Argument & Evidence Basics

Argument Structure — Claims, Reasons, Evidence, Counterarguments & Rebuttals

How an author builds a complete argument — claim, reason, evidence, counterargument, rebuttal, qualification, conclusion — and how to evaluate whether the evidence actually earns the claim it's supporting.

Comparison, Contrast & Concession in Advanced English

How to read although, even though, while, whereas, despite, unlike, rather than, and in contrast precisely — telling a simple comparison apart from a sharp contrast, and from a concession an author makes to strengthen their own argument.

Modality, Stance & Author Position in Extended Texts

How to read exactly how certain an author is about each claim — separating a proposition from the author's degree of commitment to it, tracking attribution across a passage, and reconstructing a qualified final position from a paragraph's hedges.

Cause, Evidence, Explanation & Alternative Explanations

How to read a causal claim critically — separating what happened first from what actually caused what, naming the mechanism behind a cause, spotting confounding variables, and weighing alternative explanations a text may be quietly passing over.

Evidence, Claims, Data & Interpretation

How to separate data from observation, observation from interpretation, and interpretation from inference — so you can judge whether a study's evidence actually matches its claim, its sample supports its scope, and its conclusion is genuinely earned.