Ask how a claim is supported
Read for meaning first. Select a highlighted word if you want a closer look.
A campus journalist was investigating why a delivery missed the student book fair. Her firsthand account came from watching the driver wait at a locked entrance, rather than hearing the story from another reporter. A time-stamped message could corroborate her observation that the driver had requested access. Neither item was conclusive about who had locked the door, however, so she separated what the material supported from the larger question that still required an answer.
The organizer later provided another firsthand account, explaining that he had seen the entrance open earlier that morning. His description could corroborate the reported opening time without settling what happened afterward. The journalist resisted calling either witness conclusive evidence of the entire sequence, because each had observed only part of it. She asked for the building log and recorded the limits of each account before writing a paragraph that readers might otherwise mistake for a complete explanation.
Before you move on
Look away from the passage. Can you explain each focus word in your own words?
Original fictional passages for vocabulary practice.