Unit 11 · Nonfiction and Argument

Ask a student what an article is about and you may hear one word: "Sharks." That word is the topic. But a text is never just about sharks. It says something about sharks. "Most shark species are harmless to people" is a sentence. That sentence is the central idea: the main point the writer wants you to take away. A topic is a word or phrase. A central idea is a whole sentence with a claim in it.

Here is a short paragraph written for this lesson. "Chicago’s Water Tower looks like a small castle, but it was built in 1869 to hold a tall standpipe that evened out the pressure of water pumped from Lake Michigan. When the Great Fire burned the neighborhood around it in 1871, its limestone walls did not burn. Today it stands on Michigan Avenue as a reminder of the city that rebuilt itself." The topic is the Water Tower. The central idea is bigger: a plain working building became a symbol of Chicago’s survival.

To find the central idea, ask two questions. First: what is this mostly about? That gives you the topic. Second: what does the writer most want me to understand about it? Answer in a full sentence, and you have the central idea. Longer texts can have more than one central idea, one per section, and one bigger idea that ties them together.

Watch out for a common mistake. A single interesting detail is not the central idea. "The Water Tower was built in 1869" is true and specific, but the paragraph is not mostly about that date. The central idea has to cover most of the details in the text, not just one of them.

A central idea with no details is just a claim floating in the air. "Lake Michigan is dangerous for swimmers." Says who? Now add details. "Rip currents form along Chicago’s beaches when waves pile water against the shore. In some summers, more people drown in Lake Michigan than in any other Great Lake. Lifeguards fly red flags on days when the current is strong." Now the idea has legs to stand on.

Nonfiction writers use a small set of detail types again and again. Facts: things that can be checked. Numbers and statistics: counts and measurements. Examples: one specific case that shows the idea. Quotations: the words of a person who knows. Descriptions: what something looks or sounds like. When you read, label the details. It helps you see how the writer is building.

Good writers do not pile up details at random. Each one develops the idea, meaning it adds a new piece. In the lake paragraph, the first detail explains how the danger happens, the second shows how serious it is, and the third shows what people do about it. Take one detail away and the idea gets weaker. That is the test of a detail that belongs.

Try this when you read a paragraph: draw a line, put the central idea at the top, and hang each detail under it. If a detail does not hang from the idea, either the writer wandered or you have the wrong central idea. Both are worth noticing.

Your friend missed the article and asks what it said. You could read it aloud, but that would take ten minutes. Instead you say: "It’s about rip currents in Lake Michigan. They form when waves push water against the beach, they cause more drownings than people expect, and lifeguards use flags to warn swimmers." That is a summary: the central idea plus the key details, shorter, in your own words.

Now notice what you did not say. You did not say "and I think swimming there is stupid." That is your opinion, and it does not belong in an objective summary. Objective means you keep yourself out of it. You report what the writer said, not what you think about it. A test: if the writer read your summary, they should nod and say "yes, that is what I wrote."

Here is a way to build one. Start with the central idea in one sentence. Add the two or three details that matter most, in the order the writer used. Leave out small examples, jokes and repeated points. Use your own words, except for a key term you cannot replace. Keep it to about a quarter of the original length, or less.

A summary is not a list of everything, and it is not a review. "This article was boring" is a review. "The article explains how rip currents form and how to stay safe" is a summary. Learning the difference will help you in every class where a teacher says "tell me what you read."

Read this: "First the barn caught fire. Then the wind carried sparks to the next block. By midnight the fire had jumped the river." The writer is telling events in the order they happened. That pattern is chronological order, or time order. Signal words like first, then, next, by midnight and finally give it away.

Now read this: "Because the summer had been dry and the buildings were wood, the fire spread fast. As a result, the fire department could not keep up." This is cause and effect: one thing makes another thing happen. Signal words: because, so, as a result, therefore, led to. A writer uses this pattern to explain why something happened.

Two more patterns are common. Compare and contrast shows how two things are alike and different: "Both letters describe the fire, but the tailor focuses on fear while the teacher focuses on blame." Signal words: both, similarly, however, on the other hand, unlike. Problem and solution names a difficulty and then how it was fixed: "After the fire, Chicago faced a housing crisis. The city answered with new building codes and brick construction." Signal words: problem, solution, answer, solved.

Most long texts mix patterns. An article might tell a story in time order, pause to explain a cause, then compare two responses. Your job is to notice the pattern in each part. Once you see the shape, the details fall into place and the text is much easier to remember.

Knowing the pattern is step one. Step two is asking why. A writer chooses where every paragraph goes. An article about the fire could start with the death toll, or with a single family in a cart, or with the dry summer that set the stage. Each choice does a different job. Starting with the family pulls you in. Starting with the death toll shocks you. Starting with the weather prepares you to understand the cause.

