Preston’s Comments (group member since Aug 05, 2017)

Preston’s comments from the AP Lang Summer Work 2017 group.

I definitely agree that finding common ground, or a point of agreement is useful when trying to persuade another person. I've noticed that in many of my arguments, I will usually put more effort towards preventing whatever goal the other party is trying to achieve with the argument. However, this usually backfires, because it also prevents me from achieving whatever goal I desired out of the argument. In my experiences, this practice just causes the "opposing party" to be less willing to agree with me, but concession should does the opposite of this. By conceding to the other party's points in an argument, or by finding common ground, you get closer to achieving your goal in an argument. The improv class example does a great job of demonstrating this. By following the rule of, "Yes, and...", you can achieve your goal in a dialogue through agreement and concession.
(Edit: After writing this I realized the thread is named "Yes, and..." which is very fitting for a discussion on concession.)

Heinrichs' take on seduction definitely differs from what I originally believed what seduction meant (the dirty kind), but after further reading, I believe his definition isn't necessarily wrong. Heinrichs' example of being seduced by a car salesman really helped me realize that the term "seduction" has a much broader definition than "to convince another to do dirty stuff." In his example, you can use normally romantic words to re-word his situation. For example, you could say that the salesman charmed or "wooed over" Heinrichs into willingly buyng a garbage car. The fact that the act of persuading can be described with other words associated with romance means that "convincing" and "seducing" are interchangeable terms (However, I believe seducing conveys a stronger action, as someone can be begrudgingly convinced to take an action, but can't be begrudgingly seduced into doing something).