\o Selecting and Integrating Evidence Wa) we'll a Aes ~~ CoD Prem ee eee 1 Perret TP eeenLooagy. a esRaj specializes in developing mass transitsys- tems, and he has been working ata cil engineering frm for one yea. His firm would lke to bid ona project to develop alight al system for ‘commuters, and he has been charged with the task of leading the team that will develop and submit the proposal. Raj has atleast two primary audiences: the city government, who Would award the project, and his supervisors at the engineering firm, who will be interested in his performance in leading a project team and his success inthe pro- posal process Raj must write a successful bid that wil carefully balance the needs of commuters, the desites of cit planners, and the requirements ofa structurally sound and efficient light rail system. What types of resources and evidence does Raj ned to find foreach audience? How will Raj decide what evidence is appropriate foreach audience? Have you ever needed to meet the needs of fferent audiences within one writ- ing project? Ifo, how did you identity the resources and evidence you needed for the differ- ent audiences? ‘Were there types of evidence that members of your audience absolutely had to have? Were there types of evidence that members of your audience absolutely would not accept?‘To choose the evidence you will incorporate into your argument, you need to evaluate the resources you have found and select the ones that are most appropriate to your rhetorical situation. Because each writing and research situation is distinct, you need to develop evaluation criteria that are specific to your project. You must consider what evidence your audience will fnd most convincing and what is most appropriate to the topic and argument you are making. You must also consider issues such as audience and purpose, but you might also consider timeliness and relevance, 2s well as other criteria applicable to your project, Ra) is addressing multiple audiences in his proposal. The primary audience, of course is the city government and the authorities who will be selecting the frm to build a light ral system, aj also as at least two other audiences: the citizens ofthe city (who might be paying forthe light rail system through their taxes) and his supervisors at work (who might consider him for a promotion and/or raise if his bid is well written and success ful), He realizes that he might need to include a variety of evidence and different kinds (of resources to address these multiple audiences, Consider the audience for your argument. Do you have one, explicit audience? Is. there also an implied audience (or audiences) that you need to consider? What kinds of evidence will be most convincing to your audience(s) In order to answer this last ques- tion, you might think about what your audience values. Understanding the audience's values will help you choose evidence that will be persuasive to them, and it will also help you determine the best way to construct and phrase your argument and reasons. In addition, consider what your audience already knows about your topic. What do you know that they already believe about your topic? As you consider the way your audience shapes the kind of evidence you choose, also consider your purpose. What do you want your argument to accomplish? What are you hoping your audience will do in response to your argument? Will the evidence you have found persuade your audience to accomplish your purpose? in Raj case, heneeds to choose evidence that will be persuasive to all three of his audiences, and he needs to consider his purpose in addressing each of these audiences. He needs evidence that will persuade the city authorities to adopt his proposal over others, and he also needs evidence that will persuade the citizens that funding his light ral system is a good use Cf public resources. Finally, he needs to choose evidence that will be respected by his supervisors at work, He knows, however, that if he wins the bid, then that will be the ‘most convincing evidence of al to his supervisors ° Fa a E é 3 4 EsSelecting and Integrating Evidence You begin to think abou which evidence to include in your argument, start by reflecting on your ‘audience Try responding tothe following questions tohelp you determine which evidence might be ‘most useful and persuasive to include in your argument 1 Who is/are your audiences}? Think about who your primary audiences and then consider whether there ar other audiences tha you ae also addressing. You might have an explicit audience that is more defined and also animplict audience. For example, fyou are writing a paper fora dass, you might address an explicit audience that would be appropriate for your topic but then you always have the implied audience of your instructor to consider aswell Now answer eac he following questions foreach audience that you identified inter 1 2. What does your audience value? Whats important to them? ‘3. What will your audience be expecting in terms of evidence? What types of evidence ate you equited to include (any)? Have you found evidence that would be undoubtedly convincing to your