Argumentation

An argument is an attempt to provide a compelling, rigorous demonstration of the truth of a conclusion, based on the truth of any number of premises. If the argument is valid, the premises together entail or imply the conclusion... The difference between an argument and an explanation should be clear. On the one hand, the function or purpose of an argument is to convince people who might be doubting the conclusion. On the other hand, the function or purpose of an explanation is to give the cause of some phenomenon which we observe, or are willing to assume actually occurs. To put it even more briefly, the purpose of an argument is to persuade, while the purpose of an explanation is to explain. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument

Debate is a formalized system of logical Argumentation. A debate is a rule-governed contest presided by an official, consisting of two or more sides where each side is attempting to win the approval of a designated audience, such as a judge or jury. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate

The term dialogue expresses basically reciprocal conversation between two or more persons... Plato further simplified the form, and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue

In his later years, David Bohm developed the technique of Dialogue, in which equal status and "free space" were the most important prerequisites. He believed that if carried out on a sufficiently wide scale, these Dialogues could help overcome fragmentation in society. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm

see also Disputation Arena

journal http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0920-427X/contents reasoning, natural inference and persuasion: communication, rhetoric (classical and modern), linguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, psychology, philosophy, logic (formal and informal), critical thinking, history and law. Its scope includes a diversity of interests, varying from philosophical, theoretical and analytical to empirical and practical topics.

Argumentation and Critical Thinking tutorial http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~act/

Tom Formaro: This work examines how Argumentation in HyperText alters author, reader, and text. http://users.rcn.com/mackey/thesis/thesis.html