A Brief Guide to Argument Mapping I p “ , pp q for making sure you have complete and rigorous arguments. To learn the details of the technique, see: · C. R. Twardy, Argument maps improve crical thinking: hp://cogprints.org/3008/1/reasonpaper.pdf . and the argument mapping tutorial at: hps://www.rationaleonline.com/docs/en/tutorials Before looking at a couple of examples though, it will be helpful to rst provide a denition for what an argument is in academic writing. In a nutshell: an argument is a claim, contenon or proposion together with the set of reasons and evidence put forward to support that claim, contention or proposition. Complex arguments can also include objecons and rebuals, each of which are themselves arguments; that is, claims with supporting evidence and reasoning. Note however, that there does not need to be any disagreement about the evidence and reasoning for a writer to present an argument. Since the jused answer to a queson constitutes an argument, framing your writing around you and 'q pp p As a simple example of the technique, consider the argument that establishing safe injecting rooms in Australia should cut the death rate for heroin addicts because they have done so in other countries. This example illustrates two key principles of argument mapping: 1. Claims shouldn't "pull rabbits out of a hat" ("Rabbit Rule"). I.e. every key term or concept in a claim should appear in at least one of the supporng premises. / I “ ” , “ ” , mentioned in the premise. Thus to complete the argument, a co-premise which links “ ” “ ” This leads to the second key principle of argument maps. 2. Co-premises should "hold hands". That is, every meaningful term in one premise of a reason must appear in another premise of that reason, or the conclusion. I p , “ ” D.R. Rowland, Student Services, The University of Queensland 1
A more complex example Even if true, we kill mosquitoes and cockroaches, so this statement by itself is not enough to justify the claim. We shouldn't turn off computers because turning off computers would kill them -and-> Maybe so, but the claim is about p " rather than "conscious ", so the connection between conscious beings and computers needs to be made to complete the argument. “ we shouldn't kill conscious beings but but This reason is also a claim and so needs evidence and reasoning to support it. turning off is not the same thing as killing -and- computers are conscious This is itself a claim and not a fact, and so needs evidence and reasoning to support it. because computers can think there are many exceptions killing cannot be reversed because evidence +and- turning off can be reversed evidence a computer can be switched back on and ? Would computers fall into an "acceptable exception" category? The argument that turning o is not the same thing as killing makes this question irrelevant in this case. but computers aren't capable of independent thought and so cannot be