Claims and Evidence

In my senior year high school english class, one thing we did was write essays, and peer review each others’ work. This is pretty standard as far as english classes go. As a matter of fact, we had done essay peer reviews previously in that particular class.

But one day, we did things a little differently. My teacher told us to write a “C” next to every sentence that was a claim, and an “E” next to every sentence that provided supporting evidence.

I think that the idea was that good writing not only makes a claim, but supports it. Where’s the value in saying something, but not supporting it?


Right now, I’m in two public speaking classes, so I’ve been hearing a lot of peoples speeches. I also read a lot of blog posts and stuff online, and listen to a lot of talks. (And I’m also a person who’s communicated with people and lived on this earth for 21 years.) I’ve found that in these experiences, I hear a lot of claims, but not so much supporting evidence. I find myself (metaphorically) making a lot of C’s, and not too many E’s when I listen to people.

The problem with this is that C’s without E’s don’t really give you useful information. Sometimes it does. Sometimes the C triggers you to think about something differently and triggers better thoughts. Sometimes the C is able to articulate something you’ve always thought, but couldn’t quite put into words. But a C without an E usually isn’t very useful.

At least if you’re rational. A lot of times people love the blog posts and speeches with a lot of C’s. These are often times “emotional” and “inspiring” and “well executed”. Those 3 things have value, but they’re not sufficient for you to change your mind. And yet people walk away from these “emotional C filled speeches” swept off their feet.


My point is that in order for something to be genuinely convincing, it needs to support the C’s with E’s. If you’re interested in being genuinely convincing, you should support your C’s with E’s. If you’re not interested in being genuinely convincing, you could do whatever you want, but I won’t be listening.