A warm review of Rationale.

Some particularly interesting quotes:

“mapping out my arguments in geekish detail isn’t so much about control freakery, it’s more about providing the foundation for the spontaneity needed for playing around, for creative thinking.”

“As I move reasons and objections around, I make major changes to the argument. Or, rather, I find major changes happening. It’s quite an organic process, extremely intense and enjoyable. Like taking part in a seminar which suddenly catches on fire.”

“I’ve only taken around 45 minutes to create and evaluate a map. It’s clearer to me now where I go wrong, where my logic is tired, emotional, liable to slide off its bar stool.”

“while it’s possible to change the background, Rationale offers little else in the way of design options. Colours, fonts, branch thickness: all the design elements are fixed. Since I can’t fiddle with the design, I’m concentrating on thinking through the argument. Which is the point of the exercise.”

“Argument mapping turns out to be fun. Open Rationale. Jot down a few ideas relating to an issue. Drag and drop them to form groups relating to the issue. Tweak into an argument. Evaluate the argument. Realise your grasp of logic is fuzzy. Follow Rationale’s online tutorials. Reiterate until happy. Copy and paste text into a word processor for polishing.”