Here is a model text written for this lesson. Its first paragraph describes a girl on a Chicago beach watching a red flag go up. Its second paragraph explains what a rip current is. Its third gives a drowning statistic. Its fourth tells swimmers what to do. Ask: why put the girl first? Because a reader cares about a person before a fact. Why put the statistic third and not first? Because after you understand the current, the number means more.

Now try moving a piece. Put the statistic first. The article becomes colder and more alarming. Put the advice first. Now the reader gets instructions before knowing why they matter. Neither is wrong, but each changes the reading. Noticing this is what teachers mean by analyzing structure: seeing that the order is a choice and explaining what the choice does.

When you write about structure, use sentences like these. "The writer opens with a story to make the reader care." "The writer saves the statistic until after the explanation so the number has meaning." "The final section gives advice, which turns fear into action." Every sentence names a part, its place, and its effect.

Read two sentences about the same event. "The fire department responded to the blaze." "The fire department crawled toward the blaze." Both say the firefighters went. But crawled tells you the writer thinks they were slow, maybe even blames them. Responded is neutral. One word changes the whole feeling. That feeling, the writer’s attitude toward the subject, is the tone.

Tone shows up in nouns and verbs, not just adjectives. "The crowd gathered" is calm. "The mob swarmed" is frightened or scornful. "The mayor stated" is neutral. "The mayor insisted" hints that someone doubted him. "The mayor whined" is openly mocking. When you notice a word that could have been plainer, ask what the writer gained by choosing it.

Words also carry connotation, the feeling attached to a word beyond its plain meaning. Thrifty and cheap both mean careful with money, but thrifty sounds like praise and cheap sounds like an insult. Nonfiction writers who want to seem fair choose words with little connotation. Writers who want to persuade often reach for words with a lot of it. You can tell one from the other by listening.

Some tone words to keep handy: neutral, formal, serious, urgent, admiring, critical, sarcastic, playful, angry, hopeful. When a teacher asks about tone, pick one of these, then point to the two or three words in the text that create it. Tone is never a guess; it is evidence.

Go back to the two neighbors. The tailor and the teacher stood a block apart and watched the same fire. One wrote about the terror of escape. The other wrote about the city’s failures. Neither lied. Each chose what to include, what to leave out, and what to emphasize, meaning what to give the most space and the strongest words. Reading both gives you more than reading either one.

To compare two authors, make three columns. Column one: what does each author include that the other does not? The tailor mentions the cart and the children; the teacher mentions the fire bells and the tired firemen. Column two: what does each emphasize? The tailor emphasizes feelings; the teacher emphasizes causes. Column three: where do they agree? Both say the wind was fierce and the fire moved fast. Agreement between two separate witnesses is strong evidence.

Then ask why the accounts differ. Purpose matters: the tailor is writing to reassure a brother; the teacher is writing to work out her own anger. Position matters: someone fleeing sees different things than someone who stayed. Knowledge matters: the teacher may have read the newspaper and the tailor may not have. None of these make an author wrong, but they explain the shape of what each wrote.

In writing, a comparison sounds like this: "Both accounts describe a fast-moving fire, but the tailor’s letter focuses on his family’s escape while the teacher’s diary blames the city’s lack of preparation. Because the teacher had time to reflect, her account offers a cause; because the tailor was fleeing, his offers a scene." Name both, show the difference, explain the reason.

A history textbook about the Civil War was written a hundred and fifty years after it. A soldier’s letter home was written the night after a battle. The letter is a primary source: a text created by someone who was there at the time. The textbook is a secondary source: a text that explains or interprets primary sources. Both are useful, but they are different kinds of evidence.

Primary sources come in many forms. Letters, diaries, speeches, photographs, newspaper reports from the day, laws, maps, and interviews with people who lived through an event. Each one was made for a reason. A letter was written to one person, so it may be honest but also private and one-sided. A speech was written for a crowd, so it is shaped to move that crowd. A diary was written for the writer alone, so it may say what no one else heard.

Read a primary source with three questions. Who made this? What did they want? Who was supposed to read or hear it? Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, given in November 1863, was a speech at the dedication of a cemetery for soldiers killed months earlier. Knowing that tells you why it is short, serious and full of words like dedicate, consecrate and devotion. The occasion shaped the words.

A primary source is not automatically true. A person who was there may have seen only a corner of the event, may have wanted to look good, or may simply have misremembered. Use the same skills you use on any text: find the central idea, check the details, notice the tone, and compare it with another account.

An article about the Chicago Fire shows a map with a dark shape stretching from DeKoven Street north across the river. The words say the fire burned more than three square miles. The map shows you what three square miles looks like against the city’s grid. That is what a visual is for: it says something faster or clearer than the words alone.

