Evidence law controls what information will be admissible in court and when, how, and by whom it may be presented. It shapes not only the trial decisions of lawyers, judges, and juries, but also many other pretrial and trial decisions and behaviors – for example, by police (whether to initiate a search) and defendants (whether to take a plea deal). Even when the relevant evidence law is known, these decisions are made under great uncertainty. Parties often do not know whether key evidence will be admissible at trial, cannot know how jurors will react to evidence, and, particularly in the criminal context, may not know what evidence their adversary possesses. With all these applications and uncertainties, understanding how legal decisions are made depends on understanding both evidence law itself and the human reasoning processes that created and use it. This chapter thus describes the interplay of evidence law and decision-making across a variety of legal settings and, accordingly, makes frequent references to other chapters in this book.

INTRODUCTION

So, you've done some research and have some interesting results; perhaps you've even written drafts of your method and results sections. Now you have to write your introduction and discussion and figure out how to present your research to the world outside your lab. In addition to describing what you found, how are you going to frame the contribution of your research to psychology? In other words, what claims will you make?

This chapter is about how to make claims; that is, how to develop and communicate the sorts of arguments that make for informative, interesting, and persuasive papers and talks. In the first part of the chapter, we describe different types of claims and discuss how to assess your claim; that is, how to create an argument of “the right size.” In the second part, we discuss when and how to communicate your claim; that is, how to use the standard formats of papers and talks to your best advantage. Although we write in terms of empirical papers, these strategies are also relevant for review papers and talks. In the last part of the chapter, we offer tips specific to giving talks.

We believe that this chapter – focusing on the appropriate way to make research-based claims – will be of particular benefit to fledgling psychologists.