9 Claims and Evidence
In academic writing, authors present claims and provide evidence to support a main point and uphold a particular perspective. As you read college-level academic texts, you will encounter claims and evidence.
- A claim is a piece of information that includes a debatable statement provided by the author.
- Evidence is a piece of information that validates or refutes the claim.
Identifying claims and evidence is crucial for understanding and evaluating the central ideas in academic texts. To identify claims and evidence, good readers look for particular language that signals claims and evidence. For example:
To introduce claims:
- In the opinion of…
- In the words of…
- It is likely that…
- There is no doubt that.
To introduce evidence:
- …… is evidence of….
- Statistics show that……
- A study by …. shows that …
- This evidence shows that ….
- The fact is that…..
- It is reported that….