Read a graph like a text. Start with the title: what is being measured? Then the labels on the two sides, called axes: what do the numbers stand for, and in what units? Then the scale: does the bottom of the graph start at zero, or is it cut off to make a small change look huge? A bar that looks twice as tall as another may only be a little taller if the scale starts at 90 instead of 0.

Photographs and drawings need the same care. A photo of a burned block after the fire is real evidence, but it shows one block, not the whole city. A caption tells you what the picture maker wants you to see. Ask what is outside the frame. Ask when the picture was taken. A photo of the Water Tower standing alone in the ash tells a story of survival, but the photographer chose that angle.

Finally, connect the visual back to the text. Does the graph support the writer’s central idea, or does it quietly show something the writer did not mention? Sometimes the most interesting fact in an article is in a chart the writer barely discussed. A careful reader reads all of it.

"The Chicago Fire started on October 8, 1871." "The Chicago Fire was the worst thing that ever happened to the city." The first sentence is a fact. You can check it against records, and it is either true or false. The second is an opinion. It states a belief. You could argue for it or against it, but you could never prove it the way you prove a date.

Facts are not always true. "The fire started on October 12" is a fact statement that happens to be false. Fact does not mean true; it means checkable. That matters, because writers sometimes state false things in a confident, factual voice. Your job is not to trust the tone. Your job is to ask: could this be checked, and has it been?

Opinions often come with signal words: I think, I believe, the best, the worst, should, terrible, wonderful. But not always. "Chicago’s rebuilding was a triumph" has no I think in it, and it is still an opinion. Look for words that judge, not just words that announce a belief. Words that judge are the fingerprints of opinion.

One more trap. A sentence can mix the two. "The fire, which killed about three hundred people, proved that wooden cities are foolish." The death toll is a fact. Foolish is an opinion. Good readers pull the two apart, accept the fact if it checks out, and weigh the opinion on its own.

Between fact and opinion there is a third kind of statement. "Chicago’s fire spread so fast mainly because of dry weather, wind and wooden buildings." That is not a checkable fact in the way a date is. But it is not just a feeling either. It is a conclusion drawn from evidence: weather records, wind reports, building materials. Call it a reasoned judgment.

A reasoned judgment has two parts you can inspect: the facts it rests on, and the reasoning that connects them to the conclusion. "The teacher blamed the city; therefore the city was at fault" is weak, because one angry witness is thin evidence. "Fire records show most engines were on the east side, and the fire started on the west; therefore the city’s placement of engines slowed the response" is stronger. The facts are more solid and the link is clearer.

When you read a judgment, ask three questions. What facts does the writer offer? Are those facts enough to support the conclusion, or is the writer stretching? Is there another conclusion the same facts could support? A judgment that survives all three questions deserves your respect even if you still disagree.

In your own writing, make your judgments reasoned. Do not write "the city was terrible at fighting fires." Write "the city’s fire department, with only about seventeen steam engines for a city of some three hundred thousand people, was too small for a wooden city in a dry season." Now a reader can see your facts and follow your reasoning, which is exactly what you want them to do.

"Our school should start at 9:00." Someone could argue against that sentence. That is what makes it a claim: a statement you take a stand on and are prepared to defend. "Our school starts at 8:00" is not a claim; it is a fact you could check on the website. "Sleep is important" is barely a claim, because almost nobody would argue with it. A real claim has a real other side.

A strong claim is specific. "Schools should change" is too vague to defend. Change how? "Middle schools should start no earlier than 8:30" tells a reader exactly what you want. It is also arguable: a bus director, a parent, or a student with a morning job could disagree. And it can be supported: there are doctors’ reports and surveys you could point to. Specific, arguable, supportable. Test every claim against those three words.

A claim usually comes early in an argument, often at the end of the first paragraph in an essay. Some writers call it the thesis. It is one sentence, or two at most. Everything after it works for it. If a paragraph does not help prove the claim, it does not belong in the argument.

Watch for claims that hide. "Many people feel that the school day is too early" is not a claim, because the writer never takes a side. Ask yourself: what do I believe, and what would I want a reader to do or think? Then say it plainly. Readers trust a writer who is willing to be disagreed with.

Jalen said "everyone is tired." Priya said "twenty-one of twenty-six students in our class survey get less than eight hours of sleep." Both are about tired students. Only one is evidence. Evidence is something a reader could check or count: a fact, a number, a specific example, the words of an expert. "Everyone is tired" cannot be checked. Twenty-one of twenty-six can.

Evidence comes in a few main kinds. Facts and statistics: the school starts at 8:00; 140 students have after-school jobs. Expert statements: a doctors’ group recommends a later start. Examples: a named district that changed its start time and what happened. Personal experience: what you saw yourself, useful but weak on its own because it is only one person. The strongest arguments mix kinds.

