Citing Sources Pt. II

Finding, Citing, Sourcing

Supporting Your Claims

• Toulmin Scheme:– Claim: What you’re arguing– Grounds: Evidence, support, data– Warrant: Link between claim and grounds– Backing: Link between warrants and grounds

Toulmin Scheme

• Claim: Every home needs a smoke detector.• Grounds: Last year, fires destroyed six homes

in St. Cloud, causing $234,000 in damages and killing four people (Smith 4A).

• Warrant: Having a smoke detector will save you and your home in case of fire.

• Backing: Smoke detectors are designed to sound a loud alarm in the presence of smoke.

Questions to Ask

• What exactly is my claim?• Why should people agree with this claim?

(evidence) • How can I show that the evidence really does

support my claim? (warrants)• What evidence do I have that these warrants

are true? (backing)

Claims

• The plays generally attributed to Shakespeare were actually written by more than one person.

• Allowing prayer in schools improves the students’ grades.

• Creatine supplements have been shown to cause many health issues.

When to Cite Sources

• You are supporting a claim with specific evidence (statistics, expert opinion, etc.)

• You borrow material from another source. • You cite specific details or facts in a paper that

your audience wouldn’t expect you to know.

Specific Evidence

• 50% of the 424 participants taking Vitamin D supplements were cured of cancer after two weeks (Johnson 42).

• The noted linguist Karl Gustav claims that Shakespeare’s plays were written by at least three different people (Gustav 12).

• A massive study conducted at the Smith Institute showed that creatine is linked to kidney disease (Gomer and Jones 95).

Borrowed Material

• According to Smith, Shakespeare’s play Macbeth contains words and structures not found in any of his other plays (24).

• A comma splice is “an error in which two independent clauses are joined with a comma but no conjunction” (Jones 7).

Specific Facts

• Hillary Clinton lived for six years in New York City before moving to Rhode Island, where she lived for only two months.

• There are 242 different creatine supplements currently on the market.

• Last year, Microsoft Office sold over 4.2 million copies.

When is citing unnecessary?

• Don’t cite if no one is likely to disagree or dispute your statement:– George Washington was the first president.– Abraham Lincoln was president during the Civil

War.– Ford Motor Company is one of America’s oldest

car manufacturers.– Michael Jackson has sold millions of records.

Cite or Not?

• Last year, Ford Motor Company’s sales fell 4.2%.• The company’s sales have risen and fallen over

the years.• John Deere makes a variety of lawn equipment.• There are Wal-Mart stores in almost every town

in America.• There are 42,204 Wal-Mart stores in the U.S.