Choose Evidence to Support Your Reasons
Your argument will be effective only if you back up each of your reasons with evidence. Most readers will expect you to provide some sort of justification for accepting your reasons, and their assessment of your evidence will affect their willingness to accept your argument. The form your evidence takes will depend on your overall claim, the reasons themselves, and your readers’ values and assumptions. In general, however, consider drawing on the following types of evidence to support your reasons:
- textual evidence, in the form of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries
- numerical and statistical data
- images, including photographs, drawings, animations, and video
- tables, charts, and graphs
- information and ideas from interviews, observations, and surveys
- personal experience
- expert opinion
Take the following steps to identify evidence to support your reasons:
- List the reasons you are using to support your overall claim.
- For each reason, review your notes to identify relevant evidence.
- List your evidence below each point.
- Identify reasons that need more support, and locate additional evidence as necessary.
- Consider dismissing or revising reasons for which you don’t have sufficient evidence.
Effective arguments typically provide evidence that is both plentiful and varied in type. A writer arguing about the need to improve the U.S. health care system, for example, might draw on personal experience, interviews with friends and relatives, policy briefs from the American Medical Association, commentary by bloggers, reports issued by government agencies, and articles in popular and scholarly journals.
As you choose evidence to support your reasons, think about whether — and, if so, how — you will show the connections between reasons and evidence. These connections, often called appeals, help readers understand why a reason is appropriate and valid. Common appeals include citing authorities on an issue; using emotion to sway readers; calling attention to shared principles, values, and beliefs; asking readers to trust the writer; and using logic.
You can read more about using appeals. You can read about how to identify evidence to support your reasons in Chapter 14.