hello my name is Arielle and welcome to
my series on how to write an essay today
we're talking about evidence and
citation this video is brought to you by
Squarespace
important to the tradition of essay
writing is using other people's ideas
and research to back up your own
argument today I'm talking about
evidence and citation because it is
fundamental to the way that we write
essays and to the way to strengthen your
paper where can you find evidence now
honestly evidence is everywhere you can
find it in newspapers you can find it on
youtube videos but your biggest bet is
to go to your school's library website
and do some research find some sources
find people that are backing up the
ideas that you're saying and this is
where that originality comes from sure
you're using other people's ideas to
back up your own but what you're doing
is creating a unique network of ideas
finding all of these disparate ideas all
to back up your new idea this is the
reason I wanted to make this episode
because this is the place where a lot of
marks are lost when marking essays it's
in the use and application of that
evidence so number one make sure that
whatever your evidence is is backing up
your point and backing up your thesis
statement although you might find a
really interesting quote about your
topic if it doesn't directly support
what you're arguing you shouldn't use it
secondly the placement of evidence is
really important do not and I mean do
not just drop it in randomly I'm kind of
talking about this I'll just plop this
quote in never do that your evidence
should be well supported it's ridiculous
maybe that your support needs support
but it really does in our episode on
essay structure we broke down how to
construct a paragraph and think about
that when you are putting
in evidence so you have your topic
sentence in a paragraph you make a point
you then introduce some relevant
evidence and then and this is the key
key point you explain why your evidence
is important never assume that your
reader will know why you think that
evidence was important if you do this I
can assure you that you are going to get
a better grade no I really don't think
that our main aim in essay writing just
be to get a better grade but I know it's
really important to people and a lot of
people ask me why didn't I do great on
this paper I had evidence but if you
don't back your evidence up if you don't
explain why you picked it if you don't
explain where it came from then it's
useless and your final step when you're
using evidence is to properly cite it I
don't need to go on a whole spiel with
you about how dangerous plagiarism is it
may seem boring it may seem like an
afterthought but what you're doing is
respecting the academic tradition of
sharing ideas you're covering yourself
so that you don't get in trouble and
you're making a way better reading
experience for whoever your reader is
it's really nice pleasant to read a well
cited paper when I know exactly where
your evidence came from when you've
introduced your evidence correctly and
when you have a nice bibliography page
when you have the correct page numbers
in the right place and you have a title
page etc those things all make for a
better reading experience which is what
your reader and marker want so hopefully
you've taken some good tips from this if
I could just drive home two things it
would be one always explain why the
evidence you've chosen is important and
to make sure to properly cite everything
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below what is your current research area
it's always fun to learn I hope that you
found this helpful and I'll see you in
the next video
you