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Blog Post 6-Chapter 7

In chapter 7, the authors discuss evidence as a support for a claim.  Evidence can be the most influential for decision makers as most decision-makers are influenced by data.  Evidence can take the form of examples, testimonies, or statistics.  What interested me the most with this reading was the statistics portion.  It stated that statistics are numerical summaries of examples and are often seen as raw numbers, central tendencies, statistical probability, and statistical trends.  Overall, I found the content in chapter 7 to be very interesting as I am usually influenced the most by evidence when making a decision.  Furthermore, I found the portion on statistics to be the most interesting as one can use statistics in an argument to emphasize significant numbers of examples, to help understand general trends, to evaluate frequencies, and to compare situations over time to discover a trend.  I also identified with this reading because I often turn to evidence when evaluating a claim.  Evidence helps me to better understand the claim and how I should proceed in my decision making.  Also, evidence can persuade me into changing my position on an issue.  Furthermore, when I am the one making a claim, I frequently use evidence to support my argument.  I believe that using evidence in an argument helps to persuade the decision maker and strongly benefits the claim being made.  In total, I think evidence is extremely essential in argumentation and it was interesting to read more about the topic.  

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