Araucaria aids a user in reconstructing and diagramming an argument using a simple point-and-click interface. The software also supports argumentation schemes, and provides a user-customisable set of schemes with which to analyse arguments.
Once arguments have been analysed they can be saved in a portable format called ”AML”, the Argument Markup Language, which is based on XML. XML is a flexible language which can easily be used to generate web pages and data with which to populate a database. The definition of AML is available in the file argument.dtd.
Araucaria has been designed with the student, instructor, and researcher in mind. It is sufficiently straightforward to be useful to students learning how to reconstruct arguments, diagram them, and apply argumentation schemes.
Araucaria is sufficiently flexible for instructors to provide their own examples, sample analyses, and alternate sets of argumentation schemes. Finally, it is also sufficiently powerful to be of use in research, particularly in providing examples of argument analyses to support claims.
Get Portable Araucaria and give it a try to fully assess its capabilities and see just how useful it can be for argument analysis!
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