Showing papers by "Derek Long published in 1997"

Content ordering in the generation of persuasive discourse

Abstract: A framework is summarized which supports the planning of natural language argument structure. One key aspect of natural argument is the order in which components are presented. This is in part responsible for both the coherency and persuasive effect of an argument. One means of effecting such ordering is proposed, and an overview is provided of the various classes of ordering heuristics. These heuristics are based upon insights offered by rhetoric texts, psychological research, and a corpus study. Finally, it is demonstrated that such an approach can also contribute to the generation of surface textual features including formatting, punctuation and clue words.

Persuasion as a form of inter-agent negotiation

Abstract: Agents in a multi-agent environment must often cooperate to achieve their objectives. In this paper an agent, B, cooperates with another agent, A, if B adopts a goal that furthers A's objectives in the environment. If agents are independent and motivated by their own interests, cooperation cannot be relied upon and it may be necessary for A to persuade B to adopt a cooperative goal. This paper is concerned with the organisation and construction of persuasive argument, and examines how a rational agent comes to hold a belief, and thus, how new beliefs might be engendered and existing beliefs altered, through the process of argumentation. Argument represents an opportunity for an agent to convince a possibly sceptical or resistant audience of the veracity of its own beliefs. This ability is a vital component of rich communication, facilitating explanation, instruction, cooperation and conflict resolution. An architecture is described in which a hierarchical planner is used to develop discourse plans which can be realised in natural language using the LOLITA system. Planning is concerned with the intentional, contextual and pragmatic aspects of discourse structure as well as with the logical form of the argument and its stylistic organisation. In this paper attention is restricted to the planning of persuasive discourse, or monologue.

Multiple Subarguments in Logic, Argumentation, Rhetoric and Text Generation

Abstract: A summary is provided of the problems of representing, determining generating and arranging disjunct multiple subarguments in several fields, including formal systems in uncertain domains, informal logic accounts of argument structure, rhetorical systems for maximising persuasive effect, and the automatic generation of persuasive discourse. Drawing upon the insights, problems, and partial solutions of these fields, a theory of subargument construction and organisation is presented, and is set in a framework for generating natural language argument.