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Chapter 9

As stated in the book, " people give adherence to argument because they perceive them as reasonable, as employing values with which they agree, and as coming from a credible indiviual or group. " (pg 154) I believe that having a credible source, whether it be yourself or a secondary source, is important. When an audience listens to a person giving an argument, some things they consider throughout the speech is 'Can I believe this person? Is what they're saying true?'. The way that you can clear the minds of those asking this question is by being or having a credible source. A primary source of credibility, would be yourself and making direct statements about yourself. (pg 144) A secondary source of credibility is when the speaker uses another persons credibility as the grounds for their argument. (pg 145) This normally occurs by using someone else's evidence or statistics and then mentioning where that information came from. The reason this is all so important is because when someone shows credibility, it makes their overall argument much stronger. One thing that I think is important to discuss when talking about credibility is reputation. Reputation is important because even if someone is giving a talk on cancer and the person giving the speech is a oncologist surgeon but their reputation is bad...Their occupation would make them credible, but their reputation would take away that credibility.  Because no matter how credible someone may be, if they have a bad reputation that credibility just goes to waste. Where as if they have a good reputation it would cause for the audience to want to listen even more and to trust more of what the person is saying; Because not only is the speaker credible about what they're talking about but their also good at what they do and thats important too. I 100% believe that having a credible source can make or break an argument.

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