Content Ordering in the Generation of Persuasive Discourse

A framework is summarized which supports the planning of natural language argument structure. One key aspect of natural argument is the order in which components are presented. This is in part responsible for both the coherency and persuasive effect of an argument. One means of effecting such ordering is proposed, and an overview is provided of the various classes of ordering heuristics. These heuristics are based upon insights offered by rhetoric texts, psychological research, and a corpus study. Finally, it is demonstrated that such an approach can also contribute to the generation of surface textual features including formatting, punctuation and clue words.