On the Shoulders of Giants: Colourful Argument Trees for Academic Writing.

Academic writing courses tend to focus on rhetorical and linguistic components rather than on argument making. This is unfortunate since it is precisely the purpose of scientific writing to expose arguments. We present an attempt to overcome this divide. For the purpose, we introduce colourful argument trees that do not merely exhibit the structure of a complex argument but also the state of our confidence in its statements and its inferences. The visualisation of the argument and the integration of the sources into its structure provide students with a better understanding of scientific writing.