I. What the "issues" are.

II. How to determine the issues.

III. The value of correct issues.


When you have made perfectly clear to your hearers what you wish them
to believe, the next step is to show them why they should believe it.
The first step in this process, as we saw at the beginning of Lesson
III, is to see what points, if proved, will make them believe it.

These points, as we call them, are better known as "issues." The
issues are really questions, the basic questions on which your side
and the other disagree. The negative would answer "No" to these
issues, the affirmative would say "Yes."

The issues when stated in declarative sentences are the fundamental
reasons why the affirmative believes its proposition should be
believed.

A student might be arguing with himself whether he would study law or
medicine. He would say to himself: "These are the issues: For which am
I the better adapted? Which requires the more study? Which offers the
better promise of reward? In which can I do the more good?"

Should he argue with a friend in order to induce him to give up law
and to study medicine, he would use similar issues. He would feel
that if he could settle these questions he could convince his friend.
Now, however, he would state them as declarative sentences and say: