Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs

I finished this book in August 2026. I recommend this book 3/10.

Why you should read this book:

This is not a normal textbook on rhetoric. The author has an engaging writing style and covers a lot of material without making it feel overly academic. Learning how to navigate and master a conversation is important, and the book offers useful tools for doing that. Where the book falls a little short is its reliance on dialogue from the author's own family as examples. At times, it felt like there was too much back-and-forth with his kids, which became repetitive.

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🚀 The book in three sentences

1. Think of others values and interests, and define the commonplace.

2. Use the Socratic method: define the issue, look for evidence, and explore behaviors and tradeoffs.

3. Summarize the discussion, debate the options, and move toward the future.

📝 My notes and thoughts

• P3. Try this in a meeting: Answer someone who expresses doubt about your idea with "Okay, let's tweak it." Now focus the argument on revisiting your idea as if the group had already accepted it. This move is a form of concession—rhetorical jujutsu that uses your opponent's move to your advantage.

• P10. Try this in a presentation: Present a decision with a chiasmus by using a mirror image of your first choice: "Either we control expenses or let expenses control us."

• P16. The couples who stayed married seemed to use their disputes to solve problems and work out differences. They showed faith in the outcome. The doomed couples, on the other hand, used their sessions to attack each other. Argument was a problem for them, not a means to a solution. The happy ones argued. The unhappy ones fought.

• P23. Try this in a written proposal: After you outline the document, jot down a two-part inventory of your goal: (1) Have you thought of all the benefits and weighed them against the alternatives? (2) How doable is it? How cheap or easy compared to the other choices? Now check off those points in your outline. Did you cover everything?

• P34. Try this in a meeting: Hold your tongue until well into the discussion. If an argument bogs down in the past or present tense, switch it to the future. "You're all making good points, but how are we going . . .?" Make sure that question defines the issue in a way that's favorable to your side.

• P35. Choose the right tense. If you want your audience to make a choice, focus on the future. Tenses are so important that Aristotle assigned a whole branch of rhetoric to each one. Remember these tools:

  • Control the issue. Do you want to fix blame? Define who meets or abuses your common values? Or get your audience to make a choice? The most productive arguments use choice as their central issue. Don't let a debate swerve heedlessly into values or guilt. Keep it focused on choices that solve a problem to your audience's (and your) advantage.

  • Control the clock. Keep your argument in the right tense. In a debate over choices, make sure it turns to the future.

• P44. Use your audience as though you love them. Here are the tools required to understand your opponents and sympathize with your audience:

  • Logos. Argument by logic. The first logical tactic we covered was concession, using the opponent's argument to your own advantage.

  • Pathos. Argument by emotion. The most important pathetic tactic is sympathy, registering concern for your audience's emotions and then changing the mood to suit your argument.

  • Ethos. Argument by character. Aristotle called this the most important appeal of all—even more than logos.

• P54. Decorum. Argument by character starts with your audience's love. You earn it through decorum, which Cicero listed first among the ethical tactics. (Dress one level up on casual Fridays.)

• P65. Julius Caesar's ethos was so great, Shakespeare said, that he could say something normally offensive, and "his circumstance, like riches alchemy," would change his rhetoric "to virtue and worthiness." The tools in this chapter are an alchemist's tools; use them to change your basest words into gold.

  • Virtue. Rhetorical virtue is the appearance of virtue. It can spring from a truly noble person or be faked by the skillful rhetorician. Rhetoric is an agnostic art; it requires more adaptation than righteousness. You adapt to the values of your audience.

  • Values. The word "values" takes on a different meaning in rhetoric as well. Rhetorical values do not necessarily represent "rightness" or "truth"; they merely constitute what people value—honor, faith, steadfastness, money, toys. Support your audience's values, and you earn the temporary trustworthiness that rhetoric calls virtue.

