How to Refute Effectively

For classroom use only

The refutation section of the classical argument format has two parts: first very briefly bring up your opponent's potential or actual arguments, and then put them down one by one by disproving them or showing the reader why they should not be believed.

In rhetoric, you, the rhetor, must generally assume your readers (members of your audience) are both ignorant and hostile. They are ignorant because If they understood everything you understand already they probably would not disagree with you in the first place. They are hostile, since if they agreed with your standpoint you would not have to bother arguing, and the whole exercise would be pointless!

In order to argue persuasively you must know something about opposing standpoints and beliefs, and you state these hostile standpoints and beliefs, facts and evidence before refuting them.

If you do not identify and focus your arguments on the precise point(s) where you and your reader start to differ (the division or stasis) you are wasting your time. You thus have to assume that your reader is hostile to all your arguments beyond the point of division, where you start to disagree. So, you start out by very briefly restating the main opposing facts and possible opposing arguments (all the factors that oppose your standpoint) clearly and in a form that even an unfriendly opponent would be forced to agree with.

It is a serious error to use the "straw man" tactic--falsely portraying opposing facts or arguments as so foolish, stupid, lightweight or crazy that you can sweep them away with a rhetorical wave of the hand. It is also an error to rely totally on ethos to make your argument by using an "ad hominem" attack--painting anyone who opposes your argument as doing so in bad faith, or as so wicked and depraved that nothing they say can be believed. Even wicked and depraved people sometimes tell the truth (and even good and noble people can be wrong), so your duty as a rhetor is to present these opposing arguments honestly and truthfully before refuting them.

There are, in fact, a number of reasons for you to state opposing facts and evidence up front:

1.        Inconvenient facts and opposing arguments will not go away just because you ignore them: if the reader does not know them already, opposing rhetors will probably eventually introduce them sooner or later.

2.        A rhetor who ignores adverse facts or arguments is seen by readers as ignorant, confused, arrogant, unreliable and unpersuasive, while a rhetor who is humble enough to recognize that every issue has two sides to it, and who speaks openly about problems with his or her standpoint is more easily trusted and respected by the reader.  

3.        A rhetor who ignores adverse arguments throws away the opportunity (often the only opportunity) to give the reader good reasons for not following these opposing arguments. In a sense, by refutation a smart rhetor has a chance to "vaccinate" the audience in advance, to protect them from future infection by opposing arguments.

This applies to any and all adverse facts or arguments that can be predicted to influence the reader, even arguments with which you disagree or which you personally regard as unpersuasive, ridiculous nonsense. This is your one and only opportunity to carefully disassemble your opponent's arguments piece by piece to expose how the opponent is relying on facts and reason, on emotion, or on character and reputation to attempt to persuade.

At first you do not discuss, explain, refute, argue with or ridicule opposing arguments. You simply state them in a very brief form that an opponent would be unable to deny. However, this does not mean that you make the opponent's case for him or her! It is wise to use several tactics that, while not falsifying the opposing argument, tend to strengthen the reader's regard for your argument while shoving your opponent's arguments to one side. These tactics may include:

· Dehumanizing your opponent's case by referring to him or her by title, office, or standpoint instead of by name (unless, of course, their ethos resides mainly in their title or office--in which case you use only a name, or even a first name or nickname if possible). Example: If you are refuting an instructor's argument, you may refer to the person as "the instructor" instead of by name.  Or, if you are refuting former Pres. Clinton's argument, you may wish to refer to him as "Bill" instead of "the ex-President." You may choose to refer to the opponent as "they" or "them" even if you know the opponent's gender.

·  Beginning by briefly stating the strongest opposing arguments against your standpoint, and then carefully detailing the weakest opposing arguments.

·  Highlighting any shaky unstated assumptions in their argument that your reader might overlook at first glance, but which readers may disagree with or find offensive, disgusting or absurd if clearly pointed out. (Example: "When he says he will not allow a vote on this, he really indicates how much he dislikes democracy."

