{"id":84,"date":"2017-08-28T02:01:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T02:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/aboutwriting\/?post_type=chapter&p=84"},"modified":"2018-02-28T00:22:56","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T00:22:56","slug":"does-your-evidence-fit-your-claims","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/eng-102\/chapter\/does-your-evidence-fit-your-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Your Evidence Fit Your Claims?"},"content":{"raw":"

Ensuring your evidence fits your claims<\/h1>\r\nThe most common evidence you will offer to support your claims will be quotations from the texts you read and references to passages in them. Without such evidence, your claims are merely statements of opinion.You are entitled to your opinions but you\u2019re not entitled to having your readers agree with them. In fact, your readers generally will not highly value your opinions unless you provide some evidence to support them. When you provide evidence, you turn your opinions into arguments.\r\n\r\nBut before readers can value your claim as supported with evidence, they must first understand how your evidence counts as evidence for that claim.<\/strong> No flaw more afflicts the papers of less experienced writers than to make some sort of claim, or to offer a quotation from the text, and assume that the reader understands how the quotations speaks to the claim. Here is an example:\r\n
Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North, because as he said, this country was \u201cdedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\nThe writer may be correct that Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North, but what in that quotation would cause a reader to agree? In other words, how does the quotation count as evidence of the claim? The evidence says something about the views of the founders in 1776. How does that support a claim about what the founders would think about 1863? When pressed, the writer explained: \u201cSince the Founders dedicated the country to the proposition that all men are created equal and Lincoln freed the slaves because he thought they were created equal, then he must have thought that he and the Founders agreed, so they would have supported the North. It\u2019s obvious.\u201d\r\n\r\nWell, it\u2019s not. After it has been explained, it may or may not be persuasive (after all, the author of \u201call men are created equal\u201d was himself a slave owner). But it isn\u2019t obvious. Quotations rarely speak for themselves; most have to be \u201cunpacked.\u201d If you offer only quotes without interpreting those quotes, your reader will likely have trouble understanding how the quote, as evidence, supports your claim.<\/span> Your paper will seem to be a pastiche of strung-together quotations, suggesting that your data never passed through the critical analysis of a working mind.\r\n\r\nWhenever you support a claim with numbers, charts, pictures, and especially quotations \u2014 whatever looks like primary data \u2014 do not assume that what you see is what your readers will get. Spell out for them how it is that the data counts as evidence for your claim. For a quotation, a good principle is to use a few of its key words just before or after it. Something like this:\r\n
Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North because they would have supported his attempt to move the slaves to a more equal position. He echoes the Founder\u2019s own language when he says that the country was \u201cdedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n

Licenses and Attributions<\/h1>\r\n\u201cA strategy for analyzing and revising a first draft\u201d<\/a> by Joseph M. Williams and Lawrence McEnerney<\/a>, Writing in College<\/a>,The University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Writing Program<\/a> is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a>\r\n
<\/div>\r\n \r\n

Pressbooks: Simple Book Production<\/a><\/p>","rendered":"

Ensuring your evidence fits your claims<\/h1>\n

The most common evidence you will offer to support your claims will be quotations from the texts you read and references to passages in them. Without such evidence, your claims are merely statements of opinion.You are entitled to your opinions but you\u2019re not entitled to having your readers agree with them. In fact, your readers generally will not highly value your opinions unless you provide some evidence to support them. When you provide evidence, you turn your opinions into arguments.<\/p>\n

But before readers can value your claim as supported with evidence, they must first understand how your evidence counts as evidence for that claim.<\/strong> No flaw more afflicts the papers of less experienced writers than to make some sort of claim, or to offer a quotation from the text, and assume that the reader understands how the quotations speaks to the claim. Here is an example:<\/p>\n

Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North, because as he said, this country was \u201cdedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The writer may be correct that Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North, but what in that quotation would cause a reader to agree? In other words, how does the quotation count as evidence of the claim? The evidence says something about the views of the founders in 1776. How does that support a claim about what the founders would think about 1863? When pressed, the writer explained: \u201cSince the Founders dedicated the country to the proposition that all men are created equal and Lincoln freed the slaves because he thought they were created equal, then he must have thought that he and the Founders agreed, so they would have supported the North. It\u2019s obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s not. After it has been explained, it may or may not be persuasive (after all, the author of \u201call men are created equal\u201d was himself a slave owner). But it isn\u2019t obvious. Quotations rarely speak for themselves; most have to be \u201cunpacked.\u201d If you offer only quotes without interpreting those quotes, your reader will likely have trouble understanding how the quote, as evidence, supports your claim.<\/span> Your paper will seem to be a pastiche of strung-together quotations, suggesting that your data never passed through the critical analysis of a working mind.<\/p>\n

Whenever you support a claim with numbers, charts, pictures, and especially quotations \u2014 whatever looks like primary data \u2014 do not assume that what you see is what your readers will get. Spell out for them how it is that the data counts as evidence for your claim. For a quotation, a good principle is to use a few of its key words just before or after it. Something like this:<\/p>\n

Lincoln believed that the Founders would have supported the North because they would have supported his attempt to move the slaves to a more equal position. He echoes the Founder\u2019s own language when he says that the country was \u201cdedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Licenses and Attributions<\/h1>\n

\u201cA strategy for analyzing and revising a first draft\u201d<\/a> by Joseph M. Williams and Lawrence McEnerney<\/a>, Writing in College<\/a>,The University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Writing Program<\/a> is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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