AnAlyzIng ARgumEnTs 65To reassure yourself one way or the other, you may want to check the
sources of the author’s statistics — go right to your source’s sources — which
a responsible author will cite. That will allow you to look over the raw data
and come to your own conclusions. A further step you could take would be
to discuss the article with other experts — local real estate agents — to find
out what they think of the article and the information it presents.
Now, let’s go back to Myra and David Sadker’s essay. How do they develop
their assertion that girls are treated differently from boys in classrooms from
“grade school through graduate school”? First, they tell us (in para. 4) that they
have been conducting research continuously for “almost two decades” and
that they have accumulated “thousands of hours of classroom observation.”
This information suggests that their research is both recent and relevant.
But are their studies reliable and accurate? That their research meets
the reliability criterion is confirmed by the grants they received over the
years: Granting institutions (experts) have assessed their work and deter-
mined that it deserved to be funded. Grants confer authority on research.
In addition, the Sadkers explain that they observed and refined their analy-
ses over time to achieve accuracy: “As we watched, we had to push our-
selves beyond the blind spots of socialization and gradually focus on the
nature of the interaction between teacher and student.”
In paragraph 7, the authors provide more evidence that the observations
that support their claim are accurate. Not only have they observed many in-
stances of gender bias in classrooms; so have trained “raters.” The raters add
objectivity to the findings because they did not share the Sadkers’ interest in
drawing a specific conclusion about whether gender bias exists in classrooms.
Also the raters observed a wide cross section of students and teachers from
“different racial and ethnic backgrounds.” At the end of their study, the Sadkers
had collected thousands of pieces of data and could feel quite confident about
their conclusion — that they had “discovered a syntax of sexism so elusive that
most teachers and students were completely unaware of its influence.”Steps to Evaluating Support for a ClaimAsk yourself:■^1 is the source recent? Has it been published in the past few years?
How have things changed since then? If the source was not pub-
lished recently, is it still an important part of the conversation
worth acknowledging?
■^2 is the source relevant? Does the evidence have real bearing on the
claim? Is it pertinent? Is it typical of a larger situation or condition?
■^3 is the source reliable? Does the evidence come from recognized
experts and authoritative institutions?
■^4 is the source accurate?^ Are the data presented in the source suffi-
cient? Have they been gathered, interpreted, and reported respon-
sibly? How do they compare with other data you have found?03_GRE_5344_Ch3_055_079.indd 65 11/19/14 11:06 AM