More about Rationale
Tour: The people behind the first version of Rationale tell the story of its making and how it improves critical thinking skills.
Research
For an overview of research, go to our section on Research into Critical Thinking, Argument Mapping and Rationale .
Some articles with background information:
- Argument Mapping Improves Critical Thinking: a paper by Charles Twardy
- Teaching Critical Thinking: Some Lessons from Cognitive Science from College Teaching, 2005 by Tim van Gelder
- The rationale for Rationale® from Law, Probability and Risk, Advance Access Oct 2007, by Tim van Gelder.
- Critical Thinking in the Intelligence Community: The Promise of Argument Mapping, by Lawrence Lengbyer. Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines. Summer 2014, Vol. 29, No.2.
A fascinating case study showing the importance of argument mapping, using Rationale, for public policy. From the Abstract:” It is unfortunate that so much turns on the practices of argument construction and critique in intelligence analysis, for example, because these practices are fraught with difficulty. However, the recently developed technique of argument mapping helps reasoners conduct these practices more thoroughly and insightfully, as can be shown in an extended illustration concerning Iraqi nuclear activities circa 2002.”