15 Tips for Better Arguments

A Short Guide to Generative Debate

There’s a difference between a conversation that goes somewhere and one that just keeps going.

You know what I’m talking about. Exchanges that leave people more entrenched in their position than open to new ones, and debates that drag on seemingly without anyone making a conscious choice to keep arguing.

This article is an attempt to map debates more carefully than the typical “embrace conflict” talking points, and to offer some practical tools for having a rarer, better kind of dispute.

Form and Function

There are lots of different types of debate, but there are not infinite types.