Making Science Real

......Teaching and learning science in the real world

Writing the Claim: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning

A claim is an answer to a question. Just about any question, actually.

You’ve come up with a question to investigate. You’ve gathered data, either from your own procedure and methodology, or perhaps from data compiled by others.  You may have organized those data in a way that points to a pattern.  Voila!  Proof, right?

Nope. You have the basis for a scientific, evidence-backed claim, though.

Look again at the patterns you found. Do the patterns answer your question? Write down the answer. Not just YES or NO, but the entire answer. No explanation, rationale, convincing,  Just answer the question.

THIS IS YOUR CLAIM. 

THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION IS YOUR CLAIM.

Next, look at the data that gave you the answer. Summarize the data. List examples, averages, change. List enough to convince anyone that your claim is backed by something other than “opinion” or “belief.”

A claim is backed by data; qualitative or quantitative. Later, you will look at those data and get real about the methodology used, how the data actualy support the claim, and why the data support the claim. rfore you move on, know that you have used actual evidence to answer your question and write the answer as a claim.

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