to foul language that is, in reality, bad taste.

There was once a day when this wasn’t necessarily the case. (and no, I’m not going to go on a ‘back in my day’ rant, because I’m not that much older than the students at this school, and even I myself were a perpetrator of the aforementioned crimes)

The problem with debates and disagreements today that take place over the Internet, is that they are uncensored and unedited. Anyone can post, which is great, but it is also a sharply forged double-edged sword. There are far too many fallible  points that are constructed within the argument or counter-argument and this problem stems from a number of sources:

1 – The said user who has posted has not familiarised themselves with all of the facts that they need in order to make an argument without error. For example; I want to debate the bad quality of the new vegemite, yet I have not eaten the new vegemite myself, nor do I know anyone who has done so either that may comment on the product.

2 – Missing the point; A lot of the time the argument comes about because the point of the previous persons post has gone completely over the collective heads of other users. This is a very common mistake that is made and it happens, because we as humans, tend to miss the important details of what is said and identify only the points that are relevant to us, in this case, those points that may make us angry or that seem to be poking fun at us. Read the entire post, word for word. I’m sure that much debate can be avoided with this measure.

3 – Users tend to make the argument personal. Fred may create a post about how much he hates the fact that his Xbox 360 gives him the ‘red ring of death’ all the time. Barney reads this and thinks that Fred is having a go at Xboxes, Barney loves his Xbox, Barney loses all logic and reason and calls Fred a bunch of names that a drunken sailor wouldn’t even think about uttering. This is not a reasonable argument, nor does there need to be one (see the point 2).

4 – Basing your argument on here-say and rumours: Why? Because you heard something? You cannot say something is fact and base your argument on that ‘fact’ if you haven’t actually proven it. The burden of proof is on you, so why would you use the rumor as a basis for an argument? It doesn’t make any logical sense at all.

5 – This is the most important one: RELAX. Life is too short to spend your time making rebuttals and fighting with your friends. If you are going to argue a point, make it civilised and sensible. There is no need to become angry, scared, obscene and hateful.

I hope that you have a good read. And yes, I welcome all argument to this opinion article, as always.

Have a great day, and smile

Mr Carabetta