{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T03:47:18Z","timestamp":1777434438289,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":19,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,7,2]],"date-time":"2018-07-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1530489600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Argument &amp; Computation"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2018,11,12]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This article models a software-based pedagogy, targetted at undergraduates, for assisting with detection and deconstruction of straw man arguments. The pedagogy is useful particularly where the student is unfamiliar with the standpoint attacked in the argument, where the text describing the standpoint is large and where the argument is lengthy too. I use a digital text analysis tool \u2013 Sketch Engine \u2013 to help reveal and deconstruct a straw man argument which misrepresents one specific aspect of a book. I then go on to use this tool in combination with another digital text analysis tool \u2013 WMatrix \u2013 to demonstrate too how the book\u2019s wider standpoints conflict with the argument\u2019s framing. I thus also show the argument to be a much bigger straw man, what I refer to as a wicker man. Advantages of using the digital tools are that (i) they efficiently set the student up to judge whether or not central topics in a large text being attacked are relevant absences from the argument attacking that text; (ii)\u00a0the potential for arbitrariness in judging whether or not the argument is a straw man or a wicker man is significantly reduced, making in principle for scrupulous evaluation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3233\/aac-180040","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,7,3]],"date-time":"2018-07-03T14:33:02Z","timestamp":1530628382000},"page":"193-222","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Digitally deconstructing \u2018straw man\u2019 and\u00a0\u2018wicker man\u2019 arguments: A\u00a0software-aided\u00a0pedagogy"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"9","author":[{"given":"Kieran","family":"O\u2019Halloran","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Education, Communication and Society, King\u2019s College London, Waterloo Bridge Wing, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, United Kingdom. Tel.:\u00a0;\u00a0E-mail:\u00a0"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,7,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref001","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10503-010-9199-y"},{"key":"ref002","unstructured":"S.\u00a0Baronett, Logic, 1st edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008."},{"key":"ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"T.\u00a0Bowell and G.\u00a0Kemp, Critical Thinking, 4th edn, Routledge, Abingdon, 2015.","DOI":"10.4324\/9781315772035"},{"key":"ref004","unstructured":"M.\u00a0Browers and C.\u00a0Kurzman, in: An Islamic Reformation? 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