Evidence: Finding Support For Your Claim
Even though evidence is listed here as the second step in your Open Response, it may be helpful or necessary to find your evidence before forming your claim. Your claim should be supported by evidence found in the text, and you will need to find your evidence to make sure that your claim is correct based on the passage. Evidence should be found and used in direct quotations.
What is a direct quotation? This means that you are taking the words straight from the story and that you use quotation marks to show that these are not your words. When you write in high school and college, you will always have to provide a citation to show where you got your quote from. Although your passages are small enough that you don't have to refer to the paragraph and line number, you can take a look at the citation page to see how to properly cite your sources.
Your evidence needs to directly support your claim; random words and sentences from the text don't count. If you choose to use other words from the text, though, they still need to be in quotation marks because they are not your own words.
When looking for evidence, it's usually helpful to underline or highlight the phrases or sentences in the story that you plan to use. This helps you find them when you are actually writing your open response.
What is a direct quotation? This means that you are taking the words straight from the story and that you use quotation marks to show that these are not your words. When you write in high school and college, you will always have to provide a citation to show where you got your quote from. Although your passages are small enough that you don't have to refer to the paragraph and line number, you can take a look at the citation page to see how to properly cite your sources.
Your evidence needs to directly support your claim; random words and sentences from the text don't count. If you choose to use other words from the text, though, they still need to be in quotation marks because they are not your own words.
When looking for evidence, it's usually helpful to underline or highlight the phrases or sentences in the story that you plan to use. This helps you find them when you are actually writing your open response.
Evidence should be introduced by a phrase that prepares your reader for the quote and lets them know that this quote will prove your claim. Some of these phrases are below and are from our in-class brainstorm (the "...." shows where your quote would go!):
Click here to practice finding evidence!
- In the text, "......"
- According to the author, "...."
- In paragraph ___, "..."
- The (main character) says, "..."
- According to the passage/text/story/article, "...."
- In the story/text/article/passage, it says "...."
- The text/story/etc. shows/demonstrates/states "....
Click here to practice finding evidence!