Use photos, data and others research to corroborate your findings
When researching a topic, it is very important to find photos, data, and others’ research to corroborate your findings. In doing so, your research becomes more credible. Appropriate data to use could include graphs, polls, photo evidence, research projects, etc. This data should directly relate to your topic or your stance on the topic.
There are a few things to consider when collecting evidence for research:
Is the source credible?
Using a not credible source as evidence automatically eliminates any credibility from your findings. To ensure this doesn’t happen, try to collect evidence from official websites, such as government websites or university/research websites.
Is the evidence relevant?
Much of how to use evidence is about finding a clear and logical relation between the evidence you use and your claim. For example, if you are asked to write a paper on the effects of pollution on watersheds, you would not use a story your grandfather told you about the river he used to swim in that is now polluted. You would look for peer-reviewed journal articles by experts on the subject.
Make sure the evidence supports your findings and relates to your overall topic. Analyze what you found to support your point. Is all the information in my findings recent? Does the scope of my evidence support the scope of my topic? For example, if you are writing about a gun violence problem in Philadelphia, you might want to provide a statistic of gun violence victims per year in Philadelphia, supporting your claim.
Analyze your evidence
Once you have selected your evidence, it is important to tell your reader why the evidence supports your claim. Evidence does not speak for itself: some readers may draw different conclusions from your evidence, or may not understand the relation between your evidence and your claim. It is up to you to walk your reader through the significance of the evidence to your claim and your larger argument. In short, you need a reason why the evidence supports the claim – you need to analyze the evidence.
Some questions you could consider are:
- Why is this evidence interesting or effective?
- What are the consequences or implications of this evidence?
- Why is this information important?
- How has it been important to my paper or to the field I am studying?
- How is this idea related to my thesis?
- This evidence points to a result of an experiment or study. Can I explain why these results are important or what caused them?
- Can I give an example to illustrate this point?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence presented?