Name: ________________________________________
Date: _________________________________
6B- _____
Writing: Notes on Developing Evidence
Evidence: Quotes, examples, or details that help writers prove their main ideas.
When you write a paragraph or an essay, evidence can help you make your main idea more persuasive, or
convincing  basically, more acceptable to your reader. In other words, evidence helps you get people to
trust or “buy into” your opinion  or, at the very least, to understand it.
But evidence won’t generally prove a point by itself. Think about it: If you wrote a main idea and then
simply listed a bunch of quotes or text details, you wouldn’t necessarily have a convincing argument.
This would be like a lawyer dumping a pile of evidence — DNA samples, eye witnesses (thump!), photos,
and a bloody knife — in front of a judge or jury and then abruptly leaving the courtroom. Gone. Over.
Done. “I rest my case.” The problem, of course, is you haven’t really made a case if you’ve done this…
Instead, to make an effective argument, you need to state your main idea and then develop your evidence
so that it’s clear, relevant (meaningful and on-topic), and convincing. A reader unfamiliar with your topic
should be able to read your opinion, which we’ll call your “main idea,” along with your evidence, and
accept your argument for it. So, if you only list your evidence without developing it, or analyzing it, your
reader will probably feel confused or unconvinced. Your reader might fail to see how your evidence
relates to your main idea, or your reader might not understand what your evidence is supposed to prove.
Basically, your reader might fail to see how your evidence supports your argument. As a writer, you are
responsible for helping your reader understand your point. So, if your reader is confused, you probably
need to develop your evidence better.
(over)
To develop your evidence, use the
1.
SEE Method:
Summary: Provide a summary of background information; this should help your reader become
familiar with your topic (book, short story, poem, article, issue, etc.). Be careful to provide only relevant
(related, on-topic) information to give your reader a sense of what events lead to or surround your
specific evidence. Don’t simply write everything you know. On the other hand, don’t simply skip the
summary and dive into your specific evidence without setting it up first. When you summarize the
background information for your evidence, you are putting your evidence “in context.” This means
you’re letting your reader see “the big picture” and understand the broader situation for your evidence.
Make sure you put the details of your summary in a logical order  in most cases, chronological order
works best. In other words, put your details in time order, the order in which they occurred.
2.
Evidence: Provide the specific quote, examples, or details from the scene that best supports your
main idea. Your evidence should be more specific than your summary and, in most cases, it should zoom
in on a specific part of your book, short story, poem, article, or issue. In essence, your evidence shows, or
displays, your main idea through relevant, revealing text details. Strong evidence tends to have a
meaning that goes beyond the obvious. To select convincing evidence, look for quotes, examples, or
details that have powerful suggestions, that basically show your main idea, instead of simply stating it.
Two ways to provide evidence:
1. A single quote: Quotes tend to be the strongest, most revealing and meaningful form of
evidence. Figuratively speaking, quotes are to written arguments what eye-witnesses, video,
black boxes, DNA analyses, revealing emails, or fingerprints are to court cases. If you use a
quote as your evidence, you can usually get away with just one. Another analogy: quotes are
garlic; they’re strong. Don’t overuse them. A dash of quote can make a paragraph powerful.
Start a quote with a tag: who said it; to whom; when? This is specific context for your quote.
2. 3 Examples / 3 Text Details: Examples, or text details (basically the same thing), can be
powerful and convincing, but they tend to be most persuasive in bunches. If you decide to use
examples instead of quotes, use three of them. Typically, instead of listing examples one right
after the other, writers will add summary between them to put the evidence in context. When
you do this, your supporting details take a slightly different form: Summary-Evidence (Ex #1);
Summary-Evidence (Ex #2); Summary-Evidence (Ex #3); then Explanation for Ex #’s 1-3.
(over)
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3.
Explanation: Explanation can come in different forms. In the explanation, you somehow make a
connection between your evidence and your main idea. Often, you will explain HOW your evidence
proves your main idea. To do this, you might need to interpret a quote or explain the way that a
particular scene from a book, short story, or poem supports your main idea. Generally, your explanation
can’t be found in the text. Instead, you need to create your own interpretation, explanation, analysis,
defense, inferences, connections, or argument. Basically, you need to show the deeper meaning of your
evidence here. It’s a good idea to assume that your readers don’t understand the connection between
your evidence and your main idea. Spell it out for them. This is your chance to “read between the lines”
of your evidence and make a thoughtful and convincing argument. Do NOT merely repeat your main
idea here or tell your reader that your evidence proves your main idea. And do NOT add new plot
here; in other words, don’t continue to summarize the action of a story or the events of a news article.
Instead, tell your reader HOW your evidence proves your main idea. Go beyond the plot. Make thoughtful
observations that prove you’ve paid close attention to the text, that you’ve carefully analyzed its most
powerful ideas, even those that are not easy to see on first glance.
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