We have said that argumentation is the art of producing in the mind of someone a belief in something in which we wish him to believe.

Now it is obvious that this can be accomplished in different ways.  Perhaps the most common method of attempting to bring someone to believe as we wish is the oral method.  On your way to school you meet a friend and assert your belief that in the coming football game the home team will win.  You continue:  “Our team has already beaten teams that have defeated our opponent of next Saturday, and, moreover, our team is stronger than it has been at any time this season.”  When you finish, your friend replies:  “I believe you are right.  We shall win.”

You have been carrying on oral argumentation.

If, when you had finished, your friend had not agreed with you, your effort would have been none the less argumentation, only it would have been unsuccessful.  If you had written the same thing to your friend in a letter, your letter would have been argumentative.

Suppose your father were running for an office and should make a public speech.  If he tried to make the audience believe that the best way to secure lower taxes, better water, and improved streets would be through his election, he would be making use of oral argumentation.  If he should do the same thing through newspaper editorials, he would be using written argumentation.

Argumentation, then, may be carried on either in writing or orally, and may vary from the informality of an ordinary conversation or a letter to a careful address or thoughtful article.

What, then, is debate as we shall use the word in this work, and what is the relation of argumentation to debate?  The term “debate” in its general use has, of course, many senses.  You might say:  “I had a debate with a friend about the coming football game.”  Or your father might say:  “I heard the great Lincoln and Douglas debates before the Civil War.”  Although both of you would be using the term as it is generally used, you would not be using it as it will be used in this book, or as it is best that a student of argumentation and debate should use it.

The term “debate,” in the sense in which students of these subjects should use it, means oral argumentation carried on by two opposing teams under certain prescribed regulations, and with the expectation of having a decision rendered by judges who are present.  This is “debate” used, not generally, as you used it in saying, “I debated with a friend,” but technically, as we use it when we refer to the Yale-Harvard debate or the Northern Debating League.  In order to keep the meaning of this term clearly in mind, use it only when referring to such contests as these.  In speaking of your argumentative conversation with your friend or of the forensic contests between Lincoln and Douglas, use the term “discussion” rather than “debate.”

It is true that the controversy between Lincoln and Douglas conformed to our definition of “debate” in being oral; moreover, at least in sense, two teams (of one man each) competed, but there were no judges, and no direct decision was rendered.