In this video, we'll listen to some oral arguments,
and then you'll try to pick out the claims and support.
The goal here is to practice hearing the components of an argument instead of just
seeing them, so please listen to this first clip.
>> Seattle's a great place to live, I've lived here for a while and
I've come to love this city and the region.
There's beautiful scenery here, mountains and
beaches, we have green grass year round.
The weather is exceptionally mild, you may have heard that it rains here a lot.
It does stay cloudy for most of the winter, but
we get less actual rainfall than many other places in the country.
If you're looking for a job, Seattle's still going through a bit of a boom,
especially if you're in a technology industry.
We are host to a number of huge tech firms like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
I've loved it here and just think that Seattle's a great place to live.
>> All right, that one was pretty straightforward.
They open with a claim, Seattle's a great place to live.
They delved into the evidence, it has beautiful scenery,
mild weather, good job market, and then they ended with the claim again.
Now on the other hand,
let's listen to this person talking about being a good salesperson.
>> I don't know, I suppose one of the most important things to think about when
dealing with a new client,
is thinking about how they're going to interact with our product.
I mean, we know what we want to do and how we want to do, but
it becomes more challenging.
And I think this is the role of a good salesperson, to figure out exactly where
and how the client wants to make use of what we have to offer.
I certainly remember a salesperson we used to have.
I forget his name, but he had been raised in that old, let me sell you a product,
sort of way of thinking.
So he'd be like, when he was with a client, he'd be all like,
here's what my system can do for you.
And he never changed his sales pitch, it was always the same.
Didn't matter if he was talking to a small ten person company or
a major manufacturer.
He just figured he was so smooth that he could move the product.
I don't remember sales figures, but hey no surprise, they weren't great, right?
>> All right, so that one was a little bit more challenging, but
it's the kind of thing you would hear in a typical conversation.
The argumentative elements are in there kicking around, but
they're not put on display, you have to dig around for them.
So if you listen to that, you can pull out the basic claim,
good sales people listen to the clients' needs.
But the speaker never said that claim overtly.
And in a similar way, you can suss out that the story of the bad salesperson
was there for support, but this link is not as clear as it could be.
So as speakers, we can be clearer if we make our claim, support, and
warrant, easy for audiences to hear.
And as listeners, we can evaluate speeches more insightfully,
once we uncover the relevant elements.
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