e
council.

Initiative. On petition of twenty-five per cent of the voters a
proposed measure must either be passed by the council or else submitted
to popular vote.

FINDING THE ISSUES

EXERCISES

1. Write definitions of the system for choice of studies by
undergraduates which is in force at your college; of the terms for
admission to college; of the requirements for the degree.

2. Write a compact description or definition of the form of city
government in your own city or town, like that of the Des Moines plan of
commission government on page 70.

3. Write a definition of the requirements for entrance in English,
according to those set forth by the Conference on Uniform Entrance
Requirements in English.

4. Write a definition of the present system of college societies in your
own college, using the history of their development, for your fellow
students; for an article in a popular magazine.

5. Write a definition of "summer baseball" for an audience of
undergraduates; for the trustees of your college.

6. Write a definition of "professional coach."

7. Write a definition of "squatter sovereignty," as used by Lincoln.

8. Write a definition of "the mutation theory."

9. Write a definition of "the English system of government."

10. Write a definition of "the romantic spirit in literature."

21. Finding the Issues. Your preparation for your argument should now
have given you a clear idea of the interests and prepossessions of your
readers, it should have left you with a definite proposition to support
or oppose, and it should have made you sure of the meaning of all the
terms you are to use, whether in the proposition or in your argument.
The next step in working out the introduction to your brief is to note
down the chief points that can be urged on the two sides of the
question, as direct preparation for the final step, which will be to
find the main issues. These main issues are the points on which the
decision of the whole question will turn. They will vary in number with
the case, and to some extent with the space which you have for your
argument. In a question of fact, which turns on circumstantial evidence,
there may be a number of them. In the White Murder Case, in which as we
have already seen, Webster was the chief counsel for the prosecution, he
summed up the main issues in the following passage. The essential facts
needed to understand the case are that the defendant was Franklin Knapp,