The Chapter explains many of the important thing to keep in mind when forming an argument. For example it is important to keep your audience in mind, and what their view points may be. The book state on page 526 that "It is probably best to assume that some, if not most, of your readers are skeptical." So that you can make sure you have real support of your argument. The book also states that every opinion you have should be supported by facts, or else the audience may not agree with you. The best way to support your opinions too is an expert who is credible in the subject. The chapter also explains how to refute the opposition. They state that you lose credibility if you ignore it completely and it is best to just refute them head on.
The end of the chapter where it deals with fallacies probably helped me the most personally. according to the book on page 535 "Fallacies are illogical statements that may sound reasonable or true but are actually deceptive and dishonest." Then they go on to list the fallacies and explain them such as begging the question, argument from analogy, personnel attack, false dilemma, jumping to a conclusion, you also, misleading statistic, and many more listed than those. I tend to beg the question and jump to conclusions in my writing so this page will be a great reference for me writing in the future. Then the final part that really helped me in this chapter is the useful transition for argumentation on page 538. In my writing I tend to find myself at a stand still from one point to another. So thanks to this little box I have a bunch of transitions so I don't repeat the same phrase over and over in my essay.
Chapter 14 was a very informative look on forming an argument and how to defend it, and introduced me to new things I can apply to my writing.
-Timothy Wellmann
Image source (http://classroomclipart.com/clipart-view/Clipart/People/two_men_debate_jpg.htm)
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