Evidence: Written Evidence

Written Evidence
With professional writing, you are writing solely for the reader. You might have a lot riding on the readers’ response — getting the contract, receiving the fellowship, being able to buy those new computers — but unless you put the reader first, none of those things will happen.
So think about what the reader will need in order to accept your message and even act on it in a positive way. If you know ahead of time that your reader will be amenable to your message, your job is a bit easier. You still have to gather your evidence, but it might not have to be as extensive.

However, with an audience that might be less convinced of the merit of your subject, you need to shape your evidence based on the idea that you (again) have their best interests in mind. What’s more, it helps to imagine that you automatically have certain elements working against you and, by extension, your idea. You thus need to remember that you have to address concerns and counterarguments as well.
For insight into how to think about counterarguments, objections, and what sorts of evidence you might need, consider the two examples shown in Figure 2.10. Here, you find two cases that require compelling evidence. How much do you provide? What kinds do you provide? How can you anticipate counterarguments from your reader?

Content that is Accurate and Detailed, but Not Excessive
As the presenter of information regarding your subject, you are responsible for ensuring that the data you give your readers is both adequate and accurate.

To determine whether you are giving your readers enough data, consider the role of each audience member. Because of their positions, different readers will need to know different things:

Will the decision maker need to know the schematics for a particular design, or will they be more interested in knowing whether you recommend this design?
Will the technician need to read about the department’s struggle to find a new design, or will they be interested in schematics only?
Will you have to explain to a scientist what radium is?
Will you have to explain the term hard drive to the average computer user?

You have to strike a balance: provide enough detail to fully explain the topic (problem, solutions, etc.), but not so much that you’re overwhelming the reader or telling him or her what is already known. Beyond that, you have to ensure that the data you do present is 100% accurate. You achieve this by doing your homework and using unbiased, trustworthy sources.
One of the most problematical sources for research is the web, where one can find legitimate and trustworthy sites alongside others that are neither. As a reader, you have to be able to analyze whether your source is biased.

For example, if you were studying the topic of handgun control, would you accept at face value the commentary of either the National Rifle Association or the Coalition for Handgun Control? Both have a vested interest in the topic, but from opposing sides. Try to avoid such pitfalls by choosing only objective sources.

Address Readers’ Concerns and Counterarguments
You can also help your document achieve purpose by considering what your audience’s concerns and counterarguments might be. What facets of your message might cause them worry or make them think twice about your subject? What objections do you think they might have to your subject?
If you can anticipate their concerns and counterarguments, then you can work from the start toward alleviating them.

Avoid Prompting Negative Responses. To begin with, you should avoid saying anything that might prompt negative thoughts or remind your reader of negative situations. For example, in a report in which you will suggest changes to the Course Request procedure, you would never want to remind your reader that the students find the current system problematic:

We know that you have received a lot of complaints from students who are unhappy with the way courses are assigned.

Counteract Negative Responses. Even with your best efforts, though, sometimes negative thoughts will arise. So it then becomes your job to counteract them by providing reassurances that in the long term everything will work out. This is particularly important whenever what you are suggesting will cost more money than the audience might be willing to spend:

While the system upgrade will involve an additional cost, the improvement in quality will ensure that more users will take advantage of the program — and within three months, the expected increase will more than offset initial expenditures.

Don’t Accuse the Reader of Being Wrong. Finally, you should never accuse the reader of being in the wrong or at fault. Readers are more likely to generate counterarguments if you’re trying to get them to reverse their attitudes, particularly about something they might have been responsible for themselves. Be careful never to accuse them of being wrong or suggest that their opinions are incorrect — and never, ever criticize them outright:

Beautification efforts on campus have really fallen short of expectations: The green space is shrinking, the golf course seems to preoccupy your department while the grass elsewhere withers and dies, and the attempts at landscaping are pathetically inadequate.

Being accusatory will only alienate your readers.

Prove You Can Be Trusted. Beyond these tips, though, you should also work to prove to your reader that as a writer and researcher you can be trusted and that your reasoning is sound. Achieve these goals by marshaling convincing and objective evidence. Ask and answer these two key questions:
What’s working against me (and my idea)?
What evidence can I provide to reassure the reader?

If you can come up with an extensive list of responses to each question, then you have a solid foundation for determining the types of written evidence you will need to convince your readers of the validity of your subject.

Fluidly Incorporate and Fully Analyze Your Data
You’ve done a terrific job of researching your topic, and you have a bunch of information to present to readers. Now you have to figure out where to put this great information so that it does the best job of convincing your readers that you know what you’re talking about and they should listen to what you have to say.

The two things you should not do are

Merely isolate the data in a section on its own or
Just list or present the info and move on, leaving the readers to interpret the data for themselves.

