Claim, Evidence, and the Link Between Them
What is Claim, Evidence, and the Link Between Them?
Three checks for any argument. (1) What exactly is the conclusion — what do they want you to believe? (2) Is the support a checkable fact or a feeling; where did it come from; is the sample large enough; are there counterexamples? (3) Is the link between them strong enough — even if the evidence is true, does it get you to that conclusion, or is a condition missing, or is there another explanation?
Claim, Evidence, and the Link Between Them: common mistakes and how to handle them
“Our competitor has been hiring, so we have to expand aggressively”: the conclusion is that we must expand, the evidence is the hiring, and the break is in the link — they could be backfilling departures, entering a new market, or covering for poor internal efficiency; and even if they really are expanding, that says nothing about whether it suits us. “Years of one treatment didn’t help and another doctor cured me, so I only trust the second kind”: what that establishes is one person’s single experience, and one experience does not settle which is more effective in general. In daily use, when you hear a judgement, write four lines — the core conclusion, the support offered, the missing step, and what evidence would fill it. This is not an attack on the person; the phrasing is “so your conclusion is… your basis is… what’s still missing is… with that it would hold up better.”
What the Claim, Evidence, and the Link Between Them questions test
extracting the conclusion and the evidence accurately from a passage; finding the missing step between them; supplying an alternative explanation for an argument; judging which sentence goes beyond what the evidence can support; choosing the evidence still needed to make a conclusion stand.