Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

by Jay Heinrichs

Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill.

The time-tested secrets this book discloses include Cicero’s three-step strategy for moving an audience to action—as well as Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick of lowering an audience’s expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it’s also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians’ use of “code” language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges—including The Yoda Technique, The Belushi Paradigm, and The Eddie Haskell Ploy.

Whether you’re an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Written by one of today’s most popular language mavens, it’s warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening. It not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis and a chiasmus when you hear them, but also how to wield such handy and persuasive weapons the next time you really, really want to get your own way.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Self Help, Communication, School, Business

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 27, 2007

About the author

Jay Heinrichs is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Thank You for Arguing, published in four editions and 14 languages. The leading modern work on rhetoric, it has been taught in more than 3,000 college rhetoric classes and countless AP English Language & Composition classes.

Jay maintains the popular rhetoric and language websites ArgueLab.com and websites Figarospeech.com. In addition, he holds frequent Skype-ins with classes that use his book.

When he’s not spreading the gospel of rhetoric, Jay conducts content strategies and persuasion workshops for clients as varied as the Wharton School of Business and NASA. Middlebury College named him a Professor of the Practice of Rhetoric and Oratory. Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine did a not altogether flattering portrait of him titled Jay Heinrichs’s Powers of Persuasion.

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate the writers voice and writing style and I am so tired of these accessible books being about ten pages of content inflated with real life anecdotes as if they prove anything. How can you do that in a book about rhetoric and logic fallacy especially. Also it wasn't structured very well and was a little sporadic and made use of all these things in a manipulative way and even praised being manipulative. There are way better books on rhetoric honestly so choose something else instead that isn't a vehicle for the author to try and show off how much he knows but rather something with substance.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

For an accessible, engaging, and non-textbook book about rhetoric, I found it very successful. The examples are relevant and Heinrichs creates more memorable names for the Latin rhetorical terms. He gives rhetoric more applicability and relevance to our lives by exposing how it used in popular culture. I learned quite a bit from the book, even if it jumped around a lot.

However, I got quite annoyed with Heinrichs' narrative voice by about halfway through the book. At first, I really enjoyed the humor and sarcasm, but then it just went overboard. The sarcasm got old very quickly and I felt like Heinrichs was quite arrogant in his own presentation of the material (which involved praising his book). I thought he was rather pretentious; while I don't particularly mind pretension, his embodiment of the techniques he discussed bothered me. I had trouble connecting with his experiences and felt that in a few places he was condescending by over-simplifying the techniques. I also didn't like how he almost praised the manipulation involved in rhetoric; while I do understand its there, he seemed to throw it in your face.

For these reasons, I had difficulty continuing with the book. At first it read fast, but then I got so sick of the narrative voice and presentation, that it took a lot of motivation to finish it (If I didn't need to read for class, I might've stopped). However, I did learn a lot from reading this book and do believe it is a much more accessible resource than other rhetoric resources.

[Don · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you think of the word argument as a series of logical steps connecting premises to a conclusion, then this is not the book you're looking for. And if you think of arguments as opportunities to work together to discover truth, then this book will likely leave you very disappointed.

Let me just share a few of the gems that you can expect from this book:

[The happy couples] manipulated one another. That's a good thing. While our culture tends to admire straight shooters, [...] those people rarely get their way in the end. (pg. 16)

You need to determine your audience's values and then appear to live up to them. (pg. 60)

- If facts work in your favor use them. If they don't (or you don't know them), then...
- Redefine the terms instead. If that won't work, accept your opponent's facts and terms but...
- Argue that your opponent's argument is less important than it seems. And if even that isn't to your advantage...
- Claim the discussion is irrelevant. (pg. 109)

[This] angle, for example, is rhetorically wrong only if it fails to
persuade. That's because, nonsensical as the argument is logically, it makes emotional sense. [...] So while not a logical argument, it makes a decent pathetic one---provided the [audience] misses the fallacy. (pg. 157)

If you think this is good advice, worth learning and following, then you might love this book.

[Deke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't do it. I couldn't finish it, even after slogging through 200 pages. The book is filled with valuable information, but the author's writing style is intolerable. Filled with pop culture references and anecdotes from his family, it's like listening to a guy at a party who is incredibly proud of himself and won't shut up even though no one is laughing at his jokes. For instance... I started leafing through the book, flipped pages, closed it. And then I read the blurb on the back which he probably wrote; if I'd seen it I would have run screaming: "Written by one of today's most popular language mavens, it's warm, witty, erudite and truly enlightening." That sentence is not warm (it's self-aggrandizing, which leaves me cold), nor erudite (there's no such thing as a language maven, an obviously self-coined phrase which shows neither an understanding of the word maven nor any sense that people can easily measure popularity on the internet making this claim both false and ridiculous), nor enlightening. Actually, I take that back, that sentence is quite enlightening. Run, don't walk, toward actual rhetorical quality.

