The development of pre-Qin philosophers' prose has gone through three stages: record, dialogue and debate, and monograph.
The first stage is the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, represented by The Analects of Confucius and Mozi. The Analects of Confucius is a typical quotation, while Mozi is mostly a quotation, but it has been discussed in short articles, and even the quotation has a process of argumentation;
The second stage is the mid-Warring States period, represented by Mencius and Zhuangzi. Mencius developed from documentary style to dialogue debate, and Zhuangzi developed from dialogue debate to monograph.
The third stage is the late Warring States period, represented by Xunzi and Han Feizi. Xun and Han's articles got rid of the form of quotations and dialogues, and almost all of them were monographs, which improved the system of discussion.
The knowledge reference of pre-Qin prose can be found in/study/Chinese/ch _ kejian/20081013230957.html.