It is extremely important to the success of your work that you take this advice to heart; otherwise, what you produce will read in a very disjointed way and will fail to convince your reader of your professionalism.

Use Your Evidence Where It’s Needed. When you incorporate data into your text, you must insert it where it’s needed. Otherwise, it will will most definitely break up the flow of your analysis.

For example, say you interviewed Professor Schmidt about the Super Computer created at SolTech Designs. You have all of these wonderful quotations, and now you need to put them into your report. If you stick them all in a section that is devoted solely to the interview, maybe under a heading something like Interview with Dr. Schmidt about the Super Computer, what that technique does is basically yell “Hey, readers, hey — here’s my interview! Look! I did an interview!”

Instead, you want to look at the individual quotations you have from Dr. Schmidt and see where they best fit into the text. In other words, use the quotations and information where they are needed. Here’s an example that shows how a quotation can be incorporated where needed:
The Super Computer was created by combining the power of 1100 off-the-shelf Macintosh computers. It is a technique, according to Dr. Schmidt, that is “unconventional but very effective.”

Let’s consider another example, one that you will likely confront if you ever set up an online survey.

A good survey will ask a combination of quick-response questions — yes or no, select a number, click a box — and short-answer questions that are designed to collect potential quotations. Now that you’ve closed your survey, and you have all of these responses, where do you use them? The worst possible thing you could do is put them all in a section all to themselves under a heading like Results of Online Survey.

Instead, you look at your responses and determine where this one will best fit, where that one works well, where you should use this or that quotation, and so on.

Let’s pretend you are writing a report about the improvements students would like to see in the university’s library, and you have discovered through your survey that students would appreciate three updates in the facility:

more electrical outlets for laptops,
more comfortable seating in study areas, and
a reservation system for study rooms.

Instead of lumping all of that information together in a single section, you would

Create a large section under a heading something like Students’ Recommended Updates, then
Create a subsection — each with its own heading — for each of the three suggested updates.

Then you would go back to your survey and pull information about each subject.

Once pulled, that information would go into the specific section you have set up for it: info and quotations about electrical outlets in the Additional Electrical Outlets subsection, info and quotations about more comfortable seating in . . . well, you get the picture, right?
Following this rule will ensure that you create a report that flows and includes pertinent information where needed. But simply placing the info where it belongs isn’t enough. You must also analyze it.

Analyze the Evidence For Your Reader. When you insert data in your text, if you don’t analyze the data you’ve inserted, you put all the work on the reader (not very reader-friendly, huh?).

Take this example, a great quotation that you have pulled from an interview you conducted:

This quotation works beautifully for your report, which is on how teachers in the History Department at Morton College can improve teacher-student interaction. But if you simply insert it into your report without doing anything with it — saying something about it, discussing how it’s relevant to the subject of your report — then you’re forcing the readers to figure it out or make the pertinent connections for themselves. Make sure you that whenever you insert a quotation or outside material of any sort, including survey results, you analyze it (sample analysis in bold):

According to Dr. Bob Fenton, the best way to maintain good teacher-student interaction is to “constantly remember that both of you are people, that you are not boss and worker or superior and inferior.” Fenton’s response suggests that faculty in our department might have to reconsider the traditional model of interaction by which they have long operated.

In other words when you quote, analyze — even if that analysis is a single sentence that draws a connection between your quotation and your subject.
And when you analyze, make sure that you are not letting your personal feelings about the subject enter into the conversation. You must remain objective if you are to establish ethos with the reader.

Provide Analysis that is Objective, Not Subjective
Even if you are writing about how to improve a class that you really loathed — just the memory of it makes you sweat! — you have to present all information about that class objectively, without any personal bias whatsoever. If you allow personal bias to sneak in and affect your tone or presentation of the facts, then your audience will immediately reject your argument. This means avoiding statements like the following:

When I took the course, I thought its requirements were above what they should be for a freshman-level survey. The grading standards were harder than they are in some junior-level courses, and I believe that the teacher assigned too much reading to be accomplished in so short a time.

Although this statement isn’t horrible — it doesn’t say The course sucked! or I thought she was the stupidest teacher I have ever had! (statements that are easy to spot as no-nos) — it still contains personal bias. It also makes you sound like you’re alone in the opinion, and you’re just being whiny.

So how can you say these things, which are in fact valid? Your best bet is to talk to others about the course (or the subject), and let these other experts provide you with responses from which you can quote. This does not mean that you should lead your interview subjects to say the things you want them to say or that you should twist their words to suit your needs, but if the subject strikes home with them, chances are good that they will provide responses that will be useful.

