# The Diversity of Argument-Making in the Wild: from Assumptions and Definitions to Causation and Anecdote in Reddit's "Change My View"

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.07938 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07938/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 23 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 May 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.4546/) (2013)
- [Winning Arguments: Interaction Dynamics and Persuasion Strategies in Good-faith Online Discussions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.01103/) (2016)
- [From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.02359/) (2020)
- [The Cognitive Science of Extremist Ideologies Online](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.00626/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Which Side Are You On? A Multi-task Dataset for End-to-End Argument Summarisation and Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03151/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

What kinds of arguments do people make, and what effect do they have on others? Normative constraints on argument-making are as old as philosophy itself, but little is known about the diversity of arguments made in practice. We use NLP tools to extract patterns of argument-making from the Reddit site "Change My View" (r/CMV). This reveals six distinct argument patterns: not just the familiar deductive and inductive forms, but also arguments about definitions, relevance, possibility and cause, and personal experience. Data from r/CMV also reveal differences in efficacy: personal experience and, to a lesser extent, arguments about causation and examples, are most likely to shift a person's view, while arguments about relevance are the least. Finally, our methods reveal a gradient of argument-making preferences among users: a two-axis model, of "personal--impersonal" and "concrete--abstract", can account for nearly 80% of the strategy variance between individuals.