• P70. To get an audience to trust your decision, you can use three techniques:

  • Show off your experience. If you debate a war and you're a veteran yourself, bring it up. "I've been in battle," you say, "I know what it's like." In an argument, experience usually trumps book learning. And it is fine to brag about experiences, rather than yourself.

  • Bend the rules. Be Captain Bligh the navigator, not Captain Martinet. If the rules don't apply, don't apply them—unless ignoring the rules violates the audience's values. Indiana Jones showed some craft when a master swordsman attacked him with a scimitar. The man advanced with all the complex skill of a fencer, and Jones wearily shot him with a pistol. The rules didn't apply. How does that work in real life?

  • Seem to take the middle course. The ancient Greeks had far more respect for moderation than our culture does. But humans in every era instinctively prefer a decision that lies midway between extremes. In an argument, it helps to make the audience think your adversary's position is an extreme one. (I once heard a congressional candidate call his opponent an "extreme moderate," whatever that means.) If the school board wants to increase the education budget by 8 percent, and opponents say taxes are already too high, you can gain credibility by proposing a 3 percent increase. Presidents use the middle-course tactic when they choose a running mate with more extreme opinions than their own—Nixon with Agnew, Clinton with Gore, Bush with Cheney, Obama with Biden. Their vice presidents allowed them to look moderate even when their own politics strayed from the center of American opinion.

• P81. Caring, or "disinterest," is the appearance of having only the best interest of your audience at heart—even to the point of sacrificing for the good of the others. Its tools:

  • The reluctant conclusion. Act as if you reached your conclusion only because of its overwhelming rightness.

  • The personal sacrifice. Claim that the choice will help your audience more than it will help you; even better, maintain that you'll actually suffer from the decision.

  • Dubitation. Show doubt in your own rhetorical skill. The plain-spoken, seemingly ingenuous speaker is the trickiest of them all, being the most believable.

  • Authenticity. Make your audience think you're for real, just being your genuine lovable self.

• P98. Much of my persuasion consulting work has to do with finding gaps and filling them with desire. Take one of my former clients, Beachbody, makers of P90X and Insanity. A customer buys a workout program. Now what? Beachbody wants the customer to complete the program, which makes her much more likely to buy more of the company's nutrition products, workout DVDs, and gear. That's a persuasion gap. What's the desire to dangle? I helped Beachbody increase completion rates by studying customer desires: a hottie in the mirror, a man she wants to attract, an event like a wedding where she wants to shine. Suppose that customer completes the program but balks at buying another. That's the next persuasion gap, to be filled with the same or a different desire. It could be the customer's dream to run in a charity 5K. But that's not exactly a lust, is it? Maybe her true desire is to be a superhero, the hyper-fit woman who rescues the needy through her athletic awesomeness. Say she buys another program and successfully runs the 5K. Now she's a fan of the product—but Beachbody has a system in which customers become "coaches," selling products for commission. How can they persuade this customer to join that program and start selling for them? Another gap, to be bridged with a different desire. Maybe she lusts for independence, the chance to work at home. Maybe she lusts after a new car. Everyone lusts after something. If you can suss out the desire, exploit the lust, dangle the carrot, then you can bridge the gap. Back in the introduction, I mentioned the car salesman who sold me a lemon by showing me P.T. Barnum's grave. He spotted my desire from the get-go: I lust after American history the way Dorothy desires botany. And so, with the magic of rhetoric, the salesman turned P.T. Barnum into a carrot.

• P98. Rhetorical tradition has it that when Cicero spoke, people said, "What a great speech." When the fiery Athenian orator Demosthenes spoke, people said, "Let's march!" The Greek spoke more pathetically than the Roman; emotion makes the difference between agreement and commitment. Use the tools of pathos to rouse your audience to action:

  • Belief. To stir emotion, use what your audience has experienced and what it expects to happen.

  • Storytelling. A well-told narrative gives the audience a virtual experience—especially if it calls on their own past experiences, and if you tell it in the first person.

  • Volume control. You can often portray an emotion most effectively by underplaying it, in an apparent struggle to contain yourself. Even screaming demagogues like Hitler almost invariably began a speech quietly and then turned up the volume.

