New Writelike lesson: "Forms of Evidence"

Two investigators record observations of an old house using cameras and audio recorders.

Next in our argumentation series, we have Forms of Evidence. (You can find the other reasoning & argumentation lessons here.)

Evidence is a big part of any good argument, but what is it and where does it come from?

This lesson surveys eight forms of evidence, including stories of experience, direct observations, numbers & statistics, and expert testimony.

We use a wide range of examples from ads, articles, books, and video essays to explore the distinctive features & strengths of each form.

A snippet from Brian Yother's book Why Antislavery Poetry Matters Now, highlighting the main claim, reason, and evidence.

We don't cover evaluating evidence! We realised while trying to wrestle this lesson into a digestible form that evaluating evidence needed to be a lesson in its own right, so you can look forward to that in the not-too-distant future.

An example activity: Cite some (pretend) studies as evidence for the claim that drinking radium emanation water relieves diseases of 'faulty elimination'.

Next up, we'll be moving from argumentation to persuasion, with a lesson on rhetorical context.

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