English 10B Glossary - Vocabulary Words
An inference is a conclusion you make by interpreting evidence and using reasoning skills. For example, if you hear the sound of thunder outside, you might infer that it is raining, even if you don’t see any raindrops.
In the same way, not every concept in a text is stated directly, so it’s important to know how to infer what an author means. If you’re struggling to understand a text, making inferences can help fill in the gaps.
When you make an inference, you use clues from the text along with your own previous knowledge to understand the ideas in the text that are not stated directly.
While reading, we sometimes make inferences without even realizing it. When working with a challenging text, to fully understand it you need to be aware of your thinking.
Keeping the following reading strategies in mind can help you make inferences:
Generate questions about the text.
Use context clues to better understand terms and make inferences from them.
When you’re aware of your thinking, you’ll notice that inferences can change as you read. What you assumed at the beginning of a text might end up being true, or new details might emerge that cause you to revise your conclusion.
This is why it’s important to read actively, take notes, and update your inferences as you go along.
Before Reading
These types of questions can help you establish the purpose of a text.
You might generate questions like “What is the purpose of this text? Who is the audience for this text? What does the title suggest? What do I know about the author of this text?”
During Reading
These types of questions can help you clarify the connections between ideas in a text.
You might generate questions like “How does the first paragraph relate to the second paragraph? What concepts are brought up repeatedly in the text, and why?”
After Reading
These types of questions can help you improve your understanding of the text as a whole.
You might generate questions like “How does the conclusion of the text relate to its introduction? How does the author’s attitude shift throughout the text? What are the key ideas in this text?”
Remember that words can have denotative, or dictionary definitions, or connotative meanings, which describe feelings and ideas we associate with words. Words can also have figurative or non-literal meanings.
It can be more difficult to draw inferences from texts if you don’t understand all the words in them. Fortunately, authors often leave hints about the meanings of words in their texts. Context clues can help you determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. Context clues can include the following:
definition or explanation
words or phrases surrounding a new word that provide context
examples that explain how to use the word in various circumstances
If you’re still struggling to understand a text after considering context clues, you may need to look up vocabulary and concepts in other resources, such as the text’s footnotes or a dictionary.
Follow these steps to support inferences you’ve made when writing about a text:
1. State your claim. This is the argument you’re making about your inference.
2. Cite evidence from the text that supports your inference. Your evidence is the information from the text that ties your inference back to it.
3. Explain how that evidence supports your inference with clear commentary. Part of making an inference is using your reasoning skills, so you’ll need to explain your logic to readers.
For more Information about Citing Sources, see these notes from ENG 9B!
When you paraphrase a text, you take information from the text and put is in your own words (think of how you would explain it to someone else). Paraphrasing a text or a portion of a text can help clarify and strengthen your understanding of the text. Paraphrasing can also be helpful when writing about texts.
Here are some strategies for paraphrasing effectively:
Use your own words to restate the information.
Maintain the order of the events in the text.
Include all important ideas in the section.
A figure of speech a way of saying one thing and meaning something else; figures of speech are unlike literal speech, which means exactly what it says.
Here are some examples of figures of speech:
metaphor - When you use a metaphor, you make a comparison between two unlike things for effect. For example, “The grocery store the day before Thanksgiving was a zoo” is a metaphor that conveys how busy the store is.
hyperbole - When you use hyperbole, you exaggerate or overstate a statement or claim. For example, “This is the worst chocolate cake in the history of all desserts” is a hyperbole that exaggerates how bad the cake is for comedic effect.
euphemism - When you use a euphemism, you describe something harsh, unpleasant, or embarrassing in mild, polite, or indirect terms. For example, “This car is pre-owned” is a euphemism that describes that the car is used, but with more pleasant language.
oxymoron - When you use an oxymoron, you combine terms that appear contradictory to convey a figurative or artistic meaning. For example, “They were only certain of their uncertainty” is an oxymoron that describes the complicated feeling of being unable to predict events.
For more information, see these notes with other figures of speech from ENG 9A!
Also known as a formal inquiry, this is the question that you are supposed to be trying answer for a research project or essay.
