Citing Textual Evidence to Support a Claim

Identifying Supporting Evidence In a Text

Writing

Identifying Supporting Evidence

When making claims or other arguable statements in your writing, make sure you can support them with concrete evidence from reliable sources. By drawing upon such evidence, you make your writing more accurate. In addition, by quoting or citing such evidence when appropriate, you avoid plagiarism and make your writing more convincing.

Writing

Identifying Supporting Evidence

For example, when writing an essay about a piece of literature, you might support a claim by quoting evidence from the text:

Claim: Patrick was not fearless; rather, he took action despite his fear.

Evidence: "Patrick bit his nails anxiously. Finally, he took a deep breath, nodded to himself with conviction, and burst into the room."

Writing

Identifying Supporting Evidence

Similarly, when writing a report about a factual topic, you might support a claim by citing evidence from a relevant and credible source:

Claim: The majority of American adults are married.

Evidence: A 2011 poll found that 50.8% of U.S. adults are married.

Writing

Multiple Choice

The narrator, Nick Carraway, recounts his father's advice in the following passage. Select the best evidence to support the statement, "Being open-minded helps Caraway become acquainted with many different personality types." There may be more than one correct choice.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.

From F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. Copyright 1925 by 

• In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran

  bores.

• In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that

  I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

• "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

• He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.

Multiple Choice

Select the best evidence to support the statement "John Harvard did not anticipate that a university would be named after him." There may be more than one correct choice.

John Harvard did not found Harvard University, as is commonly believed. The Puritans founded it collectively in 1636 with a public grant of four hundred pounds for the purpose of training young ministers of the gospel. The university, however,honors the name of John Harvard, a butcher's son and a graduate of Cambridge University. He died in 1638 of tuberculosis, bequeathing a modest sum of money along with four hundred books—his entire library—to the institution. Little did young Harvard dream of the fame to be attached to his name for this modest act of charity. And even less could he have dreamed that his little library of four hundredbooks would one day increase to more than eight million.

• John Harvard did not found Harvard University, as is commonly believed. .

• The university, however,honors the name of John Harvard, a butcher's son and a graduate of Cambridge University.

• Little did young Harvard dream of the fame to be attached to his name for this modest act of charity.

• He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.

Multiple Select

In the following passage, the narrator reflects on his mother's character. Select the best evidence to support the statement "Photographs of the narrator's mother don't reflect her personality as he knew it." There may be more than one correct choice.

She liked to make me laugh by calling herself an Okie even though she was as glossy and nervy and stylish as a racehorse. That exotic character unfortunately comes out a little too stark and unforgiving in photographs-her freckles covered with makeup, her hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck like some nobleman in The Tale of Genji-and what doesn't come across at all is her warmth, her merry, unpredictable quality, which is what I loved about her most. It's clear, from the stillness she emanates in pictures, how much she mistrusted the camera; she gives off a watchful, tigerish air of steeling herself against attack.

From Donna Tart, The Goldfinch. Copyright 2013 by Donna Tart

• She liked to make me laugh by calling herself an Okie even though she was as glossy and nervy and stylish as a racehorse.

• That exotic character unfortunately comes out a little too stark and unforgiving in photographs-her freckles covered with makeup, her hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck like some nobleman in The Tale of Genji-and what doesn't come across at all is her warmth, her merry, unpredictable quality, which is what I loved about her most.

• It's clear, from the stillness she emanates in pictures, how much she mistrusted the camera; she gives off a watchful, tigerish air of steeling herself against attack.