In Step 2, when you were gathering information about your question, it was for the purpose of learning as much as possible about your topic before coming to an informed position in the form of your claim or thesis. Now it is time to begin making your case—
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One way of selecting your evidence is to sort the information you have gathered by viewpoint, appeal, and strength. For instance, imagine that you have been researching whether whaling should be banned globally. In your research, you probably found a lot of different information about the current whale population and current laws that have been put in place to protect them, as well as the role that whaling plays in various cultures, including Japan. From this research, imagine that you made a claim that because the whale population has not increased enough, all commercial hunting of whales should be banned worldwide. As you start to plan your essay, you will need to focus. You can’t talk about everything, and you can’t use every scrap of information you’ve gathered, so you need to pick the strongest pieces that are the most relevant to your claim. How do you decide which are the strongest? Some potential evidence might be strong because it appeals to logos: the quote perfectly expresses your idea with some facts or statistics. Some might be strong because of ethos: the credentials of the source add weight to your argument. Some might be strong because it appeals to pathos: the information lends a strong emotional aspect to your argument.
You could then make a chart like the following to help you organize and select your information:
| Information | Viewpoint | Appeal | Strength |
| Historical information about international bans on the practice of whaling | Supports | Logos | Very strong evidence |
| An interview about the cultural significance of whales in Japan | Opposes | Pathos | Strong for opposition |
| Facts about endangered status of whales | Supports | Logos | Extremely strong |
| Reports questioning the science behind the endangered status | Opposes | Logos | Moderately strong |
| Information about how wasteful whaling practices are | Supports | Logos/pathos | Not very strong |
| Testimonials about the special place that whales have in our hearts | Supports | Pathos | Not very strong |
You can see that through this ongoing process of sorting information and selecting evidence, a possible organizational structure has emerged. This essay on Japan’s whaling might start with the endangered status of whales while addressing the concerns of the flaws in the science, then move on to the international bans in place, and finally address the counterargument by discussing the cultural significance of whales in Japan and other places.
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Look back through the information that you gathered about your question and begin sorting your potential evidence by viewpoint, appeal, and strength as in the examples above. Be sure to identify the strongest evidence and eliminate evidence that is not strong. If you do not have a good balance of appeals, you will want to conduct more research.