Chapter 16 focuses on the importance and use of evidence in arguments. The use of evidence is vital in most majors today, which is the primary focus in our next writing project. Simply asserting a statement does not always guarantee that people will believe it. Evidence is a key component in convincing your audience to believe what you are presenting to them. Evidence is a large part of the science field, especially in the engineering and medical field. Take for example, a medical journal. A medical journal will contain evidence of both ethos and logos. Logos as evidence helps establish ethos in this particular example. Researchers spend millions of dollars to collect hard evidence to prove that their findings are credible and that the data that is found can be repeatable for other researchers interested in the same field. Personally I would not want to take a pharmaceutical drug that does not list side effects and the efficiency of that drug. Evidence is what people seek before trialing these pharmaceutical drugs. When big companies introduce drugs commercially, they must collect data (evidence) before introducing the drug commercially. The labels on prescription bottles are the evidence (logos) that these companies find and publish.
Another form of evidence is the evidence in analytical a papers. You can provide evidence in the form of quotations or paraphrasing from other sources to provide evidence for your argument. This is an example of the evidence we used in the previous two writing projects in this class. Evidence helps make the statement you are trying to present more concrete. People are more willing to side with your stance in an argument more easily if evidence is provided. I would consider evidence highly crucial in any paper, or oral argument. Without evidence, an argument is empty words.
I have to agree, now that we are writing more and more papers that tend to be one up from the other we have to back up our claims with more than just a statement. Evidence is crucial in defining your point or claim and also to persuade or convince your audience to consider what you are making known to them.You're example of researchers spending millions of dollars to collect evidence to prove thier findings is good because who would take a prescription drug without the list of side effects its supposed to show. The use of analytical evidence in the first two papers is correct but could have been more than just paraphrasing and quotations. We maybe could have used facts, examples and so on. But I do agree that this evidence helps make the statement you are trying to present more presentable and concrete. As you already stated, evidence is highly crucial in any paper or oral argument because the paper is an argument point of view which needs to be supported with that evidence. At the end of this blog, you say "without evidence, an argument is empty words" which basically sums up the general idea that we need to support our claims with evidence and that statement was also priceless. I have one question though, do you think that secondhand evidence and research is as crucial as the initial evidence? Such as library sources that have online databases with catalogs and indexes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with James and Daniella. I think it is very important that we have the evidence to back up our claims. Because it just goes to show you that sometimes you need more evidence than just a simple statement. People are more willing to come to your side when you actually have the sources and information to back up your claims. It just goes to show you that people have always valued good sources and evidence in certain cases. I also agree with James in saying that I really enjoyed your reference to the millions of dollars that researchers spend to collect their evidence. And It just goes to show you that people are more willing to try different supplements and vitamins and prescription drugs when they have backings behind them that are credible and can be trusted. It gives us a sense of security and allows us to feel comfortable in knowing that the drug we are taking is not going to hurt us because we know all the facts about it. People need that backing and the security in knowing that what they are taking will not end up killing them or hurting them, or causing problems that can dramatically hurt them in the long run. When we have the evidence to back us up we become more credible and can therefore end up being trusted. I mean, why would you ever trust someone who does not have the evidence to back anything up otherwise.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote about chapter 16 which is a big help in teaching what to do for Writing Project 3. Evidence is very important in everything that one does today. Evidence helps you determine what you should believe or what you should do. I like how you said that asserting a statement doesn’t mean people will believe it because that is very true. You can go and tell someone drinking is bad but that alone won’t make them change there oppinion on drinking. If you say drinking is bad because and you give facts about why it is dangerous the person you are telling this to will have more to think about. Evidence is very big in the science field. My major is Meteorology and I know in order to prove something you need evidence. You can’t just say this is what it is or this is what will happen without a reason behind it. Especially in the medical field. You need evidence to prove why the person is sick. You use the evidence that you have to determine what the culprit is. It is very true that researchers spend millions of dollars to collect hard evidence to prove their findings are credible. Since they spend so much money they are going to make sure that everything lines up and they are able to prove what they are stating. The good thing about the science field is that there is so much money out there for people to get funding for their research. One doesn’t have to cough up a couple million dollars themselves. Organizations and groups pay for the research to better the world.
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