In a research paper, body paragraphs must be built around evidence. In order to be convincing, the evidence must be tied to a specific argument the writer is making. The evidence to be cited must be shown to be significant, important, relevant, or valuable to the argument being made. And the evidence must be authoritative. The following model, based on material developed by Dr. Brian Hale of Chattanooga State Community College, presents a simple model for students to use in building a strong paragraph in their essays.

CLAIM

An argument made in support of the thesis, usually the topic sentence of the paragraph. Sometimes transitional sentences are also claims.

CONTEXT

The background needed to understand the authority of the source of evidence used to support the claim.

The context sentence

• Identifies the author of the source by full name
• Identifies the title of the source
• Establishes the authority of the source by presenting credentials or demonstrating the Significance, Importance, Relevance, or Value of the evidence.

CITE

The presentation of the evidence used to support the claim.

• Evidence is paraphrased, summarized, or quoted as appropriate (often a combination of these, but primarily paraphrase and summary)
• Long quotations (three quoted lines are more) are block indented, infrequently used, and always introduced with their own context statement. When long quotations are used, the student writer is "surrendering the floor" to an expert to present expert testimony.
• Sentence quotations are inline quotations (part of the flow of the text) and are generally used because the sentence reveals a sense of personality or character. Students overuse sentence quotations using them as "sound bytes" and often out of context, sometimes in ways contrary to their original meaning in context.
• The most frequent use of quotation should be the use of key words or phrases blended into the student writer's own voice, but marked as quotations (to give the original writer credit for the words used).
• Appropriate MLA style citations for the source information is given. All references to sources, whether summarized, paraphrased, or quoted must be cited using internal parenthetical citations.

The bulk of the paragraph should be the evidence being cited. A major mistake made by students is to cite the conclusions reached by sources rather than citing the evidence from those sources that led to that conclusion. Details are the essence of evidence. Students with papers that are too short frequently have papers that lack detailed evidence. When taking notes from sources, do not neglect information presented in tables or graphs or examples contained in case studies.

CONNECT

The evidence is tied back to the claim by clarifying how the evidence supports the claim. The connect sentence restates the claim but does so reflecting the evidence used to support the claim. Students should be careful of belaboring the connect statement, expanding it into several paragraphs that just repeat the main idea over and over.