Writing a Claim-and-Evidence Paragraph
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Commentary/ˈkɒməntri/ | Commentary |
The quotation is there and the marks are not
- Students reliably include evidence and reliably omit the sentence that explains it.
- The reader can see the quotation; what they cannot see is why you think it proves your point.
- That missing sentence is where most lost marks live.
Dropping in a quotation without explaining it is like calling a witness and forgetting to ask a question.
Start with an arguable claim
- Write a claim narrower than your whole thesis but still arguable.
- It should be specific enough that the evidence you have actually bears on it.
- If your evidence would support half a dozen different claims, the claim is too vague.
The paragraph drawn to the proportions it should have- the widths are the point
A body-paragraph claim should be narrower than the ____ but still arguable.
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A claim too broad for its evidence cannot be defended by that evidence.
Embed the evidence
- Introduce the source inside your own sentence, not before it as a separate announcement.
- Quote only the words you will actually discuss.
- A long quotation you do not analyse costs you space and earns you nothing.
On the AP Language rubric, four of the six points are evidence and commentary together. A paragraph with evidence but no commentary is not most of the way to those marks — it is capped well below them, however well written it sounds.
Build a paragraph in proportion
The commonest failure is a paragraph where the evidence is present and the explanation is absent.
Commentary in a body paragraph should explain...
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Restating the evidence is not commentary; explaining the relationship is.
Select all the sentence openers that force a relationship rather than a restatement.
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"In the quotation" invites a restatement; the other three demand a link.
Evidence and commentary together are worth four of the six rubric points.
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That is why a paragraph with evidence but no commentary is capped well below the top marks.
Write the commentary
- Commentary 评述 explains how the evidence supports the claim.
- Begin it with a word that forces a relationship: because, which means, so, the effect of this is.
- Those words cannot be followed by a restatement, which is exactly why they work.
Put the parts of a body paragraph in order.
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Claim, evidence, commentary — and the third is where most marks are lost.
Check your own paragraph
- Cover the evidence. Does the claim still make sense on its own? It should.
- Cover the claim. Does the commentary still point at something? It should not — commentary is about the claim.
- If the paragraph reads the same with the commentary deleted, you have not written any.
Weak: "Attendance fell 12%. This shows the policy did not work." Strong: "Attendance fell 12% in the first year, which means the policy lost precisely the participants it was designed to reach — so its own measure of success records a failure." The second sentence does the work the first only gestures at.
A body paragraph is claim, evidence, commentary in that order. The claim must be arguable and narrow, the evidence embedded rather than dropped, and the commentary must explain the relationship — start it with because, which means or so, which cannot be followed by a restatement.
Write from 40 students still in the library
- The claim is that the library should stay open until 6.
- The evidence is that 40 students are still there at 5.
- Say what the commentary must do.
A paragraph claims the library should stay open until 6 and then quotes a count of 40 students still there at 5. What must the commentary do, and in what order do claim, evidence and commentary belong?
Commentary is the sentence that makes the count mean something.
What has to follow the count of 40 students?
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Evidence does not argue until commentary explains it.