Pros and Cons Calculator

Introduction: Do you sometimes have trouble deciding if something is right or wrong? The issue may be complicated, with many factors to consider. This program can help you to decide.

Aim: this program is to help you to make up your mind on issues by calculating the strength of points you type in.

Instructions: fill in the boxes with points or evidence for and against your argument. Then decide on how important this point is and how confident you are that it is correct. The yellow box at the bottom tells you the current scores. You can see a list of your points and make a page to print out using the buttons at the bottom of this page.

Warning: When you are arguing it is human nature to give a high strength rating to your arguments, and be very confident about them. Be careful! It is easy to be over-confident. People used to be certain that the world was flat! Try to use a range of strengths and confidences. Academic research often uses 95% confidence, not 100%. Part of critical thinking is to realistically assess the strengths of your arguments and your confidence in your statistics. A strength of 5 and a confidence of more than 95% should be very rare.

Example: you can put example points into this program to see how it works. You can also add your own points to see how the results change.
Example:

Type the title or main argument here:
Pros
(Arguments for)		   Cons
(Arguments against)
Details of the point Strength
5=high		 Confi-
dence		 Details of the point Strength
5=high		 Confi-
dence
1. % 1. %
2. % 2. %
3. % 3. %
4. % 4. %
5. % 5. %
6. % 6. %
7. % 7. %
8. % 8. %
9. % 9. %
10. % 10. %
11. % 11. %
12. % 12. %
13. % 13. %
14. % 14. %
15. % 15. %
16. % 16. %

Total score:   Total score:

The winner is:

Here is a list of your points, in order of Pro1, Con1, Pro2, Con2 etc.

Here is a list of your points, in order of Pro1, Pro2, Pro3, Con1, Con2, Con3, etc.


 

Last updated on: Monday, March 26, 2012