{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T18:25:19Z","timestamp":1777573519890,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":16,"publisher":"MIT Press - Journals","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["TACL"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> Debate and deliberation play essential roles in politics and government, but most models presume that debates are won mainly via superior style or agenda control. Ideally, however, debates would be won on the merits, as a function of which side has the stronger arguments. We propose a predictive model of debate that estimates the effects of linguistic features and the latent persuasive strengths of different topics, as well as the interactions between the two. Using a dataset of 118 Oxford-style debates, our model\u2019s combination of content (as latent topics) and style (as linguistic features) allows us to predict audience-adjudicated winners with 74% accuracy, significantly outperforming linguistic features alone (66%). Our model finds that winning sides employ stronger arguments, and allows us to identify the linguistic features associated with strong or weak arguments. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/tacl_a_00057","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,12,28]],"date-time":"2018-12-28T15:42:50Z","timestamp":1546011770000},"page":"219-232","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Winning on the Merits: The Joint Effects of Content and Style on                     Debate Outcomes"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Lu","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nick","family":"Beauchamp","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Political Science, Northeastern University"},{"name":"Network Science Institute, Northeastern University,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sarah","family":"Shugars","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Network Science Institute, Northeastern University,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kechen","family":"Qin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"281","reference":[{"issue":"04","key":"p_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"363","DOI":"10.1142\/S1793351X11001328","volume":"5","author":"Biran Or","year":"2011","journal-title":"International Journal of Semantic Computing"},{"issue":"1","key":"p_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"330","DOI":"10.1093\/poq\/nfu007","volume":"78","author":"Boydstun Amber E.","year":"2014","journal-title":"Public Opinion Quarterly"},{"key":"p_12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/COLI_a_00163"},{"issue":"01","key":"p_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1017\/S0007123403000012","volume":"33","author":"Dryzek John S.","year":"2003","journal-title":"British Journal of Political Science"},{"key":"p_14","author":"Durik Amanda M.","year":"2008","journal-title":"Journal of Language and Social Psychology."},{"issue":"1","key":"p_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1749-6632.1976.tb25467.x","volume":"280","author":"Fillmore Charles J.","year":"1976","journal-title":"Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences"},{"issue":"4","key":"p_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"773","DOI":"10.1525\/aa.1979.81.4.02a00020","volume":"81","author":"Irvine Judith T.","year":"1979","journal-title":"American Anthropologist"},{"issue":"1","key":"p_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"155","DOI":"10.1016\/j.pragma.2007.07.004","volume":"40","author":"Katzav Joel","year":"2008","journal-title":"Journal of Pragmatics"},{"issue":"04","key":"p_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"515","DOI":"10.1017\/S0003055403000856","volume":"97","author":"Mansbridge Jane","year":"2003","journal-title":"The American Political Science Review"},{"issue":"4","key":"p_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"543","DOI":"10.1080\/14616700500250438","volume":"6","author":"McCombs Maxwell","year":"2005","journal-title":"Journalism studies"},{"issue":"1","key":"p_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s10506-010-9104-x","volume":"19","author":"Mochales Raquel","year":"2011","journal-title":"Artificial Intelligence and Law"},{"issue":"3","key":"p_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"436","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-8640.2012.00460.x","volume":"29","author":"Mohammad Saif M.","year":"2013","journal-title":"Computational Intelligence"},{"issue":"3","key":"p_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"381","DOI":"10.1007\/s10994-013-5417-9","volume":"95","author":"Nguyen Viet-An","year":"2014","journal-title":"Machine Learning"},{"issue":"2","key":"p_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"43","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00367.x","volume":"24","author":"Noelle-Neumann Elisabeth","year":"1974","journal-title":"Journal of communication"},{"issue":"3","key":"p_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"765","DOI":"10.2307\/1600311","volume":"64","author":"Rawls John","year":"1997","journal-title":"The University of Chicago Law Review"},{"key":"p_42","first-page":"2012","volume":"23","author":"Rooney Niall","year":"2012","journal-title":"Florida"}],"container-title":["Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mitpressjournals.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1162\/tacl_a_00057","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,12]],"date-time":"2021-03-12T21:38:10Z","timestamp":1615585090000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/direct.mit.edu\/tacl\/article\/43397"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2017,12]]},"references-count":16,"alternative-id":["10.1162\/tacl_a_00057"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/tacl_a_00057","relation":{},"ISSN":["2307-387X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2307-387X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2017,12]]}}}