Lesson 2 from Doesn’t Hurt to Ask by Trey Gowdy

You can improve your persuasion skills when you measure, repeat, and repackage.

One time a friend asked the author, “Do you agree America is more respected worldwide now than under President Obama?”. Instead of simply answering this question, he asked his friend for more explanation of what he was asking. He asked what “more respected” meant and how he defined “worldwide.” His friend didn’t have an answer to these questions.

He explains that far too often, people use vague or imprecise terms they can’t really define when it comes down to it. This is why asking an opponent to clarify can sometimes be powerful enough to tear holes in their argument. However, they can also easily do the same to you.

This is where measuring your words comes in. Questions you ask should be both simple and precise. First off, avoid any generalizing word like everyone, never, or always. These lead the way to rebuttals like, “Right, so you think I never pick up after myself?”.

Next, use repetition to drive your point home. People underestimate the power of repetition in rhetoric. The more you repeat something, the more your audience will begin to understand its importance.

On one occasion, the author was put to the task of questioning a man who was accused of murdering his wife. His strategy was that he asked the same question in different ways over and over. He asked, “What did she say after you stabbed her the first time? What did she say when you stabbed her the second time?”. By the time he was finished asking variations of this, the jury had heard “when you stabbed your wife” so many times that convincing them of his guilt was fairly easy.

Lastly, if you find yourself struggling to defeat your opponent’s argument, try repackaging it. This is when you make an argument suddenly sound absurd by putting it in different words.

The author would use this strategy when he worked with domestic violence victims. If someone on the defense suggested that the woman should have known not to return to an abusive situation, he would twist this by asking, “So you’re saying it’s her fault she was abused?”.