How do evidence and reasoning hold an argument together?
An argument holds together when three parts are present and joined: the claim, the evidence offered for it, and the reasoning that says why that evidence supports the claim. Read for all three, then ask two questions: is the evidence about this claim, and does the reasoning actually connect the two?
Evidence and reasoning in plain words
An argument is a claim and its support, and the support has two halves that get confused. The claim is what the writer wants a reader to accept. The evidence is what a reader can check: the points, statistics, facts, quotations and comparisons offered for it. The reasoning says why that evidence shows the claim.
A stack of facts is not yet an argument: reporting how many bins stood in the cafeteria gives evidence and no reasoning, until one sentence says what the counts show.
Relevance separates evidence that counts from evidence that merely sits in the same paragraph: it is relevant when it is about the same thing, in the same sense and at the same scale. One afternoon of surveys is weak support for a claim about a year.
Watch the reasoning's direction: some paragraphs jump past what the evidence shows, and the jump is the place to point. ETS lists, among the topics for the Reading & Writing subtest (5758), recognizing how the relevance of textual evidence supports a claim.
Why a paraeducator uses this in class
Students meet arguments in every class, and the question is rarely what the author says but whether the argument holds. Naming the three parts gives a way to answer without appealing to taste.
It also shows where a student is stuck: one who can restate the claim and find no evidence has nothing to point at, and one who lists facts but cannot say what they show reads without the claim in hand.
For a student who is writing, the same three parts shape a body paragraph: a claim, its evidence, and the sentence that explains the link.
Worked example
A group asked 120 students in the lunchroom which bin they would use. 84 said they did not know, and 46 of those thought the green bin was for paper only. They wrote: "Our recycling program has a labeling problem, not a motivation problem. If most students who could not say which bin to use were confused by what the labels say, then clearer labels, not more reminders to care, are what would change their choices."
- Name the claim: "Our recycling program has a labeling problem, not a motivation problem." Everything else supports it.
- Mark the evidence: the counts, which a reader can check by asking who was asked. The 46 are part of the 84.
- Find the reasoning: "If most students who could not say which bin to use were confused by what the labels say, then clearer labels, not more reminders to care, are what would change their choices." It turns a fact about knowledge into a conclusion about labels, which is the claim.
- Check relevance: every count is about whether a student knows which bin to use, and the claim is about the labels, not about how much students care.
- Name what is still missing: the paragraph counts what students said they would use, and nothing reports which bin they used.
Practice questions
Question 1: three parts
Rosa writes: "The school should fix the drinking fountain because most students buy bottled water and it has been out of order since the first week of term." Which part is the claim, which is the evidence, and what reasoning is left unstated?
Show the answer
The claim is that the school should fix the fountain. The evidence is the bottled water and the broken fountain. "Because" only signals a link.
The reasoning is left unstated: students buy water because the fountain is broken, so fixing it meets a real need. Reasoning is a sentence, not a connector.
Question 2: off the claim
Devon says the recycling program works well. His evidence is a photograph of an almost empty bin taken on the last afternoon of the week, and a list of the new signs. Which part is about the claim?
Show the answer
Neither piece shows that the program works. The photograph is about the claim but at the wrong scale: one bin on one afternoon, and an almost empty bin could mean little use. The signs show that the program changed, not that it works.
A claim about how well a program works is about choices over time, and one moment cannot carry it.
Question 3: no link
A student puts three sentences under the heading "The waste in our cafeteria is a problem": lunch runs four days a week, the kitchen has two sinks, and the trash cans are blue. What is missing?
Show the answer
The reasoning, and evidence about the claim. All three are facts, and none says how a schedule, two sinks and blue cans lead to a waste problem, or measures the waste in the cafeteria.
A heading is a claim, and facts under it with no link leave the reader to do the writer's work.
Continue learning
- Supporting details: the sentences to point at.
- Drawing conclusions: what a class works out.
- Author's purpose: why the writer argues.
- Citing text evidence: taking evidence into your paragraph.
Try it on a full practice test
Point at the claim, the evidence and the reasoning, then work through the free ParaPathways practice test.
Our study book covers every skill on both subtests, in English and Spanish.
Sources
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