Every piece of evidence needs a source, the place it came from. "Doctors say" is thin. "The American Academy of Pediatrics said in 2014" is solid, because a reader can look it up. In a class survey, say who was asked and when. If you cannot say where evidence came from, treat it as a rumor, not evidence, until you find out.

Here is a paragraph written for this lesson. "A later start would help students learn. When one suburban district moved its high school start from 7:30 to 8:30, the school reported that fewer students were tardy and that first-period grades rose. Our own school’s attendance office says first period has the most absences of any period." Two pieces of evidence, each with a source, each pointing at the claim.

Read this: "Our school should start later. Twenty-one of twenty-six students get less than eight hours of sleep." Something is missing. The claim is there. The evidence is there. But the writer never says how the number proves the claim. A reader might think: so what? Maybe those students should go to bed earlier. The missing piece is reasoning.

Reasoning is the sentence or two that connects evidence to claim. Priya supplied it: "Doctors say teenagers’ bodies fall asleep later at night, so an early start cuts into the sleep they need." Now the survey number means something. Students are short on sleep, teens cannot simply fall asleep earlier, therefore a later bell is the fix. Claim, evidence, reasoning. All three, or the argument has a hole.

Reasoning often begins with words like this shows, this means, because, therefore, so. "First period has the most absences. This shows that many students are not getting to school on time, which suggests that the early start is a barrier for them." Notice the writer does not just repeat the evidence. The writer explains what it proves.

When you check your own argument, cover the reasoning with your hand and read only claim and evidence. If a stranger could say "so what?" you need more reasoning. Then read the reasoning alone. Does it actually follow from the evidence, or does it jump to what you wanted to say anyway? Honest reasoning is the hardest and most valuable part.

Someone hands you an editorial that argues for a later school start. Before you decide whether you agree, trace it. Tracing an argument means following its path: where does it start, what does it stand on, and how does it get to the end? Start by finding the claim. It is usually in the first or last paragraph, and it is the sentence everything else serves.

Next, number the evidence. Go paragraph by paragraph and mark each fact, statistic, example or expert quote. Write them as a list. An editorial might give: the doctors’ recommendation, a district that changed its start time, a survey of students, and the writer’s own memory of being tired. Four pieces. Now you can see the argument’s skeleton instead of feeling its tone.

Then check each link. For each piece of evidence, ask: does the writer explain how it supports the claim? Does the explanation make sense? Some evidence will be strong and well connected. Some will be dropped in with no reasoning, or connected by a stretch. Mark those. An argument is only as strong as its weakest link that it relies on.

Finally, judge. Is the claim supported well enough to accept? You may agree with a claim and still find the argument weak, or disagree with a claim and admit the argument is solid. That is a sign of a fair reader. Tracing turns "I liked it" or "I did not" into "here is where it holds and here is where it breaks."

Marcus argued that a later start would cause bus problems. Suppose he had said: "Also, the school’s football team won six games last year." True, maybe. But it has nothing to do with bus schedules. That evidence is not relevant. Relevant evidence connects to the claim. Irrelevant evidence is a distraction, and readers who notice it stop trusting the writer.

Relevance is not enough by itself. Suppose Priya’s only evidence had been that she personally feels tired at 8:00. Relevant, yes. But one tired student is not enough to change a whole school’s schedule. Her evidence would not be sufficient. Sufficient means enough, in amount and in strength, to hold up the claim. Big claims need more evidence than small ones.

How much is enough? Think about the size of the claim. "I should go to bed earlier" needs one piece of evidence: you are tired. "Every middle school in Illinois should start at 8:30" needs a lot: research on teen sleep, data from schools that changed, costs, effects on families. A writer who supports a huge claim with a single example is asking you to take a leap. Do not take it.

When you check an argument, or your own draft, ask both questions of every piece of evidence. Is it relevant: does it truly bear on the claim? Then step back and ask of the whole pile: is it sufficient: is there enough here, and is it strong enough, to convince a careful reader who does not already agree?

Marcus did something Jalen never did. In the middle of his own argument he said, "Priya is right that sleep matters." Then he explained why he still disagreed. That move is a counterclaim: naming the opposing view. Some students fear that mentioning the other side makes them look weak. The opposite is true. A reader who already knows the objection and sees that you ignored it stops trusting you.

State the counterclaim fairly. Do not write "Some people think buses do not matter at all," if no one really thinks that. Write the strongest version: "Opponents point out that a later start would delay buses for elementary students and cost money the district does not have." Steel, not straw. If you can only beat a weak version of the other side, you have not really won.