Your research question should be
clear - The research question you ask about your topic should be easy to understand. A clear question will help you direct your research and make it easier to present your findings in the future. Your formal inquiry should not be overly complicated or confusing to consider.
focused - You should be able to fully answer your research question within the scope of an essay or presentation. It should not be so broad that you couldn’t possibly answer it in one research project or so narrow that the answer is too simple or specific.
concise - Your research question should not be too wordy or elaborate. It should address an interesting topic that covers a variety of sources, but you should state it in as few words as possible.
complex - Your research question should not have a simple one- or two-word answer (”yes,” “no,” “good,” “bad,” etc.). It should require a more involved explanation drawn from analyzing and synthesizing various sources.
Sometimes, before you can determine your formal inquiry, you may need to conduct some background research. This initial step might involve broad research on your topic of choice to get a better sense of all the aspects of it.
When your research uses specific texts, you will want to review and summarize them to help you generate a formal inquiry.
Example: The questions “How did Parks use his photography to create a better world?” and “Why did the photos of migrant workers inspire Parks?” are appropriate for these reasons:
They are complex, since they have more than a single-word answer.
They are clear, since they are easy to understand.
They are focused, since they are precise but also expansive enough to be worthwhile for a research project.
They are concise, since they are stated in as few words as possible.
The less effective questions are lacking in one or more of these areas, but they can be revised into strong questions. As you conduct a research project, it’s often wise to revise your inquiries as you go along. Since research is an ongoing process, you should work to improve your process at each step.
For example, the question “What did Parks’s childhood home in Kansas look like?” is improperly focused because it is too narrow. To make it a stronger question, it could be revised to “How did Parks’s upbringing affect his photography career?” This revision is stronger because it is broader.
For more in depth info on how to refine a research question, see these notes from ENG 9B!
Once you’ve written your formal inquiry, it’s important to plan how you’ll conduct and present your research. Making a research plan will help guide your process and prepare you to give a stellar presentation.
Here are a few key techniques you need to consider when creating your research plan:
writing some specific sub-questions to accompany your research question
finding appropriate sources to help you answer your research question and sub-questions
summarizing and synthesizing a variety of relevant sources to help you conduct your research, describe your findings, and draft your presentation
revising your research plan and its various elements as you go. As you’ve learned, your research may shift as you go.
For more in depth information on how to do research for writing, please see Unit 4 of ENG 9B!
One technique to plan out your research is to break your formal inquiry down into more specific sub-questions. You can then look for the answers to these specific questions in your research sources.
For example, these might be sub-questions for the research inquiry “How did ancient Egyptians practice medicine?”:
What kinds of medications did ancient Egyptians use?
Did ancient Egyptian doctors have special offices, or did they travel to patients’ homes?
What role did doctors play in ancient Egyptian society?
You can find sources either in a library or online through a search engine or database. You might conduct research using these types of sources:
books
magazines
published interviews
newspapers
blogs and online articles
academic journals
dictionaries, thesauruses, and glossaries
Once you’ve assembled a list of relevant sources, you’ll want to use these strategies:
Summarize your sources. This strategy will help you verify your understanding of each source and keep track of what your various sources say as you develop your presentation.
Synthesize your sources. This technique involves finding connections between your sources. Perhaps one source expands on something another source has mentioned, or two sources provide differing information.
You can present your research in multiple ways. The method you choose to use will depend on these elements:
your purpose
your audience
your task
Once you’re clear about each of these elements, it should be easier to choose your format. For example, let’s say that your purpose is to demonstrate the differences between dance styles, your audience is your classmates, and your task is to describe historical styles of dance. For your presentation, you might choose to show and comment on videos of different historical dance styles.
Or imagine that your purpose is to explain a scientific process, your audience is a group of teachers, and your task is to enter the science fair. You might choose to put together a detailed poster that clearly displays your scientific process.
No matter the format, your presentation should have these qualities:
easy to understand
logical
well organized
substantive
stylistically appropriate
Keeping these guidelines in mind will help you effectively communicate the answer to your research question and the evidence that supports it.
Authors choose their words, or diction, purposefully in literary texts.
