I often see a shortcoming in the instruction involved in integrating evidence in analytical essay in high school teaching. There is this notion that you have to have a complete sentence followed by a colon to introduce text. This understanding tends to ignore several other key strategies in integration, and without these strategies, what I call the ‘flow’ will be choppy. The four basic techniques are the following:
- The Basic: Use a full sentence introducing the text you will be using followed by a colon. The low hanging fruit of the evidence world.
- Getting Spicy: Use a dialogue tag or incomplete sentence followed by a comma, then the text. You rebel!
- Do the Bracket: Using a bracket to change around anything you would like to in the passage strategically. The writing equivalent of turning on the cheat codes.
- The most under-appreciated technique EVER: Integrating phrases or pieces of text into your own language to maintain EPIC flow. You have arrived at badass status. Welcome!
I’ll expand on some of these strategies and provide some examples in future posts. After effective thinking and global structure, using evidence is the most important element of analytical writing. You got this, Rockstar!