Then answer it. The answer is the rebuttal. A rebuttal can show that the counterclaim is wrong (the buses could run on a two-tier schedule at no extra cost), that it is true but less important than the writer’s point (bus schedules can be fixed; sleep loss harms health), or that it is true but does not lead to the conclusion the opponent wants. Use evidence in the rebuttal too, not just a louder voice.

A model, written for this lesson: "Some argue that a later start simply pushes students to stay up later. But when one district in Minnesota moved its bell an hour later, students’ bedtimes stayed about the same and they gained most of that hour in sleep. The worry is reasonable, but the evidence does not support it." Counterclaim, stated fairly. Rebuttal, backed by evidence. That paragraph makes the whole argument stronger.

Jalen said three things that sounded like reasons but were not. "Everyone is tired." "Ask anybody." "Anyone who disagrees has never been a kid." Each one is a fallacy: a pattern of bad reasoning that feels convincing but proves nothing. Learning a few fallacies by name is like learning the tricks of a card sharp. Once you can see the move, it stops working on you.

Bandwagon is the claim that something is right because many people believe it or do it. "Everyone agrees school starts too early." Even if everyone did agree, that would not make it true; crowds have been wrong before. The fix is to ask for the reason behind the crowd’s belief, not the size of the crowd. Ad hominem is Latin for "to the person." It attacks the speaker instead of the argument. "Anyone who disagrees has never been a kid." That says nothing about buses, budgets or sleep. It just tries to shame the other side into silence.

False choice pretends there are only two options when there are more. "Either we start school at nine or students keep failing." Really? Maybe school could start at 8:30. Maybe first period could be a study hall. Whenever someone says "either this or that," look for a third door. There almost always is one.

Fallacies are not always lies. The person using one may believe every word. But a fallacy is still a hole in the argument, and a careful reader or judge will walk right through it. In your own writing, hunt for them before someone else does. In a debate, name them politely: "That is an attack on the speaker, not on the idea."

An argumentative essay is Priya’s speech, written down and built bigger. Its shape is simple enough to draw. Introduction: a hook, some background, and the claim. Body paragraph one: first reason, with evidence and reasoning. Body paragraph two: second reason, same shape. Counterclaim paragraph: the other side, stated fairly, then the rebuttal. Conclusion: the claim restated in fresh words and a reason the reader should care. Five paragraphs is a fine place to start, not a law.

The introduction earns the reader’s attention. A hook might be a short scene, a striking number or a question. "At 7:40 on a January morning, half the students in first period have their heads on their desks." Then a sentence or two of background so a reader who knows nothing can follow. Then the claim, in one clear sentence, usually last in the paragraph.

Each body paragraph follows a pattern. Topic sentence naming the reason. Evidence with its source. Reasoning that connects the evidence to the claim. A closing sentence that ties back. The paragraph on the doctors’ recommendation and the paragraph on the class survey are separate paragraphs because they are separate reasons. One reason per paragraph keeps the reader from getting lost.

The conclusion is not a copy of the introduction. Restate the claim in new words, remind the reader of the strongest point, and then answer the question so what: why does this matter beyond this essay? "A later bell would not just make mornings easier. It would give seven hundred students back an hour of sleep their brains need to grow." End on the reason, not on "in conclusion."

Read these sentences with nothing between them. "Doctors recommend an 8:30 start. Our school starts at 8:00. Many students are absent from first period." True, but the reader has to guess how they connect. Now add transitions: "Doctors recommend an 8:30 start. However, our school starts at 8:00. As a result, many students are absent from first period." Two words, and the logic is visible.

Different transitions do different jobs. To add: also, in addition, furthermore. To contrast: however, on the other hand, although. To show cause: because, therefore, as a result, consequently. To give an example: for instance, for example. To concede a point: admittedly, it is true that. To conclude: in the end, ultimately. Pick the one that names the real connection. A wrong transition is worse than none.

Formal style means writing for a reader you do not know, who will judge your argument by its words. Drop slang and texting habits. Avoid "I think" and "in my opinion"; the whole essay is your opinion, so just state the claim. Avoid "you" when you mean people in general. Do not shout with exclamation points or all caps. Formal does not mean stiff or full of big words. It means clear, calm and confident.

Compare. Informal: "Honestly, starting at 8 is crazy and everybody knows it!!" Formal: "An 8:00 start conflicts with the sleep needs that pediatricians have described." The second sentence is not fancier. It is calmer, it points to evidence, and it would not embarrass you in front of a school board. That is the voice an argument deserves.

A shouting match is not a debate. A debate is an argument with a shape. First, a resolution: the claim being argued, written so it can be supported or opposed. "Resolved: this school should start no earlier than 8:30." One side, the affirmative, argues for it. The other, the negative, argues against it. The sides are assigned, not chosen. You may have to argue a view you do not hold, which is excellent practice in fairness.

