Selecting evidence for a literary argument: Study Guide (English Literature 9.7)

Evidence for an argument about a whole work

In the literary argument essay you write about a work you have read, often months earlier, with no book in front of you. What you can do with your memory decides how strong your argument can be. Topic 9.6 showed how to make a claim and explain it. This topic is about choosing the evidence that carries the claim: what to select, how much, from where, and in what form.

The course framework says that writers use evidence strategically and purposefully to illustrate, clarify, exemplify, associate, amplify or qualify a point, that evidence is effective when commentary explains its link to the claim, and that it is sufficient when its quantity and quality give apt support to the line of reasoning. In an essay on a whole work, sufficiency has a specific meaning: your evidence must come from more than one part of the work, because a claim about the whole cannot rest on one scene.

What makes a piece of evidence good

Test each candidate against six questions.

1. Relevant. Does it prove this claim, not a neighbouring one?
2. Specific. Can you name the scene, the speaker, the action, or the detail, rather than saying “somewhere in the middle”?
3. Accurate. Are you sure of what happened and of any wording you will quote?
4. Analysable. Is there something to say about it beyond what happens: a choice, a contrast, a word, an image, a structural effect?
5. Placed. Where does it fall in the work, and does it add something new to the evidence you already have?
6. Purposeful. Which job does it do (illustrate, exemplify, amplify, qualify)?

Three forms of evidence

Form	What it is	Use it when	Example (Jane Eyre, 1847)
Quotation	A short phrase you are certain of	The wording itself carries the effect	“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me”
Close paraphrase	Your own words, keeping the detail	You know the content but not the wording	Jane refuses to marry St John, telling him he would kill her
Precise reference	A named scene, action or pattern	A claim needs breadth	The interrupted wedding in which Rochester’s first wife is revealed

Mixing the three is normal and sensible. A quotation that you misremember costs credibility; a precise paraphrase does not. Never invent a quotation or present a rough guess as exact.

Building a ledger

A ledger is a small table you build before the exam, for two or three works you know well, and rebuild in five minutes on the day for the prompt in front of you. For each work, list eight to ten key scenes with:

• where the scene falls (beginning, middle, end);
• one short quotation, only if you are certain of it, or a one-line description;
• what the scene shows;
• which prompts it could serve (character, conflict, setting, structure, narrator).

On exam day, you scan the ledger for scenes that fit the prompt, choose three or four from different parts of the work, and assign each a job.

Worked example 1: a ledger for Jane Eyre

Prompt (written by Marlbridge). Literature often shows characters who resist pressure to follow another’s expectations. Choose a novel in which a character’s resistance contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Analyse how this resistance contributes to that meaning.

Work chosen. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847).

Claim to test. Jane’s resistance is tested by a series of figures who each try to define her, and the novel redefines independence as equality.

Where	Scene	Evidence	What it shows	Job
Beginning	Gateshead: Jane is locked in the red-room by her aunt (Chapter 2)	Precise reference	First act of defiance and its punishment; resistance as a child’s only weapon	Illustrate
Beginning	Lowood school: Mr Brocklehurst’s regime (Chapters 5 to 10)	Precise reference	Authority that claims to improve Jane while stifling her	Exemplify
Middle	Thornfield orchard: Jane tells Rochester, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me” (Chapter 23)	Quotation	Resistance to a lover’s claim on her; independence stated in her own words	Amplify
Middle	The interrupted wedding: Rochester’s first wife is revealed (Chapter 26)	Precise reference	Rochester’s deceit; Jane’s refusal to stay on unequal terms	Amplify
Late middle	Moor House: Jane refuses St John Rivers: “If I were to marry you, you would kill me” (Chapters 34 and 35)	Quotation	Resistance to a second, colder claim; independence as self-preservation	Exemplify
End	Jane hears Rochester’s voice, “Jane! Jane! Jane!” (Chapter 35); returns to find him blinded and diminished (Chapter 37)	Quotation and reference	Her return is chosen, not required; power between them is now level	Qualify
End	“Reader, I married him.” (Chapter 38)	Quotation	The ending is her act: a marriage she chooses, narrated in her voice	Associate

Selecting and spreading. For three body paragraphs on the claim, a good selection is: Gateshead and Lowood (the early pattern), the orchard and the interrupted wedding (resistance to Rochester), and St John and the return (resistance and its redefinition). That draws on the beginning, middle and end.

Sufficiency check. Does each claim in the line of reasoning have at least one specific piece of evidence? Does the argument rest on more than one scene? Yes to both.

Worked example 2: selecting, rejecting and qualifying

A tempting piece of evidence you might reject. The detail of the weather on the day Jane arrives at Thornfield is vivid, but it does not bear on resistance to others’ expectations. Evidence that is vivid and irrelevant costs time and weakens the paragraph.

A piece of evidence you should add to qualify. The novel’s ending does not simply celebrate independence. Jane receives a fortune from an uncle before she returns to Rochester, so her freedom to choose depends partly on money. That is evidence you can use to qualify the claim: it shows that the novel’s picture of independence includes material security. Using it makes the argument more sophisticated, because you have noticed and accounted for something that complicates your thesis.

A model paragraph (written by Marlbridge).

Brontë tests Jane’s resistance against a second claimant, St John Rivers, and uses the contrast with Rochester to redefine what independence means. When St John, who offers a respectable marriage and a purpose, presses her to join him as a missionary’s wife, Jane refuses with the blunt statement, “If I were to marry you, you would kill me.” The words are not an insult but a diagnosis: where Rochester’s claim on her was passionate and deceptive, St John’s is cold and dutiful, and both would cost her herself. Her refusal is followed at once by the unexplained cry of “Jane! Jane! Jane!”, and she returns to Rochester only when she can do so freely, as a woman with her own money and a husband diminished in power. The pattern shows that the novel does not value independence as being alone; it values it as the condition that lets love be a choice and not a surrender.

What it does: it draws on the middle and end of the novel; uses two short quotations she is sure of and one precise reference; explains a contrast between the two claimants; and links the paragraph to the thesis about the whole work.

Weak and strong versions side by side

Weak	Why it falls short	Stronger
“In the book Jane stands up for herself a lot.”	No scene, no quotation, no analysis.	“In the orchard Jane declares, ‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me’, refusing Rochester’s claim on her.”
Three paragraphs, all on the red-room.	Insufficient: evidence from one part of the work.	One paragraph each on the early, middle and late novel.
“As Jane says, ‘I will always be independent and free.’”	An invented quotation.	“Jane refuses St John, telling him he would kill her.”
“This quotation shows that Jane is strong.”	Evidence with a label, not an explanation.	“The blunt ‘you would kill me’ treats his respectable offer as a danger, which shows she values self-preservation above approval.”

Common misconceptions

• “More scenes means a stronger essay.” Three or four well-chosen scenes, each explained, beat a tour of the plot.
• “Quotations are always better than description.” Accurate description is better than an inaccurate quotation.
• “Evidence should come from the most famous scenes.” It should come from the scenes that prove your claim.
• “I need evidence that agrees with me only.” Qualifying evidence strengthens an argument.
• “The ledger is for memorising.” It is for choosing quickly and spreading evidence.
• “One work is enough to prepare.” Two or three works give you flexibility if a prompt does not suit one of them.

Where this leads

Use the practice questions, the revision notes and the checklist. Then try the Unit 9 diagnostic and the Unit 9 review, which bring the unit together.