Title: Computer-supported interaction for composing documents logically

Authors: Toyohide Watanabe, Kei Kato

Addresses: Department of Systems and Social Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464–8603, Japan. ' Department of Systems and Social Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464–8603, Japan

Abstract: Document preparation can be typically regarded as one of human beings| intelligent activities. Creative and logical abilities, derived personally from explicit motivations, rich knowledge, useful experiences, etc., take up important roles to make well-structured and story-oriented documents understandable and readable. Thus, it is not always easy for beginners to compose documents such as reports, papers and articles successfully and effectively. In this paper, we address a computer-supported environment to compose documents logically: namely, we propose a framework for composing logically organised documents. The main idea is to formulate the composition process as the working procedure of a query list and logic tree. The query list defines what should be discussed in the document, while the logic tree specifies how to write the topics/sub-topics. This paper discusses these roles in the composition process and then reports the manipulation interface on the prototype system.

Keywords: document preparation support; logically organised documents; query lists; logic trees; creative activity; computer-supported knowledge work; collective creativity; externalisation; visualisation; communication media.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2008.022885

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2008 Vol.4 No.6, pp.509 - 526

Published online: 31 Jan 2009 *

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