They do so because the words writers use have a notable impact on the reader’s experience. Every word has a denotative, or literal, meaning. Some words also have connotative or figurative meanings. Authors consider these meanings when they write in order to better express the purpose, point of view, or mood of a text.
Information about figurative meanings are above in the Figure of Speech section, and you can look at these notes from ENG 9A as a refresher for denotative and connotative meanings!
While voice describes an author’s unique perspective and way of speaking more generally, tone is the author’s attitude toward a specific subject.
For example, while Raisman might use a nostalgic voice to describe her childhood generally, she might take a more dramatic or inspired tone to describe the 1996 US women’s gymnastics team specifically.
How does word choice contribute to tone in a text? Here are a few examples:
An author might use words such as you and phrases such as “Let’s try thinking about this!” to create a friendly tone in a text.
An author could use words such as unacceptable and phrases such as “this cannot be tolerated” to create a scolding tone in a text.
An author may use words such as laughably and phrases such as “he couldn’t have been serious” to create a mocking tone in a text.
The author’s voice and tone also contribute to the mood of the text. A text’s mood refers to the feelings it creates in readers.
For example, the phrase “she sensed a large figure looming behind her” might make readers feel afraid, while the phrase “as he crested the hilltop, he sighed” might make readers feel hopeful, and the phrase “we simply could not stand for it” might make readers feel empowered.
You can better understand a text’s message if you understand an author’s unique style or way of looking at things (voice), the author’s attitude or approach toward the subject (tone), and the feelings that voice and tone create in the reader (mood). By noticing these characteristics and how they interact with one another, you can better comprehend the text’s meaning.
As with all writing, it’s important to consider your task, purpose, and audience. You’ll want to make sure your writing is coherent, clear, fulfills your assignment, conveys your perspective, and suits your audience’s needs.
You also need to make sure your writing is properly developed, well-organized, and stylistically appropriate.
The introduction of an informational text captures the reader’s attention and provides important background knowledge about the topic. It should set up the argument or the main idea. For example, a text’s introduction may begin by describing the person, place, or concept it covers in interesting terms.
The introduction of an informational text captures the reader’s attention and provides important background knowledge about the topic. It should set up the argument or the main idea. For example, a text’s introduction may begin by describing the person, place, or concept it covers in interesting terms.
A topic sentence provides the main idea in a paragraph that supports the thesis. For example, if the thesis statement describes how various types of birds migrate, a topic sentence might focus on the migration of parrots. Topic sentences organize a text by breaking down its main idea into smaller parts. A topic sentence often (but not always) appears at the beginning of body paragraph.
A thesis statement and a topic sentence need to be backed up with relevant supporting evidence. This could include pertinent examples, facts, statistics, or any other information that could help readers see how the text’s main ideas or arguments are true.
Statements of reasoning clarify or elaborate on the logic of the text’s argument or main idea. In the organization of a text, reasoning ties every other structural element together. For example, an author might use reasoning to link a historian’s account of the Mayans with his or her argument about their culture. It is often found before or after supporting evidence in a text.
The conclusion ties together the main points in the text. It refers to the thesis statement without restating it. It can also explain why the information in the text is important to the reader. The conclusion is important to the organization of the text because it helps the reader understand that the text is ending.
Authors use features to present additional information to readers and enhance their texts.
Text features may be multimodal, which means they include text, audio, and visual elements. Many features are common in both print and digital texts, however, print texts are much more likely to use footnotes, while only digital texts can include links and videos.
Authors use features to present additional information to readers and enhance their texts.
The title of a text can convey important meaning. The title may provide a summary of the text’s content. It can also provide an intriguing description to capture the reader’s attention, or it may offer a different perspective on the text that may color the reader’s overall interpretation of it.
Headings are mini titles within the text that help name and organize subsections of the text. They can help you better understand a text’s structure and main ideas.
Images within texts may include illustrations, photographs, portraits, graphs, charts, or any other visual reference materials. Images provide context for a text and help readers visualize the concepts it discusses.
Captions typically go beneath or next to images and describe what they depict. Captions may also help readers connect the text’s main ideas to the images included.
