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Digital thinking tools for better decision making
Digital thinking tools for better decision making

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4 Another recipe: from words to maps

In Session 4, a recipe for going from argument maps to words was introduced. Starting from the argument map with the claim that ‘Eating carrots improves your eyesight’, you constructed a short piece of text to express the argument. Now, you will go in the other direction: from words to maps.

The aim is to take a text and build an argument map that makes the argumentation in that text explicit. The recipe for this exploits the hierarchical structure of argument maps (as depicted in Figure 6 and repeated here as Figure 11). The recipe is applied to the text one step at a time. At each step, you add further levels to the argument map.

Argument map arranged in levels, with the main claim at the top (left-hand) level
Figure 11 Argument map arranged in levels, with the main claim at the top (left-hand) level