If you want to make an argument you must know what you want to say before you start writing.
That is how Marcus Tullius Cicero, the classical orator and philosopher, might have opened this post. Set down the essential case you want to make in a sentence, make it the first thing you say, and develop the argument from there.
That stark imperative impressed itself on me when reading How to Win an Argument, a collection of extracts from Cicero’s speeches and essays selected by the classics professor James M. May.
For Cicero clarity was everything: clarity of logic, of language, of delivery. His speeches are controlled exercises in rhetoric, shifting between forensic scrutiny and carefully contrived emotional appeal. Reading them creates a vivid image of the charismatic orator pacing the courtroom or senate, speaking from memory, calibrating his language and gestures to generate a cumulative impact.
The essays detail how the speeches were constructed, elaborating optimal frameworks through which arguments can be delivered.
They are best known, perhaps, for establishing the outline for ordering a speech or essay still used today. The writer should begin with a prologue, stating the case to be made and why it matters. The narration that follows surveys the facts of the matter at hand, bringing them to the front of the reader’s mind. The proof sets out the full argument, followed by, or perhaps incorporating, a refutation of the opposing case. It concludes with a peroration designed to ensure the core argument resonates in the reader’s mind.
Clarifying the Topic
But I want to focus here on Cicero’s insistence that, before any outline can be drafted, the writer must know exactly what it is he wants to say. His first task is to clarify his essential argument, what Cicero called the Topic, the fulcrum on which everything he will say will be balanced. This is the point of decision, the point where the writer takes a stand, draws a line in the sand, positions himself on one side or the other.
When determining his Topic, Cicero thought in terms of preparing for a court case:
Every subject that contains in itself some controversy situated in speech and debate involves a question about a fact, or about a definition, or about the nature or quality of an act, or about legal processes.
But the same disciplined process of clarification can be followed to make any kind of argument, whether it takes the form of a political speech, a corporate presentation, an editorial or an essay:
[T]he whole thing boils down to this (whether it is a matter of art or observation or experience): knowing the areas where you must hunt for, and track down, what you are trying to find. Once you have surrounded the entire place with the nets of your thought, at least if practical experience has sharpened your skill, nothing will escape you, and everything that is in the subject matter will run up to you and fall into your hands.
The Topic is the magnet around which an argument gathers, in Cicero’s words, ‘the point of reference’:
[A]fter accepting a case and acquainting myself with its category, the very first thing I do when I start working on the matter is to establish the point of reference for the whole portion of the speech that specifically concerns the judgement of the issue itself.
Like the grain that runs through wood, the central theme that propels a symphony, the epigraph of a book, or, to use Cicero’s visceral image, the blood that runs through the veins, the Topic informs every line. It should be presented right at the start to prime the reader for what is to come, before opening out into the full argument, and being forcefully restated in the concluding passages.
And, crucially, the Topic must be a genuine argument. It must be contentious, proposing something that can be opposed, something with which the reader can disagree. It should have the sharpness of a blade, able to cut through the audience’s indifference.
So much political and business communication fails to engage the listener or reader because this essential opening move isn’t made. Contention – and the possibility of offence – is avoided. The Topic is bland. There is nothing to disagree with, no controversy, no challenge, no edge.
Many political speeches and essays fail because they are insufficiently political. Consider, for example, the government that ‘believes in Britain’, or in ‘the dignity of all its citizens’, or in ‘a fairer future’. Who could possibly disagree? The Topic is insufficiently charged to spark the listener’s interest. It is too vague to capture the audience’s attention, to motivate them to engage.
Instead of simply ‘believing in Britain’ the government might promise to ‘double investment in vocational training to develop a highly skilled workforce’. Rather than voicing broad sentiments about ‘dignity’, it might commit to ‘invest in palliative healthcare for the nation’s most vulnerable citizens’. The promise of a ‘fairer future’ may be made vivid through a pledge to ‘increase investment in England’s poorest regions by 200% by 2030’. The listener now has something concrete to consider, a proposed use of taxpayers’ money with which they may or may not agree.
Corporate communications are often worse. The fear of causing offence can obscure whatever point the writer might have intended to make. So the CEO’s presentation ends up being about ‘believing in the value of every employee’, or ‘working for a greener future’, or ‘prioritising the interests of shareholders’.
The listener is more likely to follow what is being said if the speaker wants to tell them that the company is going to ‘double investment in training programmes by the end of the year’, or commit to ‘putting solar panels on every warehouse roof by 2028’, or rollout a ‘programme of share buybacks over the next 18 months’. A specific course of action is proposed that the audience can picture and, perhaps, approve.
Developing the Topic
Clarifying the Topic is the first task. The second is to ensure it informs every part of argument that procedes from it.
In his book The Art of Speeches and Presentations speechwriter Philip Collins outlines five useful steps the writer can follow to ensure she never loses sight of her Topic when developing her case.
First, she should encapsulate it in a single sentence. If she can’t it isn’t sharp enough and must be refined further. Collins, who wrote for Tony Blair, notes how effective political speakers ensure their address contains sound-bites capturing the essential point they are making. These little chunks of content may well be the only thing that the audience – including the media – will retain or have time to report.
Second, the sentence should be expanded into a paragraph referencing the major steps in the argument. Third, it should be extended with the writer’s best supporting material to fill a page. Fourth, the page should be be used to develop an outline, forming the basis for stage five, the first draft of the full speech. The whole process is organic, the argument flowing from its wellhead, the Topic.
Embellishing the argument
As Cicero well knew there is more to persuasion than rationality. Following Aristotle he believed a convincing argument must employ logos, ethos and pathos. It must persuade by means of reason (logos), but also through appeal to the speaker’s character (ethos), and to the audience’s emotions (pathos).
The eloquent speaker whom we seek will be the one who will speak in the forum and the courts in such a way as to prove and to delight and to sway. To prove is a necessity, to delight as charm, to sway brings victory – for of all things this one is the most potent weapon for winning cases.
As May’s compendium shows, Cicero presented a comprehensive array of techniques for winning an audience over. The ideal orator must find the right tone, employ the right style, and embellish his words as appropriate with figures of speech. And he should also draw on the resources of a well rounded education (an observation that inspired the medieval and renaissance concern to place rhetoric at the centre of the curriculum):
It is at least my opinion that it will be impossible for anyone to be an orator endowed with all praiseworthy qualities, unless he has gained the knowledge of all important subjects and arts. For it is certainly from knowledge that a speech should blossom and acquire fullness: unless the orator has firmly grasp of the underlying subject matter, his speech will remain an utterly empty, yes, almost childish verbal exercise.
In the spirit of sticking to my Topic I will leave discussion of all of that for another day, and conclude this post by re-emphasising the main point: the overriding importance of establishing the point to be made from the outset. The writer should take whatever time is necessary to identify their argument and ensure it informs every line of what they go on to say. The result will be a speech or essay that takes a stand, and does so with consistency and cumulative force.
There’s more to persuasive writing than that. But getting these essentials right ensures that a robust case is made, one that the reader can engage with, and perhaps even agree with.