In one important sense, all language has an argumentative edge. When you greet friends, you probably wish to convince them that you’re glad to see them; when advertisers pay for spots that appear alongside your social networking page, they want to persuade you to click and shop. Even apparently objective news reporting has strong argumentative overtones: when a news outlet highlights a particular story, for example, the editors are arguing that this subject is more important than others. Since argument is so pervasive, you need to be able to recognize and use it effectively—and to question your own arguments as well as those put forth by others.