IDENTIFYING CLAIMS

A claim is something debatable/arguable and it must offer an assertion about an issue. The claim in your
paper defines your goal, direction, scope, and necessity. Your claims must be supported with pieces of evidence
to make them stronger and believable.

A claim should be specific, concrete, and focused. This will help you discuss and present your pieces of
evidence thoroughly. It should also be clear so that your readers will understand where your argument is leading
them. A claim is the main argument in your essay though it may not always appear in your thesis statement or
topic sentence.
A claim is not always right and acceptable to many. Rather, it is a provocation, analysis, explication, or
application of a concept, theory or idea. It aims to persuade, argue, convince, prove, or provocatively suggest
something to a reader who may or may not initially agree with the given claim.

The following are the most common types of claims.

1. Claim of fact
A claim of fact is something that can be proven or disproven with factual evidence. This could be
something factual, relational-causal or predictive and to make a claim of fact convincing, it must be proven with
sufficient, accurate and appropriate data from reliable sources.
Ex. The mayor is doing his best in handling the issues and problems about the pandemic.
2. Claim of value
A claim of value argues that something is good or bad, or that one thing is better than another thing. It
presents about taste or morals and touches about proper judgements. To strengthen a strong claim of value, a
standard of evaluation must be established and examples clarifying abstract values must be presented where
credible authorities must be cited.
Ex. Learners learn better when attending in a face-to-face class than in an online class.

3. Claim of policy
A claim of policy argues that certain conditions should exist or should not be done to solve a problem. A
claim of policy contains a clear proposed action justified by the need to carry out the action. The plans in the
claim of policy need to be workable and must be beneficial or advantageous to the concerned people. In
justifying a claim of policy, consider the opposition or counter arguments, too. In short, a claim of policy
suggests a solution to a problem that has been defined or described by an argument. The claim must be
supported by sound justifications, clear actions and logical arguments.

Ex. The economic repercussion brought by the COVID pandemic affected the financial status of almost all
businesses and the government is bound to come up with plans to address the problem.