he seems to present it as giving the "benefit of the doubt", but that's not correct. What you are doing is trying to make the best version of the argument befor

he seems to present it as giving the "benefit of the doubt", but that's not correct. What you are doing is trying to make the best version of the argument before critiquing it. This avoids strawman type situations. It doesn't mean discarding weak arguments, but you may end up dropping weak parts of the argument that aren't necessary to the central argument. Basically it try's to avoid needless back and forth that doesn't really address actual argument at hand.