·  Carefully pointing out, without comment, any contradictions in the opponents' logic, by, if possible, putting contradictory statements beside each other in the same sentence or paragraph in your paper. (Example: "He promises to lower your taxes, but also says he will spend billions more on wars and defense.")

·  If their argument relies mainly on pathos, point this out. Audiences are easily swayed by emotion until you point out to them that they are being swayed--and then they often feel offended because someone is "playing on their emotions."

·  If the opponent's argument depends on several steps of logic, focus on the weakest link.

· If their argument stands or falls on several different facts being true, concentrate on the most doubtful fact.

One problem is how to deal with inflammatory hostile "shock" arguments made with the primary intent to infuriate or enrage the reader (e.g., "Our opponents hate all that is good and decent, and instead prefer to wallow in filth and depravity."). This also includes hypocrisy or arguments made in bad faith (i.e., arguments that the one arguing does not even believe in). In these situations it is often enough to quote brief excerpts of the opposing argument for it to self-destruct in the reader's eye (e.g., "Do I look like I wallow in filth?"). Or, you may quietly and factually point out the opponents' hypocrisy without comment (e.g., "Fulano, a twice-elected government official who repeatedly boosted public expenditures and government spending to record levels, continued all the while to declare in his speeches that 'the government is our worst enemy' and that cutbacks in the public budget are needed.").

Next you "put down" or counter, one by one, the opponents' arguments that you have given. Here you may wish to attack a specific argument as being:

· obscure (unclear, confused, impossible for an intelligent person to understand, full of holes, full of fallacies and fuzzy logic, based on "smoke and mirrors," sneaky, fraudulent, concealing a hidden agenda, argues from ignorance, a "snow job," being "railroaded," a "back room deal"),

·  incredible (unbelievable, incoherent, beyond credibility, a flat-out lie or deception, a "con job," something not even a child would fall for, ignores plain facts or contrary evidence, goes against common sense),

·  impossible (not anchored in the real world, impractical under any foreseeable circumstances, not possible to accomplish, requires a miracle to succeed, violates the laws of science, economics, human behavior or history, demands preconditions that can never be achieved),

·  illogical (involves a logical fallacy, not standing up to the test of logic, insane, nonsense, playing word-games, not an intelligent argument, contradicts itself, uses false analogies, draws unwarranted generalizations or conclusions from available evidence, "putting the cart before the horse"),

·  unfitting (simply not right or moral in a civilized society, barbaric, crooked, sinful, prostituting justice, obscene or indecent, evil-minded, selfish, unworthy of decent people, vicious or hateful, racist, sexist, discriminatory, illegal, undemocratic, dictatorial, unconstitutional or culturally unacceptable), or

·  unprofitable (makes no sense financially or money-wise, will cost a fortune to do, will bankrupt us, will cost more than it saves, the risks outweigh the benefits, will "rob Peter to pay Paul," is a "negative-sum game," is "penny wise and pound foolish," "throwing good money after bad").

(Reference: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Pedagogy/Progymnasmata/Refutation.htm)

Of course, you cannot refute an argument by simply proclaiming you disagree with it, by calling it full of holes or by declaring that it will cost more than it would save. You must provide strong counter-arguments of your own to support your refutation, to identify the holes in the opponent's argument, or to conclusively prove in dollars and cents where it would cost more than it would save.

It is particularly dangerous to try to easily dismiss an opposing argument as "insane" or "impossible to understand." What seems to be insane to you may make perfect sense to the reader whose upbringing, experiences, assumptions, interests or culture may be different from your own. And, if you say an argument is "impossible to understand" your reader may well think you are just too ignorant or too dense to understand your opponent's argument (or, even worse, that you are calling your readers ignorant or dense). As a beginning writer, you should avoid these two particular refutations unless you are sure you know a great deal about the opponent, the opponent's arguments, and your readers' point of division with both your own arguments and opposing arguments.

