When you argue claims of value (Chapter 8) and offer an analysis (Chapter 10), textual evidence will be very important. In your college courses, if you are asked to evaluate a controversial article, you must quote, paraphrase, or summarize passages so that readers can understand why you think the author’s argument is or is not credible. If you are analyzing a novel, you must include numerous excerpts to show just how you arrived at your conclusion.
For textual evidence to be considered effective support for an argument, it must be carefully selected to be relevant. You must help readers see the connection between each piece of evidence and the reason it supports. Textual evidence must also be highly selective—that is, chosen from among all the available evidence to provide the support needed without overwhelming the reader or weakening the argument with marginally relevant evidence. Textual evidence usually has more impact if it is balanced between quotation and paraphrase, and quotations must be smoothly integrated into the sentences of the argument.
You can read “Araby” in Chapter 10, pp. 497–500.
The following example comes from a student essay in which the writer argues that the main character (referred to as “the boy”) in the short story “Araby” by James Joyce is so self-absorbed that he learns nothing about himself or other people:
Crane cites textual evidence from “Araby” to convince readers to take her argument seriously.
The story opens and closes with images of blindness—a framing device that shows the boy does not change but ends up with the same lack of understanding that he began with. The street is “blind” with an “uninhabited house . . . at the blind end” (par. 1). As he spies on Mangan’s sister, from his own house, the boy intentionally limits what he is able to see by lowering the “blind” until it is only an inch from the window sash (par. 4). At the bazaar in the closing scene, the “light was out,” and the upper part of the hall was “completely dark” (par. 36). The boy is left “gazing up into the darkness,” seeing nothing but an inner torment that burns his eyes (par. 37).
The boy’s blindness appears to be caused by his obsession with Mangan’s sister. When he tries to read at night, for example, the girl’s “image [comes] between [him] and the page,” in effect blinding him (par. 12). In fact, he seems blind to everything except this “image” of the “brown-clad figure cast by [his] imagination” (par. 16). The girl’s “brown-clad figure” is also associated with the houses on “blind” North Richmond Street, with their “brown imperturbable faces” (par. 1). The houses stare back at the boy, unaffected by his presence and gaze.
—SALLY CRANE, “Gazing into the Darkness”
For more information on paraphrasing, see pp. 531–32 in Chapter 12 and pp. 706–8 in Chapter 26.
Notice how the writer quotes selected words and phrases about blindness to support her reasoning that the boy learns nothing because he is blinded. There are twelve smoothly integrated quotations in these two paragraphs, along with a number of paraphrases, all of them relevant. The writer does not assume that the evidence speaks for itself; she comments and interprets throughout.
Analyze the use of evidence in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Iris Lee’s essay “Performing a Doctor’s Duty” in Chapter 10 (pp. 463–66). If you have not read this essay, read it now. Identify the quotes and paraphrases Lee uses, and then try to identify the phrases or sentences that comment on or explain this evidence. Consider whether Lee’s evidence in these two paragraphs seems relevant to her thesis and reasons, appropriately selective, well balanced between quotes and paraphrases, integrated smoothly into the sentences she creates, and explained helpfully.