Supporting Details Presentation

Reading Skill:

Supporting Details

Details make up most of the information
in what you read, but some are more
important than others.

The most important
supporting details
contribute directly to
accomplishing the writer’s purpose.

Those that are less
important are called minor details.

Details that contribute
nothing are called
irrelevant details.

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Purposes of Significant Details:

To define a topic,

To show what a topic is: an
expanded version of the kind of
explanation a dictionary would give

To give examples,

Usually as part of an explanation, or
to help a reader understand a
broader topic.

To describe,

So that a reader can picture the topic.

To support,

To give reasons supporting an
argument or opinion

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To explain

A fact or idea in a passage that uses logical reasoning to make the fact or idea clear

To advance sequence of events

(could be the plot of a work of
fiction) the factual sequences of
events in a history, biography, or
other factual narrative

To set mood or tone

(Usually in a work of fiction)
sometimes in a biography or other work of nonfiction that uses some of the techniques of fiction

To reveal character

Through direct description or
through the speeches, actions, or
thoughts of the character

Types of Significant

Details:

Let’s tackle this chart! It
will make more sense when you

see the examples.

Examples

When we lie, voice and body language often
give us away. Most people speak in a higher
tone or voice when they aren’t telling the truth.
When telling a lie, people stumble over their
words. A person telling a lie tends to look away
from the person they are talking to. Speakers
smile less when lying. Finally, people telling lies
tend to keep their hands still and out of sight.

Supporting details give
examples of how
people speak and act
while lying.

*used to give a
variety of examples for one topic

5

​Underline the main idea and highlight the examples in this paragraph on your notes.

Sensory Details

The painter Edward Hopper is known for capturing a lonely feeling about urban life.  In Nighthawks, the garish neon light of a late-night diner casts an eerie glow across an empty city street.  Early Sunday Morning, a view of six dusty storefronts, is a hauntingly still scene.  Room in Brooklyn shows a lone woman in a bare-floored room with a view of an empty sky.

Sensory details tell what
the writer saw and felt when
looking at several Hopper
paintings.

*used to give an immersive
descriptionof a person,
place, or event

5

​Underline the main idea and highlight the sensory details in this paragraph on your notes.

Facts and Statistics

Some of the largest and most attractive insects are in the order Lepidoptera: butterflies and moths. The order includes 75 families of moths and of butterflies; in North America, at least 7,000 species are known. Almost all have two pairs of wings. The wings and body are covered with scales and modified hairs, which gives moths and butterflies their distinctive colors.

This paragraph uses
facts and statistics to
support the main idea.

*used to give research
and specific
measurements,
amounts, and credible
information

7

​Underline the main idea and highlight the facts/statisitcs in this paragraph on your notes.

Reasons

Senior-citizen housing often lacks the vitality of a
mixed-age community. Having all ages live in the
same place creates a positive energy. Studies show that elders have a healthy impact on children’s social development. Elders report that intergenerational relationships make them feel better about their lives. Elders should not be encouraged to live in separate
communities.

Supporting details are
reasons that support the
writer’s opinion.

*used to support an
opinion; persuasive in
nature

8

​Underline the main idea and highlight the reasons in this paragraph on your notes.

Anecdotes

President Calvin Coolidge was known for his brevity of speech. Among Washingtonians, it was something of a standing challenge to get the president to talk. At one dinner party, a Washington insider told Coolidge that she had bet a friend that she could get the president to say at least three words, In response, President Coolidge shook his head and said, “You lose.”

The anecdote supports
the idea that Coolidge
was a man of few
words.

*used to give a personal
account in the form of a
short story that supports
a statement

9

​Underline the main idea and highlight the events in the anecdote in this paragraph on your notes.

10

Good work!

Let’s do another
practice in
Schoology.