USING EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT IDEAS IN
YOUR WRITING AND THE ACE FORMAT
What do you know about quoting?

Please take a minute to write down anything you
can remember about incorporating quotes into your
writing.
Supporting your ideas with evidence
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WHEN SHOULD YOU USE EVIDENCE: Your whole
career as a writer
WHERE: Any writing assignment, any subject.
WHY: Adding direct evidence supports your ideas,
validates your opinions and makes your writing more
interesting.
HOW: Let’s find out
The ACE Acronym

An acronym to help students remember
the steps of effectively using quotes in
their writing is ACE, which stands for:
ASSERT
CITE
EXPLAIN
ASSERT
Assert your argument. Introduce the quote so the
reader knows how it proves your position.
 Example:
In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,”
the author presents the image of a black box to
foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have
for its winner.
CITE
Cite your evidence. This is where you insert your
indirect or direct quote (we will elaborate on citing
later).
 Example:
In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,”
the author presents the image of a black box to
foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have
for its winner, “… it was necessary to use something
that would fit more easily into the black box” (2).
EXPLAIN
Explain how the quote proves your argument.
 Example:
In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,”
the author presents the image of a black box to
foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have
for its winner, “… it was necessary to use something
that would fit more easily into the black box” (2). The
color of the box implies that the lottery ritual has a
darker meaning for the individual whose name is
drawn.
Indirect vs. Direct Support
INDIRECT: Also referred to as
paraphrasing.
 SPECIFIC events are put into the writer’s
own words to help support their idea.

INDIRECT SUPPORT EXAMPLE:
One theme in Michael Bruce’s “Gentlemen Your
Verdict” is that murder is justifiable in certain
circumstances. Bruce illustrates this moral dilemma
when Lieutenant-Commander Oram serves fifteen of
his men poisoned whiskey in order to save the lives of
five men with families, because there is not enough
oxygen for all twenty to survive until help arrives.
Indirect vs. direct support
DIRECT:

Include
a quote as part of your
OWN sentence.
DIRECT SUPPORT EXAMPLE:
One theme in Michael Bruce’s “Gentlemen Your Verdict” is
that murder is justifiable in certain circumstances. Bruce
illustrates this theme when he has Oram explain to the
shore station that he “arranged that lieutenant Paull,
Engineers Nordin and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and
Coxswain Peer [would] survive” (Bruce 25) because
they were “married men” (Bruce 24). In this incident,
Bruce reveals that faced with the potential death of his
entire crew, Oram makes a difficult moral decision to save
five men.
Reminders about using direct references
(or quotes)

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A quotation should never be a
sentence on its own!
Use ellipses […] to indicate that you
have left some words out of the
quote
Need to change a word?
Use square brackets [ they ] to indicate that you
have changed a word from its original form so that it
fits in your sentence. (ie: fits grammatically, in present
tense, etc.). For example,
 Lieutenant-Commander
Oram explains to shore station
that he “arranged that Lieutenant Paull, Engineers Nordin
and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and Coxswain Peer
[would] survive.”

Do not use two direct references in a row. Use some
of your own words in between. For example,
 Lieutenant-Commander
Oram explains to shore station
that he “arranged that lieutenant Paull, Engineers Nordin
and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and Coxswain Peer
[would] survive” (Bruce 25) because they were “married
men” (Bruce 24).