אמינות

Bias is inferred from selection

• Readers can infer narrators' biases by noting which details they choose to include in a narrative and which they choose to omit.
• So reliability is not a feeling about a narrator — it is read off their selections.
• That makes it evidenced rather than asserted, which is what an essay needs.

A narrator who describes every guest except the host may be doing more than forgetting a name.

Bias reduces reliability

• Readers who detect bias in a narrator may find that narrator less reliable.
• Note may and less: the CED describes a sliding scale, not a switch.
• Very few narrators are wholly unreliable, and calling one so is usually an overstatement you cannot defend.

Bias is inferred from what is included and omitted. Detected bias reduces reliability. Reduced reliability changes what you can conclude about motive

Reliability changes what you can conclude about others

• The reliability of a narrator may influence a reader's understanding of a character's motives.
• So an unreliable narrator does not only mislead about facts — they distort every motive they report.
• A character who seems cruel through a biased narrator may not be cruel at all.

Unreliable does not mean lying

• A narrator can be scrupulously honest and still unreliable, because they only know what they know.
• Youth, illness, distance, self-interest and simple absence all reduce reliability without any dishonesty.
• So describe why this narrator's account is limited, rather than accusing them.

A reliability pass

• List what the narrator includes about a disputed event, and what they leave out.
• Name the bias those choices suggest, and say how much less reliable it makes them.
• Then take one character and say how the narrator's bias may have distorted their motives.