{"id":573,"date":"2016-05-26T22:07:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T22:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/?post_type=chapter&p=573"},"modified":"2016-07-19T20:03:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-19T20:03:52","slug":"outcome-finding-evidence-2-3","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-level2-english\/chapter\/outcome-finding-evidence-2-3\/","title":{"raw":"Outcome: Finding Evidence","rendered":"Outcome: Finding Evidence"},"content":{"raw":"

Analyze\u00a0activities to find evidence in support of a claim<\/h2>\r\nOnce a working thesis statement is in place, your essay has begun to establish a claim<\/strong>--something the project\u00a0is stating to be true. No matter how elegant the claim itself is, though, it's only a small piece of the writing task. A claim by itself is powerless to influence a critically-thinking audience, and you should assume that any audience reading your work will be critical thinkers.\r\n\r\nIt's pretty alarming, and even insulting to readers, when evidence isn't provided to support a claim. Here's one study reflecting this in action:\r\n
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\"PaintingThe Royal Society of Chemistry\u2019s magazine Chemistry World<\/em>\u00a0published an article<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 2008 on a study of psychiatric drug ads in medical journals that found that over a third of the total claims made by drug ads are not actually supported by the studies they reference as evidence.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Taken on an ad by ad basis, the results are even more shocking:<\/span><\/p>\r\n

42 out of the 53 ads (nearly 80 per cent) the researchers examined made at least one claim the team couldn\u2019t substantiate. 27 made a claim that was not supported by the data source cited by the ad. A further 15 contained claims that couldn\u2019t be verified by the team \u2013 usually because the ads provided no sources of data to back up their claims, or made claims that could not be verified because drug firms either failed to respond to the researchers\u2019 requests for trial data, or refused to supply it.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\r\n

Six out of nine pharmaceutical companies \u2013 including GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Shire \u2013 did not reply to the researchers, while Wyeth refused to send trial data.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u2018In these cases, we have to take their word [that their claims were supported by scientific evidence], which, personally, I would think is not a wise idea,\u2019 says author Glen\u00a0<\/i>Spielmans<\/i><\/span><\/a>. Only Janssen Pharmaceutica \u2013 makers of schizophrenia drug Risperdal (risperidone) \u2013 and medical device firm Cyberonics sent relevant studies to back up their claims.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\r\n

You\u2019d think after spending all that time and effort to design and run trials which consistently support<\/span><\/a> the manufacturer\u2019s product you could just reference your own studies, but apparently even that seems too excruciatingly transparent for the spin-happy industry.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nWhen examined by critical readers, these advertisements that fail to provide support actually do more harm than good. Doctors will be much less likely to prescribe them as a result.\r\n\r\nWe'll explore the means to locate and apply appropriate evidence to your own writing, in the following pages.\r\n

What You Will Learn To Do<\/h2>\r\n