[Georgia · Rating 1 out of 5]

jay heinrichs please stfu

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly competent introduction to the ancient Greek and Roman art of rhetoric -- or, as the author is fond of saying -- verbal ju-jitsu. It's that kind of irritating cheerful trendiness that prevented me from giving the book 5 stars. The author is determined to make the book funny and cute. He tells many stories on himself where his attempts at...verbal ju-jitsu...backfire amusingly, usually because his wife sees right through his feeble attempts to manipulate her. All of that got tiresome pretty quickly, as well as the quotes from Homer Simpson and (even) Stalin. One gets the feeling that he's been unable to get anyone's attention over the years, and so he's used to trying way too hard. He's like one of those people you meet at a party who's a little too lively and who won't stop cracking one-liners. The act wears thin after a while. But still, all of rhetoric is spread out for you 'like a patient etherised upon a table'. If you want to learn it, this is a relatively painless way to do so. Like having an amateur Chris Rock teach you a foreign language.

[Steven Ackerley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Can I give ZERO stars?

One of only three books I have thrown to the floor in disgust and have no intention or desire to ever go back to it.

The writer comes across as patronising and smug, and he appears to love footnotes so much he actually sticks them in amongst the text in little, annoying box-outs.

The only funny bits in this supposedly humorous book are the Simpson's quotes, so go watch Homer instead.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

The very best college class I took was Dr. Bertonasco's rhetoric class. Dr. B was a stern taskmaster and a hard grader-- and I learned so much about polishing self-expression and about analyzing other's expressed opinions. Valuable lessons for the academic life and for real life.

I hoped to find a book that would return me to that classroom and help me recall the skills I so appreciated. This book is not that one.

This book is less about the well-reasoned argument than about clobbering anyone who disagrees with you by any means possible, including falsification. In theory, the variety of contemporary sources cited by the author should help the reader to analyze such tricks when, say, politicians employ them-- but Heinrichs doesn't choose his examples for their rhetorical brilliance or their rhetorical speciousness: he chooses them for what I will call "the har-de-har/elbow-in-the-ribs factor."

As others have noted, his smart-aleck persona does not make for pleasant companionship. I read only two chapters, flipped through the remaining pages, and put the book in the big bag to be donated to the SPCA thrift store. I guess that means it's really a dog.

[Andrew Murray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a pretentious, arrogant writer and he gives off republican/misogynistic vibes—he has got to go.

[harper · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasted a highlighter for this

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

The fact that this was the 200th “read” book on my GRs is just a punch in the gut.
I need to write an essay about this now. My annotations didn’t set me up well. It was a lot of “I hate you”, “I hate this book”, “Just let your family be happy for once”, “Stop always trying to get your way that’s not how the world works”, “I feel sorry for your children”, etc. Oh geez.
Would give it zero stars if I could. RIP to my love of reading, as well as the 3+ hours I spent reading this.
This author had the gall to call his own book funny. In his book. While he was writing it. I applaud his bravery.

[Maura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this book at all, hence the one star rating. I felt that the author’s narration was condescending and insufferable. Comments concerning the author’s wife and women in general were unnecessary and had misogynistic undertones. This entire book could have been condensed to ten pages. Instead, it was over 300 pages of mansplaining the “principles of arguing,” AKA: common sense.

[Jackson Armona · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jay Heinrichs makes me never want to talk to another person ever again

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his book Thank You for Arguing Jay Heinrichs teaches readers about the art of argument. He details the tools and techniques necessary for persuasion, and branches out into the overall importance of rhetoric in contemporary society and in our daily lives.

Thank You for Arguing served as a great guide to the many terms, tips, and tricks of argument. Heinrichs keeps his tone light to avoid boring his readers, and even points out how he utilizes rhetoric in his own writing throughout the book. While some of my peers thought that his voice verged on cheesiness, to me it had the right amount of jocularity to balance out the dryness of some of the material. He maintained a sophisticated writing style, too, and his expertise and the amount of research he conducted for the publishing of this book is made clear.

I can see why the English teachers at my school would have students read Thank You for Arguing before taking AP English Language - it introduces terms such as ethos, pathos, and logos, and shares techniques for argument such as utilizing the future tense. Recommended to those who wish to learn how to be more persuasive and to those who want to win more arguments.

*cross-posted on my blog, the quiet voice.

[jinxed]

i HATED reading this so much

[Kara Headley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dorothy senior girl run! Your husband hates you!

But in all seriousness, this book has one piece of good advice for every four grand standing, annoying anecdotes from the author’s real life where he thinks he’s cooler than he is. Take what I say with whatever grain of salt you want because I stopped reading halfway through (and only got that far because I had to for a class). But what else was I to expect from a book with subtitles in the second chapter that include “how to seduce a cop,” “how to manipulate, a lover,” and “the seduction diet.”

