In general it is best to make this preliminary statement of the history of the case scrupulously and explicitly impartial.  An audience is likely to resent any appearance of twisting the facts to suit the case; and if on their face they bear against your contentions, it is wiser to prepare for your argument in some other way.  There are more ways of beginning an argument than by a statement of facts; and resource in the presentation of a case goes a long way toward winning it.

It is often wise to state your definitions with care, especially of terms which are at the bottom of your whole case.  The definition from Bagchot on page 58 is a good example.  Here is the beginning of an address by President Eliot, in 1896, on “A Wider Range of Electives in College Admission Requirements”: 

As usual, it is necessary to define the subject a little.  “A wider range of electives in college admission requirements.”  What field are we thinking of when we state this subject?  If we mean the United States, the range of electives is already very large.  Take, for example, the requirements for admission to the Leland Stanford University.  Twenty subjects are named, of very different character and extent, and the candidate may present any ten out of the twenty.  Botany counts just as much as Latin.  There is a wide range of options at admission to the University of Michigan, with its numerous courses leading to numerous degrees; that is, there is a wide range of subjects permissible to a candidate who is thinking of presenting himself for some one of its many degrees.  If we look nearer home, we find in so conservative an institution as Dartmouth College that there are three different degrees offered, with three different assortments of admission requirements, and three different courses within the college.  I noticed that at the last commencement there were forty-one degrees of the old-fashioned sort and twenty-seven degrees of the newer sorts given by Dartmouth College.  Here in Harvard we have had for many years a considerable range of electives in the admission examinations, particularly in what we call the advanced requirements.  We therefore need to limit our subject a little by saying that we are thinking of a wider range of admission electives in the Eastern and Middle State colleges, the range of electives farther west being already large in many cases.[54]

Professor William James, in his essay “The Will to Believe,” in which he argues that it is both right and unavoidable that our feelings shall take part in the making of our faiths, begins with a careful definition and illustration of certain terms he is going to use constantly.

Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option.  Options may be of several kinds.  They may be (1) living or dead; (2) forced or avoidable; (3) momentous or trivial; and for our purposes we may call an option a genuine option when it is of the forced, living, and momentous kind.