摘要：The argument diagramming method developed by Monroe C. Beardsley in his (1950) book Practical Logic, which has since become the gold standard for diagramming arguments in informal logic, makes it possible to map the relation between premises and conclusions of a chain of reasoning in relatively complex ways. The method has since been adapted and developed in a number of directions by contemporary informal logicians and argumentation theorists. It has proved useful in practical applications and especially pedagogically in teaching basic logic and critical reasoning skills at all levels of scientific education. I propose in this essay to build on Beardsley diagramming techniques to refine and supplement their structural tools for visualizing logical relationships in a number of categories not originally accommodated by the method, including dilemma and other disjunctive and conditional inferences, reductio ad absurdum arguments, efforts to contradict arguments, and logically circular reasoning, with sugestions for improved diagramming of logical structures.
