Using Evidence to Support Ideas in your Writing and the ace format

What do you know about quoting? Please take a minute to write down anything you can remember about incorporating quotes into your writing.

Supporting your ideas with evidence WHEN SHOULD YOU USE EVIDENCE: Your whole career as a writer WHERE: Any writing assignment, any subject. WHY: Adding direct evidence supports your ideas, validates your opinions and makes your writing more interesting. HOW: Let’s find out

ASSERT CITE EXPLAIN The ACE Acronym An acronym to help students remember the steps of effectively using quotes in their writing is ACE, which stands for: ASSERT CITE EXPLAIN

ASSERT Assert your argument. Introduce the quote so the reader knows how it proves your position. Example: In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” the author presents the image of a black box to foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have for its winner.

CITE Cite your evidence. This is where you insert your indirect or direct quote (we will elaborate on citing later). Example: In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” the author presents the image of a black box to foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have for its winner, “… it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box” (2).

EXPLAIN Explain how the quote proves your argument. Example: In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” the author presents the image of a black box to foreshadow the negative outcome the lottery will have for its winner, “… it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box” (2). The color of the box implies that the lottery ritual has a darker meaning for the individual whose name is drawn.

Indirect vs. Direct Support INDIRECT: Also referred to as paraphrasing.   SPECIFIC events are put into the writer’s own words to help support their idea.

INDIRECT SUPPORT EXAMPLE: One theme in Michael Bruce’s “Gentlemen Your Verdict” is that murder is justifiable in certain circumstances. Bruce illustrates this moral dilemma when Lieutenant-Commander Oram serves fifteen of his men poisoned whiskey in order to save the lives of five men with families, because there is not enough oxygen for all twenty to survive until help arrives (12).

Indirect vs. direct support Include a quote as part of your OWN sentence.

DIRECT SUPPORT EXAMPLE: One theme in Michael Bruce’s “Gentlemen Your Verdict” is that murder is justifiable in certain circumstances. Bruce illustrates this theme when he has Oram explain to the shore station that he “arranged that lieutenant Paull, Engineers Nordin and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and Coxswain Peer [would] survive” (Bruce 25) because they were “married men” (Bruce 24). In this incident, Bruce reveals that faced with the potential death of his entire crew, Oram makes a difficult moral decision to save five men.

Reminders about using direct references (or quotes) A quotation should never be a sentence on its own!  Use ellipses […] to indicate that you have left some words out of the quote

Need to change a word? Use square brackets [ they ] to indicate that you have changed a word from its original form so that it fits in your sentence. (ie: fits grammatically, in present tense, etc.). For example, Lieutenant-Commander Oram explains to shore station that he “arranged that Lieutenant Paull, Engineers Nordin and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and Coxswain Peer [would] survive.”

Do not use two direct references in a row Do not use two direct references in a row. Use some of your own words in between. For example, Lieutenant-Commander Oram explains to shore station that he “arranged that lieutenant Paull, Engineers Nordin and Jenvey, Torpedoman Preece and Coxswain Peer [would] survive” (Bruce 25) because they were “married men” (Bruce 24).