Also, in refuting arguments as unfitting, beware of relying on your own pathos or ethos. If you argue that students will be hurt by a certain proposal, realize that many otherwise decent people simply do not care what happens to students. If you argue that a certain course of action will hurt you or your collective personally, you must understand that this may not be at all persuasive to the reader, who may care nothing about you, your feelings, your career, your well-being or your future. This does not mean that the reader is evil-minded or hateful, only that the reader may have other things (self, family, personal responsibilities) about which he or she is much more concerned, and whether you succeed or fail, live or die, may be a matter of supreme indifference to him or her. Your job is to serve your audience, and serve them obsessively, while always working to accomplish the goals that you want to achieve.

The point of persuasive writing is not for you to pour out your personal feelings and beg for mercy or understanding from the reader, but rather for you to accomplish your goals by persuading others in terms that they will understand and care about. Rhetoric recognizes that the world is not all about "me."

If the argument you are refuting includes facts and figures (logos) that are adverse to your standpoint, you must show that these facts do not directly apply to the case at hand or to the points in question, or that they do apply but they do not harm your argument. Although it may seem tempting to argue that a fact or figure you do not like is unreliable or has simply been misinterpreted, readers rarely accept such attacks. If a fact or figure can be interpreted in more than one way, readers can be expected to choose the opposition's meaning. You should frontally attack a fact or figure only if you can prove that experts or some respected authorities doubt its validity (argument from ethos).

Beware of opponents who "lie with statistics," or who try to persuade by burying the reader in a blizzard of graphs, numbers and statistics which ordinary readers cannot be expected to understand or interpret, but which only serve to boost the opponent's own ethos as an "expert," when they may be pulling off a snow-job.

If the adverse argument you are refuting uses examples or analogy, you should focus on differences between the opposing example and your own standpoint. Be careful. Examples and analogies are extremely persuasive, and the differences on which you rely should be important enough to impress a skeptical reader. Technically picky refutations will not persuade.

A better approach might be to reconcile the example or analogy with your case, showing that although the example seems superficially adverse to what you are arguing, its real underlying meaning actually favors your standpoint. Still another approach is to attack the example or analogy head-on, challenging its validity on the grounds that it is a false analogy, an extreme example or simply untrue, or that it is out of date and changing times have made it no longer relevant.

Be especially cautious with opponents who call names, or bring up examples that are bizarre, extreme, absurd, humorous or ridiculous ("tree-huggers," "baby killers," "welfare-queens," etc.) to catch the reader's attention, and then try to portray these extreme examples as typical or normal, all in order to reduce your argument to absurdity or ridicule. But, even when refuting such "junk" arguments, remember that readers almost always prefer you to explain or refute examples rather than simply ignoring or discarding them.

Refute an opposing argument if it has already been made by your adversary, or if there is a reasonable possibility that the reader might think of it and be persuaded by it: Otherwise, the reader will assume that you have no defense to such an argument. But make your own arguments first in the statement of your standpoint. You will persuade more easily if the reader's dominant impression is that you deserve to win, rather than simply that opposing arguments deserve to lose.

If you sound too defensive, that can undermine an otherwise worthwhile argument. And, your standpoint will be more easily persuade if you have established it clearly and persuasively before you attack opposing arguments.

If you are refuting arguments that your opponent has already put forth you know most of the arguments that threaten you because they will appear in the text to which you are responding. However, the reader might think up other arguments not mentioned by your opponent. Even if an argument has not been mentioned by your opponent, refute it if it has a reasonable chance of popping into the reader's mind. If you will not see your adversary's arguments before composing your own, use this criterion for all opposing arguments that you can think of.

How long should your refutation be? Make it as long as necessary to convince the reader not to decide against you. You should refute opposing arguments one by one, but little treatment is necessary if the opposing arguments are minor or if the argument or authority (ethos) is easily refuted. You will, of course, need to say more if the opposing arguments are stronger or if your counter-analysis is more complex, or if the reputation of your opponent is strong.

You cannot reduce the force of adverse arguments and authorities by giving them minimal treatment in your own writing--they have lives and voices of their own.

Adapted for undergraduate use from Neumann, Richard K Jr., Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing. 4th ed. Gaithersburg: Aspen, 2001. 304-6. For classroom use only!

O.W. 1/05 rev 9/10

 

For educational purposes only.