KEY ESSAY WRITING SKILLS
Making an argument (part 3)
how to develop your argument with more evidence and analysis
This is part 3 of our 3-part series on making an argument. Once you’ve mastered the basics of the PEA argument structure, you need to understand how you can develop your argument with more evidence and analysis, making PEAEA and PEAEAEA paragraphs. There’s more to this than just adding extra evidence and analysis, though, as you will see.
Quick links for this skill
Listen to a fun AI podcast about how to do this skill - based on all 3 parts of the series (10 mins)
Other guides in the series
Why you need to be able to do this
Throughout this series of guides we’ve been focussing on the idea of making your argument as good as possible. Ultimately, that’s what makes for a good PEA paragraph: a good argument. And the same principle applies here too. You need to be able to add more evidence and analysis to your paragraphs because it will allow you to prove your point more thoroughly, and thus make the argument for your paragraph, and for your essay as a whole, more effective. More evidence makes for a more convincing argument, so wherever possible you should include multiple pieces of evidence in every analytical paragraph. This is not the same as multiple quotations, though. You can, and often will, include multiple quotations in a single piece of evidence. You also need multiple distinct pieces of evidence, each with a distinct bit of analysis alongside it. We’ll look at how to do this in more detail over the rest of this guide.
How much additional evidence to add
Realistically, you are unlikely to ever include more than three distinct pieces of evidence in a single paragraph (PEAEAEA). As we said above, that does not mean only three quotations – it means three evidence sentences that you analyse. If you’re analysing your evidence in the sort of detail you should be, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll include more than three pieces of evidence in a single paragraph. You should aim for at least two in most cases, though there is an exception, which we’ll explain below, before we get to the main content of this guide.
When not to add a second bit of evidence
In any PEA(EAEA) paragraph, the proportion of the paragraph taken up by the analysis should be considerably greater than the proportion taken up by both the point and evidence combined. You need to say a lot about a little. You should be able to see this in both of the examples below. As such, there will be times when your analysis of the first bit of evidence in your PEA paragraph is so detailed (particularly if you take the approach we outline in the quotation explosion guide) that there simply may not be time for you to add more evidence and analysis to that particular paragraph, especially when you’re writing your essay in timed conditions. Ultimately, it’s more important that you finish the whole essay, rather than write one giant paragraph, with several bits of evidence, each analysed within an inch of its life. From time to time, it is okay for you to write a simple PEA paragraph (no extension), providing the analysis part is massive.
But, more often than not, you will want to add at least one additional piece of evidence, which is what this guide is all about.
How to choose the additional evidence to add
As with all your evidence, you need to choose it based on relevance and meaningfulness. See our separate guide for a more detailed discussion of these two concepts.
In addition, as the second or third piece of evidence in your paragraph, your additional evidence also needs to fulfil two other criteria: it needs to be complementary but distinct. In other words, you need another piece of evidence that supports your point (is complementary) but which adds something new to your discussion (is distinct). You don’t want more evidence that shows exactly the same thing as the evidence that has gone before. Otherwise you’ll have nothing new to say in the analysis.
In addition, your second and third bits of evidence should, almost always, come from later in the text than the previous evidence. Each paragraph should treat the text in a roughly chronological way.
Finally, you need to write your second or third evidence sentence in such a way that it continues naturally from the first part of the paragraph, ideally with some reference back to the point, rather than just writing it as you would the first bit of evidence.
So, to summarise:
Your additional evidence should be relevant and meaningful;
It should be complementary (supporting your argument) but distinct (allowing you to say something new);
It should come from later in the text than the first bit of evidence;
It should be written in such a way that it continues your paragraph in a natural way, with some kind of linking phrase before the evidence.
Let’s look at some examples to help make all of this clearer.
Example 1
Below is a PEA paragraph based on the novel A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Afterwards, we’ll look at how you could add more evidence to extend it.
Throughout A Monster Calls Patrick Ness suggests that, like Conor, Grandma is struggling to cope with his mother’s illness. When she “crisply” tells Conor that his mother’s medication isn’t working, she seems like she’s “looking just over his head rather than at him.” The fact she can’t look him in the eye, or even at his head, suggests that Grandma isn’t in full control of her emotions at this point. She is trying to be the grown-up here, explaining “crisply” the facts of the situation, but her eyes betray her true feelings. This act implies that she fears, were she to look at Conor, she would start to cry, and this would only make things worse for him, and so she looks just away from him to help her keep it together.
