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Justin Greene

Doctor Gunter

Texts and Contexts I: Writing as Craft and Inquiry

06 November 2017

Claims and Supporting Evidence Analysis

Claims and supporting evidence are effective when used correctly in persuading an

audience to believe in a certain view. A claim is a statement that something is the case without

providing specific proof. Supporting evidence is something that tends to prove or disprove a

claim. Examples of supporting evidence include a factual summary, a paraphrase, and a direct

quote. Effective claims and supporting evidence are both used in the articles The Case Against

the Death Penalty and Guns Are the Problem in order to persuade the audience to agree with

the authors own beliefs.

The article The Case Against the Death Penalty argues that the death penalty should be

abolished. The article states, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill

human beings especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law

or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion. This

is the claim in the article because the author is declaring that they do not believe in capital

punishment because it is harsh and not humane. The author backs up the claim with many

examples of supporting evidence. An example of supporting evidence in this article is, Innocent

people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from

death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for

every 10 that are executed. This supporting evidence included this statistic which is a direct

quote from another source. It supports the claim that capital punishment needs to be abolished
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because the author is providing a fact that shows executions are performed excessively. The

claim and supporting evidence are effective in this article because they both directly correlate

with each other giving the audience a great understanding that there are flaws that come with

capital punishment. The effective claim and supporting evidence can draw the audience into

agree with the authors belief.

The article Guns Are the Problem strictly argues that guns are the major problem in

why mass shootings are happening more frequently. The claim in the article is, After years of

careful centrist messaging, many gun control advocates say they are ready for the movement to

develop a more aggressive left flank, one that argues not just for moderate gun laws, but that

guns themselves are the problem. The author informs the audience of someone elses claim that

guns are the problem advocating sticker gun laws. This claim is effective because it is a major

problem society is facing to this day and many people are looking for solutions to prevent mass

shootings from occurring. The author provides supporting evidence to the claim by including

many examples. One of the supporting evidence examples is, Guns Down, founded in August

2016, is currently housed within Resource Impact, a not-for-profit group that incubates emerging

social justice projects. By including this supporting evidence, the author shows that there are

groups being formed that want to help make gun laws stricter without taking any profit. These

groups top priority is the safety of Americans and they know forming these non-profit groups

can help obtain stricter gun laws. The supporting evidence is effective in this article because it

backs up the claim. The effective supporting evidence creates a successful claim persuading the

audience to agree that gun laws need to be made stricter for the safety of Americans.
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