Citation is not Evidence

You write a paragraph, it has a point, it has citations. But your supervisor asks you, where is your evidence? Because you cited 3 sources within that paragraph. That is why just citing is not the same thing as providing evidence. And what your paragraph actually needs. Citing a source and providing evidence are not the same thing. Say something like, social media affects student intelligence. Samuel 20:26. It's not evidence. Evidence is what you show from inside that source that supports your current claim. Every paragraph need to have three layers. Every paragraph need to have three layers. There has to be a claim. A paragraph must make a point. This is not a vague or broad point. It's a specific point. For example, heavy social media use is associated with reduced working memory capacity in undergraduate students. That's the first layer. The second layer is evidence. People just rush past this. Evidence must be specific enough for the reader to evaluate it. A strong evidence is you saying, Samuel 20:22, found that undergraduate using social media for more than three hours daily scored 22% lower on working memory tasks than light users. With the effect holding after controlling for sleep and anxiety. You see what that does? It gives actual evidence. Specific comparison, specific control. Now your reader can evaluate whether this evidence is strong. Let me give you the type of evidence and when to use each of them. You need statistical evidence and you use it when you are making claims about how common or how strong a relationship is. You need qualitative evidence. Use it when you are making claims about why or what an experience looks like. You need meta-analytic evidence. These are evidence synthesized across multiple studies. These are very strong evidence. You can even use methodological evidence when you're trying to evaluate the quality of the research. After evidence, you then come to the analysis. Every piece of evidence needs a sentence of analysis after it. What does the evidence mean? What does it show about your own claim? Don't just drop the evidence and run away. I see you in the next one.