Claims and Evidence

Claim

“Claim is an expressed opinion or a conclusion that the arguer wants accepted. In academic context, the claim needs to be arguable. This means that a personal opinion for example, would not be suitable as an academic claim. Neither would something that's generally considered true or is only descriptive. For a claim to be accepted, it needs to be supported by evidence.”

Evidence

“Evidence can be defined as facts or conditions objectively observable, beliefs or premises generally accepted as true by the audience, or conclusions previously established.”

Сriteria for assessing evidence

Origin, mode, purpose, and source.

Origin

“Origin is where the evidence comes from. This could be from personal experience or the experience of others. In an academic context, generally we draw upon the experience of others.”

Mode

“It includes print media, electronic media, or verbal communication. In academic arguments, peer review journals are the most trusted source of evidence, as research is scrutinized by experts in the field before it's published.”

Purpose

“It can be seen as either academic or non-academic. For example in print media, a text book or a general article can be considered academic, while newspapers and magazines can be considered non-academic.”

Sources

“They can be primary, secondary or tertiary. Primary sources from history include letters or diaries while in the sciences, lab notes are considered primary sources. Secondary sources are comments on the primary source such as reviews, reports and journal articles. Textbooks are an example of tertiary sources. Primary and secondary sources are generally considered more respected than others.”

Good claim

“It is interesting and thoughtful. It's interesting in the sense that it pushes us to change our mind on something. It pushes us to consider something new and different. A good claim is also thoughtful and by thoughtful we say it's conceptually rich.”

SOURCE

https://www.coursera.org/learn/critical-thinking-skills/lecture/7uKu0/4-1a-claims-and-evidence

VOCABULARY

arguer [ˈɑːgjuːə]

sound or faulty evidence

strong or weak evidence

validity of the evidence

‘criteria’ is the plural form of the word ‘criterion’

thoughtful

scrutinize - тщательно исследовать

to address problem

tertiary [ˈtɜːʃəri] - третичный