Devil's Advocate: Rebutting the Opposition

A terrific arguing tool is the rebuttal. Refuting opposition arguments naturally strengthens your side. In order to refute arguments effectively, you must anticipate the other side's best points and point out the flaws in those arguments. In this activity, we are going to see how well you can defend yourself against opposition arguments.

We're actually going to use the message board for this! Each person must post the thesis of their funding proposal as its own subject. Then, he/she must read the other topics and post an objection for at least three different ones. If a topic already has three separate objections, you must find a new one to respond to.

After each topic has three objections, the original poster must go back and address each of these in replying posts.

This is called "Devil's Advocate" because you are taking a side you might not necessarily agree with in order to find holes in any given argument. It's all about being able to put yourself in other people's shoes.
At the end of class, I will take up your answers.