How to respond fairly

What is the fair way to respond to an argument? I’m of two minds about this. Some people prefer to just address whatever words were literally written in the argument, taking them at face value and without interpretation or trying to extract what the author actually meant. Alternatively, you can try to figure out what the author meant, and then imagine the best possible argument in favor of that point, and respond to that. The first approach can get pedantic really quickly, and is also unfair towards people who have a good point but not the skill to explain and argue for it. The second approach runs the risk of misinterpreting the other person and putting words in their mouth. You could decide, then, that the fair thing to do is use the first approach on coherent arguments and the second approach on incoherent arguments. But then, who are you to decide if an argument is coherent? What if it just seems incoherent to you because your reading comprehension level is below the argument’s…