What's New in the Fourth Edition of Thank You for Arguing

Additions:

·       New preface, replacing Third Edition preface.

·       Extensive new material on resetting an audience’s priorities.  In my consulting work and my observation of persuasion in the marketplace, I’ve found that very little persuasion has to do with changing people’s minds. Most rational persuasion has instead to do with resetting an audience’s priorities. 

·       A new chapter (14), “Make a Connection” showing how to adjust an argument to particular audiences.

Deletions:

·       Delete chapter 21 (“Speak Your Audience’s Language”), which repeats somewhat the material already presented.

·       Delete chapter 22 (“Make Them Identify with Your Choice”), which readers criticized as being too obscure.

Revisions:

·       Many pop culture refs; remove old ones.

·       Revise seduction description (chapter 2), changing the definition of the term to relieve criticism that I’m encouraging rape.

·       Revise anecdote on Eminem’s decorum (pages 49-50) to relieve criticism that I’m letting a white man seem more intelligent than his black audience.

·       Addition to the Concession (“Agreeability” section in chapter 18): Story of how Dorothy Sr. talked me into an anniversary trip). In that same chapter, cut anecdotes about Amy Schumer and Joe Biden.

·       Less on Trump, much less on Hillary Clinton.

·       Revision of pathos: anger, fear; patriotism translated as “tribalism.” Included a short section on oxytocin as neurological proof of Aristotle.

Minor revisions to the index to reflect the changes in this edition.