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Chapter 7

In Chapter 7 the author focuses on the element of support in argumentation. This chapter specifically focuses on the ways that you can support your claims with evidence, and gives many different "forms of evidence" for us as the readers to consider. In my opinion the most important type of evidence of the three that the author presents us is testimony. I believe this because testimony can be used to back your previous examples or statistics in the form of being believable grounds. There are two different types of testimony, but the one I'm going to discuss in further detail is "testimony of fact". According to the textbook it is nearly a commonsense notion that testimony of fact is considered to be the more effective of the two forms of testimony. The reason in my opinion that testimony is so crucial to the success of an argument is because a testimony adds backing to examples and statistics, (other forms of grounds used to warrant your claim) in the form of credibility of the source you obtained your information from. If I'm discussing road repairs for example as the book does, who is the average listener more likely to believe that it would take nearly 500 billion to fix our road and bridging systems? Me, your average student at the U of M, or the testimony from the "Federal Highway Administration"? Granted it is still the opinion of another human being, so there is a chance that what they have to say is also incorrect, the fact that a trusted, supposed expert on the subject says it will take 500 billion to fix the roads, most people would be inclined to believe them. The last important detail I wanted to discuss was the "Rule of Three". I think this is a very important aspect of any argument, debate, or discussion. The more examples you can have to prove you point, or the more cases of expert testimony you can provide that agrees with your case, the stronger your point looks and your chances of a favorable outcome increase.

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