Claims and Evidence: Writing

Group the notes.

• Fines shut out the people the library exists to serve: notes 2, 6, 8.
• Fines barely change whether books come back: note 4 (the return rate moved two points), which also answers note 5.
• Fines bring in little and cost staff time: notes 1 and 3. Six thousand dollars is less than half of one percent of the budget, and five hours a week of desk time is not free.
• Doesn't fit: note 7. Expensive equipment that is never returned is a real loss.

Find what the groups add up to, sized to the evidence, with the limit note 7 demands.

Brookfield's library should stop charging late fines, because the fines keep out the residents its mission promises to serve, do little to bring materials back, and bring in little money for the desk time they take; the library should still charge to replace items that are lost.

Why this thesis works. A board member could reasonably dispute it (note 5 shows one already does), so it is arguable. Every part of it rests on a group of notes, so it is defensible. Its three reasons preview three paragraphs in a sensible order, starting with the strongest, which also ties the request to a value the board has already written down. And the last clause is note 7 at work: by keeping replacement charges, the student answers the most reasonable objection and claims only what the evidence supports.

A thesis the notes would not support: "Libraries everywhere should abolish all fees." The notes are about one library and late fines, and note 7 argues against "all fees."

A claim the notes would tempt you into: "cost nearly as much in staff time as they collect." It sounds sharper, but whether five hours a week of desk time is worth anything close to $6,200 a year depends on staff wages, which the notes don't give. The thesis says only what notes 1 and 3 prove: the fines are a sliver of the budget, and handling them takes staff time. To make the stronger claim, the student would first need the hourly cost of desk staff.

1. (B). It states a position the writer could be challenged on and names the three points in the order the draft develops them: struggling students (sentences 3 to 5), tutors (6 and 7), cost (8 and 9). (D) also takes a position, and it is the tempting choice, but its reason is vague and previews none of the draft's points. (A) is a general fact, and (C) asks a question instead of answering it.

2. (A). Sentence 6 claims the tutors learn. Only (A) gives evidence about the tutors' learning, and it is strong evidence: a measured change, compared with students who didn't tutor. (B) is evidence about the students who were tutored, which supports paragraph 2's claim, not this one. (C) names a different benefit to tutors (college admissions), not learning. (D) is a general sentiment with no evidence in it.

The method. For a thesis question, list the draft's paragraph claims first and pick the choice that states a position and matches them. For an evidence question, reread the exact claim the stem points to and reject evidence that supports a neighboring claim.

Unstructured time is when people find out what they actually care about, because no one else has decided what the hour is for. In 1665, when plague closed Cambridge University, Isaac Newton went home to his family's farm in Lincolnshire for most of two years, with no lectures to attend and no one assigning him work. He spent that time on the questions that interested him, and he returned with early versions of his calculus, his experiments on light, and his first thinking about gravity. No course had required any of it. The same thing happens on a smaller scale to anyone given empty time. When my track season was canceled for a month after a storm damaged our field, I spent the first week bored and the next three taking apart a broken bicycle from our garage, watching repair videos, and rebuilding it; I now fix bikes for half my street. A coach's practice plan would have kept me busy and fit, but it would never have shown me that I like figuring out how machines work. Organized activities teach the skills someone else has chosen, and only unscheduled time leaves room to discover one nobody thought to offer.

Why this paragraph works.

• The claim (first sentence) is the first reason in the thesis, stated as something a reader could dispute, with a reason attached.
• The evidence is specific: a year, a place, a circumstance, and named results for Newton; a month, a cause, and an outcome for the student.
• The evidence is sufficient for the claim. The claim is general, so the paragraph uses two very different cases. Newton alone would invite the reply "that's a genius, not a teenager"; the bicycle alone might be one lucky month. Together they suggest a pattern from the extraordinary to the everyday.
• Commentary follows each piece of evidence. "No course had required any of it" says what the Newton example proves. The sentence about the coach's plan explains the bicycle story by contrasting it with what the organized alternative would have produced.
• The last sentence ties back to the thesis by naming the contrast the whole essay is about: skills someone else chose versus skills you discover.

A weaker version might read: "Unstructured time is important. For example, Isaac Newton discovered gravity when he had free time. Also, I like to fix bikes in my free time. This shows that free time is good." Its claim is a vague evaluation, its evidence is thin (a half-remembered fact and an unexplained hobby), and its only commentary restates the claim. It would earn a low score for evidence and commentary even though it names the same two examples.