Finding Supporting Details
Each controlling sentence in a text is supported with different types of details. Note how the following thesis statement is supported by different details.
Thesis statement: Music speaks directly to us, saying things that words cannot say, and the reason is in part because music is older than language.
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Supporting Details |
Example |
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Facts are ideas that can be proven true or false. |
Prior to the development of speech, humans communicated orally through sighs, calls, moans, and other sounds with pitch and rhythm. |
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Statistics are ideas expressed in numbers. |
For 1 million years, Homo habilis communicated, coordinating the efforts of over a dozen individuals to create elaborate home sites, but Homo sapiens did not develop the full apparatus for modern speech until about 50,000 years ago. |
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Definitions tell what a word means. |
The larynx, the structure that holds the vocal folds, migrated downward in the human throat to make speech possible, though humans could produce other sounds before. |
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Examples show how an idea works in specific situations. |
Other animals that communicate aurally do so with song, including all manner of birds, whales, and insects. |
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Descriptions tell what something looks, feels, smells, tastes, or sounds like. |
The human vocal apparatus is a Rube-Goldberg-like machine including flexible lips, an acrobatic tongue, a reedlike set of vocal folds, and a diaphragm that can control breath like the ever-pressing arm of a bagpiper. |
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Anecdotes are stories that illustrate a point. |
Vicki the chimpanzee learned to verbally speak four words—"mama," "papa," "cup," and "up"—but Koko the gorilla learned to nonverbally speak using 250 words in American Sign Language. |
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Quotations provide the exact words of someone. |
The great American composer Leonard Bernstein speculated that the origin of the word "mama" was the musical hum of hunger, "mmmmm," combined with the sung "aaaaa" of longing: "What we seem to be getting to is a hypothesis that would confirm a cliche—namely, Music is Heightened Speech." Indeed, music is the mother of speech. |
Different types of details provide different types of support. Using a variety of details lets you fully elaborate an idea, answering the reader's many questions about it.
- Facts ground a point in reality by providing verifiable evidence.
- Statistics quantify a claim, telling how much, how often, or to what extent.
- Definitions clarify terms, helping readers gain the vocabulary they need to fully grasp the concept.
- Examples provide specific instances of a general concept, showing how an idea works in reality.
- Descriptions allow readers to experience an idea through sensory details—sights, sounds, scents, pressure, temperature, texture, and so on.
- Anecdotes illustrate a point using one of the most potent strategies for making meaning—stories.
- Quotations allow readers to hear directly from experts and others involved in the topic.
Find supporting details.
Read the following excerpt. Write down one supporting detail for each type listed below the excerpt.
Listen to "Language Older Than Words"
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Excerpt from "Language Older Than Words"
Jennifer Reyes
As a form of communication that predates language, music bypasses words to speak directly to emotion. The basic vocabulary of music is rooted not in words but in pitch, the frequency of wavelengths of sound, and duration, how long a sound lasts in time. Pitch and duration are not products of human invention but rather of the physics of the natural world.
The pitch of a sound has a powerful emotional effect. The lowest A on a piano has 28 hertz (a wavelength of 1,229 cm), a sound that evokes a growling bear or the rumble of a landslide. Such low pitches give listeners a feeling of impending doom. In the early 1980s, engineer Vic Tandy experienced the uncanny effects of even deeper pitches. While working alone designing medical equipment in a laboratory, Tandy suddenly broke into a cold sweat, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and had a blurred vision of a threatening figure lurking beside him. He fled. Later, he discovered that this "haunting" was actually due to a standing sound wave of 19 hertz, just below the audible range. It bounced off the walls of the laboratory and focused in the center, just where he had been working. Since then, scientists have discovered that this wavelength corresponds to the sub-audible sound of an earthquake. Animals that react with panic and dread to an earthquake before it is audible are responding to these deep wavelengths. Humans "hear" these deep pitches with their bodies instead of their ears and experience the overwhelming emotional response of threat. Back in the center of the audible sound range sits an A at 440 hertz (a wavelength of 78 centimeters), in the comfortable singing range of an alto voice. This pitch does not create the fear response of an angry bear or an impending earthquake but rather the comforting feeling of maternal love. At the upper end of the piano is an A at 7040 hertz (a wavelength of 5 centimeters), in the piping range of birdsong. Not surprisingly, this pitch sounds light and airy to human ears. In fact, many composers use pitches in this range to evoke the playful interchange of birds on a sunny day.