It is important for us to understand rhetoric and arguments, because we need to be able to defend ourselves against bad actors. The problem with this book is the author thinks he’s a good guy, but he’s using rhetoric to manipulate his wife and kids into doing things and brags about it. Why should I want to take his advice? This book reads more like a how-to guide to manipulating the people around you than as practical good advice.

That’s not even to mention the casual sexism and racism sprinkled throughout the book. On page 47 he writes, “Whenever I spot a do-rag or baggy pants on someone over forty, I want to shoot them and put them out of their kids' misery.” Tell me that is not a microaggression against the Black community. In particular, I take worry with the durag comment. To imply that durags or other cultural clothing to Black individuals lacks a sense of decorum as he does in this chapter, is racist.

All in all, skip this book. I got a better education on rhetorical practices from my high school AP language and composition class. And I’m pissed off that I had to spend even six dollars on a used copy of this for class.

[Franky · Rating 3 out of 5]

For being a book about argument, this book is quite uneven and wildly unfocused. The author seems to have a haphazard approach to explaining various points of argument and rhetoric and jumps all around in his discussion. Just when he is coming to a point, he ventures off and gets sidetracked on something else. For that reason, it was really hard to get into this book.

Additionally, the examples and analogies he uses for appeals or persuasive strategies are either repetitive or overly simplistic in nature. He basically tries to use his family as a way to illustrate means of being persuasive, but goes to that well way too often. And sometimes the logic is a bit head-scratching as well.

It also didn’t help that the author’s tone is a mixture of smart allecky and slightly annoying. His own sense of audience is way off kilter or something, and I think I put the book down several times just because of that. One minute he is using “nefarious” in a sentence, and the next minute trying to crack a joke.

Complaints aside, there a few nuggets of rhetorical wisdom contained in Thank You For Arguing. Some of the bits on capturing your audience’s attention, for example, were helpful. However, you have to wade through quite a bit to find many of those said nuggets.

I would call this rhetoric light, as in half the depth of a book about rhetoric, and not as insightful. While there are some points of insight, there are far better books about argument and rhetoric out there.

[Brahm · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel a bit bad rating one star as it's a book club pick, but overall I just didn't enjoy it.

I enjoy the study of rhetoric, I took a handful of classes in university to spice up my EE degree and they ended up being my favourite courses.

What I liked about this book was mostly the nostalgia effect taking me back to those classes, concepts, authors, and thinkers.

But I really struggled to connect with this book. Despite the subtitle I didn't find it TOO pop-culturey. Book-reader mismatch 🤷‍♂️

[Matthew Funke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for my AP summer assignment and I like ... It's correct and has lots of good points but I did not enjoy reading it or his conservative white dad humor bye

[Karen Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modern primer on how to become more persuasive through the art of rhetoric. It's good, quite comprehensive, and useful, but it felt to me like the writer was trying a bit too hard to be witty and entertaining – almost to the point of being what my British friend would call "twee", or too cutesy. And it's long. But worth reading. I got through it fairly quickly using text-to-speech with Alex.

I learned about this volume from my favorite Mandarin morning radio program, "UFO Breakfast" with Tang Xianglong.

[Angela Blount · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

An accessible intro to the Greco-Roman art of rhetoric.

(Suggested Honest Subtitle: Using “verbal ju-jitsu” to get your way.)

The author endeavors to teach readers the difference between fighting and arguing—and in this I believe he succeeds. If little else is accomplished, readers should walk away with a solid grasp on the three primary avenues of persuasion: Ethos (ethical appeal/credibility), Pathos (emotional appeal), and Logos (logic)… as well as some idea of which would be most effective and in what sort of timing.

The author also skirts a line between self-depreciating humor and a sort of vague smugness—which some readers may find off-putting rather than amusing. This reader was continually back-and-forth on how to take Heinrichs style. I could appreciate his insistence on raising his children to comprehend rhetoric and resist the siren call of advertisement… but his flippancy toward certain kinds of social exploitation danced a bit too close to sociopathy for my comfort.

Personal Note: It was interesting how many of these rhetoric principles I recognized--but purely on an instinctual level. I can recall being annoyed at a very young age when sensing someone was using one of them to manipulate me. (Er...sorry..."persuade" me.) >.>

The book is chock full of the author’s familial anecdotes and “relevant” pop-culture examples—which may or may not work for some readers, but arguably should hold the attention of most. (Pun intended.)

It should be no surprise that Chapter 10 was far and above my favorite chapter--devoted to the persuasive power of humor in its many forms.



Favorite Quotes: (Borrowed from other sources.)

