Claim/Data/Commentary Mini-Lesson--Writing a Strong Argumentative Paragraph
Claim
What is a claim? A claim is the point you are trying to prove. When you are writing an essay, you make several claims. The first claim is the major one that you will make in your essay, and this claim appears in the introduction in the form of your thesis statement. In an essay on characterization and Heller's book, Catch-22, the thesis statement might read, "Heller uses both direct and indirect characterization to develop the character of Yossarian, a character who is a lazy coward." You should be very familiar with this type of claim, the thesis statement that appears in your introduction.
However, you are probably less familiar with the notion that each of your body paragraphs should ALSO start with a claim. This type of claim is more commonly known as a topic sentence. If you were continuing to write the same essay above, a topic sentence claim might read, "Through the thoughts and actions and speech of Yossarian, Heller paints a clear picture of him as a coward."
Data
What is data? Data is the evidence that you use to support your claims. When you make a claim that you don't support with evidence or data, you have committed that rookie error of making an unsubstantiated claim, You can say something all you want, but you can't PROVE your point, prove your claim, without proper evidence.
What is proper evidence? When you are writing a literary analysis essay, proper evidence, or data, comes most often in the form of textual evidence. Textual evidence can be paraphrasing, summarizing, or directly citing the text. When you paraphrase or use direct citations, you must use parenthetical citations to provide the source information dictated by MLA.
Commentary
Commentary is what you have to say about what you have written. In commentary, you answer the "so what?" question, explaining to readers what conclusions they are supposed to draw from the evidence you have provided. Commentary is where you really explain yourself to your readers, the place where you really persuade them that your claim is, indeed, true.
Commentary is often lacking in student essays. This area is the biggest weakness for student writers. So often, I hear students say, "I don't know what else to write. I have said it all." However, once we conference about their papers, we always realize that they have not as clearly made their points as they thought; they haven't written a perfectly clear argument, and typically, they need much more commentary.
Claim, Data, Commentary: A Recap
Please review the Prezi below, and annotate it in your learning log.
Claim, Data, Commentary in Your Writing
Okay. You have had a quick review of claim/data/commentary. Now it is your turn to apply what you have learned to your own writing in order to become a better writer, one who more clearly conveys his/her message to the audience.
This assignment is two-fold.
Step 1: Reread your paragraph on characterization in Heller's novel, Catch-22 and highlight the claim in yellow, the data in green, and your commentary in red. Save this paragraph as "whatever....highlighted."
Step 2: Now, reread your paragraph and decide where you need more information.
Step 3: Rewrite your paragraph, adding in missing components and color-coding these elements using the same key as in Step 1. Save this paragraph as "whatever...rewrite."
Step 4; Post your two paragraphs on Chalkup in the discussion I started.
Step 5: Read and respond to at least 5 classmates.