  • Simple speech. Don't use fancy language when you get emotional. Ornate speech belongs to ethos and logos; plain speaking is more pathetic.

  • Anger often arises from a sense of belittlement. You can direct an audience's fury at someone by portraying his lack of concern over their problem.

  • Patriotism attaches a choice or action to the audience's sense of group identity. You can stir it by comparing the audience with a successful rival.

  • Emulation responds emotionally to a role model. The greater your ethos, the more the audience will imitate you.

  • Unannounced emotion lets you sneak up on your audience's mood. Don't tip them off in advance. They'll resist the emotion.

  • Nostalgia uses a yearning for the past—especially for those days when the future seemed bright.

  • Desire or lust helps get your audience to move from decision to action. Persuasion gaps. First, find them. Then fill them with desire.

• P107. Turn the volume down tools:

  • Passive voice. If you want to direct an audience's anger away from someone, imply that the action happened on its own. "The chair got broken," not "Pablo broke the chair."

  • Comfort. Also known as cognitive ease. Keep your audience in an easy, docile, instant state, and your persuasion goes down more easily. Comfort also helps counter or prevent anger. To achieve comfort, keep things simple, empower your audience, and try to get your audience to smile.

  • Humor. Laughter is a wonderful calming device, and it can enhance your ethos if you use it properly. Urbane humor plays off a word or part of speech. Wit is situational humor. Facetious humor is joke telling, a relatively ineffective form of persuasion. Banter, the humor of snappy answers, works best in rhetorical defense. It uses concession to throw the opponent's argument back at him.

  • Emotional refusal. When being bullied or heckled, refuse to show the emotion the bully wants. Gain the audience's sympathy by trying to look calm and above it all.

  • Backfire. You can calm an individual's emotion in advance by overplaying it yourself. This works especially well when you screw up and want to prevent the wrath of an authority.

• P111. Before you begin an argument, first determine what your audience is thinking. You need to know its beliefs and values, the views it holds in common. The common sense of your audience is square one—the beginning point of your argument. To shift people's point of view, start from their position, not yours. In rhetoric, we call this spot a commonplace—a viewpoint your audience holds in common. You can use it as your argument's jumping-off point. We equate a commonplace with a cliché, but the term had a broader connotation. The rhetorical commonplace is a short-form expression of common sense or public opinion. It can range from a political belief (all people are created equal) to a practical matter (it's cheaper to buy in bulk).

• P117. Try this with a new boss. Again, Google the boss to get a sense of her commonplace. Now place them side by side with her predecessor's commonplace. Put "value-driven management" next to "employee-empowered management," for example. The first phrase tends to describe a company managed from the top down, while the second is more likely to emphasize teamwork and bottom-up decision-making. The comparison will tell you a lot about changes the new boss will bring in values and style—and give you logical ammunition in future meetings.

• P118. Tools for gaining the high ground:

  • The commonplace. Any cliché, belief, or value can serve as your audience's boiled-down public opinion. This is the starting point of your argument, the ground your audience currently stands on. Logos makes them think that your own opinion is a very small step from their commonplace.

  • Babbling. When your audience repeats the same thing over and over, it is probably mouthing a commonplace.

  • The commonplace label. Apply a commonplace to an idea, a proposal, or a piece of legislation; anyone who opposes it will risk seeming like an outsider.

  • The rejection. Another good commonplace spotter. When your audience turns you down, listen to the language it uses; chances are you will hear a commonplace. Use it when the argument resumes.

• P133. The greatest reframing I've ever witnessed, though, was by a friend who was an aide in the U.S. Senate, a corporate attorney, and a law school dean. He treated his lymphoma the way he dealt with his toughest cases: as something to solve. People often use the metaphor of a fight when it comes to cancer and other deadly diseases. In Jeff's case, he realized the fight had come to an end. The doctors had run out of treatments. So he reframed his illness. He turned it from a battle to a beautiful last chapter in his life. His grandchildren moved in, friends came to say goodbye, he wrote letters and ordered Christmas presents knowing he wouldn't be around to see them unwrapped. Several days before he died, he told his wife, "These weeks have been the happiest of my life."

