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Debate as we know it probably started with the ancient Athenians, who believed that orderly free speech was an important part of good government. For a man to be considered suitable for public leadership (sorry, girls, they didn’t want you) he had to persuade people using reason. Not bribery or a knife at the throat, just reason, in the form of well-crafted, logical arguments. He was judged on this. Today it is still a sign of an intelligent, well-educated person that they reason things out in a systematic and logical way.
Note that I say “logical” and not “persuasive.” The two are related but also quite different. Persuasion depends a lot on emotions. When we are stirred up and our feelings are engaged, we are more likely to take action, or change our minds about something.
Consider advertising. It’s all about emotional appeal and the “Wow!” factor: gorgeous images, catchy songs, and promises to make you rich/thin/fit/beautiful. Advertising excites you, and before you can say “Think!” you are parting with your money. Or maybe you’ve been fired up by the persuasive powers of a speaker for a cause: the environment, a charity, medical research. After they’d finished, you were ready to help out in any way you could. That person was persuasive. In life you can be very successful if you can persuade people emotionally — but this is not what debating is about.
Arousing people’s feelings won’t hurt but it doesn’t win a debate for you. Debates are about the mind, not the heart. When we talk about something being “per-suasive” in debaterspeak, we mean that it’s logical, com¬pelling, and convincing.

HOW IT WORKS: INTRODUCING LOGIC, PREMISES, AND FALLACIES
If you were a doctor, you’d need to know how the human body works before you could go poking around in any¬body else’s. In the same way, you’ll be a better debater if you understand what goes into a good argument and how they work. Understanding the shape of arguments will help you attack your opponents’ weaknesses and defend your own position.

Logic
Forget passion, conviction, or fervent beliefs. Above all, the tools of debating are logic and reason. Logical argument needs a cool head. Step by step, thinking clearly, you assemble a series of facts, beliefs, assumptions, or opinions. You arrange them so that one leads sensibly to another, and in the end you reach a conclusion — just like the answer to a sum. You have built a beautiful, logical case.
Logic is a natural skill that you practise all the time. You use logic when you decide whether to walk or wait when you’ve missed the bus; when you play reasoning games, do puzzles, experiments, or maths problems; or when you try and figure out the answer to a mystery. You’re already a logical thinker.
In everyday language we use “logical” to mean an argument is well-reasoned and convincing. But logic is also a formal subject of study, a branch of philosophy. Logicians study the process of reasoning. They break it down to discover the structure — how the different bits of an argument work together, like machine parts. Then they rewrite the argument using symbols, as if it was a mathematical equation.
In the formal study of logic, what makes an argu¬ment “valid” is its structure — the way it is built up. It’s not necessarily important that the final answer is true.
This stuff does my head in, so don’t worry if you’re feeling confused too. We don’t need to become logi¬cians, but we need to understand just enough about logic to know that it is a big part of debating.

Premises
Logical arguments start with a premise (there can be more than one) and end with a conclusion. The person presenting the argument wants you to believe the con¬clusion on the basis of the premises. The premise is like the concrete slab that supports a house. It has to be a strong foundation, because everything that follows in the debate is built on it. A sound premise is very hard to argue with because — well, it’s sound. It is understood that there is enough evidence and reason behind it to make it strong.

Finding the Premise
In debates it can be hard to find the premises. In some arguments they may not even be stated. You may hear the phrase “the underlying premise” or “the hidden assumption,” which means that it hasn’t been spoken aloud in the debate but is clearly under there. While locating the premise of an argument can be challeng¬ing, doing so will transform your arguments, and your debates will be much more substantial. You have to think back and back or deeper and deeper to understand the assumptions that are hidden behind the issue of the debate.
Imagine someone telling you, “It’s important for young people to do debating because it teaches them how to argue.” The conclusion is clear: “It’s important for young people to do debating.” One of the premises is visible, too: “Debating teaches you how to argue.” But arguing might be a useless or undesirable skill. There’s a hidden assumption that “learning to argue is important.”
To find the premise, you need to ask what idea or belief an argument is resting on. Say something like “That argument assumes …” and your answers will help you see what the premise is.
In a debate about excluding smokers from cover¬age by health care, for example, the Proposition will say something like, “Smoking is very bad for your health and if people choose to hurt themselves, they should bear the costs of treatment — it’s not the government’s fault they made themselves sick, so fixing it should not cost the government money.”
One of their premises is that health care (govern¬ment help) is only for people who “deserve” it.
The Opposition will say that health care exists to care for the health of all of us, even people who do not make sensible lifestyle choices.
One of their premises is that health care (government help) is universal, for everyone.
Watch out for premises. Often one of them will be the point on which the debate turns. Thinking through an argument to identify its premise is really important if you are going to build a logical case from it.