The shape of a multi-sided argument
Six lines of a three-sided argument, out of order. Put them into an order a listener could follow.
- The third is the receiving country’s, and it is the one least often stated honestly.
- There are at least three positions here, and they do not share a premise.
- The disagreement is about which cost is allowed to count.
- The second is the sending country’s: training a doctor is expensive, and public.
- All three are correct, which is why the argument does not resolve.
- The first is the individual’s: nobody is obliged to stay poor to repay a debt they did not agree to.
Somebody holding three sides at once
On trained people leaving
There are at least three positions on this, and they do not share a premise.
The first is the individual’s. Somebody trained as a nurse in a country that pays nurses badly is not obliged to stay poor in order to repay a debt nobody asked them to incur. That position is hard to argue against, and it is usually argued against by people who are not nurses.
The second is the sending country’s. Training a doctor is expensive and it is public. If a third of a graduating cohort leaves within five years, the state has funded the health service of a richer country. Admittedly the remittances come back. They do not come back as doctors.
The third is the receiving country’s, and it is the one least often stated honestly. Recruiting trained staff from abroad is cheaper than training your own, and it removes the pressure to fix a training pipeline that is too small.
What I notice is that all three positions are correct. The disagreement is not about facts. It is about which cost is allowed to count, and that is not a question anybody can answer from inside one of the three.
Three questions about how the turn is built.
1. What does the first sentence do?
2. Each position is given its strongest version. Why does that matter?
3. Where does the speaker’s own contribution appear?
Four moves
The turn made four moves: a map — how many positions and whether they share a premise · each position at its strongest, numbered · a concession inside at least one of them · your own contribution, marked and last.
The map is what lets a listener follow three sides without asking which one they are hearing.
Eight phrases. Match each to the move it makes.
Two minutes of assembly
Seven gaps. Markers, links and one cleft.
There are three positions here. is the individual’s: nobody is obliged to stay poor to repay a debt they did not agree to. is hard to argue against. is the sending country’s, and it rests on the fact that the training was public. the remittances come back; they do not come back as doctors. is the receiving country’s, which is cheaper than training its own staff. all three are correct. about which cost is allowed to count.
Five sentences of the kind that appear when somebody is holding three sides at once.
1. The first position, it is the individual’s.
2. The training is public, however, the graduate is not obliged to stay.
3. Moreover, the receiving country benefits, which is the opposite argument.
4. In my country it has a shortage of nurses.
5. What I notice it is that all three are correct.
Hold three sides, then argue the one you do not hold
How the twenty-six minutes run. Four minutes alone, twelve in threes, eight for the reversal, two to move.
Stage 1 · Alone · 4 minutes
Choose a question about mobility with at least three real sides. Trained people leaving; internal migration to big cities; who cities are built for; whether return is a success or a failure.
Four minutes. Three positions on paper, one sentence each, with the strongest reason for each.
- Name whose position each one is. A position with no holder is a straw man.
- Give each its strongest version, not the version you can answer.
- Mark the one you actually hold, and put it second rather than last.
- Write one sentence saying where the disagreement really is.
Stage 2 · Threes · 4 minutes each
Present all three positions. The others may say one thing only.
Four minutes, four moves, a map at the start.
- Listeners: the only thing you may say is "which position is this?"
- Say it whenever you have lost track of whose side is being given.
- Speaker: answer by repairing the sentence — this is still the sending country’s — and carry on.
- Listeners: count how many times you had to ask. That number is the thread.
Stage 3 · The reversal · 8 minutes
The group assigns each person the position they least hold. Two minutes each to argue it.
Two minutes of the strongest honest case for a view you do not share.
- You may not signal disagreement — no they would say, no tone.
- You must include the strongest fact on that side, not the weakest.
- The group judges one thing: was it argued fairly, or was it performed?
- Afterwards, say in one sentence what the position gets right that you had not credited.
How often you were asked
Two questions.
1. When your listeners asked "which position is this?", what had usually happened?
2. What did stage 3 reveal?
A map, then a thread
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. What does the opening map do?
2. Why give each position its strongest version?
Next. The errors this area produces — and why a heavily signposted essay is usually a symptom rather than a style.