Your interpretive claim is a brief statement — usually in the form of a thesis statement (see Chapter 14) — that helps readers understand the overall results of your analysis. Essentially, it’s a one- or two-sentence answer to your interpretive question. Just as your question should be open to interpretation, your claim should be open to debate. If it simply repeats the obvious — either because it is factually true or because it has long been agreed to by those involved in your written conversation — it will do little to advance the conversation.

Your claim will frame your readers’ understanding of your subject in a particular way. It will also reflect the interpretive framework you’ve decided to use. Consider the differences among the following claims about distance running:

Evidence collected since the mid-1990s suggests that distance running can enhance self-image among college students.

Although a carefully monitored exercise program built around distance running appears to have positive effects for most cardiac patients, heart attack survivors who engage in at least two hours of running each week have a 30 percent higher survival rate than coronary artery bypass surgery patients who engage in the same amount of distance running.

Since 2000, distance running has undergone a resurgence in the United States, allowing the country to regain its standing as a leader in the international running community.

Distance running, when it is addressed at all in contemporary novels, is usually used to represent a desire to escape from the pressures of modern life.

Each of these interpretive claims would lead a writer to focus on different aspects of the subject, and each would reflect a different interpretive framework. The first calls readers’ attention to a causal relationship between distance running and mental health. The second explores differences in the effect of distance running on two groups of cardiac patients. The third directs attention to a trend analysis of increasing competitiveness among elite distance runners. And the fourth makes a claim about how distance running is treated in literature.