that have defeated our opponent of next Saturday, and, moreover, our
team is stronger than it has been at any time this season." When you
finish, your friend replies: "I believe you are right. We shall win."

You have been carrying on oral argumentation.

If, when you had finished, your friend had not agreed with you, your
effort would have been none the less argumentation, only it would have
been unsuccessful. If you had written the same thing to your friend in
a letter, your letter would have been argumentative.

Suppose your father were running for an office and should make a
public speech. If he tried to make the audience believe that the best
way to secure lower taxes, better water, and improved streets would be
through his election, he would be making use of oral argumentation. If
he should do the same thing through newspaper editorials, he would be
using written argumentation.

Argumentation, then, may be carried on either in writing or orally,
and may vary from the informality of an ordinary conversation or a
letter to a careful address or thoughtful article.

What, then, is debate as we shall use the word in this work, and what
is the relation of argumentation to debate? The term "debate" in its
general use has, of course, many senses. You might say: "I had a
debate with a friend about the coming football game." Or your father
might say: "I heard the great Lincoln and Douglas debates before the
Civil War." Although both of you would be using the term as it is
generally used, you would not be using it as it will be used in this
book, or as it is best that a student of argumentation and debate