Then, timed turns. A simple format: each side gives an opening statement of two minutes, laying out its claim and main evidence. Then each side gives a rebuttal of one minute, answering the other’s points. Then a closing of one minute each. A timekeeper calls time. No interruptions. While the other side speaks, you take notes on what you will answer. Listening is half the job.

Judges do not vote on which side they agree with. They score with a rubric: was the claim clear? Was the evidence specific and sourced? Did the reasoning connect? Did the rebuttal actually answer the other side, or just repeat the opening? Was the speaker respectful? Jalen lost because his column was empty, not because the class disliked him.

The rules are what make a debate useful. They force both sides to prepare evidence, to listen, and to answer instead of interrupt. Adults who never learned this argue on the internet in all caps. Students who learn it can walk into a school board meeting and be heard.

The most common debate mistake is easy to spot. A speaker stands up for the rebuttal and simply repeats the opening statement, a little louder. Nothing the other side said gets answered. Judges notice. A rebuttal turn is for answering, and you cannot answer what you did not hear. So the real work of the rebuttal happens while the other side is speaking.

Use a two-column sheet. Left column: what they said, in short notes. "Buses cost money. 140 students have jobs. Fix screens, not the bell." Right column: your answer to each, with the evidence you will use. "Two-tier bus schedule, no new cost. Jobs start at 4:00, school would end at 3:30. Screen limits and a later bell can both happen." When you stand up, go down the list. "My opponent made three points. First..."

Answer the strongest point first, not the weakest. Judges are waiting to see if you can handle it. If you honestly cannot answer a point, concede it and explain why your side still wins: "It is true that a later start will cost the district some money. But the health of seven hundred students is worth more than a bus schedule." A calm concession is more convincing than a dodge.

Keep your tone respectful. Say "my opponent argued" and never "that is stupid." Refer to their evidence, not their character; an ad hominem in a debate costs you points and trust. Finish your rebuttal by returning to your own claim in one sentence, so the judges leave your turn remembering what you stand for.

Two web pages both say that a certain energy drink is safe for teenagers. One is written by a doctor at a children’s hospital. The other is the energy drink company’s own site. Same claim, very different weight. The first question to ask of any source is: who made this? The second is: why? Together, author and purpose tell you how much to trust what follows.

Finding the author takes a little digging. Look for a name at the top or bottom of the page. Click About or About Us. Look at the web address: .gov is a government site, .edu is a school or university, .org is often a nonprofit but anyone can buy one, .com is a business or anyone at all. If you cannot find out who made a page, that is itself a warning sign.

Purpose comes in a few common forms. To inform: a museum page explaining the Chicago Fire. To persuade: an editorial arguing for later school start times. To sell: a page that ends with a Buy Now button. To entertain: a joke site. To get clicks: a headline that promises shock and delivers nothing. A source built to sell or to get clicks can still contain facts, but every fact in it was chosen to serve that purpose.

Ask a third question too: what does the author know? A doctor writing about a drink’s effect on the heart knows more than a celebrity who was paid to hold the can. Expertise is not fame. A source with a named author who has real knowledge of the subject, and a clear purpose to inform, is the kind you want at the top of your list.

Rosa’s photo was real. It was also four years old. For a claim about what is happening "right now," the date is everything. For some topics, age matters less: a page about the Chicago Fire written in 2005 may be fine. For others, it matters a lot: a page about phone safety, a disease, or a city budget can be wrong within a year. Look for the date the source was published or last updated. If there is none, be careful.

Then look at the source’s own evidence. Does the writer say where the facts came from? A strong source names studies, reports, people with expertise, or documents you could find yourself. "Studies show" with no study named is a weak sign. So is a page that is all claims and no numbers, or all numbers and no source for them. A source that shows its evidence is inviting you to check, which is what honest writers do.

Here is a model passage written for this lesson. "The Lakeside County road department reported that crews filled 412 potholes during the first week of March 2023, according to a county press release." The county is invented, but notice the parts: a named department, a number, a specific time, and a document you could look for. Compare: "Tons of pipes broke that winter, everyone knows the city is falling apart." Nothing there can be checked.

Put author, purpose, date and evidence together and you have a simple checklist. Who made it? Why? When? How do they know? A source that answers all four clearly is worth using. A source that fails two of them may still be worth a look, but not worth building an argument on.

A page about a health claim looks great: clean design, charts, a long list of references, an About page full of doctors’ names. Is it trustworthy? Staring at the page cannot tell you. A polished look is easy to buy. What professional fact checkers do instead is leave the page. They open a new tab and search for the organization’s name. That habit is called lateral reading: reading sideways, across other sources, instead of straight down one page.

