presumably other people used it before him

I agree with the discord between “mundane” and “dilemma” mentioned above, and I think it relates to deeper rhetorical issues that I’ll focus my feedback on.

First, let me capture the structure of the chapter, as I see it:

1. Vignette (teaser to capture interest)
2. Franklin’s Moral Algebra has six strengths that make it a tool for everyone
3. There are three reasons we’re not all using it
4. We need the features of decision mapping to overcome these limitations
5. This book is an overview & guide to decision mapping, as follows…

In this structure, I think that the connection to the rhetorical element of “pathos” (or, “who should read it, why will they care, and what’s in it for them”) is a bit scattered and takes too long to get.

For example, who should read it? Well, “all of us who have to make weighty decisions” according to the first two paragraphs of page 6 — but what those weighty decisions are, is left a bit superficial, and doesn’t allow us to identify ourselves easily. Some possible examples (other than the vignette) are gestured at in later paragraphs, like Afghanistan, Cuba, and sending your child to school. However, I think they’re not described strongly enough and linked closely enough to the initial paragraphs to let us identify ourselves easily as potential readers of the book.

Moving on to why will they care? Because Franklin’s method will probably work for us… although it needs augmenting (two paragraphs down)… and hardly anybody uses it (11 paragraphs further)… and it is actually decision mapping that will work for us (19 paragraphs further).

Lastly, I’m not sure that we are actually really told what’s in it for us. The overview section certainly tells us what we’ll get: knowledge of decision mapping. But why does that matter to us? I think the benefits are scattered throughout the preceding paragraphs. For example, decision mapping will make deliberation less chaotic, more explicit, easier to “weigh up”, etc. However, the fact that they are benefits is obscured a bit, because they form part of an argument about the pros and cons of Franklin’s moral algebra — at some distance from the description of the real topic of the book (decision mapping). And there is not really a strong “adding up” of the individual benefits into an overall reason to care for the book, such as “read it because you will become a better decision maker” (with all the glory and satisfaction that that implies).

As such, I would recommend a slight revised structure:

1. Darwin’s decision as vignette (it’s stronger and funnier than Priestley, and shorter so we get to pathos quicker)

2. Who this book is for: All of us facing weighty decisions, like these examples with people like you-the-potential-readers.

3. Why should we care? Because weighty decisions are difficult and full of traps for the unwary, but we can do better. (collecting together here the points on difficulties and how _decision mapping_ can help. Less emphasis on Franklin’s historical method)

4. What’s in it for the reader: we’ll show you how to improve as a decision maker, and give you some knowledge on why our methods work and what the limitations are — using the following structure of the book.

Hope this helps,

RdR

I came across your site through a link on Peter Tillers’s recent blog post. I can offer a couple of small points and then indicate an area in the law of evidence where decision analysis is called for.

“dilemma”? (3rd para): I am one of those easily-irritated people mentioned by the COD as considering this usage incorrect. A “mundane problem” is not, at least to us, the same as a dilemma.

Have you accidentally omitted the word “not” in the second sentence of the penultimate paragraph? It looks as though you meant to say “… this book does not describe how to manipulate …”.

In law the topic of how to decide whether to exclude evidence that has been obtained improperly lends itself to “drawing” of some sort. Whether the diagram should take the form of what the Chief Justice of Canada has called a “decision tree” (although she didn’t draw it) in R v Grant [2009] SCC 32 at para 86, or as another form of decision mapping, is unclear. The position may be simplified in law because of the importance of precedents in guiding subsequent decisions. Once a body of precedent is established, the task becomes not so much one of how to reach the result, as one of what the result should be. That is, a question of ends rather than of means. A different form of diagram can be made to assist in predicting results.

Regards,
Don.