1. A method, in a data processing system having a processor and a memory and which implements a Question and Answer (QA) system, the method comprising: receiving, by the QA system, an input question; analyzing, by the QA system, the input question to extract one or more semantic or syntactic features of the input question; determining, by the QA system, an answer to the input question and supporting evidence for the answer based on an evaluation of a corpus of information; analyzing, by the QA system, natural language content of the supporting evidence to identify reasoning key words or reasoning key phrases and associated reasoning criteria, present in the natural language content of the supporting evidence, the reasoning criteria specifying a reason as to why the answer is considered to be a correct answer by a provider of the supporting evidence; generating, by the QA system, one or more rules based on the identified reasoning criteria, wherein the one or more rules correlate the answer with the identified reasoning criteria and the one or more semantic or syntactic features of the input question; storing, by the QA system, the one or more rules as one or more entries in a reasoning data structure; and processing, by the QA system, a subsequent question based on the reasoning data structure.