Thank You for Arguing, Third Edition

Front Cover
Crown, Jul 4, 2017 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 480 pages
A master class in the art of persuasion, as taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill, newly revised and updated.

The time-tested secrets taught in this book include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action, and Honest Abe's Shameless Trick for lowering an audience's expectations. And it's also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians' use of code language to appeal to specfic groups and an eye-opening assortment of persuasive tricks, including the Eddie Haskell Ploy, the Belushi Paradigm, Stalin's Timing Secret, and the Yoda Technique.   

Whether you're an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening, it not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis when you hear it, but also how to wield the weapons of persuasion the next time you really, really, want to get your own way.
 

Contents

Open Your Eyes
3
Set Your Goals
15
Control the Tense
27
Soften Them Up
38
Get Them to Like You
47
Make Them Listen
57
Use Your Craft
69
DEFENSE
136
Capture Your Audience
319
Write a Persuasive Essay
333
Use the Right Tools
348
Run an Agreeable Country
361
Argument Lab
375
The Tools
419
Chronology
437
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
443

Get Instant Cleverness
217
Give a Persuasive Talk
303

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2017)

JAY HEINRICHS spent twenty-six years as a writer, editor, and magazine-publishing executive before becoming a full-time advocate for the lost art of rhetoric. He now lectures widely on the subject, to audiences ranging from Ivy League students to NASA scientists to Southwest Airlines executives, and runs the language blog figarospeech.com

Bibliographic information