each link and make sure that each assertion and each group of
assertions is attached to a firm support. For this reason the brief for
a written or spoken argument is best thrown into the form of tabulated
statements marked with a series of numbers and letters which will show
at a glance the exact place of each statement or assertion in the whole
system of reasoning. When you can thus, as it were, strip your argument
to its bones and tendons, you can go ahead with the confidence that your
reasoning is logically coherent.

When you get out into the world you will work out your own way of making
briefs for any arguments that fate imposes on you. The value of practice
now is in being able to get at the work then without wasting time. The
rules below are offered to you as the result of long experiment and
study lay the best authorities. Moreover, if you are working in a class
you should remember that you will get a great deal more out of your
teacher if you save his time by sticking closely to uniformity in
outward form.

I shall first show how a brief is constructed, by following through part
of the process for the argument on the introduction of commission into
Wytown; then I shall give the rules, with some explanation of their
working and of their practical expediency.

We have just seen that the brief is essentially a display of the logical
framework of the argument: it should consist, therefore, of the main
contentions in support of the proposition, with the reasons urged in
support of these contentions, and of the facts and reasons brought
forward in support of these reasons, this successive support of reasons
being carried down to ultimate facts, wherever possible.

When you come to the working out of your brief you start with your main
issues, stated now as assertions. Then for each of them you give one or
more reasons.

In the brief for introducing commission government into Wytown, let us
start with the main issues for the affirmative, transforming them from
questions into assertions. The first main issue would then read:

The admitted inefficiency of the city government at present is
due to the system of government.

The next step is to assign reasons for making this assertion.
Accordingly we should add a "since" or a "for" to the assertion, and
then underneath arrange these reasons in order. Let us suppose that we
put down three reasons:

I. The admitted inefficiency of the city government at present
is