Essay Evidence

Evidence

Evidence

Introducing Evidence

• Before citing evidence, you need to “set the scene” or at least introduce it
• As simple as, “The author states,”

• A direct quote from the text that supports your premise (and ultimately, the claim)

Introducing Evidence

• When writing body paragraphs, it’s important to “set the scene” before any quotes that you include because you never want to simply throw a quote into the middle of a paragraph.
• It results in choppy and confusing writing.

• Rather, it is important to introduce the evidence/quote with some kind of introductory phrase to increase the fluency of your writing.
• Although, it’s great to have “the author states” to introduce a quote, you’re going to take this idea a step further and include some background information to help give your reader context.

Evidence

Evidence

Introducing Evidence

• Before citing evidence, you need to “set the scene” or at least introduce it
• As simple as, “The author states,”

• A direct quote from the text that supports your premise (and ultimately, the claim)

Importance of Evidence

• Without the right seasoning, food just tastes plain.
• Boring.
• Maybe even gross.

• And when you don’t add any supporting evidence to a paragraph, it’s the same result:
• ideas that don’t fully make sense or are not appealing.

• You could lose the readers’ attention, cause them to disagree, or even make them accuse you of plagiarism
• (since you didn’t cite anything).

• Informative AND persuasive writing really comes to life when you have a VARIETY of evidence types and a “just right” AMOUNT of it to help support your ideas.

Let's Practice

For each piece of evidence in the right hand box with an introductory phrase from the box on the left and add it to a quote. You will write the introductory phrase and evidence in a sentence in your station guide, making sure to include quotation marks in the appropriate places, the page number, and the author’s last name.

Let's Practice Part 2

• There are two examples of a body paragraph for a Response to Literature that answers the prompt:
• "“What is Ms. Honey trying to teach the class?”

• First, in your station guide, write down the introduction to evidence in each paragraph (keep in mind, you might not find any!). Then look at both examples and write which paragraph does a better job of “setting the scene” before the evidence and why.

Your Turn!

• Now that you have had practice introducing evidence and what makes quality evidence, it is time to find evidence for your own essay.

• Use the evidence tracker in your station writing guide and make sure to decide on how to introduce your collected evidence for your essay.

Paragraph #2

Additionally, Ms. Honey wants to show the students that a successful team is also willing to help others. The text states, “‘I think we should ask another group,’the girl said, a little louder this time. She looked at Ms. Honey…who winked” (Carter 2). This time Ms. Honey is trying to let the kids learn that their smaller group’s success could help the whole class succeed at the tasks. She’s trying to show them that successful teams are willing to help others succeed as well by sharing their knowledge and understanding.

Example

According to the text, “Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic client” (Doyle 1).

Word of Caution...

• Don’t overdo it. There IS such a thing as putting too much garlic or salt on something...
• Don’t skip it completely. Remember, without “seasoning”, your paragraph will turn off a reader.
• Spread it out. Don’t just cram all of your facts into ONE body paragraph; sprinkle them THROUGHOUT your writing!
• Don’t put garlic on ice cream. Make sure the seasoning (evidence) matches the food (genre of writing).

Intro to Evidence

Examples

• According to the (name of text)
• According to (name of author)
• The author states,
• (Author’s name) states,
• (Character’s name) states/says/exclaims/yells, etc.

Essay Sentence Stems Resource

Paragraph #1

To start with, Ms. Honey knows that part of the success of a team is who you choose to be on it. Her first instruction is to ask the students to choose their own groups and seats for the day, and she warns, “But choose your groups wisely!” (Carter 1). Here, she is warning them that their choices in teammates may have consequences. She’s clearly trying to demonstrate that the foundation of a successful team is a group of people who can work together well.