Here is how it works. You land on a site called, say, the Institute for Nutrition Freedom. Instead of reading its articles, you search the name. You find that a news organization reported the institute is funded by a supplement company. You find a science site that says the institute’s claims contradict most research. In two minutes you know more about the source than an hour on its own pages would tell you.

Lateral reading answers questions a page will never answer about itself. Who funds this? What do others who know the subject say about it? Has it been wrong before? Is this organization what it claims to be? A source that turns out to be respected by independent experts rises in your list. A source that only praises itself sinks.

Rosa read laterally with a photo. She did not ask whether the picture looked real; she searched for where it came from. The same move works for a quote, a statistic or a shocking claim: search for the claim itself, plus a word like fact check, and see what independent sources say. Independent means not connected to the source you are checking.

Two websites report the same school board vote. One headline: "Board Slashes Arts Budget." The other: "Board Trims Spending to Protect Teacher Jobs." The vote was real. The numbers match. But each site chose a verb, a focus and a frame that pushes you toward one feeling. That push is bias: a leaning that shapes how facts are chosen and worded.

Bias is not the same as lying, and it is not always deliberate. Every writer stands somewhere. A parent of an art student and a teacher afraid of layoffs will notice different things in the same meeting. That is perspective, and it is unavoidable. Bias is what happens when perspective starts leaving things out or loading the words. The question is never "is this source biased?" It is "how much, in which direction, and what did it leave out?"

Three ways to spot bias. Word choice: slashes versus trims, mob versus crowd, admits versus says. Selection: which facts made it in, and which did not? A story on the arts cut that never mentions the teacher jobs is leaving something out. Sources quoted: does the writer quote only one side? A fair report gives the other side a voice; a biased one gives it a sentence at the end or nothing at all.

You do not have to throw out a biased source. You have to read it knowing where it leans, and then read another one leaning the other way. Put "Board Slashes Arts Budget" next to "Board Trims Spending" and you can see the shape of what actually happened better than either one shows alone. That is the same skill as comparing two accounts of the Chicago Fire.

Most people read the headline and the picture, and nothing else. Writers and editors know this. So a headline is written to grab: "City Did NOTHING as Street Floods." Then the article, three paragraphs down, says crews arrived within an hour. The headline and the story disagree. This gap is so common that it has a name: clickbait. A headline is a promise. Always check whether the article keeps it.

Images work even faster than headlines. A photo of a flooded street with a man carrying a dog makes you feel something before you think anything. That feeling gets attached to whatever caption sits under the picture. Rosa’s photo carried three different stories and never changed. The picture did not lie. The captions did. When a picture makes you feel strongly, that is the moment to slow down.

Ask four questions about an image. Where did it come from? An image search finds the earliest version. When was it taken? Old pictures get reused for new events all the time. What is outside the frame? A crowd shot can be tight or wide. Has it been changed? Edits, crops and now computer-made pictures are common, and a picture that seems too perfect for its story may have been made for it.

Try this with a photo you see this week. Cover the caption and write your own. Then uncover it. If the caption tells you what to feel instead of what you are seeing, someone is doing your thinking for you. Do the same with a headline: read the article, then write the headline you would have written. Compare.

A source says: "The Water Tower survived the 1871 fire because its limestone walls did not burn, and it became a symbol of the rebuilt city." A student writes: "The Water Tower lived through the 1871 fire because its limestone walls did not catch fire, and it turned into a symbol of the rebuilt city." Three words changed. This is not the student’s writing. It is the source’s sentence in a thin disguise. That is plagiarism, even if it feels like work.

Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s words or ideas as your own. Copying a sentence is plagiarism. Swapping a few words is plagiarism. Using someone’s idea without saying where it came from is plagiarism too, even in your own words. Schools take it seriously, and so does the adult world: writers, scientists and students have lost jobs and degrees over it. But the fix is simple, and it is a skill.

A real paraphrase starts by closing the source. Read the sentence, understand it, look away, then say it the way you would tell a friend. "Because the Water Tower was built of stone, it was one of the few buildings still standing after the fire, and Chicagoans came to see it as a sign of their city’s comeback." New words, new order, same idea. Then, and this is the part students forget, you still give credit, because the idea came from the source.

Test your paraphrase. Put it next to the original. Are there three or more words in a row that match? Rewrite. Is the sentence shape the same? Rewrite. Could you explain the idea with the source hidden? If yes, it is yours to state, with credit. A paraphrase shows you understood. A copy only shows you could type.

Sometimes the source’s exact words are the point. A doctor’s precise recommendation. A witness’s vivid phrase. A sentence so well made that changing it would weaken it. Then you quote: copy the words exactly, put them inside quotation marks, and tell the reader where they came from. Quoting is not cheating. It is borrowing with a receipt.

