Talamantez Comp 1
Worksheet Evaluating Evidence
With a group, consider the examples below. Write in your analysis for each example. When you
are finished, add your name and upload to Blackboard.
Example 1: Winters are getting colder. Opinion polls show that most people think there is a
new Ice Age on the way. Therefore, we need to take measures to ensure that fuel resources
are managed so that nobody is left to suffer from extreme cold during forthcoming winters.
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it related to the point and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
Example 2: “[Hunting by hounds] is the natural, balanced, biological method of
controlling wildlife, proven over centuries.” "Hunting by hounds is the most natural and
humane way of controlling the population of all four quarry species - fox, deer, hare and
mink - in the countryside."
--Veterinary Opinion Statement supported by over 500 members of the Royal College of
Veterinary Surgeons.
http://www.supportfoxhunting.co.uk/what_the_experts_say.s /
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A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it related to the point and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
Example 3: As a resident of Sitka, in southeast Alaska, I’ve worked in the local commercial
fishing industry on and off for the past 17 years. This summer I’ll go out on the boat once more,
in search of salmon, which have become one of the drivers of the region’s economic recovery.
This year, though, the fishing fleet in southeast Alaska will work under the shadow of an
announcement by the United States Forest Service that it intends to approve the Big Thorne
timber sale, which would allow the logging industry to harvest about 6,200 acres of remnant oldgrowth trees in Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest remaining temperate rain forest. It
would be the most destructive old-growth cut in the forest in the past 20 years.
The salmon need those trees to spawn. This means we need those trees.
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it recent, related to the point, and trustworthy?
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C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
Example 4: Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society
now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in
exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract yourself--from commitment to another
human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security,
and economic prudence. Since there’s no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or
be foster parents, it could also help nurture children.
— Andrew Sullivan, “Here Comes the Groom”
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it recent, related to the point, and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
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Example 5: “We are all familiar with the bumper stickers pining for the day that the
defense budget goes to the schools and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale, but
comparing educational spending with national defense isn’t particularly fair, clever, or
logical. First of all, we have to spend money on defense because if we don’t defend our
country — well, the schools won’t matter much. Take the Republic of Georgia, for
instance. Do you really think citizens there are worried about standardized test scores or
drunk Russian soldiers driving tanks down their streets?” (Glenn Beck, Arguing with
Idiots)
Reply by Simon Maloy: “I’m not familiar with those bumper stickers, nor am I familiar
with any public education advocates who argue that we stop spending money on
national defense. And what does Georgia have to do with any of this? Does anyone
begrudge Georgia for spending on its national defense? None of this makes any sense.”
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it related to the point and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
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Example 6: “Filling the tank of an SUV in the U.S. has now crossed the psychologically
traumatizing $100 mark. The resale value of these monsters is plummeting, and many
owners are getting stuck with the things, like holding the Old Maid in cards. I greet this
news with sadistic glee. People who bought SUVs were fools and I want them to suffer.
Not just because I’m a sanctimonious greenie, but because I’m an aesthete. Sure, SUVs
are petro-pigs, and they side-swipe cyclists into the curb. Yes, they emblemize everything
about Americans the rest of the world detests: greedy, wasteful, and oblivious to the
future. But on top of all that, they’re ugly.” — Lionel Shriver, “If the U.S. Election Were
a Novel”
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it related to the point and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
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Example 7: “Over the past few weeks, America’s colleges have sent another class of
graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value.
Nearly every sensible middle-aged person would give away all their money to be able to
go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew. But, especially this year, one is conscious
of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders.
They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They
inherit a ruinous federal debt. More important, their lives have been perversely
structured. This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in
American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been
monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree. Yet upon graduation
they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured. Most of them
will not quickly get married, buy a home and have kids, as previous generations did.
Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes and lifestyle
niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique,
searching for a role… Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the
center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at
the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be
pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time,
but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self
dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.”
(David Brooks)
A. What is the evidence offered? Is it substantive (describing existence or a fact), evaluative,
or policy-oriented?
B. Is the evidence strong? That is, is it related to the point and trustworthy?
C. Is there a rhetorical strategies used (pathos, ethos, or logos)? How effective is that
strategy?
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