Why evidence is important ?

Why evidence is important?

When you're trying to get someone onboard with you, you always give evidence, facts, reasons why your side is more logical than an opposing side. It’s the same thing for an essay even when you are not in averbal discussion it is still important to prove why you hold your stance. A claim alone is just that it does not have any foundation for it to be built on, evidence is the foundation for your claim and makes it stronger than just an opinion. The University of Guelph defines evidence as “facts, examples, or sources used to support a claim” and says that in scientific terms “this might be data retrieved from an experiment or a scientific journal articlehttps://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/get-assistance/writing/writing-disciplines/using-evidence-effectively Using evidence is important but the type of evidence you use is just as important, using chat room opinions or Wikipedia posts does not make you a trustworthy and reliable source of information.

There are different kinds of sources Primary sources and Secondary Sources. Primary sources as defined by the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication “Primary sources are first-hand experiences, accounts, observations, reports, or narratives. Primary sources could include diaries, letters, contemporary newspapers, or eyewitness accounts of events. Official documents (e.g. the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), data collected from surveys, and lab results are also primary sources” In continuation Primary sources can also be first hand witness accounts, if you were covering a news story, you would want to speak to people who were either involved in the story your covering or were there watching what happened. This would make you a reliable source of information because your story is backed by the witness and individuals involved.Secondary sources are written by academics and scholars, defined by the University of North Carolina at chapel hill secondary sources “are considered secondary because they examine primary sources to present an argument or support a point of view; as such, they may be selective with their evidence or insert themselves in a debate happening among a number of scholars. In the sciences, reviews, which are surveys of articles that demonstrate an understanding of a field, are considered secondary.” continue to say that “It is a good idea to be aware of the bias in secondary sources when employing them as evidence.” https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-

                                                                                                   

Now this can be confusing and cause you to think, well if secondary sources bias can cause an issue in my paper, why do some professors require both primary and secondary sources in written assignments? That is a good question and just like the student who is asking this question, critiques of college education and what should be taught in colleges, have also had some concerns on how writing is taught in college. Stanley Fish is one of the critiques in the NY times article What should colleges teach?Fish says that “by all the evidence, high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all” he then continues to say that “the exception seems to be catholic schools” Fish uses individuals who have attended catholic school and “remembered with a mixture of fondness and pain the instruction they received at the hands of severe nuns”. Although I agree with Fish on the argument that there are things high schools and middle schools don’t put focus on that colleges should put focus on. I don’t agree with what he is insinuating,

Although I don’t know how catholic schools give their instruction in full detail, I have read and heard horror stories about what individuals deal with in those schools. Fish himself talks about the “pain” these people felt “at the hands of severe nuns”. I would never want my child instructor to be abusing my child verbally nonetheless physically assaulting them, yes, the curriculum taught in schools should be reevaluated and students should be taught about not only things they will use in real life, but the instructors and parents should together make sure that students are understanding the full concept of writing. Fish is a professor of writing himself and believes that students should learn the full concept of reading and writing at an earlier school stage because these two come hand in hand, fish also believes that because students are not taught better writing and reading earlier, this should not relive college professors of the responsibility of teaching those elements. What fish is saying in a nutshell is that students should have the ability to read and write at a “mastery” level,  however if they do not when they reach higher education this should not mean they get thrown in with students who have already mastered the concept but rather professors should take it upon themselves to teach these skills to their fullest ability. I agree with fish in this argument for many reasons. One this should not just be about reading and writing but for all other courses as well, yes, the education system overall needs to be reevaluated and teachers should make sure a student understands everything that has been taught to them, but I also agree with him because students reaching a college level education does not mean they fully understand everything and a professor should put to use assessments that evaluate what level a student is at and make sure the student is placed in the correct course and has all the tools available for them to succeed onto a higher level of understanding .