WHAT I CAME TO BELIEVE

Main Claims

Make It Argumentative

A strong Main Claim invites skepticism and counterargument and it requires reasons and evidence.

Avoid weak claims – the kind of claim that often opens a report

Reports often open with statements like: There are many causes of anorexia. There are many causes of obesity. Vitamins have several positive effects. Hybrid automobile technology has several unintended consequences.

Statements that there are many causes or effects of something or that something is interesting are not argumentative

Why? Because no one would disagree with such a statement.

Get Specific

General: TV inflates estimates of crimes (Booth et al

122). Specific: Graphic reports of violence on local

TV stations lead regular viewers to overestimate by as much as 150 percent both the crime rate in their neighborhoods and the personal danger to their families (Booth et al 122).

Be Reasonable

Use qualifiers (words or phrases added to another word to modify its meaning) to make the claim reasonable. Avoid absolute statements because they are easy to refute!

Unqualified: Playing violent video games causes violence. ( If this were true the streets would be running with blood.)

Qualified: For male teenagers who are socially isolated, prone to depression and who have a history of childhood physical abuse or neglect , playing violent video games may increase the likelihood that they will be violent because …

Make the Claim Sophisticated

Three Moving Parts: Acknowledgement, Affirmation and Reason Clause

Although violent crime is actually decreasing (acknowledgement), regular TV viewers overestimate their neighborhood crime rate by as much as 150 percent and therefore misjudge personal danger to themselves and their families( affirmation) (reason clause

→) because local evening news regularly opens with graphic reports of mayhem and murder in familiar locations, making many believe that crime happens nightly outside their front door (Booth

et al 123).

Preview Your Argument

Contains the “skeleton” of the argument in the claim

Although many believe that school uniforms lower the incidence of violence in public schools, the evidence is at best weak because researchers have not controlled other measures that have been instituted at the same time as uniforms and because the data reported has been statistically suspect (Booth et al. 124).

Claim suggests that there will be a discussion of beliefs about school uniforms, of other measures introduced to lower violence and of problems with the data gathered about the impact of uniforms.

Make it Matter

If the reader accepts that your claim is true, how many beliefs will he/she/they have to change?

If the reader accepts that your claim is true, will she/he/they be inclined to change behavior or policy?

Does your claim suggest a new way of settling or understanding a persistent problem?

Does your claim upset what was thought to be a settled matter?

A Test for Significance

Try making the opposite claim.1. Hamlet is not a superficial character

Hamlet is a superficial character – obviously false

2. This report summarizes recent research on the disappearance of bees.

This report does not summarize research on the disappearance of bees – trivial

If the new claim seem obviously false (#1) or trivial (#2), The original claim is not worth arguing

(Booth et al 125)

Works Cited

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. William. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.