The colors an author uses to help structure or format informational text can also convey meaning. Perhaps an author uses a blue background to describe contextual information and a green background to describe new findings.
Similarly, an author may highlight certain words or phrases. Highlighting can create emphasis, categorize certain terms, and help structure the text.
Authors use footnotes and endnotes to give the reader additional information about the text. The author adds a small number next to a word to direct the reader to the corresponding number at the bottom of the page (in footnotes) or at the end of the text (in endnotes).
Footnotes and endnotes can provide technical data or dictionary definitions readers may not already know. They can also expand on less relevant, but interesting ideas related to the text.
Links function similarly to footnotes or endnotes, but they only appear in digital texts. They are often hyperlinked, meaning that when a reader clicks on a group of words the link is attached to, the link opens a webpage. The new webpage can provide additional background information.
The fonts an author uses can also have an impact on the meaning of the text. Fonts include the shape, size, style, and coloring of letters. Authors often use different fonts throughout a text to differentiate titles, headings, body text, key terms, captions, and other elements. Italics, bolding, and underlining are particularly useful for offsetting titles or headings or highlighting certain words or phrases.
While authors may provide videos through links, they can also embed them in digital texts so readers can play them directly from the text. Videos can help readers see and hear more information about the topic of the informational text. This is particularly useful if the subject matter of the text is difficult to picture or comprehend from words alone.
A text’s characteristics help the reader connect and organize ideas.
Whenever you read an informational text, it’s a good idea to pay attention to the way the author uses its characteristics to create organization. Noticing how authors connect and arrange ideas can help you better interpret a text’s overall meaning.
Analyze the connections authors draw between ideas in individual paragraphs (such as between a topic sentence and evidence), in multiple paragraphs across the text (such as between an introduction and conclusion), and in the text as a whole, with all of its features (such as between a text’s images and paragraphs).
There are almost limitless ways to arrange information in a text, but some of the most common strategies include:
compare and contrast - This strategy describes the similarities and differences between two or more people, concepts, or things.
problem and solution - This strategy identifies an issue and then discusses one or more possible solutions to remedy it.
cause and effect - This strategy explains an action and its consequences.
description - This strategy provides an in-depth explanation of a place, idea, thing, or activity.
chronology - This strategy describes a person’s life, a movement, or something similar in chronological order, from the earliest events to the most recent developments.
instruction - This strategy provides every step readers need to guide them through a process.
If you use a source but don’t properly explain that you’ve used it or give due credit to its author, you are essentially pretending that someone else’s ideas are your own. This practice is plagiarism. Of course, sometimes people plagiarize others intentionally, such as when one student copies another’s paper.
However, you can also plagiarize even if you don’t mean to:
If you don’t add the name of a source or credit its author, that is plagiarism.
If you put an author’s ideas in your own words but don’t specifically refer to the text you’ve paraphrased, that is plagiarism.
If you forget to put quotation marks around a statement you are directly copying from a source, that is plagiarism.
When cite a source, that means that you indicate the source of words quoted in a document or speech.
Your citation is your way of specifically referencing every detail of your source. It’s important that you include all the relevant information, both so that you can give the people who worked on the sources proper credit and so that your readers can find the source to read it for themselves if they would like. Including proper citations makes your work academically honest and helps others benefit from the sources that you found helpful.
Please use Edmentum's MLA Citation Guide as a good reference for how to write your citations!
(If this link doesn't help and you need a bigger breakdown, please see the next section!)
When you include textual evidence or ideas from a source, you’ll need to include an in-text citation. Remember these requirements:
Provide in-text citations for all borrowed material, including quoted and paraphrased statements.
Use parentheses to indicate the source of the concepts you used. An in-text citation is usually the author’s last name or the title of the source.
Consult a style guide to help you properly format your in-text citations.
Once you’ve chosen which authoritative sources you want to use in writing, you’ll need to create a works cited page for them. This page can also be called a Works Cited list or a reference page.
This page includes every source you used in creating your work. If you quote or paraphrase a source in your essay with an in-text citation, the source should go in your Works Cited page.