7.1 Crafting Supporting Ideas

Every day, all around the country, people make claims without offering any information to support them or based on statistics or factoids presented out of context. Students on your campus might claim that local policies are biased against students but may not explain why. Politicians may make claims in their speeches about “family values” without defining what those values are or throw out statistics without giving credit to where they found those numbers. Indeed, the nonpartisan websites FactCheck.org and Politifact.com are dedicated to investigating and dispelling the claims that politicians make in their speeches, and Snopes.com investigates many of these claims as well.

In this chapter, we will learn why support is essential to effective presentations, as well as how to incorporate support to build stronger arguments within a speech.