Evidence doesn't make sense in a vacuum. By the time you have finished preparing to write your
argument, you will have thought about your topic so much that it will always be more obvious to you how your evidence supports your
claim than it is to your reader. If you don't introduce your evidence and explain how it’s relevant, you risk confusing or overwhelming your readers with facts and figures.
Let’s look at a paragraph from a history paper about involuntary sterilization—the policy of sterilizing people with so–called “defects.” The writer’s main claim is that a set of involuntary sterilization laws passed in North Carolina in the early twentieth–century had a detrimental impact on the people of the American South. These laws were supported by eugenicists—people who believed in selective breeding among humans to encourage racial purity.
The original version of the paragraph simply presents the evidence without introducing it or explaining why the facts and figures matter.
What to Look For
As you read, try to figure out how each bit of evidence is relevant to the main claim about the harm done by the North Carolina laws. Make a note on your sketchpad of
how you might explain the relevance of each bit.
A) From 1907 to 1970, state governments forced more than 60,000 individuals, mostly poor white women, to undergo involuntary sterilization. In 1935, the state of North Carolina involuntarily sterilized 168 white women but only 11 black women.1 The majority of the operations were performed between 1930 and 1950.2 In 1927, the United States Supreme Court ruled the involuntary sterilization laws constitutional.
1R. Brown. Eugenical Sterilization in North Carolina: A Brief Survey of the Growth of Eugenical Sterilization and a Report on the work of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina Through June 30, 1935. (Eugenics Board of North Carolina, N.C.: 1935.) Special Collections Lib., UVA, Charlottesville.
2Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. 78.
Now read the revised version, written after several readers complained that they did not know what to make of the evidence.
What to Look For
- In what ways does this version help you connect the evidence to the claim it supports? For an explanation, click on a sentence.
B) The racist goals of the eugenicist movement were pursued primarily through state rather than national measures. The first measures were laws in southern states that mandated involuntary sterilization of women. From 1907 to 1970, state governments forced more than 60,000 individuals, mostly poor white women, to undergo involuntary sterilization. While any woman, regardless of race, could be sterilized under the laws, poor white women were sterilized in much greater numbers than black women. In 1935, the state of North Carolina involuntarily sterilized 168 white women but only 11 black women.1 Eugenicists targeted white women more than blacks because their goal was to promote the breeding of a pure white race; they didn’t bother to sterilize black women because they weren't interested in the purity of the black race.2 There was wide public support among white supremacists for the eugenicists’ policy, not only at the state but at the national level.3 The majority of the sterilizations were performed between 1930 and 1950, despite the fact that in 1927, the United States Supreme Court ruled the involuntary sterilization laws constitutional.
1 R. Brown. Eugenical Sterilization in North Carolina: A Brief Survey of the Growth of Eugenical Sterilization and a Report on the work of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina Through June 30, 1935. (Eugenics Board of North Carolina, N.C.: 1935.) Special Collections Lib., UVA, Charlottesville.
2Dorr, Arm in Arm, 143-166.
3Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. 78.
What Most Readers Think
Most readers find paragraph (A) unclear because it does not help them to understand what to make of the dates, laws, and numbers of sterilizations. They either have to slow down to figure out what each sentence means, or they have to try to keep track of all of those data without processing or reflecting on them. By not connecting its evidence to its larger argument, this paragraph hides its connection to the writer’s basic point: that this information says something about early twentieth–century racism.
Few readers find paragraph (B) similarly difficult. They find that it has the right amount of explanation not only to understand what each bit of evidence means but also how all of it adds up to support the main argument.