*“A person’s life persuades better than his word,” said one of Aristotle’s contemporaries.

*“OSCAR WILDE: Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

[Nguyễn Trung · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half was frankly quite tedious and confusing, with the author jumping back and forth between concepts instead of laying out information in an orderly and systematic way. The small information boxes popping everywhere served more as a distraction, providing rather minimal value for the damage they cause to the reading flow (well, to be fair you can skip them entirely, but duh).

However, things picked up in the later half, starting from Advanced Offense. Here the author provided interesting and thought-provoking ideas and tips in a more focused and easier to digest fashion. The final chapter on using rhetoric to move toward a wiser and more agreeable country was rather persuasive and did let me to seriously consider the proposal. The appendix at the back also served as a good summary and may be useful for future reference.

All in all a decent book, if only it was half the page count and a bit more coherent.

[Barbara Irula · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish it was possible to give a book 0 stars, this one deserves it. Safe to say the author did an amazing job at saying everything and nothing at the same (like bro just get to the point already). This book was filled with stupid examples that were all forgotten already, and the way he would jump from topic to topic was abysmal. Im also pretty convinced that this guy is a narcissist, yeah hes the narrator, but the amount of times he mentioned himself and his life was concerning. Speaking of narration, his writes voice and style is terrible, and the layout of the book is also headache inducing. I hate it.

Summary of the book: Manipulate others! Its fun and efficient!

Swear if this wasnt my summer assignment I would’ve deleted the pdf one page into the book. If anyone reading this is thinking of reading this shit, do yourself a favor and dont.

[Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The experience of reading this book is like discovering a bunch of people have been speaking a secret language right in front of you without your knowing. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get better at persuading others or catching others' (politicians, advertisers, pundits etc) sneaky persuasion tricks.

Rhetoric has a number of interesting differences from formal logic, in particular that you can (see also: should) break the rules of logic... as long as you don't get caught!!

I appreciated the summaries after each chapter as well as the little 'persuasion alerts' which inevitably alert you to the fact the author duped you yet again and you didn't even notice.

[Alyssa · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book persuaded me to hate the author. cancelled.

[Kaitlyn Ingersoll · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jay Heinrichs is one of the most pretentious people on this planet.

[Nicholas S]

Jay Heinrich’s shut up challenge

[nhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny and witty but really hard to get my head around the different techniques about rhetoric. Ms. Stubbs, if you are reading this, I love you, but this book was torturous.

[Ivan Lozano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rhetoric has earned a bad name in past years. Deservedly so, no? After all it's how dirty politicians and vicious salesmen trick us into doing their will right?

Well, not so. This book picks up rhetoric from the dumps, gives it a shower and a shave and shows us the other side of rhetoric; the one that helps us get the best result out of every argument, that teaches us how to explain ourselves clearly and empathically and, perhaps most important of all, provides the perfect vaccine for the shady uses of rhetoric.

See, rhetoric is both the sword and the shield and this book leaves you well prepared for war, or the next dinner table discussion. It's a very information-dense book, which is the reason it took me 18 months to finish. It's best enjoyed in short doses, leaving some time to let your brain soak in the knowledge.

Even so, the book is not daunting in its language. The author takes you through the basics of rhetoric in a modern, colloquial and conversational way, full of anecdotes and examples rooted in history and popular culture.

This is a book I'll be using for reference a lot in the future and it made me abuse Kindle's highlight function to where there's barely a page without a highlight or ten.

I recommend this book for everyone and has made me a firm believer that we should teach our youth about rhetoric. For far too long we have let this most noble and social art on the hands of those who seek to abuse it. It's time we learned to fight back.

[Brian Dankese · Rating 1 out of 5]

In all fairness, I was given this book as a summer reading assignment for school so I went into the book already with a bad attitude towards it. Unfortunately, this book was unable to sway me into liking it. The writing style and voice of Heinrichs is atrocious and bland, his stories display some interesting parental decisions, and his allusions to other pieces of literature and media are usually irrelevant. I am going into the 11th grade! I have not studied the rhetoric of Aristotle or any other philosopher, nor do I ever intend to. He references ancient media very often (in great detail) and bored me to tears. A person should not feel the need to read this book if they have ever taken a debate class or been a part of a formal debate club, because all the things taught in those classes are showcased in this book; and unfortunately, books cannot debate with you. The tone often makes it seems like Heinrichs is speaking down to you as if you are first learning to speak, not to mention how he will talk-back a lot of the things he says in the beginning. If you don't get what I mean, he just reintroduces topics from 300 pages earlier, expects you to remember exactly what the phrase means, then goes into depth on it and gives you 20000 exceptions to as why you should NOT use this from of rhetoric while arguing.

This book was frustrating to read and I was more than excited when I was finally able to put it down for the last time. Good riddance Homer Simpson...