1. Give reasons supported by evidence from the story.
Give your opinion on whether or not the Grays feel like Alexis is “just like a member of the family.”
Give reasons supported by evidence from the story.
How do you use evidence from the text to support your response? For example, we read “A Dog’s Tale” by Mark Twain and were given a prompt. We interpreted our prompt and came up with these two tasks. The second task is to give reasons supported by evidence from the story. How do we do this?

2. In this lesson, you will learn how to cite from the text by writing evidence in your own words and referring directly to the story.

3. To prepare a strong response, we are thinking like detectives
To prepare a strong response, we are thinking like detectives. Step 1 is to analyze the prompt. The second step is to find the evidence. Third, we judge the evidence. Fourth, the case is prepared. And last, we finalize the cast. In this lesson, we continue our work in preparing the case by citing the evidence.

4. What is citing anyway? Citing is mentioning evidence from a text in your writing.

5. A common mistake is giving evidence without telling where you found it
A common mistake is giving evidence without telling where you found it. Just saying “Here’s my evidence” is not enough. Others may think, “How do I know that’s not just your opinion?” You need to come right out and say, “The text gave me this evidence,” or better yet, “This is the specific paragraph in which I found the evidence.” That makes your evidence totally believable.

6. These steps will help you cite your evidence
These steps will help you cite your evidence. First, locate the evidence in the text. Second, rewrite the evidence in your own words. Third, use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.

7. 1 Locate the evidence in the text.
The first step is to locate the evidence in the text. It’s important to use the same pieces of evidence you mentioned in your topic sentence. Otherwise, you’re going off topic. The first evidence we are using is that Mr. Gray hit Alexis.

8. 1 Locate the evidence in the text.
"Get away you awful animal!" I jumped to save myself; but he was very quick. He chased me, striking me with his cane, and hit my left leg very hard. I shrieked and fell. The nurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's on fire!" Then, the master rushed away in that direction.
Let’s look back through “A Dog’s Tale” to find the evidence that supports our answer. The first evidence we are using is that Mr. Gray hit Alexis. That is found on page 3 in the second paragraph: “He chased me, striking me with his cane, and hit my left leg very hard.”

9. 2 Rewrite the evidence in your own words.
For Step 2, we simply rewrite the evidence in our own words. Evidence must always be paraphrased, or written in your own words. You may not use the author’s words without quotation marks. This is an important rule for all writers. For this passage, we can summarize and say, “Mr. Gray struck Alexis with his cane.”

10. 3 Use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.
In the story,
In the text,
The narrator told us that…
In the story,
Mr. Gray struck Alexis with his cane.
Next we use a phrase or location to tell where we found the evidence. Phrases, such as “in the story” or “in the text” or “in ‘A Dog’s Tale’” or “the narrator told us that” let the audience know that you are providing evidence taken from the text. We will add “in the story” to this sentence to let the audience know that we are citing from the story.

11. 3 Use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.
We are now building a paragraph. We indent the first sentence and place our new supportive detail sentence right after it. You can see it right here. The evidence in the second sentence directly supports the first sentence and builds on what has already been stated.

12. 1 Locate the evidence in the text.
And then came one morning when everything changed. Mr. Gray placed my puppy into a brown box, like he did with packages, and a van drove up to the house. I was glad, because my puppy loved to play in boxes. The man from the van walked up to Mr. Gray, greeted him with a handshake, and passed him money from his pocket. Mr. Gray took the money from the man and shut the box inside the van. I stood in the driveway, watching the van drive away, thinking how exciting it was that my puppy was going for a ride!
Now let’s locate our second piece of evidence in the text. We find the part about the puppy being sold on page 5 in the second paragraph. Wow, we’ve highlighted a lot, but I notice that we also wrote “sold puppy” in the margin to summarize what happened.

13. 2 Rewrite the evidence in your own words.
We have to write that in our own words. Even though there were many words highlighted, we can just say, “Mr. Gray sold Alexis’s puppy.” That pretty much sums it up, and it’s in our own words, not the author’s.

14. 3 Use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.
In the second paragraph on page 5, it says
Mr. Gray sold Alexis’s puppy.
For the third step, we use a phrase or location to tell where we found the evidence. For this sentence, we’ll use the location.
This provides strong proof that we are supporting our answer with information from the text. We will tell exactly where we got this information by writing, “In the second paragraph on page 5, it says,” and continuing with “Mr. Gray sold Alexis’s puppy.”
This sounds good. We have two pieces of evidence, and we’ve used both a phrase and a location. Just a warning, though, if you are citing lots of evidence, don’t use this strategy for every sentences. Overuse of phrases and locations will kill a good paragraph.

15. 3 Use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.
We now add our second piece of evidence to the paragraph. You can see it right here. Our paragraph has a strong initial response supported by two supportive detail sentences.

16. You used these steps to cite evidence in your answer:
Locate the evidence in the text.
Rewrite evidence in your own words.
Use a phrase or location to tell where you found the evidence.

17. In this lesson, you have learned how to cite from the text by writing it in your own words and referring directly to the story.

18. I cannot eat the delicious food the nurse brings me
I cannot eat the delicious food the nurse brings me. She comes outside to me in the night and says, “Poor doggie---do give it up; don’t break my heart!”

19. Practice citing the text using the sentence you wrote in the previous activity.
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that your evidence comes from the story.
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that the evidence came from the third paragraph on the fifth page.

20. My new home was such a charming place
My new home was such a charming place! It was a fine great house with pictures, fancy decorations, and rich furniture.

21. Cite the text using the sentence you wrote in the previous activity and one of these strategies:
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that your evidence comes from the story.
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that the evidence came from the second paragraph on the first page.

22. The fairy godmother turned the pumpkin into a fine coach
The fairy godmother turned the pumpkin into a fine coach. With another wave of her wand, Cinderella’s rags became a beautiful gown. “But what about my shoes?” asked Cinderella.

24. Before I could think, I jumped up in fright, went to the crib, reached my head through the flames, and dragged the baby out. We fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke. I dragged the screaming baby out the door and down the hall.

25. Cite the text using the sentence you wrote in the previous activity and one of these strategies:
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that your evidence comes from the story.
Add a phrase that lets the audience know that the evidence came from the fourth paragraph on the second page.