FAQ
The Dictionary of Arguments helps tracing arguments to their origins, even if there is not always a clear originator. Arguments lead to other arguments; they rarely become obsolete in principle. Of course you might want to review whether they were successful in earlier discussions, i.e. in other contexts.
Scientists, theoreticians, scientific institutions are invited to contribute to the Dictionary. We are happy to consider your contributions in the discussion and welcome you to join our project.
How will the collaboration look?
Our aim is to find scientific theses – in form of one to a few short statements which are expected to either support or reject a scientific theory. For scientific fields that have not yet been elaborated in the Lexicon it is useful to incorporate standard literature at the beginning in order to serve as introduction.
Later on we place value on novel arguments and are hoping to receive bold an innovative contributions. Remember, it’s all about controversies!
Those who find a controversial scientific source that they evaluate to be apt and helpful in expanding the Lexicon of Arguments are invited to upload it into our spreadsheets. The contributions should be in English/Simple English. Therefore, depending on the source, translation of the original text may be necessary.
When uploading, the following information should be included: Name/URL of the contributor or the contributing institution and at least three of the following points:
Author: which scientist is at stake?
Concept: which concept is at stake (this might be a diverging definition)
Thesis: what is maintained (divergent from well-known theses)
Vs: against which scientific position is the contribution addressed
Example: to illustrate the thesis
Scientific Camp: to which scientific camp or Ism should the author be assigned.
It is important to note that it should always be clear, which passages are written by the contributor and which are quoted from the author in question. Normally we assume that the text following "Concept" and "Thesis" is from the author. If this is not the case, it should be made clear in the following form:
Concept/Thesis/Author/contributor:
Is this a commercial website?
We want to stay free for our users. It remains to be seen how much time and work it will take from our side to administer the website and prepare contributions for publishing.
Is there a censorship in the Lexicon of Arguments?
Of course the answer to this question is no. There is a process of testing the relevance of the argument uploaded in cases where the degree of innovation is at stake. It is also about the defense of advertising and insults. This means that the contributions are not built into the spreadsheets automatically which leads to a considerable cost on our side which at the moment we carry ourselves.
Who has the copyright for the posts?
The copyright remains with the submitter resp. the original author of the content. It is the responsibility of the submitter to ensure that the source is quoted correctly. Please make an excerpt, not a copy.
How to quote correctly
For books: Name of the author, Title, place and date of publication, number of page. For journals correspondingly and additional the name of journal, year. For E-Books additionally indication of percentage instead of the page – because this is independent of the font size.
The name/URL of the submitter has always to be indicated.