The study of composition is in need of a methodology to teach students about the creation of evidence and the epistemological role that it plays in all writing. For many students "evidence" is an absolute, an assortment of facts found in encyclopedias, graphs, tables, census studies, surveys, almanacs, and so on. For most instructors, however, the term "evidence" connotes a process by which certain conclusions are reached. The theory of art historian Jules Prown offers one means of thinking about evidence as process. Prowns's methodolgy is divided into three consecutive inquiry stages centered around an object or painting: a descriptive stage in which observations are made; a deductive stage in which initial realizations, ideas, conclusions and insights are formed; and a speculative stage in which the former deductions are shaped into a whole and the question of "so what?" is entertained. By moving through levels of inquiry in these three stages, Prown has created a set of epistemological moves in which each stage of thought--each an end it itself--becomes evidence for the next stage. An examination of George Stubbs'"The Reapers" illustrates the importance of each of these stages Prown proposes. The point is not to import Prown theory into the classroom but to learn from its implications: surprisingly little attention has been paid, not only by composition scholars but by scholars from all disciplines, to the problem of what constitutes evidence in scholarship. (TB)