Helping students find and narrow down a topic
by Lisa Blankenship
Staseis refer to questions you can ask to find where you agree and disagree with an audience on a topic, helping you know where you need to begin and what you need to focus on in your arguments. Stasis refers to the point where things stop, or where you disagree with someone. As rhetorical scholars Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee explain, “The most satisfactory modern equivalent for stasis seems to be the term issue, which we define as the point about which all parties to an argument can agree to disagree: this is what is at issue” (72).
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