Fluent Essays

13 SUPPORTING IDEAS THOUGH THE TWO TERMS are often used interchangeably, a claim is not the same thing as an argument. For a claim to become an argument, you need to provide some kind of support. You cannot offer support by simply magnifying the intensity of a claim. The claim that “pornography is extremely disgusting and horribly immoral” offers no more support (that is, no support at all) for its position than the simpler claim that “pornography is immoral.” This chapter will show you how to support a claim and thus turn it into an argument. To begin, you must understand how to provide appropriate evidence to support your claim. You must also understand the different ways that people can be persuaded by arguments. According to Aristotle, the three standard elements of persuasion are logos (appeals to logic and reasoning), pathos (appeals to emotion), and ethos (appeals based on the speaker’s character). Understanding these building blocks will make you a stronger reader, as you will be able to identify the methods writers use to make their arguments. And it will make you a better writer, as you will be able to employ them intentionally as you craft your own arguments. SUPPORTING CLAIMS WITH EVIDENCE Any time you make a claim, you have a responsibility to support it. Support can come in the form of facts, statistics, authorities, examples, or textual citation. The kind of support that you use depends on the claim that you make: for example, the claim that “affirmative action is not a useful educational policy because it has not increased minority graduation rates” would be best supported by statistical evidence, while the claim that “Mencius and Hsün Tzu held opposing views of human nature” would be best supported by quoting their writings (textual citation). When you think about ways to advance your claim, think about all the possible evidence that you can marshal in support of it. Facts Most claims benefit from the support of relevant, well-documented facts. Consider, for example, Charles Darwin’s argument in The Origin of Species. To support his claim that evolution occurs by means of natural selection, Darwin combines several facts, including Charles Lyell’s research showing that the earth is extremely old, Thomas Malthus’s calculations about the growth rates of populations, and a summary of existing techniques to breed certain characteristics in livestock and domestic animals. Though these facts do not “prove” Darwin’s principles, they create a context in which evolution by natural selection is possible and logical. Sometimes the facts you need to support your claim are straightforward. A claim that “the benefits of organ donation outweigh any potential risks to the recipient” can be supported by facts about organ donation that are readily available in reference books or on the web. (For more on finding and evaluating sources, see Chapter 15, p. 610.) At times, however, other factors can complicate the level of support facts can offerMLA 8th Edition Formatting and Style Guide Purdue OWL Staff Brought to you in cooperation with the Purdue Online Writing Lab Welcome to “MLA Formatting and Style Guide“. This Power Point Presentation is designed to introduce your students to the basics of MLA Formatting and Style. You might want to supplement the presentation with more detailed information available on the OWL’s “MLA Formatting and Style Guide“ at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ Designer: Ethan Sproat Based on slide designs from the OWL “APA Formatting and Style Guide “powerpoint by Jennifer Liethen Kunka and Elena Lawrick. Contributors: Tony Russell, Alllen Brizee, Jennifer Liethen Kunka, Joe Barbato, Dave Neyhart, Erin E. Karper, Karl Stolley, Kristen Seas, Tony Russell, and Elizabeth Angeli. Revising Author: Arielle McKee, 2014 * MLA (Modern Language Association) Style formatting is often used in various humanities disciplines. In addition to the handbook, MLA also offers The MLA Style Center, a website that provides additional instruction and resources for writing and formatting academic papers. https://style.mla.org/ What is MLA? The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th ed. supersedes both the 7th edition handbook and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd ed. The style of documentation outlined in the 8th edition serves the needs of students who are writing research papers, as well as scholars who publish professionally. This presentation will mostly focus on MLA formatting and style concerns that affect writing research papers. MLA style is often used in the following disciplines: humanities, languages, literature, linguistics, philosophy, communication, religion, and others. MLA format provides writers with a uniform format for document layout and documenting sources. Proper MLA style shows that writers are conscientious of the standards of writing in their respective disciplines. Properly documenting sources also ensures that an author is not plagiarizing. * MLA regulates: document format in-text citations works-cited list What does MLA regulate? This slide presents three basic areas regulated by MLA students need to be aware of—document format, in-text citations, and works cited. The following slides provide detailed explanations regarding each area. * The 8th edition handbook introduces a new way to cite sources. Instead of a long list of rules, MLA guidelines are now based on a set of principles that may be used to cite any type of source. The three guiding principles: Cite simple traits shared by most works. Remember that there is more than one way to cite the same source. Make your documentation useful to readers. MLA Update 2016 Principle 1: In previous versions of the MLA Handbook, an entry in the works-cited list was based on the source’s publication format (book, periodical, Web article, etc.). The issue with that system is that a work in a new type of medium co