Duration is also key to the emotional impact of music. Most percussion instruments (including the piano) produce sound with a strong initial attack and a quick fade, evoking a feeling of brittle energy and precision. Long-duration sounds like those produced by the singing human voice, the drone of a bagpipe, or the song of a humpback whale have a much more mesmerizing effect. Notably, humans are the only great apes that can produce long, sustained, singing sounds. Chimps and gorillas can create only grunts and howls of short duration before they must take their next breath. It is no wonder, then, that brief bursts of sound in music strike us at least as energetic and perhaps as hostile, while the long, sustained sounds of human voices create the soothing effect of a lullaby.
Pitch and duration provide the base vocabulary for the emotional language of music. At its most basic, music is simply organized sound. Composers combine pitch and duration in an infinite variety of ways, unfolding them in patterns over time to create melodies or stacking them on top of each other in the same moment to create harmony. Whatever their arrangement, the universal language of music speaks directly to emotion. Victor Hugo, the French novelist who penned Les Miserables, best summed up the emotional language of music when he noted, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."
- Facts are ideas that can be proven to be true.
- Statistics are facts that are quantified with numbers.
- Definitions tell what a word means.
- Examples show how an idea works in a specific situation.
- Descriptions tell what something looks, feels, sounds, tastes, or smells like.
- Anecdotes are stories that illustrate a point.
- Quotations give the exact words of someone.
Teaching Tip
You can extend this activity by providing a different article and having students search for these types of details in it.
Using Evidence from Sources
Whenever you use ideas from a source, you need to name the source and the author. Usually, you put the ideas in your own words (paraphrase them).
Excerpt from "Language Older Than Words"
Jennifer Reyes
. . . In the early 1980s, engineer Vic Tandy experienced the uncanny effects of even deeper pitches. While working alone designing medical equipment in a laboratory, Tandy suddenly broke into a cold sweat, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and had a blurred vision of a threatening figure lurking beside him. He fled. Later, he discovered that this "haunting" was actually due to a standing sound wave of 19 hertz, just below the audible range. It bounced off the walls of the laboratory and focused in the center, just where he had been working. Since then, scientists have discovered that this wavelength corresponds to the sub-audible sound of an earthquake. Animals that react with panic and dread to an earthquake before it is audible are responding to these deep wavelengths. Humans "hear" these deep pitches with their bodies instead of their ears and experience the overwhelming emotional response of threat. . . .
In the article “Language Older Than Words,” (Title) Jennifer Reyes (Author) reports that sounds below the range of human hearing create sensations of dread and panic, as if something terrible is about to happen. (Paraphrase)
If you use the writer’s exact words, put the words in quotation marks. If the quote is followed by a comma or period, put it inside the end quotation mark.
In the article “Language Older Than Words,” (Title) Jennifer Reyes (Author) reports that sounds below the range of human hearing produce “the overwhelming emotional response of threat.” (Quotation)
Paraphrase and quote.
Paraphrase and quote this selection. Mention the title and author.
Excerpt from "Language Older Than Words"
Jennifer Reyes
Duration is also key to the emotional impact of music. Most percussion instruments (including the piano) produce sound with a strong initial attack and a quick fade, evoking a feeling of brittle energy and precision. Long-duration sounds like those produced by the singing human voice, the drone of a bagpipe, or the song of a humpback whale have a much more mesmerizing effect. Notably, humans are the only great apes that can produce long, sustained, singing sounds. Chimps and gorillas can create only grunts and howls of short duration before they must take their next breath. It is no wonder, then, that brief bursts of sound in music strike us at least as energetic and perhaps as hostile, while the long, sustained sounds of human voices create the soothing effect of a lullaby.
Paraphrase:
Quotation:
Teaching Tip
Help students realize that they need to credit sources and authors for their ideas. Encourage them to paraphrase most often unless the exact wording perfectly expresses an idea.