Problem
Since you have begun imagining objections to your own argument, it is the time to practice engaging in constructive dialogue with those who may disagree with you. You will now select one person to arrange an interview with following the guidelines below and write up a report documenting the conversation. This report will describe the result of a one hour conversation you arrange with a friend or acquaintance. Be sure to complete the following:
1) Choose a topic related to professional or business ethics.
2) Talk to someone with whom you disagree about the topic you have chosen for your writing assignment.
a) This will help you practice dialoguing with those who hold views different from your own in a respectful and productive manner.
3) Your first aim in that conversation is to identify some specific sentence(s) about which you disagree.
a) This could be a premise or conclusion from your argument, an assumption you have made underlying your argument, or some implication of your position.
b) This could be one of the objections you anticipated in your previous assignment, or some new objection you have not yet identified.
4) Your second aim is to then try to find your deepest point(s) of agreement about that topic.
a) This can help you to potentially bring someone around to your side, and
b) It can also help you find a launching point for how to respond to an objection and defend your original position.
In your report, be sure to include the following:
1) Document:
a) The date, time, and location of your conversation,
b) The specific sentence(s) about which you (a) disagreed, and
c) The resulting point(s) of (b) agreement.
2) To your best ability, (c) summarize how you led the conversation from (a) to (b) through intentional questioning.
a) In order to best recall the conversation, you should ask your conversational partner if they are comfortable with you recording the conversation, either with audio or notes.
b) In this summary, be sure to include:
i) some of the specific questions that you used, as well as
ii) how your conversational partner responded.
3) Also, be sure to confirm the participation of your conversational partner by including the following (d) documentation:
a) their signature on your interview notes or final report, and
b) a photo of the two of you together (to be included in the final report).
Tools to use:
1) Disambiguation ("Tell me more about how you understand this word...")
2) Discussing other views in the area that you might agree or disagree about ("Who else do you think gets this topic right/wrong?")