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 Hsun 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 13, p. 668.) At times, however, other factors can complicate the level of support facts can offer. For example, different definitions of a key term can produce different perceptions of what is factual. The number of people living in poverty in the United States is much lower for those who define "poverty" as "living on the street" than for those who define it as "not owning a house and two cars." When using facts to support your claim, make sure they relate directly to your claim and are clearly defined.
Statistics
Statistics are facts that consist of numerical data. Statistical data can be harnessed in support of most claims about society, culture, or the collective facts of a given country or region. For these claims in particular, statistical evidence about birthrates, marriages, deaths, inheritances, lawsuits, and other matters of public record—the data of everyday life—can be extremely useful in making a historical argument that goes deeper than one based on political, military, and cultural leaders' documents, which usually do not reflect most people's lives. In arguments about contemporary societies, statistics can be found to support and refute arguments about race, gender, crime rates, education, employment, industry, income, political affiliation, public opinion, and dozens of other areas where collective behavior can be tracked and measured. An excellent source for many of these statistics in the United States is the Statistical Abstract of the United States, which is published each year by the Census Bureau and made available, free of charge, at www.census.gov.
Authorities
In areas where facts and statistics are unavailable or inconclusive, evidence can be gathered from those with an acknowledged expertise in the field. Though appealing to authority cannot prove a fact definitively—even experts make mistakes!—it can explain what is possible, what is likely, and what is impossible, all of which are extremely important in supporting claims. In many cultures, certain texts or authorities have such high status that their support will virtually guarantee many people's acceptance of a claim. The Bible, the Quran, the Buddha's teachings, and Confucius's words have all had this kind of authority in the cultures that have been built around them. However, these texts are not generally acceptable as authorities in modern academic arguments.
Examples
Examples drawn from history, fiction, personal experience, or even one's imagination can often be used to support a claim. Examples drawn from historical or current events are especially persuasive, as they add factual support. Consider how Margaret Mead uses examples in "Warfare: An Invention—Not a Biological Necessity" (p. 500). She begins by giving examples of "primitive" people who do not have a concept of organized warfare—the Lepchas and the Eskimos. Then, to illustrate the point that warfare does not come with increased social development, she gives examples of what she sees as two equally undeveloped groups of people—the Andamans and the Australian aborigines—who fight wars. Each time that she makes a claim about the development of warfare, she provides an example of a culture somewhere in the world that illustrates her point.
Textual Citation
Writing in response to other texts—such as the ones found in this book—often requires you to write interpretively, or to make claims about what texts mean. Interpretive writing requires you to find support for your claim within the source text. For example, if you claim that Christine de Pizan's The Treasure of the City of Ladies gives a more accurate view of human nature than Machiavelli's The Prince because it accounts for the human potential to do good, you will need to cite portions of de Pizan's text that refer to this potential. Conventions for documenting textual sources are discussed in depth in Chapter 14 (p. 668).
LOGOS: APPEALS TO LOGIC AND REASON
What Aristotle called logos, or appealing to logic and reasoning, is an essential part of supporting an argument. While evidence provides the basis of an argument's support, how we apply logic to that evidence—that is, our reasoning—is part of what makes an argument persuasive.
According to classical theories of argument, our minds move in two different directions to reach conclusions. Sometimes, we reach a conclusion by applying a general fact that we know—or belief that we hold—to a specific situation. This is called deductive reasoning. Most people know, for example, that milk is more expensive at convenience stores than at grocery stores. When someone decides to save money by buying milk at a grocery store rather than at a convenience store, that person is reasoning deductively.