Session 3: Angling Evidence to Support Specific Points Today’s Teaching Point: Writers angle their evidence to convince their readers that their argument is valid. Writers don’t just plop down facts, quotes, and statistics, expecting their evidence to speak for itself. Instead, writers explain how the evidence is significant, showing how that evidence illustrates each point.

Using Text Evidence to Support Your Argument When you use quotes or stories in your writing, it’s important to remember that those things alone will rarely make the point for you. In fact, the same bit of evidence can also be spun so that it makes opposite points. You need to ask yourself, “How could I use this bit to support one side or the other of the debate over whether role-playing games are good or bad for kids?

Using Text Evidence to Support Your Argument I want to look for evidence that supports the argument that these kinds of games might sound bad at first, but can actually be good for kids. The judge…makes a pie chart of death—the order of killing assignments, which he or she then distributes to squads shortly before opening day. “I’m looking for some good massacres early,” this year’s judge said as the competition began, the second week in May… “I’ve arranged at least one boyfriend-girlfriend kill that..” (Martin, 2009, p. 27)

Analyzing Evidence Let’s think about whether this evidence relates to the question of role-playing games being good for kids or not. The first thing I notice is that the article doesn’t talk about that. I won’t be able to find a quote that tells me the answer. Are there things in the article that could be used to support the side of the argument that I’ve been given—that these games can be good for kids?

Analyzing Evidence As I was looking for evidence, I thought about what an important role the judge plays. That’s a pretty big job for a kid. Watch how I take this evidence and explain it in a way that makes it work for our argument. This evidence shows that role-playing games, including these violent ones like Killer, are good for kids. For example, some kids end up taking on leadership positions, with a lot of responsibility in those games-- like when the judge in this game thought carefully about the order of the killing assignments.

Supporting Opposing Positions If you were thinking that the evidence is just perfect for that side of the argument, I want you to see that I can just as easily used THE SAME EVIDENCE to make the opposite case. Let’s think about how we can use this evidence to argue the other side.

Showing the Opposite Side The evidence shows that these violent role-playing games are not good for kids. In particular, they give kids too much power over each other. For example, the judge in this game of Killer sets up the squads and the order of the killings, and that means he sets upperclassmen against lower classmen, he sets girlfriends and boyfriends against each other—it’s just too much power for one kid to have over his classmates.

Evidence is Often Neutral When you are looking for evidence, you don’t need to look on and on and on for the exactly perfect line that says just what you want. Instead, take some evidence that is relevant and that that could be spun one way or another—and then think carefully about which way the evidence warrants.

Remember to Expand the Research When evidence doesn’t explicitly support either side, do some clever thinking to use it to make your case. Don’t be tempted to just plop evidence into your argument. Instead, unpack it like you did today. Take the parts that make your case, explain those parts, and angle them to support your position. It’s important that you don’t simply skim through articles looking for some perfect line that exactly fits your argument. Instead, look at the material, then pause and think, “Could this support what I’m thinking?” You read in an analytical creative way.

Expanding Research Today, I’ve left out some new sources that you can read in the same careful, analytical, creative way. They tell you about the impact of other violent video games, like Call of Duty. I have chosen these sources on purpose because I know that they have a lot of information to offer. As you work with the evidence so that it supports your big ideas, your big ideas may change. You’ll do new thinking. If you need to re-start your draft, do so. If not, just add on!

Look at handouts: Techniques for Framing and Quotes Common Logical Fallacies Guide to Citing References

Homework & Deadline Your publishing deadline will be Tuesday, April 19th. Make sure you are keeping up with your drafting! Remember we will work each day to add key pieces of great position papers to your paper. Stay on top of your work. For tomorrow, you should have at least a half of a page ready to go. Make sure you share your Google Doc with me if you haven’t already: schubertriverview@gmail.com You will read at least 2 of the 4 articles on my weebly. Then add research to your piece. Use the handouts to push your writing further. Make sure you are citing sources in and at the end of your paper!