ABSTRACT
To reiterate, theorists of logic and rhetoric going back to Aristotle have distinguished between two basic forms of reasoning or argument, deductive and inductive. Scholars of rhetoric disagree about the value of analogies in argumentation. Tone is a key term in argumentative rhetoric, as well as in expository writing and literature. Its importance in argumentation lies in the appropriateness and persuasive effectiveness of the tone the author chooses to use. In an argumentative analogy, the speaker or writer presents us with something that we recognize as true about one situation, then tries to persuade us that another situation is similar, and therefore that the same is true about it. Statistics are an integral part of many arguments, both in inductive and deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is applied in the logic of interpreting data; opponents might agree on the statistical evidence itself but select and interpret it differently or draw different conclusions from it.
