4.3 Linking evidence to claims

Linking evidence to claims is the work of showing why a source, quote, data point, or observation actually supports the argument you are making. In AP Research, that means introducing evidence, explaining its relevance, and connecting it back to the discipline, method, and line of reasoning in your paper.

Aligning Your Work With Its Discipline

What does it mean to “align your work with its discipline?” 

What is a Discipline?

Every piece of scholarly work is part of a discipline. A discipline is defined as a branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education. (Oxford Languages) Each discipline has its own established frameworks of understanding and methods of research. It’s up to debate what exactly counts as a discipline but common examples are History, English, Art, Computer Science, Economics, and so on. Disciplines can be combined or intersect — oftentimes, for example, historians will borrow from the work of anthropologists or sociologists to conduct their research. 

Why Does it Matter?

Each discipline has its own ways of researching and communicating. (An example of this would be citation styles: English papers commonly use MLA, History papers often use Chicago, and other fields use guides like APA or AMA. Confirm which style guide is appropriate for your field.) Each discipline has its own specific terminology. An important part of writing your AP Research paper is making sure your paper matches the conventions of the discipline it falls under. 

How Can You Tell?

A rough way to tell which discipline your work falls under is by asking yourself “what subject is this research paper under?” Are you doing scientific research or research in the humanities? The best way to tell, however, is by seeing what discipline your background research papers are in. Are they published in the “Journal of Psychology” or “Journal of Social Sciences?” 

Some pieces of work fall under multiple disciplines. In that case, you should align your work with the discipline or disciplines that most closely match your research question, method, and background sources, rather than defaulting to the broadest area.

What Next?

If you have time, it can be very helpful to your research process to read or read the summary of the foundational texts of your discipline. Generally, these texts will help you understand the principles, practices and assumptions of your field, and then your paper can interact with these assumptions as well. When looking for foundational works, ask yourself is there any text that all my background research papers are referencing or citing? Is there a specific name that keeps popping up? 

You don’t need exact knowledge of your paper’s discipline, but a general knowledge will help you understand how you should format your paper and what types of reasoning are generally used in your field. If you’re reading a lot of background research, you’ll figure out these things almost naturally. 

Properly Quoting Other Sources

Now that we’ve figured out which discipline we’re working in, let’s talk about how to actually use evidence from other sources. 

In an academic paper, it’s not enough to just use the line of evidence you want to use. (This is not necessarily the case in non-academic contexts.) You need to introduce and integrate your quote into your paper, and attribute it properly following a citation format. 

Ways to Use Outside Evidence

There are two primary ways to use outside evidence from other texts: paraphrasing and quoting. Paraphrasing is restating an idea in your own words while quoting is… directly quoting. The above requirements apply to both, although it can be a little harder to quote lines. 

So, how do we do this properly? Let's look at an example. (Note: All examples are fictional unless otherwise stated.) 

Introduction

You introduce a quote by preceding it with an idea or a phrase. This can be as simple as saying “According to so and so…” 

In practice, it’s helpful to have a sentence or phrase preceding the evidence as reasoning.

Integration

This is also how you integrate a piece of evidence: by giving it context and reasoning. 

What if you have a piece of evidence that follows another? You’ll need a few words between the two pieces of evidence to explain their connection, like so! 

In this example, the line further reports indicate that… is used as a transition between the paraphrased piece of evidence and the quote. You could also use transitions such as…

• However…
• Despite this…
• Furthermore…
• In concurrence…

Don't take these one-word transitions as the only way you can move between two pieces of evidence! Your transition between two pieces of evidence can be as long as you need it to be!

Attribution

Finally, take a look at the very end of the sentences. These are examples of attribution using a proper citation format. In this case, I’m using MLA format, which requires that you cite all quotes or paraphrases from books in-text with the author’s last name and the page where you found the quote in question. 

This citation is missing one thing: a corresponding entry in a bibliography, also formatted a particular way. (Imagine there is one.) 

Now that we’ve introduced, integrated and properly cited our evidence, we have a good example of how to use quotes and paraphrases in your essay! (Even if the example is ridiculous.) 

Why is this Important?

Why do we have such rigorous citation requirements? This is because we want to prevent plagiarism, which commonly happens by accident. Acknowledging sources in this structured, rigorous way prevents that. Furthermore, properly citing your sources makes you a more trustworthy academic. 

In our next guide, we’ll be discussing the next step: what do we do with evidence after we’ve used it to make our argument?