It’s not obvious how to present an argument map that consists in dozens of arguments. That’s because, in a talk, you want to comment both on the macro structure of the debate, providing an initial overview, as well as on individual arguments featured in the map.
The Argunet Editor is certainly not the ideal tool for giving a presentation. Traditional slides (created with PP, Keynote or Latex), too, are unsuitable for presenting huge argument maps.
In a talk I gave in Bremen in 2011, I simply used Mac OS’s Preview program to display the Climate Engineering Argument Map: I started by showing the entire map in fullscreen mode, and then zoomed in, moved the map, zoomed out, etc. as I commented on various subdebates and arguments. Shortly after the talk I learned about Prezi …
With zooming presentation software (such as Prezi or impress.js) things have become much easier. To me, these are ideal tools for giving a scientific talk or a popular presentation based on one of our argument maps.
In the EuTRACE project, I went a step further. Using my presentations as a starting point, I created a series of screencasts, available at youtube, that introduce the climate engineering controversy.
This is an attempt to disseminate argument maps by other means than mere texts or graphics. However, it’s not clear to me whether argument map videos really work. The EuTRACE project is still ongoing and the positive feedback so far is probably not representative.
So any comments or suggestions on presenting argument maps with Prezi/impress.js and in screencasts are more than welcome.
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