Thank You for Arguing, Fourth Edition (Revised and Updated): What Aristotle,

Product Description The definitive guide to getting your way, revised and updated with new material on writing, speaking, framing, and other key tools for arguing more powerfully   “Cross Cicero with David Letterman and you get Jay Heinrichs.”—Joseph Ellis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Quartet and American Sphinx   Now in its fourth edition, Jay Heinrichs’s  Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by history’s greatest professors, ranging from Queen Victoria and Winston Churchill to Homer Simpson and Barack Obama.  Filled with time-tested secrets for emerging victorious from any dispute, including Cicero’s three-step strategy for inspiring action and Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick for lowering an audience’s expectations, this fascinating book also includes an assortment of persuasion tips, such as:   •  The Chandler Bing Adjustment: Match your argument to your audience (that is, persuasion is not about you). •  The Belushi Paradigm: Before people will follow you, they have to consider you worth following.  •  The Yoda Technique: Transform a banal idiom by switching the words around.    Additionally, Heinrichs considers the dark arts of persuasion, such as politicians’ use of coded language to appeal to specific groups. His sage guide has been fully updated to address our culture of “fake news” and political polarization.    Whether you’re a lover of language books or just want to win more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer,  Thank You for Arguing is for you. Warm, witty, and truly enlightening, it not only teaches you how to identify a paraleipsis when you hear it but also how to wield such persuasive weapons the next time you really, really need to get your way. This expanded edition also includes a new chapter on how to reset your audience’s priorities, as well as new and improved ArgueLab games to hone your skills. Review “Clever, passionate, and erudite.” —Publishers Weekly About the Author 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 is Professor of the Practice of Rhetoric and Oratory at Middlebury College and lectures frequently on argument and persuasion, speaking to audiences ranging from Ivy League business students to NASA scientists to Southwest Airlines executives. He lives near Middlebury, Vermont. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1. Open Your Eyes THE INVISIBLE ARGUMENT A personal tale of unresisted persuasion Truth springs from argument among friends.—David Hume It is early in the morning and my seventeen-year-old son eats breakfast, giving me a narrow window to use our sole bathroom. I wrap a towel around my waist and approach the sink, avoiding the grim sight in the mirror; as a writer, I don’t have to shave every day. (Marketers despairingly call a consumer like me a “low self-monitor.”) I do have my standards, though, and hygiene is one. I grab toothbrush and toothpaste. The tube is empty. The nearest replacement sits on a shelf in our freezing basement, and I’m not dressed for the part. “George!” I yell. “Who used all the toothpaste?” A sarcastic voice answers from the other side of the door. “That’s not the point, is it, Dad?” George says. “The point is how we’re going to keep this from happening again.” He has me. I have told him countless times how the most productive arguments use the future tense, the language of choices and decisions. “You’re right,” I say. “You win. Now will you please get me some toothpaste?” “Sure.” George retrieves a tube, happy that he beat his father at an argument. Or did he? Who got what he wanted? In reality, by conceding his point, I persuaded him. If I had simply said, “Don’t be a jerk and get me some toothpaste,” George might have stood there arguing. Instead I made him feel triumphant, triumph made him benevolent, and that got me exactly