17- Supporting Evidence

1. ESL 015 March 27, 2012 17- Supporting Evidence Using Claims, Reasons, and Warrants Tracy Beckett Jamie Kim

2. Argumentative Essay Topics • Discuss your argumentative Essay topics in groups. • Does each person’s topic make a claim? • Could that claim be disputed?

3. Claims What you are trying to prove. An opinion or belief about something. The opinion must be disputable. Other reasonable people must be able to disagree with your claim. Ex: Colleges should require all students to study abroad.

4. Types of Supporting Evidence • Facts – (Mostly) Undisputed claims about reality Ex: In a national survey, study abroad experience was listed as one of the five most important categories companies look for in job applicants. • Examples • Testimony

5. Types of Supporting Evidence • Facts – (Mostly) Undisputed claims about reality • Examples – A specific instance (often a story) of a general principle or truth Ex: For example, Sandra Jacobs beat out over one hundred other applicants, some with significantly more professional experience, for her international publishing job. It was her year of study abroad experience that gave her the edge. • Testimony

6. Types of Supporting Evidence • Facts – (Mostly) Undisputed claims about reality • Examples – A specific instance (often a story) of a general principle or truth • Testimony – The opinions and stories of those who have expertise or relevant personal experience in the subject Ex: Jacobs now recommends study abroad experiences to other students. She notes, “Studying abroad was expensive, and I almost didn’t do it because of the cost. But with how it has helped my career, it was worth it.”

7. Your turn. . . Brainstorm for five minutes. Try to come up with one fact, one example, and one testimony you can use to support the claim in your Argumentative Essay.

8. Explaining Evidence You need to not only present your evidence but also explain it. In other words, you need to tell your readers how the evidence logically connects to and proves your claim.

9. Explaining Evidence–Toulmin Method • One tool to help you explain your evidence effectively is called the Toulmin Method. • In the Toulmin Method, each supporting point has three parts. • Claim – What you are trying to prove • Evidence – Facts, examples, and testimonies that support your claim • Warrant – The logical connection between the claim and the evidence

10. Warrants Logical and persuasive connection between evidence and claim A principle or value that must be true or accepted for the evidence and claim to be true or accepted

11. Toulmin Method Claim Evidence Colleges should require all students to study abroad, By doing so, colleges would meet one of the goals of higher education, which is to create good “world citizens” who can understand and respect other cultures. Warrant because according to a national survey, studying abroad helps students appreciate other cultures.

12. Toulmin Method Claim Evidence The campus protests of the 1960’s distracted students from their studies so the low level of activism among The purpose of college is to study and anything that distracts from that purpose is bad and should be avoided. Warrant today’s college students is actually a good thing.

13. Your turn. . . Being able to speak more than one language gives us more opportunities and allows us access to a variety of resources. Whether it is volunteering or protesting, such actions of the students shows the same amount of care for their country and the world. 1. Multilingual education is necessary in schools in the United States because the world has become more closely interconnected through globalization. 2. Students today volunteer more time to community service sothey care just as much about making the world better as the students in the 1960’s campus protests did.

14. More About Warrants Explaining your warrants in a paper can greatly improve the persuasiveness and understandability of your argument. If a warrant is one that you think most of your readers will already agree with, stating that warrant is usually enough. Sometimes, though, a warrant itself needs to be supported by evidence. In this case, the original warrant becomes a new claim which you must support with new evidence and a new warrant.

15. More About Warrants Reason: Universities reward research more highly than it rewards excellent teaching. Claim: So professors will put more effort into their research than their teaching. Warrant: People put more effort into doing things for which they will be rewarded by an outside source. (I think not all my readers will accept this warrant, so I will add some evidence.)

16. More About Warrants New Claim:People put more effort into doing things for which they will be rewarded by an outside source. Evidence: Rewards are a basic factor in all kinds of human and non-human motivation. For example, many psychological studies have shown that rewards can be as strong of an incentive for changing behavior as punishments can. Warrant 2: Since rewards are such psychologically powerful motivation, it makes sense that professors will put more effort into the aspect of their job that yields higher rewards, in this case, research.

17. Illogical and Unsupported Warrants Finally, in addition to improving your supporting evidence, identifying and explaining warrants can help you to discover problems with the logic of your argument. Often, when we find an argument unconvincing, it is not because the evidence itself is bad but because the warrant is illogical or unsupported.

18. Do you accept this argument? Learning a foreign language is difficult and time-consuming. Therefore, college should not require students to study languages. Activities that are difficult and time-consuming should not be required as part of college education.

19. Do you accept this argument? All Internet use should be monitored by the government because the Internet can be used for illegal purposes. Since the role of the government is to protect its citizens, anything that can be used for illegal purposes and harm other people should be controlled and monitored by the government.

20. Homework Remember: The final draft of your comparison/ contrast essay is due today (Tuesday, March 27) by no later than 12 noon on turnitin.comAND Angel. “Journal 4” assignment: Complete the “Argumentative Essay Outline” form (both pages) and bring it to class on March 29. Thursday’s Class: Meet in Sparks 15A to do library research for your final paper.