Tannen/Graff

Tannen and Graff both tried to argue that arguments have become more of a dialogue and language over the years because of how arguments have become used in culture. However, both authors have differing views on this idea. Tannen believes that arguments have become somewhat of a war of words, one where there could be more than two sides to an argument. Graff, as has been seen through over ten pages of his essay, disagrees with Tannen’s position. He believes that arguments have remained as they were over the years; however, his other position is that it has become a tool for students to succeed through education by allowing them to become more articulate.

My opinion is that Tannen’s writing was a lot better than Graff’s. Tannen had a much better argument and her examples provided more of an argumentative basis for her essay. Graff, on the other hand, solely attacked Graff and other writers without giving much of an argument of his own. Only at the end of his piece did he provide any sort of argument. Even then, his argument is bland and does not really give any good information to the reader. Tannen’s writing was much more enjoyable than Graff’s, and her argument much better.

In terms of their arguments, I agree with both of them. Arguments have evolved in a way to become more of a dialogue. Every day, people partake in arguments, whether over something important or not. The thing about arguments now is that each person in the argument wants to be right; whether it matters or not. This is way there are multiple sides to arguments, people will create new sides just to add on and try to one-up the other sides of the argument. On the flip side, some people have notices this new kind of argument and have tried to avoid this. In the example with the asthmatic lady, she tried her best to avoid an argument with the smoker by making him seem like the winner of an argument before it happened.

This is where I agree with Graff: being effective is delivering an argument allows for you to become more articulate with your words. The woman was able to win by using her words to trick the smoking man into believing he was doing something good. Since the woman was good with arguments, she won without having to subject herself to hours of heated language with the man. Graff believes that students who become good at arguing something, whether in academe or not, will become more articulate with their words and how they use them. I agree that this is a good skill to have, (hence why we take Rhetoric).