4A. Develop a paragraph that includes a claim and evidence supporting the claim.
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Data Must Match the Claim
This may seem very obvious, but students struggle with this concept all the same. Bottom line, your data must match your claim. If in your claim, you talk about the author's love for hedgehogs, rhetorical questions, and Channing Tatum, then be sure that the actual words you quote from the text you are using as data contain the following words or their close synonyms:
One self-test you can do is this: Are there key words in your claim that you can physically put your finger on in the data? If not, then your data doesn't match your claim. |
Claims
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Data
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Quoting Data: The KISS Rule |
Keep It Super-Short
Most of the time, especially on the AP rhetorical analysis essay, it is NOT to your benefit to quote more than about seven consecutive words at a time.
The Finger Rule If a quotation is longer than your finger, you probably need to cut it down unless it is SO clear that the context or syntax is SO important that to do so would be to render the quote useless. |
Embed the Quote |
What "Embed" Means: Take It and Break It
To embed a quote means to take a quotation, break it up into smaller chunks, and incorporate the really relevant parts into your OWN sentence, and cite it. Example of a student paper with a quote that has not been embedded: Abigail Adams reminds her son that he is very privileged and is lucky to have such a good family. "Favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent" (Adams 34). See how clumsy and clunky that sounds? Do you "hear" how the reader has to stop before reading the quote? A better solution would be to break up the quote and make it "flow" into the author's own sentence. Example of an embedded quote: Abigail Adams reminds her son that not only is he "favored with superior advantages" personally, but also that his "tender parent" has kept an "instructive eye" on his upbringing and has raised him well (Adams 34). |