Evidence

 

ENG 106: Composition 2

Lesson 11: Evidence
Nov. 4-8, 2002

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to do each of the following:

  • Collect evidence from primary sources and secondary sources.
  • Interpret evidence in the context of a specific argument.
  • Organize evidence in a logical fashion.
  • Define relevant terms.

Assignments

Please complete the following assignments before coming to class on Tuesday:

 

Read Chapter 18 of Everything’s an Argument.

Activities

Our class activities this week include the following:

 

Think Fast: Choose a piece of evidence from one of the sources you brought to class and record it in your outline.  Remember to use an attributive phrase and a parenthetical citation.  Now write a sentence connecting this piece of evidence to your working claim.

Presentation: Evidence (Professor Canada)

Cooperative Learning: Trade “Think Fast” exercises with a partner.  Identify the kind of evidence your partner has recorded.  That is, does it come from a primary source or a secondary source?  Evaluate the credibility of this piece of evidence.  Finally, assess your partner’s success in attributing, quoting or paraphrasing, punctuating, citing, and interpreting this piece of evidence.

Discussion: During this time, we will discuss the insights and questions that have emerged during our reading, “Think Fast” exercise, presentations, and cooperative learning. 

Think Again: Building on what you have learned through your reading, the “Think Fast” exercise, my presentation, the cooperative learning, and our class discussion, continue this process of finding, evaluating, using, and interpreting evidence, gradually building a detailed outline that you can turn into a draft.

Conferences: While the rest of you are working on the “Think Again” exercise, I will meet with some of you in one-on-one conferences.  During this time, I will review some of your writing, orally quiz you on lesson objectives, and field your questions.

Announcements: We will wrap up this lesson with announcements regarding upcoming lessons, as well as other relevant subjects.

Terms

Make sure you know the meaning and significance of each of the following terms:

  • evidence
  • primary source
  • secondary source
  • interview
  • observation
  • document

Resources

You can find more information about the subject covered in this lesson by consulting the resource listed below:

Everything’s an Argument provides specific tips on collecting evidence through observation, interviews, and other means.

Updated November 1, 2002
© Mark Canada, 2002
mark.canada@uncp.edu
 

Introduction

In this lesson, we take a look at evidence, a crucial component in any successful argument.  Please bring your working claim and a rough outline of your causal argument, along with at least five sources, to Dial 147, where we will discuss various kinds of evidence and begin assembling support for your causal argument. 

Discussion

Imagine that you have been chosen to sit on a jury for a robbery trial.  On the first day of the trail, the prosecuting attorney stands up and says: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am going to show that the defendant committed this robbery.”  Over the next three hours, the attorney interviews eight eyewitnesses who identified the defendant in a police lineup, presents several pieces of physical evidence placing the defendant at the scene of the crime, and shows that police recovered stolen merchandise from the defendant’s car.  Finally, after this attorney sits down, the defense counsel stands up and says: “The defendant is not guilty.  The defense rests.”  When it comes time to decide the case, how are you going to vote?  More than likely, you and your fellow jurors are going to convict the defendant.  Why?  Both sides of the argument offered claims.  Only the prosecution, however, offered evidence.

 

Since arguments are by their very nature contestable, audiences—whether they be jurors or readers—need evidence to make sensible decisions.  In other words, speakers and writers must not only tell by stating claims, but also show by adducing compelling evidence.  This evidence can take a variety of forms.  Evidence constituting raw data—that is, factual material with little or no interpretation—comes in the form of primary sources.  Some examples of these kinds of sources include documents, such as diaries, letters, poems, novels, government publications, and newspaper articles.  Because they often study events that occurred before they were born, historians frequently depend on documents written by people alive when the events occurred.  They may also study other records, such as photographs and recordings, and even physical evidence, such as furniture and buildings.  If you are studying a contemporary event or phenomenon, you may use some of these same primary sources, but you also can collect data through other means.  In an observation, for example, you use your own five senses to collect information—by watching drivers’ behavior at an intersection, perhaps, or by listening to conversations between children and their parents.  You also may choose to interview people close to your subject by orally asking them questions about it.  Similarly, you can create a survey, a series of questions or statements soliciting responses from people.  In many cases, other researchers have examined the same subject and have produced their own interpretations, which are known as secondary sources.  Like primary sources, secondary sources can be documents: scholarly monographs, for example, or articles in periodicals.  Other kinds of secondary sources include lectures and film documentaries.

 

Many of the strongest arguments contain a combination of primary sources and secondary sources.  Evidence collected from primary sources shows some originality on the part of the author, demonstrating that he or she is not merely repeating what others have said.  Evidence collected from secondary sources shows that the author is not alone, but is making an argument that falls in line with others’ research.  When presenting evidence from either kind of source, make sure to interpret this evidence in the context of your argument.  That is, in addition to quoting a survey respondent or paraphrasing a scholarly monograph, go on and explain exactly how this evidence supports your particular claim.  In your outline or rough draft, follow up each piece of evidence with a sentence that begins with “This shows that . . .” or some similar phrase.  Later, in the revision stage, you can smooth out the wording, but make sure that you connect the evidence with your claim.

 

How much evidence do you need?  In general, more evidence means a better argument, so pile it on.  In a typical paragraph, you might include three or four pieces of evidence.  For example, if you are arguing that social activists help to bring out government action on some issue, you might summarize some pamphlets from the period, quote an activist, and paraphrase a historian who has studied the subject and written about it in a scholarly monograph.  Since you also will be interpreting each of these pieces of evidence in a sentence or two and, of course, setting everything up with a topic sentence that links the paragraph to your overall claim, this paragraph in the body of your argument will probably consist of at least seven sentences, perhaps more.  Finally, make sure that you organize all of your evidence in a logical fashion.  In particular, take care not to organize your evidence by source; that is, avoid writing a paragraph for each source.  Rather, look for patterns among your pieces of evidence and place similar points together.

Conclusion

In our next lesson, we will examine the ingredients of nonverbal argument, particularly those you can use to give speeches and design documents.