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Some Simple Rules of Argumentation
society & sociology, writing & communication
March 26, 2004, 12:04 PM
These rules of argumentation (found via Mark) are golden. They're based on the core observation that you will never change anyone's mind in a single argument, so it's a waste of your time to engage in protracted debates. The post is a little long, so I'll summarize.
When you find yourself in an argument, follow this procedure:
- State your case as clearly, rationally, and convincingly as you can. Never re-state it; this only hurts your argument and wastes everyone's time.
- Clarify any misunderstandings since people may disagree with your case simply because they mistook some of your points. Don't get trapped in endless clarifications, however; there's a point where the required understanding is simply based on a "you had to be there" experience and you can clarify forever and never get anywhere.
- Walk away. For a short argument, this is easy to do without conceding defeat. Keep arguments short.
I also love the suggestion that "the ideal attitude to project during any argument is one of calm disinterest". You can't lose if you don't care about the outcome (or at least appear not to).
Those of us with better things to do can never hope to win long arguments with those who seem to have infinite time on their hands. These rules can help save time, if nothing else.
Email Rob:
Life Lessons for Designers
design, processes & methodologies
March 26, 2004, 10:16 AM
Found via Dan, this article titled "The Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School" is interesting reading for those of us who are starting careers in one of the subdisciplines of design (or hoping to, anyway). Some of these ring true for me already, partially due to my (admittedly marginal) professional experience but also because of my experiences here at CMU (so some of them can be taught in design school, albeit indirectly). For example, I'll buy the "95% of any creative profession is shit work", especially after playing project manager for our capstone project. And this is important to come to terms with, because you probably won't be too happy or successful as a designer if you can't learn to take the bad (think convincing management that your design is important, writing up user testing reports, fighting with developers over technical compromises, etc) with the good (sitting down to do some creative design work).
Others I can certainly see as important, but I recognize that I need to get better at, like prioritizing and not over-thinking problems. And a few sound pretty familiar from my experience as a software developer, like "Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns".
It's good to remember, every now and again, that things work differently in the real world than they do in the ivory tower of academia.
Email Rob:
Posted by Rob on April 17, 2004 at 05:06 PM
An important note I forgot to add is that these rules are meant to apply to arguments that aren't, shall we say, important, such as idle debates (or flamewars) on online forums or discussions over a dinner table or a few beers. Different strategies may be necessary when the outcome of the argument has real ramifications (such as an argument at work over whether to select a particular product design over an alternative). For instance, just walking away and forgetting about the disagreement after making your first point might be totally inappropriate in that situation.
Posted by Student of SISD on May 01, 2007 at 08:32 PM
I bet this guy was probably mad at Miss.Clark for assigning us this stupid project l.o.l.