Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [111]
The types and amounts of evidence necessary for persuading readers and building authority also vary from one discipline to another, as does the manner in which the evidence is presented. While some disciplines—the natural sciences, for example— require you to present your evidence first and then interpret it, others (the humanities and some social sciences) will expect you to interpret your evidence as it is presented. But in all disciplines, and virtually any writing situation, it is important to support claims with evidence, to make your evidence lead to claims, and especially to be explicit about how you’ve arrived at the connection between your evidence and your claims (see Figure 8.1).
The relationship between evidence and claims is rarely self-evident: that relationship virtually always needs to be explained. The word evident comes from a Latin verb meaning “to see.” To say that the truth of a statement is “self-evident” means that it does not need proving because its truth can be plainly seen by all. One of the Five Analytical Moves discussed in Chapter 3 was making the implicit explicit. This move is critical for working with evidence. The thought connections that have occurred to you about what the evidence means will not automatically occur to others. Persuasive writing always makes the connections between evidence and claim overt.
FIGURE 8.1
Linking Evidence and Claims.
The first step in learning to explain the connection between your evidence and your claims is to remember that evidence rarely, if ever, can be left to speak for itself. When you leave evidence to speak for itself, you are assuming it can be interpreted in only one way and that others will necessarily think as you do.
Writers who think that evidence speaks for itself generally do very little with it. Sometimes they will present it without making any overt claims, stating, for example, “There was no alcohol at the party,” and expecting the reader to understand this statement as a sign of approval or disapproval. Alternatively, they may simply place the evidence next to a claim: “The party was terrible—there was no alcohol,” or “The party was great—there was no alcohol.” Juxtaposing the evidence with the claim (just putting them next to each other) leaves out the thinking that connects them, thereby implying that the logic of the connection is obvious. But even for readers prone to agreeing with a given claim, simply pointing to the evidence is rarely enough.
Of course, before you can attend to the relationship between evidence and claims, you first have to make sure to include both of them. But before we examine the problems posed by leaving either one out (evidence or claims), let’s first consider what it is that evidence is meant to do.
THE FUNCTION OF EVIDENCE
A common assumption about evidence is that it is “the stuff that proves I’m right.” Although this way of thinking about evidence is not wrong, it is much too limited. Corroboration (proving the validity of a claim) is one of the functions of evidence— but not the only one.
It helps to remember that the word prove actually comes from a Latin verb meaning “to test.” The noun form of prove, proof, has two meanings: (1) evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true or believable and (2) the act of testing for truth or believability. When you operate on the first definition of proof alone, you are far more likely to seek out evidence that supports