Section 14
James was so anxious and so suicidal that he couldn’t even muster the self-preservation to get into inpatient treatment.
The first claim is this excerpt is an Evaluative Claim and talks about how James is anxious and suicidal. The author is exploring the quality and characteristics of James’ mood, which can both be argued, but also supported by other pieces of evidence. The second claim is a Casual Claim, which has to do with a cause and effect. In this example, the cause is James’ anxiousness and suicidal tendencies, and the effect is his inability to go into treatment. The author is telling us that James’ current mental state is whats causing him to not take any action.
They’d “assumed the normal positions,” she with her back to the restaurant, he facing it so he could monitor everyone, and suddenly, a server dropped a tray out of her periphery, setting her circulatory system off at a million miles a minute.
The first claim on this excerpt comes in the first sentence, “They’d ‘assumed the normal positions…'” The author is making an Attributive Claim. The author can not confirm if everyone was in the “normal positions” or not. He is absolutely making the claim that everyone was in their normal positions, but he is distancing himself from the claim by quoting the wife, making it clear that he cannot confirm if they actually were. The second claim used is a Comparative claim, and it occurs when the author says, “setting her circulatory system off at a million miles a minute. ” This is a Comparative claim because it is comparing Kateri’s normal state of her circulatory system to her current one. There is a hierarchy in this claim where her normal state is more relaxed and calm, and her state at the moment because tense and uncontrolled.
“When you’ve become hypervigilant, the place you are most functional is on the battlefield,” McGill’s Brunet explains. Caleb, despite his injuries and his admission that war was pretty excruciatingly awful, told me he wishes he could go back. Kateri, despite wishing her system hadn’t learned to run at a heightened state, at this point is like a drug addict, needing stimulation to maintain it. For the first time since Iraq, her husband felt at peace, and was able to enjoy a steak dinner with his wife. “He just sat there,” Kateri says. His normalcy “was so distressing to me that I wanted to stab him.”
This excerpt contains many examples of more Attributive claims. The author is using examples of conversations he’s had with with the people he’s quoting to make his claim.
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Beautiful work, Milly, but don’t miss the obvious. In your first analysis there’s a clear but unstated Causal claim that Inpatient Treatment would save James’s life if he would get it.
The second section contains another obvious but unstated Causal claim that the dropped tray and not something else elevated a circulatory system.
You may have a blind spot for Causal claims, or you consider them unworthy of mention. There are several in your third section.
Provisionally graded. Revisions are always encouraged and Regrades are always possible. Put the post into Feedback Please if you elect to revise.
Punctuation Note: here and elsewhere, I’ve noticed you don’t much like apostrophes in places where they belong: whats, its, dont. You got them into he’s, so it’s not all apostrophes you neglect. (And, yes, there are times for its and times for it’s, so maybe thats—oops, that’s—part of the problem.)