audience? "4. What does your audience think about your issue? Do they aleady have well-formed opinions in response to your research question? Do you know whether they aleady aree or disagree with you? Your response to this question wl help you determine not ony which evidence to include but aso how much. If your audience disagrees wth you, then you may need tin clude more eid ‘of your argument, then you might use les evidence in certain parts of your argu if your audiences open to different ideas or already agrees with parts at Timeliness, Relevance, and Other Criteria Several additional criteria might help you hich evidence to ch ofall, consider the timeliness of the evidence that you are considering, Does this mat ter for perstiasive effect in your argument? For example, doctors doing cutting-edge research on how to replace worn-out hip joints need to know what other doctors are dloing. How will a research doctor's paper on a ‘new” method for hip replacement be received if the readers (other orthopedic doctors) realize he did not know about a suc cessful method that was published in the past two years? What will lack of knowledge, oF lack of acknowledgement, do to the research dactor’s credibility? To sustain her credibility, the research doctor must know the most up-to-date information, Similaty, eco-friendly arguments about recycling and global warming often depend on the ‘most current research both to set the stage for the crisis and to provide evidence that the proposed solution will However, research projects about literature or ahistorical topic may not require the most “timely” research. Instead, such research usually requires that the writer demon strate an extensive knowledge about what has already been written on the topic. For if an undergraduate English majors writing about Shakespeare's play Romeo mine 2. Fist‘and Juliet, bis professor will probably not expect him to focus on the most recent research, nor willhe expect him to read everything ever written about the play. Instead, his professor will expect that the student read enough scholarship on and incorporate itinto the course paper, to demonstrate a broad understanding of the play and how other scholarship fits into the paper's argument. hile some research may require the most current information and other research meo and ‘may not rely as much on timeliness, certain research projects may require research from a specific time. Instead of di ‘may refer to specific historical information, Ifa movie reviewer wanted to comment on. the reception of the sixth Rocky film, Rocky 6 comparing the reception of each of the other five Racky films (1976, 1979, 1982, 1985, over a thirty-year span, the reviewer may need to know not how the different films were received but also what was going on historically when each film was released, Relevance is just as important as timeliness. How relevant isthe evidence you have found to the purpose and scope of your argument? For example, Raj may have found (great resources and evidence from an ongoing light all project in another city; how ever, many of his primary audience members recognize that the other city might be differences in the situations of the two cit ning “timeliness” simply as “current, “timeliness oa (2006), she may have to do research 990), Since the six lms Ina radically different setting If Raj is to incorporate this evidence into h he will need to carefully acknowledge thy les. Similarly the student doing research on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet may have found a recent article about dialogue between the female characters in the play, but if he is writing about symbolism in the play, the article i probably outside of the purp and scope of the project. What other criteria should you consider for your topic/project? Look to of your rhetorical situation to develop more criteria. For example, Raj might have to consider how his plan will afect the environment because the city council mig be considering various types of environmental legislation. Similarly a child care agency thats researching methods to help parents get inv ciren might have to consider evidence that takes into account the radically different lements sd in reading to their young chil -kgrounds of the children and their families. Develop Evaluative Criteria To help develop criteria to use while constructing arguments and selecting evidence, write your answers tothe following questions 1. Who isfare the audience for this information must you address? How research project? What do they want to recent must information be to be know? What do they need to know? relevant and persuasive? 2. What s the purpose ofthis esearch 4. How did you continue to narrow and project? What must be conveyed for that focus your research question? What purpose to he achieved? type of information must you find “3. How timely this research project? What tofit within tha scope? What infor- types of contemporary information must mation maybe only tangentially you adress? What types of historical relevant?Selecting and Integrating Evidence '5. What other elements or sues about they donot Fi the purpose or scope of your topic must be covered? yout projet? 