Support

We use support to make our ideas clearer and more convincing or believable.  We can use specific detail, examples, statistics and/or quotation for support.  The following are very brief examples of each:

Specific detail

    This morning, today again, vast numbers of Tokyo business-
    men with gloomy faces are squeezed into crowded trains to
    get to their offices to begin a 12-hour work day.

Example

    Fairy tales can be very violent.  For example, Gretel burns the
    witch alive in her oven in "Hansel and Gretel."

Statistics

    The Japanese diet contains much more fat now than it used to.
    In 1955 fat accounted for 8.7% of calories, in 1992 for 25.5%

    (Burros, Marian.  "Eating Well."  The New York Times.
      13 Apr. 1994)

Quotation

    The high cholesterol levels of Japanese children worry officials.
    As the president of the National Cardiovascular Center in Osaka
    said, "The Government is concerned; pediatric cardiologists are
    concerned."

    (qtd. in Burros)

Notice that the example, the statistic and the quotation are all directly related to an idea; in other words, they support that idea; they make us believe it. 

Here are some longer examples, with the ideas highlighted and the kind of support labeled.

Education and Hiring in Japan

In Japan a high educational background can
sometimes ruin your chance of getting a job
by making you too expensive.  In the United
States the person with the better education
gets the better job, but not always in
Japan.  For example, I have two friends who        examples
tried to get teaching jobs in public high schools.
One friend didn't go to graduate school because    example 1
he knew employers would be reluctant to hire
him and pay him more.  He got a job easily.
On the contrary, my friend who went to grad-      example 2
uate school so she would be a better teacher,
never could get hired in a public school.  She
would have cost them too much.

Americans Cutting Roots

Four centuries after the Pilgrims reached              detail
Plymouth Rock, European-Americans
are cutting their ancestral roots.  In the last
decade, the number of Americans who said
they were English, Irish, or from another             detail/example
European derivation dipped by at least 32            statistic 1
million, according to new Census 2000 data.
Six million more people than 10 years ago,           statistic 2
about 20 million, listed their ancestry as
"American" or "USA."

(Rodriquez, Cindy and Bill Dedman. 
"Census Finds Fewer Claim European
Ancestry."  The Monterey County Herald.
1 June 2002:  A5)

The Growth of Gambling in the U.S.

The growth of gambling in the United
States in the past thirty years has been
tremendous.  It wasn't that long ago that
Americans could only gamble in Nevada.
Now we can gamble in Atlantic City,                  examples
New Jersey, on many Native American
reservations, or of course in most states
by means of state lotteries.  The dollars
tell the story:  In 1982 revenues from legal          statistics
gambling in the U.S. were 10.4 billion
dollars; in 1996 they were 47.6 billion
dollars (Eadington).  Naturally with the
growth of gambling, the number of people
who are addicted to gambling has increased
also.  One study states "that 1.2 percent of         quotation/
the adult population, about 2.5 million people      statistic
are lifetime pathological gamblers" ("Com-
mission").

                    Works Cited

"Commission Finds Lack of Efforts to Treat
        Gambling Addiction."  Alcoholism and
        Drug Abuse Weekly 28 June 1999.
        Ebscohost.  21 Sept. 1999.
        <http:ehostvgw18.epnet.com/ehost>

Eadington, William R.  "Gambling."  Encyclopedia
        Britannica Online 28 May 2002.
        <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=124256>

Good, adequate support makes all the difference between
superior writing and average writing.

06/07/2002