Good Arguments: Making Your Case in Writing and Public Speaking

by Richard A. Holland, Benjamin K. Forrest

This brief introduction to making effective arguments helps readers to understand the basics of sound reasoning and to learn how to use it to persuade others. Practical, inexpensive, and easy-to-read, the book enables students in a wide variety of courses to improve the clarity of their writing and public speaking. It equips readers to formulate firmly grounded, clearly articulated, and logically arranged arguments, avoid fallacious thinking, and discover how to reason well. This supplemental text is especially suitable for use in Christian colleges and seminaries and includes classroom discussion questions.

Genres: Writing, Philosophy, Communication

160 pages, Paperback

Published August 22, 2017

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written from the Christian perspective that people reflect God's character by reasoning well and making good arguments. The authors write in the introduction that, "Since God endowed humans with reasoning capabilities, we are stewards of our reasoning abilities. God expects us to reason well, and presenting good arguments that support our beliefs is one way to do that."

It's an easy read and will be more of a refresher for anyone who has taken a course on logic. I found it to be pretty basic and a little repetitive, but I think most of that was on purpose (to demonstrate making good arguments and clearly stating your claims). I appreciated a lot of the definitions and direct explanations of things like rules of logic, opinion vs. fact, using analogies and defining your terms, cause and effect, how to use authorities in your arguments, common fallacies and overall argument structure.

I'm not sure I agree with the authors' assumption that people "intuitively understand the basic principles of reasoning and logic" and that "it is likely that you already grasp basics of logic just through your own common sense and innate reasoning abilities." They claim that since God created humans as rational creatures, these things are innate. However, I find little to support that view and my (probably poor) attempt and an argument against their view follows:

Especially in today's cultural climate, reason is suffering and it seems that it has always been a struggle to rise above lazy, manipulative thinking to have intelligent, productive thought and conversations. I just so happened to have heard Jordan Peterson (a popular present-day, non-Christian philosopher) recently make this very point - thinking is work and people do not naturally want to do that work so they often resort to a very low level form of thought/reason. The very fact that we have books and classes on this topic seems to speak to how reluctant we are to instinctively make use of whatever reasoning capabilities God has given us. Personal experience would lead many to believe that humans consistently fail at reasoning well.

In addition to the anecdotal evidence (and since this book is written from a Christian perspective), I think the Bible teaches a different view of reason. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding." Surely wisdom, defined as "the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment" cannot be separated to any major degree from reasoning well. Reasoning well, then, seems to rely more on one's spiritual state than their human condition. 1 Cor. 2:14 says, "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit." In some sense, the "person without the Spirit" will always lack understanding. I'm not saying they won't ever be able to make a good argument (we know that God gives common grace in many areas), but it doesn't seem plausible to expect an intuitive understanding of logic and reason from all (or even most) humans. Yes, we are rational creatures with a capacity to reason, but I don't think it follows that we make good use of that capacity intuitively or without God's grace.

I would also disagree with the claim that "we are all aware of our beliefs and claims. Therefore, stating our beliefs and claims clearly is the easiest part of making a good argument." I have definitely not found that to be the case when I have spoken with people about important topics. In my experience very few people really know (or can clearly communicate) what they believe about any variety of important issues.

I was surprised at these claims about human nature, especially considering the recent (2017) publication date. The ability to make good arguments, identify bad ones and intelligently communicate your beliefs is not our society's current strong suit.

Since it was written from a Christian perspective (to students) and included lots of examples of Christian arguments, I would have liked to see more examples of reasoning from the Bible. It was hard to identify the secondary purpose of the book - it relied too heavily on Christian arguments to be merely an academic study on reasoning, but it didn't rely heavily enough (in my opinion) on biblical theology to give a complete picture of how God expects (and equips) believers to interact with other people through the use of reasonable arguments. I think readers who aren't expecting the Christian spin will be turned off, but the absence of meatier biblical theology to give context to the goal of reasoning well, to me, makes the Christian perspective sort of superfluous.

Aside from the claims I mentioned above, the ambiguous personality of the book, and a few other things that I think the authors took for granted, I thought the material was helpful, easy to understand and concise as an introduction to making good arguments. There are case studies in the back to practice what you've learned and a handy glossary for the terms discussed (which I appreciate since I will forget them right away).

This book was assigned for a seminary Research & Writing course so I may add to the review after the class discussion.

[Damaris Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool book for school, had a lot of good tips on how to form a good and solid argument and how to use logical reasoning to support your claims. I would definitely recommend if you are looking to strengthen your writing

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great for wanting to learn how to argue in healthy and clear ways!

[Samuel Kassing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a high-quality introduction for the need and process of good argumentation.

[Grace is Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Arguments: Making Your Case in Writing and Public Speaking by Richard A. Holland Jr. and Benjamin K. Forrest is an excellent short book that will help me so much in my writing. I had to read it for my class, but I would read it again on my own without question. It’s an amazing resource to help you with writing and giving an argument (aka public speaking). Holland and Forrest makes topics like defining deductive and inductive reasoning, common fallacies, subject and objective truth, and so much more easy to understand and even applicable. They gave good examples to explain their work. I mean, come on. I have nothing against this book! In fact, I think I could say it’s one of the best books I’ve read for a class as of now. :)

Well done! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Michael Millett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delightful read. Good Arguments aims to offer an introductory look at crafting arguments and specifically the components which go into creating strong ones and avoiding the mistakes which give rise to fallacious ones. Holland and Forrest touch briefly on a variety of topics such as the reasons for arguments, common fallacies, the laws of logic, and others. If you are interested in communicating more effectively, this book is for you.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, clear, and very useful.

[Josh G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear and practical introduction to logic, argumentation, and rational communication.

[Jack Hayne]

I don’t know how to rate books like this so I shan’t.

Pass

[W. Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction on what sound logical arguments look like and how to present them. Written from a Christian perspective. A very readable and practical book.

[Zuzu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to arguments and apologetics. The writer explained concepts well and didn't use confusing jargon.

[Logan Bolton]

i ate this book quiz up!

[Trevor Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting, but a helpful introduction to the basics of logic, fallacies, & argumentation.

[Isaac Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid articulation on logic principles and identifying fallacies.