Hey. I'm Mr. Sato
I'm going to show you how to write a
supporting paragraph.
In a persuasive essay, you make some
sort of claim, then try to convince
your reader to agree with you.
To my thinking, claim, thesis, and
assertion all mean the same thing.
And by "persuasive essay" I mean any
kind of writing where you're
trying to persuade your reader
to agree with your opinion: book review,
letter to the editor, letter to the
school board, op-ed, sales pitch, that sort
of thing.
This video will explain how to write a
paragraph in that essay that supports
your claim with evidence.
If you don't back up your claim with
evidence -- well, then you'd just be
shooting your mouth off, spouting an
opinion with nothing to back it up.
There are plenty of people like that
in the world and believe me,
you don't want to be one of them.
OK, let's say, hypothetically, your town
has a law banning pit bulls and
you think that's unfair and discriminatory.
Or if you believe that the ban is good and
should be retained, then your thesis
would say that instead.
But in this video's example, our thesis, or
claim, is that the law banning pit bulls
should be repealed or struck down.
A supporting paragraph, which is what
this video is about, should make it
more likely for your reader to agree
with that claim.
Here's the basic 3-part structure of a supporting paragraph: transition,
supporting evidence,
explanation of support.
In this diagram, the transition is red, the
supporting evidence section is green,
and the explanation is white.
All three parts, together, make up one paragraph.
It doesn't always have to be in exactly
this shape, but any good
supporting paragraph will have all of
these elements in some form.
The red part, your transition, depends
entirely on what came before it.
You need to tell your reader that you're done talking about this and you're about
to start talking about that, and "here's
how those two things are related."
For example, if the first paragraph
where you're giving supporting evidence,
you just briefly indicate-that by writing
something like, "First" or "To begin with,"
or "One reason that blah blah blah...."
You are conveying to your reader
that you're starting to give
your supporting evidence.
If the previous paragraph gave an opposing position,
you could transition with "However"
or "On the other hand."
You're telling your reader that you're about
to give a different position than the one
you just wrote about.
Or if you're about to show the effect
of whatever you wrote about
in the previous paragraph, you
could write something like,
"Consequently," or "The result of this is..."
You get the idea.
You're telling the reader how what you're
about to tell them relates to
what you just told them.
If you want more help with your transition,
watch my other video on that topic.
It's about transitions and nothing else.
Here's the URL.
So, in our essay about the pit bull ban, let's say in the previous paragraph, we just wrote
we just wrote about about the number of people in the US who go to the
emergency room after being bitten
by dogs every year.
That number is 300,000, but that's dogs in
general, mind you,
not pit bulls necessarily.
You can transition into your new paragraph with,
"In light of these statistics, it may seem reasonable
to consider a ban on pit bulls, the dogs
who are most associated in
the public imagination with dog attacks.
However, pit bull bans fail to achieve their
main purpose: reducing the number of
pit bull attacks."
Some teachers would call this a topic sentence.
So these two sentences, together, make
up your paragraph transition.
Next, evidence.
This is the middle part of your supporting
paragraph, the green part of our diagram,
the part where you support your claims
with evidence.
Your reader needs to know how you
know this, what your evidence is.
Two things to be cautious of: First, it's
OK to quote someone else's opinion
if they are qualified in some way, like an expert.
But be careful of supporting your own
opinion with someone else's opinion.
That might not be a solid foundation
to stand on.
Second, your supporting paragraph
shouldn't just gush about
how cute they are and how your uncle's pit bull
is the sweetest puppy in the world!
Nope, don't do that.
That may be true, but it isn't strongly persuasive.
That's what's called anecdotal evidence.
Your supporting paragraph should give
hard evidence that supports your opinion,
evidence that you found in your research.
For example, you could cite the fact that
in 1984, Denver banned pit bulls,
and despite thousands of dogs being 
euthanized, there was no change
in the number of bites from pit bulls.
The overall number of bites declined
during that period,
but not because fewer pit bulls
were biting people.
That number stayed the same:
about 12 per year.
Then cite your sources,
so your reader knows you aren't just
making this stuff up.
It's often a good idea to include a second,
similar piece of evidence
in the same paragraph.
For example, you could point out that in
Prince George's County, Maryland,
they banned pit bulls at a cost of
more than a quarter of a million dollars
per year, and in 2003, a study
commissioned by that county came
to the conclusion that
"public safety is not improved
as a result of [the ban]."
Again, cite your source.
The Denver and Prince George's County
examples are your supporting evidence.
Then, you move on to the third part
of your supporting paragraph,
the explanation. This is the white part of the diagram.
Here, you explain why your evidence
proves what you say it proves,
even if you think it's obvious, because it
might not be obvious to your reader.
You could write something like, "The bans
in Denver and Prince George's County
show that breed-specific bans
simply don't work.
Not only that, they could lead authorities
to ignore more likely predictors
of dog bites, like owners
mistreating their dogs --
of any breed! -- using them in
dog fights, and allowing
them to roam the neighborhood
without a leash.
This ban could, in fact, make people
of our town less safe."
Do you see how that explanation tells
your reader that your evidence
supports your claim? It explicitly says it:
"bans don't work," reminding your reader
what point you're trying to make.
It also elaborates on why a ban
won't reduce dog bites.
To elaborate means to give more detail to
make something clearer or
maybe to make it more persuasive.
In that part about ignoring likely
predictors, we gave more detail about
why a ban might actually produce the opposite effect.
Another name for this
explanation part -- is analysis.
Based on some student essays I've seen, some beginning writers don't think
it's necessary to give that explanation.
They're wrong.
I always tell them about the
Worst Lawyer in the World.
"Your honor (slaps a piece of paper onto the table),
this proves that my client is innocent."
"I think that speaks for itself."
Terrible lawyer.
That lawyer needs to explain that that
piece of evidence is a hotel receipt
showing the defendant was not in town
on the night of the murder, so it's
impossible for him or her to have
committed the crime.
That's what a good lawyer would do, right?
That's why you explain why the evidence
supports your claim.
So, those are the three parts of a
supporting paragraph: a transition,
evidence, and an explanation of support.
Your essay should probably have
other kinds of content,
like some of these options,
depending on what it is you have
to communicate.
But you definitely can't write a persuasive
essay without giving reasons
why your reader should agree with you,
and that's what a
supporting paragraph does.
All right, I hope that was helpful.
I have other videos about essay writing.
They might be helpful too.
OK, good luck.
