Feeling isolated, many teenagers turn to drugs or gang membership to solve their problems, according to interviews conducted by Smith and Paget at the Outsiders Cafe.

Working with Available Evidence

Academic writers must be careful to develop their claims in sufficient detail but at the same time not to overwhelm their readers with inessential or meaningless ideas. For example, sometimes it is tempting to include interesting details that are related to your topic in a general way but don't help to explain your specific supporting points. In particular, if your focus is a comparison of the cost, nutritional value, and availability of fast food and health food, you need evidence that illustrates the differences in these two kinds of food. Information about the history of tofu, a common health food, will not be useful in this paper. In selecting our evidence, we also need to make sure that it is appropriate for academic communication in nature and provides sufficient support for our claims. Last but not least, we have to decide how strong or broad our claim can be given the evidence at our disposal.

Activity 1: Evaluating the relevance of available evidence

Look over the thesis statements and supporting points below and decide which of the evidence would effectively explain, elaborate, or illustrate the underlined part of the theses, and which ones would be redundant.

Thesis: Ships and planes often vanish in the Bermuda Triangle because of environmental reasons, supernatural causes, or unexplained phenomena.

Evidence: 1. Christopher Columbus observed a huge ball that looked like a meteor falling into the sea as he first sailed near the Triangle on his way to the West Indies in 1492.

2. One hundred miles north of Puerto Rico is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, estimated to be 30,100 feet deep; it is here that most of the accidents between Miami and the Bahama Islands have happened.

3. According to Angelina Campo in "Mysteries from the Realms of Outer Space" highly developed beings from outer space have created their own society under the Atlantic Ocean in the area of the Bermuda Triangle, and it is they who abduct the travelers.

4. Roy Hutchins, a retired Coast Guard Captain, said, "Weather within the Triangle where warm tropical breezes meet cold air masses from the Arctic is notoriously unpredictable."

5. The Bermuda Triangle is one of the few places on earth where the compass points to the true north instead of the magnetic north. Because of this, sailors must adjust their direction carefully and the inexperienced may fail to do this, thus losing their way.

Thesis: Using the Internet gives young people increased literacy but also leads to health problems and isolation from other people.

Evidence: 1. Asked their preferences for spending free time, 19 percent of the student body at the high school chose playing sports; 24 percent, watching TV; 22 percent, listening to music; and 34 percent, surfing the Internet.

2. In Waltham's study, business people between the ages of 35 and 50 reported spending 10 to 12 hours a day online, thus severely impacting the time they spent with colleagues and family.

Feeling isolated, many teenagers turn to drugs or gang membership to solve their problems, according to interviews conducted by Smith and Paget at the Outsiders Cafe.

4. "The problem of feeling estranged from society is much more severe among young people who spend more than four hours a day online," states Martha DePriau, psychologist at Vanderbilt University.

5. Sixty percent of Internet users between the ages of 12 and 25 reported that they spend more time online than with family or friends.

(Adapted from Dollahite and Haun [2012]. Sourcework: Academic Writing from Sources)

2) The following paragraph contains sentences that are off target – sentences that do not support the opening point – and so the paragraphs are not unified. Identify this irrelevant evidence.

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