Keep quotations short and make them work. Introduce the quote so the reader knows who is speaking: "The report warns that" or "According to the hospital’s page," and then the words. After the quote, explain it in your own sentence. A quotation dropped into a paragraph with no introduction and no explanation is called a floating quote, and it reads as if the writer had nothing to say.

The receipt is the in-text citation. In MLA style, the style most English classes use, it is the author’s last name and a page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence, before the period. Written for this lesson: The city’s report states that crews "closed the street within an hour of the break" (Alvarez 4). If there is no page number, as on most websites, use just the name: (Alvarez). If there is no author, use a short form of the title in quotation marks.

Two habits keep you honest. First, copy the words exactly, including odd spelling, and if you cut part of a sentence, show it with three spaced dots. Second, never change the meaning by cutting. If the source said "the plan will not work," quoting "the plan will work" is not a quotation; it is a lie with quotation marks around it.

The in-text citation says (Alvarez 4). The reader wonders: who is Alvarez? The answer is on the last page of your paper, the works cited. It is a list of every source you quoted or paraphrased, in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. Each entry gives enough for a reader to find the source. Think of it as the map to your evidence.

In MLA style, the entries follow patterns. A book: Author’s last name, first name. Title of the Book in italics. Publisher, year. Written for this lesson: Alvarez, Maria. Water Under the City. Lakeside Press, 2021. A web page: Author’s last name, first name. "Title of the Page" in quotation marks. Name of the Website in italics, day month year, web address. Written for this lesson: Chen, David. "How a Water Main Breaks." City Pipes Explained, 3 Mar. 2022, citypipes.example.

Notice the order and the punctuation. Periods separate the big parts. The title of a whole book or website is in italics; the title of a page or article inside something bigger goes in quotation marks. The first line of each entry starts at the margin and the following lines are indented. This is called a hanging indent, and it makes the alphabetical list easy to scan.

You will not memorize every pattern, and you do not have to. Keep a model handy, or use a citation tool, and then check the tool’s result against the pattern, because tools make mistakes. What you must remember is the purpose: every source you leaned on appears here, so a reader can retrace your steps. A research paper with no works cited is a paper with no receipts.

"I want to research water." That is a topic, and it would take a lifetime. Research starts with a research question: something specific enough that a few good sources could answer it. "Why do Chicago’s water mains break in winter, and what is the city doing about it?" Now you know what to look for. A good question is narrow. It can be answered with sources you can find. And it interests you enough to carry you through the work.

Then gather sources with the checklist from this chapter: who, why, when, how do they know. Aim for three to five sources of different kinds: a news article, a government or museum page, a book or encyclopedia entry, maybe an interview with someone who knows. If every source says the same thing, good. If they disagree, even better; that disagreement may become the most interesting part of your paper.

Take notes in a way that protects you from accidental plagiarism. Each note has three parts. First, where it came from, with the page or web address. Second, the fact or idea, in your own words. If you copy exact words, put them in quotation marks. Third, your own thought about it, marked so you can tell it apart later. Many students use a different color or a label like ME for their own ideas. Later, you will thank yourself.

A note written for this lesson: Source: Chen, "How a Water Main Breaks," 2022. Fact: old cast iron pipes get brittle in cold and crack when the ground shifts. Quote: "Some of Chicago’s pipes are more than a century old." ME: so the age of the pipes might matter more than the weather. That last line is the start of a claim. Research questions turn into claims exactly this way.

You have a question, five sources and a stack of notes. Now you have to tell people. Start by writing one sentence that answers your research question. That is your finding, and it works like a claim. Written for this lesson: "Chicago’s winter water main breaks come mostly from the age of the pipes, not the cold alone, and the city’s replacement program is the real fix." Everything you present should support that sentence.

Pick your three or four strongest pieces of evidence and give each one its own slide or poster section. One idea per slide. A few words, a number, a picture or a short quote with its citation. Not a paragraph. If your audience is reading a wall of text, they are not listening to you. The slide is a signpost; you are the talk.

Plan the order. Open with the question and why it matters, maybe with the photo that started it all. Then the finding. Then the evidence, strongest first or building to the strongest. Then a slide that faces the other side: what a source that disagreed said, and why you still landed where you did. Close with your works cited on the last slide, so your audience sees the receipts. Practice out loud at least twice, with a timer.

When you present, look at people, not the screen. Speak slowly enough that someone in the back can follow. If a classmate asks a question you cannot answer, say so and say how you would find out; that is what a real researcher does. Rosa’s answer in the group chat was, in the end, a tiny research presentation: a question, a search, a source and a clear finding. You can do the same, only bigger.