"Refutation" and "Rebuttal"

IN MY TEACHING of students in the University of Virginia's Law School, I was interested to find that when the oral advocate answered his opponent's argument the process was termed rebuttal. One was said to rebut when he weakened or destroyed his adversary's This was the very meaning that I, a teacher of speech, had always heard applied to refutation. This prompted me to wonder if the modern speech profession did in fact have a basis for such a clear-cut dichotomy as was sometimes made between the two processes of and rebuttal. Many of us had learned that was tearing down the case of one's opponent and rebuttal was either building up one's own position or was perhaps a speech given towards the conclusion of a debate. Could this be another case, I pondered, like the use of extemporaneous2 and impromptu, in which professional teachers of speech insist there a difference, although historically there none? I determined to find out. This article the outgrowth of my investigation. First, let us see what selected twentieth-century speech books say about the two processes. One of the most important Tau Kappa Alpha's semiofficial handbook, Argumentation and Debate.3 Ralph McGinnis's essay in this book clearly differentiates the two practices, saying, refutation the process of attacking, weakening, tearing down, or destroying the argument of an opponent. Rebuttal is the process of defending, strengthening, and rebuilding arguments after they have been attacked by an opponent.4 True, they are complementary, but nevertheless two separate tasks. Alan Nichols, while admitting the distinction academic, nonetheless contends that answers only the opposing case, while rebuttal not only answers the opposition but also strengthens one's own case. Nichols and Baccus a generation ago made the same point: the process of answering an argument or of disproving it by destroying the value and significance of proof. At the same time, rebuttal plus reinforcement or re-establishing of argument