Think how much more persuasive the following analysis would be:

Several students who have taken the course report their surprise at the way it was conducted. Senior English major Alaina George took the course a year ago and reports that the requirements struck her as “far and above what they should be for a freshman-level survey.” Three 10-page essays, six 5-page essays, three exams, and daily quizzes were, she said, almost more than she could keep up with. Moreover, junior major Ed Danvers stated that the grading standards were ”harder than they are in some junior-level courses.” After being given a failing grade for an essay that contained three mechanical errors, Danvers dropped the course. In doing so, he joined others, like junior History major Arnold Sexton, who was at the time carrying 18 hours and had to leave the course because, as he put it, “ the teacher assigned too much reading to be accomplished in so short a time.”

While it still contains the same criticisms, this paragraph attributes the opinions not to you, but to other students — three of them, in fact. It also introduces facts about the students so the reader understands that they’re not just being whiny or complaining about nothing:

Alaina George: senior English major who had trouble keeping up with course requirements [fact]; her senior status suggests that she has taken enough courses to understand the different requirements at different levels and to keep up with those of junior and senior courses [implied]
Ed Danvers: junior English major dropped course after receiving what he believed to be an unfair grade [fact]; his junior status gives him an ability to compare grading standards to those of his junior-level courses, so a failing paper for 3 mechanical errors is unusual [implied]
Arnold Sexton: junior History major who dropped the course because he couldn’t keep up with the reading [fact]; like English majors, History majors are used to reading a lot, but to this one the reading amount was excessive [fact]

Clearly, it pays to conduct interviews and to do research that will provide you and your argument with factual, objective support. The information you receive from this work will allow you to analyze objectively as well.

Consider one more example. Which of the following makes you feel more assured that you are getting the full picture about the subject:

Example 1
We believe that the library should do more to provide quiet study facilities for its patrons. Many students who responded to our survey said they would like to study in the library but have found that the environment is not conducive to individual or group study. Most said it was difficult to reserve one of the few group study rooms, and several indicated that even on the library’s designated “quiet” floors the noise level was “high.”

Example 2
Our survey found that 85 of 100 respondents believed the library could do more to provide quiet study facilities for its patrons. Ninety-one students who responded to our survey said they would like to study in the library but have found that the environment is not conducive to individual or group study. Fifty-two percent said it was difficult to reserve one of the few group study rooms, and 67% indicated that even on the library’s designated “quiet” floors (2 and 4) the noise level was “high” (5 on a scale of 1-5). One day on Floor 2, a student noted, “a party was going on in the corner. Some guy was playing music on his laptop, and they were laughing and singing.”

While both examples say essentially the same things, the use of vague phrases — many, several, most — and lack of concrete details in the first one would most likely leave the average reader asking questions and demanding specifics. Additionally, by using the phrase we believe, the writers make it sound as though what they have written is their opinion alone, which calls their objectivity into question. By providing concrete numbers and even a quotation, the second example seems more more believable or convincing.

So when it comes to written evidence, provide sufficient evidence: furnish all of the details your reader could conceivably want. It’s better to overdevelop than under-develop. If you say that students are dissatisfied with the current state of any system or program, give facts, figures, results of surveys. And if you have really interesting quotations from your research, particularly if it is original research discovered through interviews or surveys, use them verbatim. Quotations lend your argument a level of authenticity that summaries sometimes do not.

Make sure that your evidence is reliable. This is the only kind your audience is likely to accept. The standards vary greatly: If you’re doing a scientific study, experimental procedures will work as evidence; in business, observations and anecdotes will work best.

Explicitly justify your line of reasoning where necessary. Depending upon the focus of your document, your reader will either accept your line of reasoning outright or require proof that it’s valid. They will be on the lookout for arguments based on false assumptions. For example, if in a report you recommend that Virginia Tech should adopt a football ticket distribution system similar to that offered at a sister school, you have to prove that the two universities and situations are similar enough that the other institution’s system will indeed work here.

Additionally, be specific with your details. Look for any instances in your text where you use vague terminology to support your argument: many students suggest, several people indicated, more than half of all respondents, etc. Providing evidence means giving your readers concrete facts and figures rather than estimations and generalizations: 75 out of 100 students suggest, 10 of 12 people indicate, 68% of 100 respondents.
This means that you should also avoid (in most cases) terminology that suggests you are merely guessing. We believe is a primary example. If you have the facts and figures to support your assertions, you won’t need to guess. And if you don’t have the facts and figures to support your assertions, you should not make them.

Finally, make your objectivity clear. Nothing alienates a reader more than a subjective argument — an argument based on feeling, emotion, anger, impatience, and the like. Work hard — even if the subject means a great deal to you — to present it objectively: to assume the stance of an outsider whose job it is to present the information to the reader without slanting it or presenting it with a bias or tainting its reception by using an angry or impatient tone.

In addition to written evidence, though, you will need to consider visual evidence.