Indoor High-Speed Chair Race Argument

Whether it be trying to get my residents to understand why an indoor high-speed chair race wouldn 't be a good idea or simply trying to persuade my off-campus friends to splurge on an on-campus meal, I 'm the type of person who argues every day of my life. Some may call me dramatic, some may call me stubborn, but Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters call me normal. Because, according to their aptly titled article, "Everything is an Argument." I was immediately drawn to the idea that they presented about subtle goals in an argument because my natural train of thought assumes that one enters an argument to win. If we 're keeping score by that standard, I lost the chair race argument. However, the authors present a much more appealing option: "At other times, your goals may be subtler, and your writing is designed to convince yourself or others that specific facts are reliable or that certain views should be considered--or at least tolerated" (p. 4). The idea that I don 't have to completely change someone 's decision in the end makes me hopeful for my argumentative abilities. After all, I did get boys to at least think about not bolting down the hall while strapped down to a desk chair. And in the end, none of them were seriously injured. That 's what we call a win-win, my

The bit that really got my wheels rolling was the authors ' opinions on humor as an argumentative device, "Even humor makes an argument when it causes readers to recognize...how things are and how they might be different" (p.5). I 've always understood humor as multifaceted, but I 'd never explored it 's usefulness in an argument. A form of entertainment? Absolutely. A defensive mechanism? Daily. A way to win an argument? I 'm