1. Selecting evidence

2. Effective evidence
Choose information that you understand and can explain clearly
Choose ideas that are directly relating to the point you are making

3. Effective Evidence
Thesis: People become addicted to alcohol because of emotional distress, social pressure, and physical causes.
As the write began to select evidence to support the idea of “physical causes,” they realized that many causes were based on complex chemical processes that they didn’t understand clearly. Thus, they limited their discussion to physical causes of genetic predisposition and revised the thesis statement as follows:
People become addicted to alcohol because of emotional distress, social pressure, and genetic predisposition.

4. Now You Try
Thesis: Using the Internet gives young people increased literacy but also leads to health problems and isolation from other people.
A. Asked their preferences for spending free time, 19% of the student body at the high school chose playing sports; 24% watching TV; 22% listening to music, and 34% surging the internet.
B. In Waltham’s study, business people between the ages of 35 and 50 reported spending hours a day online, thus severely impacting the time they spend with colleagues and family,
C. Feeling isolated, many teenagers turn to drugs or gang membership to solve their problems, according to interviews conducted by Smith and Paget at the Outsiders Café.

5. Now You Try
Thesis: Using the Internet gives young people increased literacy but also leads to health problems and isolation from other people.
D. “The problem of feeling estranged from society is much more severe among people who spend more than four hours a day online,” states Martha DePriau, psychologist at Vanderbilt University.
E. Sixty percent of Internet users between the ages of 12 and 25 reported that they spend more time online than with family and friends.

6. Selecting Evidence Einstein Evidence Fact Evidence
Other thinkers or scholars on the topic have come to the same conclusion you have
Fact Evidence
Includes statistics and other hard evidence
Undocumented Evidence
Comes from experience or things that are commonly known to be true