6. What elements or issues about your topic might be interesting but not useful since Use these criteria to star reevaluating your research, Based on these citer, divide the results of your research into thre ils. information you must incude in your information that you wil nt include project because isnot useful or elevant information you might include because itis tangentially relevant Putte information thats notelevant in an envelope oshoe bo. Tack itsaely away somewhere Although you will probably nose itand do not wentt be dstracedby itanylongr dont throw it away yet. Depending onthe direction your project takes, the information might be useful ater. Resources as Evidence Evidence can emerge from any type of resource; however, different types of resources ‘often need to be evaluated in different manners. For example, you may find expert testimony in a variety of resources: individually published blogs, edited trade publica- tions, or peer reviewed journals. However, since these three types of publications have different processes of editorial review, a researcher needs to evaluate appropriately. We're not claiming that a researcher shouldn't evaluate a peer reviewed journal artic but he or she knows that other scholars in the same field evaluated the article before 's published. Similarly, an article in a trade publication was reviewed by an editor who likely knows a lot about the particular industry the publication represents, How ever, the researcher may need to do a litle bit of extra research to check the validity of the blog posting, Unless itis noted on the blog, its highly unlikely that anyone edits {an individually published blog; therefore, the researcher must verify the blog author's Identity and credentials for publishing on the subject. This means that itisimportant to fe some of your evidence based on where you locate it. With the invention of the Internet and the resulting relative ease with which indi- viduals could publish theirideas, opinions, histories, and other information on the Web, many scholars started to distinguish between paper or hard-copy resources and el {tonic or soft-copy resources. In other words, secondary resources could suddenly be found outside the library; however, many times these resources were less authoritative and trustworthy. To be more specific, scholars were worried that much of the infor mation found on the Internet did not have an editorial review process. For exam! although popular books, magazines, and newspapers do not necessarily have resident experts onal subjects, they do have knowledgeable editors that help to filter the infor ‘mation that goes into print. What made scholars waty of electronic resources is that so many people could publish to the Internet without any form of editorial evaluation or review. As we mentioned in Chapter 4, many writing textbooks distinguish betweensete et library and Internet resources, often stating that the Intentet resources are not to be hout a critical and thorough evaluation, turn of the century aind the proliferation of Intemet-based dlectronic resources of originally printed materials, we can n However, with th nger easily dismis! electronic, soft-copy, or Internet-based resources, For exampl Create Clusters on the Computer < 5 = Save] 2 ify a fee online diagramming too 58). itap/ wow gif. allows you J fie = sans. ily as allows you to export you ERE Eig dent Terai ea es OTE ipmpstnstendofon paper thee ares varity anes impart tnt ad aslyimparicnt a documento 5 i csteting, oF mund/idea mapping iypes : : age With the variety of shapes, cols, Ss Bete relia asiiies, Br ns cu eR ae 2 Gia or organizational chart embeded n 3 ena Goto atte" Ce ea 2 on DL OT EERRM Git ya can asin fee shoperond i iii te aca yt ra cea Tee aisstes Poster te vonye, wih hee of anil, estima, pumbers/tatsts) nora being used withou changing the Wiad ce cn aaae Play etd Setting dag ih epee ee eae eae ou infermaton might give you efferent ea Bee ree nie but how to cluster, of organize, your ideas and > seis ue nu other tol are also worth checking aut, hap Tol. amore bust mappin 3 of caplet program that yu can downto as fe hep fanaplcsfdownlon) > 1, Bubbling csering tel ha Nowoveitisboth more dic - ' ap foryou and alowLing and Integrating Evidence Based on the lam, reasons, and evidence you have brought together say, what hols sil in your argument? Whereis yout audience most ikely to disagree with your argument dent {wo areas in your argument ciuster that you are concerned about. For each ares of concen, tal the following steps 1st spectcypes of information, member or fend sources and pecs of evden You would like to find to supp mentor, olibaran to help you identi tha You twa weakest spots 4. Share your custer map or an out argument witha diferent mat, family member, or frien f concern. Talk to an instructor pe here i y identity your areas of concer; ask ls 2. Share your cluster map ar an outline of yout argument witha classmate, family ‘might find the items on your them i they agre with your concerns Ask for suggestions on strengthening Based on this feedback, pro ww