What are the points? What are the stances? Decanting for Question-driven Retrieval and Executive Summarization

Decanter illustrates a heuristic approach to extraction for information retrieval and question answering. Generic information about argumentative text is found and stored, easing user-focused, question-driven access to the core information. The emphasis is placed on the argumentative dimension, to address in particular three types of questions: "What are the points?", "Based on what?" "What are the comments?". The areas of application of this approach include: question-answering, information retrieval, summarization, critical thinking and assistance to speed reading.