Choosing Evidence from a Short Passage
A dense passage is a different problem
- The exam gives you a passage of a few hundred words, and everything in it was chosen.
- So there is no filler to skip, and no room to quote generously.
- The skill is deciding which four or five words do the most work for your claim.
The order that keeps a paragraph in shape is...
Decide which of the six purposes you need and the quotation almost chooses itself.
Pick the purpose before the quotation
- Evidence is used to illustrate, clarify, exemplify, associate, amplify or qualify a point.
- Decide which of the six you need first, and the quotation almost chooses itself.
- Choosing a quotation first and then hunting for a use is how paragraphs lose their shape.
Quoting more is a safe strategy in a timed essay.
Unexplained evidence is not yet effective, so quoting more just costs time.
Sufficiency under time pressure
- Evidence is sufficient when its quantity and quality provide apt support.
- In a timed essay, three well-explained quotations beat eight unexplained ones every time.
- Unexplained evidence is not weak support — by the CED's own definition it is not yet effective at all.
Select all the factors sufficiency depends on.
Naming devices is not evidence at all.
Eight unexplained quotations are less sufficient than three explained ones. The CED makes sufficiency depend on quantity and quality, and effectiveness depend on commentary — so quoting more is not a way to be safer; it is a way to run out of time before any of it counts.
Keep or discard this quotation?
Sort each candidate by what it contributes to one argument.
The process is ____, so building a thesis from the strongest phrases is legitimate.
What is not legitimate is keeping a thesis the passage stopped supporting.
Recursion is allowed, and useful here
- The process is recursive: an interpretation can come from the evidence, or the evidence from the interpretation.
- On a short passage, reading for the strongest phrases first and building the thesis from them is legitimate and fast.
- What is not legitimate is keeping a thesis the passage stopped supporting.
Put the evidence-selection pass in order.
The phrases that strike you first are usually the strongest evidence in the passage.
An evidence-selection pass
- Underline the five phrases that struck you first. They are usually the strongest evidence in the passage.
- For each, decide which of the six purposes it can serve.
- Keep three, discard two, and write a linking sentence for each one you kept.
A student underlines five phrases, then assigns purposes: two would exemplify the same point (keep one), one would qualify the claim (keep — the rubric rewards this), one would amplify (keep), one has no purpose in this argument (discard). Three quotations, three jobs, no repetition.
On a short passage everything was chosen, so decide the purpose before the quotation — illustrate, clarify, exemplify, associate, amplify or qualify. Sufficiency depends on quantity and quality, and unexplained evidence is not yet effective. The process is recursive, so building a thesis from the strongest phrases is legitimate.