Framing your claims with examples and analysis.

One group sent a claim and the evidence they plan to use to back up the claim. As you develop paragraphs to support the various claims you will make in your cover essay, I thought you might profit from the exchange, so find it below:

Claims

1.) I learned a great deal of information from my group members.

Example of supporting my claim: X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work on this semester. After receiving some much needed advice, I looked at what my worst grammatical mistake was and researched ways that provided me with a solution to the problem.

Here, you should go on to include an example of an article Cate corrected in the portfolio evidence section. In the section of your cover essay where you discuss the article, point to the article you've included and make sure to note the specific advice you found useful and the specific aspects of the article you changed based on this advice. [Other advice: I might pull out the section on fixing your worst grammatical mistake and develop it into a separate section or paragraph. Paragraphs should focus on one central idea, develop in, and then you move on to another paragraph.] Back to the claim and the paragraph you are developing to support it.

Notice you are building up what you can think of as a basic body paragraph in academic writing, one where you do the following:

1. You make a claim.
2. You explain exactly what you mean by the claim in another sentence or so.
3. You point to a specific example/quote/summary/paraphrase/fact, etc. which illustrates your claim.
4. You explain/analyze your example, etc., pointing out the specific aspects of it which are significant to the reader fully understanding your claim.
5. You transition into your next paragraph using a sentence, phrase, or keyword.

To provide a full example, you might go on to develop your paragraph as follows:

Claim: I learned a great deal of information from my group members.
Explanation: For example, X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work this semester.
Example: In the evidence section of this portfolio, I have included a rhetorical analysis with which X helped me. You can see it on page Y of the evidence section.
Analysis/Discussion: X pointed out what I later decided was my worst grammar problem--the need to make sure my subjects and verbs agree in number. For instance, you might look at this sentence, "In this situation, the noise was found in both the assumptions Tom made about the audience and the background of the audience." Originally, it read, "the noise founds" X told me to read the sentence out loud. When I did, I realized "noise founds" did not sound right, so I changed it to "the noise was found."
Transition: All semester, I received this kind of valuable advice from my group.

Notice how linking your claim to specific a specific article you include in the evidence section allows you to point to specific aspects of the article and fully discuss and develop your claim. Many students never make this leap. They link to an example to back up their claim, but they don't go on to discuss and explain the significance of the evidence to understanding their claim. Not taking this step in the difference between a "B" or "C" paper and an "A" paper. Discussion and analysis of a claim takes more time and work, but by the time you are done, your reader knows exactly what you mean, and they are *sure* you have given your claim a lot of thought. This last gains you ethos and makes your claims more likely to be believed.