• P114. Here are the framing techniques:

  • First, find audience commonplace words that favor you.

  • Next, define the issue in the broadest context—one that appeals to the values of the widest audience.

  • Then deal with the specific problem or choice, making sure you speak in the future sense.

• P146. The historian Coyler Meriwether wrote that the American founders were masters at rhetorical logos: "They knew how to build an argument, to construct a logical fortress; that had been their pastime since youth. They could marshal words, they could explore the past ... they had been doing that for years." You now have the foundation to build your own logical fortress. Actually, it should be more like a logical mansion; the best persuaders are comfortable within their logic, and not afraid to let people in. Don't worry. We'll cover many more tools to make you feel more at home with logic. We started with the basic tools of logos:

  • Deduction. Deductive logic applies a general principle to a particular matter. Rhetorical deduction uses a commonplace to reach a conclusion, interpreting the circumstances through a lens of beliefs and values.

  • Enthymeme. The logical sandwich that contains deductive logic. "We should [choice], because [commonplace]." Aristotle took formal logic's syllogism, stripped it down, and based it on a commonplace instead of a universal truth.

  • Induction. In rhetoric, induction is argument by example. This kind of logic starts with the specific and moves to the general. Whereas deductive logic interprets the circumstances through an existing belief—a commonplace—inductive logic uses the circumstances to form a belief. It works best when you're not sure your audience shares a commonplace.

  • Fact, comparison, story. These are the three kinds of examples to use in inductive logic.

• P158. To get and hold your audience's attention, you need to understand their needs and desires. The smaller the audience, the more you should be careful about generalizing those needs. Not sure about your audience? Listen before you argue. If you're giving a speech or presentation, research who's attending. Ask the organizer for help. The tools we talked about in this chapter fall under ethos (connecting to your audience) and pathos (attaching your persuasion to desire):

  • The hook. Persuasion is not about what you want. It's about what your audience needs and desires. First, try to suss out that need. Then structure your argument around solving that need through the decision or action you want.

  • Expressed love. This doesn't mean saying "I love you," necessarily. That could get creepy. You need only think how much you love your audience. If your audience is hard to love—mansplaining, heckling, demeaning—then you have the right to say to yourself the best southern insult ever: "Bless their heart."

• P226. The best tool against a political bully. Look intensely curious and ask respectfully for definitions, details, and sources. A smiling request for information constitutes a high form of flattery, as Socrates himself proved. Use Socratic questions, like Franklin.

• P267. Say, "Thank you for your patience," instead of "Sorry," when writing an email.

• P273. To err is human; to benefit from an error, rhetorical. Just follow these steps:

  • Set your goals right after you screw up.

  • Be first with the news.

  • Switch immediately to the future.

  • Avoid belittling the victim.

  • Don't rely on an apology. Instead, express your feelings about not living up to your standards.

• P278. In a meeting: Summarize what you have heard. State the opinions in the room. Bring the discussion toward the future.

• P312. A chapter about putting a speech together.

• P326. A chapter about recognizing Barack Obama's speeches.

• P341. A chapter about writing college essays.

  • What's your hook?

  • Don't express yourself.

  • A winning essay tells a story, and it's all about "aha" moments.

  • Make yourself good and miserable.

• P354. In chapter 8, we pulled together the whole arsenal of rhetorical weapons:

  • For offense, think of your goal, set the tense, and know your audience's values and commonplaces. Then use ethos (character), logos (logic), and pathos (emotions), usually in that order.

  • For defense, when you don't know what to say, try conceding, then redefining your concession. ("You could say it's spinach, yes. Others would say it's broccoli.") Finally, switch the tense to the future. ("But the question is, how are we going to get that vegetable down you?")