Claims and Evidence

1. Claims and Evidence

2. What is a claim? Homework is not only unnecessary, it can actually be harmful. The above statement is a claim. It is a statement of opinion. In order for it to be taken seriously, a claim needs to be supported with evidence.

3. What is evidence? Homework is not only unnecessary, it can actually be harmful. • Since a claim is on opinion, it can not be proven. Only facts can be proven or disproven. • Claims can be supported by strong, convincing evidence. The stronger the evidence, the more believable the claim. • Evidence -- reasons and information that support a claim.

4. Three kinds of evidence Evidence can be divided into three types. (There may be other ways to characterize evidence, but this is language used on the GED test to describe claims and evidence.) • Logical: reason, facts, research, statistics • Emotional: feelings, emotional words, stories • Ethical: appealing to credibility, expert opinion, why someone should be believable

5. Claim Evidence • Homework is not only unnecessary, it can actually be harmful. Identify each type of evidence. • Excessive homework can have devastating consequences. • EMOTION • According to Richard Walker, an educational psychologist at Sydney University, students who have a lot of homework have lower test scores. • ETHICS (credibility) • The study shows that some type of remedial gradeschool homework tend to produce marginally lower test scores compared with children who are not given the work. • LOGIC