If we could recover a representative body of argumentative discourses from various ages and cultures, oral and written, formal and informal, premeditated and spontaneous, I dare say that we would discover an archetypal pattern in the way that people have always argued with one another. Someone makes an assertion that he or she wants others to accept or act upon. If the assertion is not self-evident or is not cogent enough to compel acceptance, then the asserter may present evidence or arguments to support the assertion. If someone then challenges the assertion or if the asserter can anticipate the challenges, counterarguments will be advanced to refute the challenges and to reinforce the original assertion. If the participants remain on speaking terms, words continue to be exchanged until some kind of agreement or impasse is reached. The other eventuality is that the participants resort to nonverbal means of settling the dispute. One has only to read the accounts of arguments in Homer's Iliad to be assured that the scenario just presented is basically an accurate description of how people down through the ages have conducted verbal contentions.