Micropublications: A Semantic Model For Claims, Evidence, Arguments And Annotations In Biomedical Communications / quote 10 of 13
The goal of an argument is to induce belief
Micropublications represent scientific arguments. The goal of an argument is to induce belief [44]. An argument (therefore a micropublication) argues a principal claim, with statements and/or evidence deployed to support it. Its support may also include contrary statements or evi- dence; and/or the claim may dispute claims made by other arguments. These are called challenges in our model, rebuttal by Toulmin [44-46], and attacks in the artifical intelligence literature on argumentation frameworks (see e.g. [47,49,54,94]. The minimal form of an argument in our model is a statement supported by its attribution. If the source of the statement is trusted, that may be enough to induce belief. Aristotle called this aspect of rhetoric ethos, the character and reputation of the speaker [95]. Figure 3 shows this minimal form of micropublication.