Presenting Argument: Stance, Structure and Delivery
What this area asks of you
Presenting Argument covers both the construction of a persuasive oral or multimodal piece and its delivery. You need a clear contention, a specified audience and context, a structured sequence of arguments with rebuttal, and deliberate language choices - inclusive pronouns, appeals, evidence, anecdote, repetition, rhetorical questions, call to action. For delivery, you need control of pace, pause, stress, intonation, gesture, eye contact and visual aids, matched to purpose.
Construction principles
Open with a hook that establishes stakes for this audience, not a dictionary definition. Signal your contention early. Build arguments from strongest to most emotionally resonant, and place rebuttal where it strengthens rather than interrupts. Close with a specific, achievable call to action. Evidence should be plausible, attributed and used to support reasoning, not to substitute for it. In multimodal work, visuals must do argumentative work - a graph, image or caption that advances the case - not decorate it.
Traps
- Unsupported assertion: passion without evidence reads as opinion.
- Straw-man rebuttal: defeating a weak version of the opposing view.
- Mismatched register: slang for a formal audience, or jargon for a general one.
- Delivery neglect: monotone pacing or reading from a script undermines strong content.
- Visual clutter: slides that compete with the speaker.
- Written explanation that describes rather than justifies choices.
Rule of thumb
For each choice, complete the sentence: "I used ___ because my audience ___ , so that they would ___ ." If you cannot complete it, the choice is habit, not strategy.
Worked example: A speech to a school council arguing for later start times might open with a student's morning anecdote, pivot to sleep-research evidence, rebut the transport objection, then propose a one-term trial - each stage matched to a decision-maker audience.