are categories that help delineate the relationships among ideas; Aristotle divided these into "common" and "special" groups.

In the common group could be found such categories as laws, witnesses, contracts, oaths, comparisons of similarity, difference, or degree, definitions of things, division of things (whole or parts, for instance), cause and effect, and other items that could be analyzed, researched, or documented.

Modern writers and students use these topics, as well, when discovering arguments, although today more emphasis

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