In order to extend this paragraph we need to find evidence that meets our criteria from earlier on:
It needs to be as relevant and meaningful as possible. There is too much involved with these two things to explain here, but make sure you’ve read the other guide if you’re not sure what these two criteria mean.
It needs to be complementary. This means it needs to support the point that Grandma is struggling to cope. It could also show that she isn’t in full control of her emotions at this point, since that’s a supporting idea for this point.
It needs to be distinct. The second piece of evidence can’t just show that she isn’t in able to look Conor in the eye; otherwise you’d have nothing new to say. This is one of the things people most often get wrong when choosing a second or third piece of evidence.
It needs to come from later in the text, not earlier, so we’re going to take ours from a scene that happens a couple of chapters later.
The evidence sentence you write needs to be written in such a way that it flows naturally from what’s gone before, with some kind of linking phrase.
Taking all of that in to account, here is an example of a good second evidence sentence for our paragraph. Notice how it meets all the requirements in the list above.
We see her struggling to cope even more clearly a few chapters later, after Conor (and the Monster) have destroyed her living room; Grandma ignores Conor entirely and, while “moaning”, “her face twisted in tears”, she sends “the only thing remaining upright in the room … crashing to the floor” with three hard tugs.
We’ll look at how to analyse this evidence in the next part of the guide.
Example 2
Below is a paragraph based on the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Afterwards, we’ll look at how you could add more evidence to extend it.
At the start of Lord of the Flies William Golding presents Ralph as quite a cruel boy. In chapter one, when Piggy tells him his nickname for the first time, Ralph “shriek[s] with laughter” before saying, “Piggy! Piggy!” The fact Ralph takes such delight in others’ cruelty – the bullying Piggy had to endure at home – suggests that he too has a cruel streak. To emphasise this, Golding uses the verb ‘shrieked’ to describe Ralph’s laughter, implying it lacks warmth or mirth and is pure nastiness. Furthermore, Golding uses exclamation marks in Ralph’s speech to convey how enthusiastic his cruelty is.
In order to extend this paragraph we need to find evidence that meets our criteria from earlier on:
It needs to be as relevant and meaningful as possible.
It needs to be complementary. This means it needs to support the point that Ralph is quite a cruel boy. It mustn’t show that Ralph is an absolute monster, though, because that would not support the point. It needs to show that he’s quite cruel, since that’s the point.
It needs to be distinct. It can’t just show Ralph delighting in others’ cruelty again, since that’s what the first bit of evidence showed. We need to see something more in the second piece of evidence, ideally some cruelty that Ralph himself shows towards another person. Otherwise we’d have little more to add in the analysis.
It needs to come from later in the text, not earlier, though it must also come from the start of the novel (the first couple of chapters, roughly), since the point includes this positional reference. We’re going to take something from later in the same chapter.
The evidence sentence needs to be written in such a way that it flows naturally from what’s gone before, with some kind of linking phrase.
Taking all of that into account, here is an example of a good second evidence sentence for our paragraph. Notice how it meets all the requirements in the list above.
It is later in the chapter, however, during the boys’ first meeting that Golding shows the full extent of Ralph’s cruelty when he betrays Piggy’s trust in front of the other boys, “cr[ying] … ‘his real name’s Piggy!’” when Jack calls him “Fatty”.
We’ll look at how to analyse this in the next section of the guide.
From these two examples, you should be able to see what is involved in writing a second (or third) evidence sentence in a PEA paragraph. It’s not easy, and you will probably need to look back over this section of the guide a couple of times to really take it all in, but it’s worth spending that time if you want to write good essays.
How to analyse the additional evidence
Fundamentally your additional analysis needs to stick to the core principle for all analysis: it needs to prove your argument by explaining your reasoning. (See our guide to explaining reasoning if you’re not sure what this means.) Where possible, your reasoning should include some of the extra components we discuss in our later guides too, like analysing language, form and structure, or linking to big ideas. That’s true of all analysis.
More importantly, though, at least for this guide, given that this is a second or third bit of evidence in your paragraph, it needs to say something new. Hopefully, if you’ve chosen a good bit of evidence, this should be taken care of. But it needs to feel as if it’s building on the analysis that has gone before, and one easy way to do that is to refer back to whatever you said in your earlier bit(s) of analysis. We’ll see some examples of this later on.
Finally, it need to link clearly back to the point near the end. This is because it will have been a while since the person reading your paragraph read your point, so including a reminder link will help them to follow your argument more easily.
Let’s consider the examples from the first part of this guide to help make all of this clearer.
Example 1
This was our example PEA paragraph for A Monster Calls. In the box below you can see an example of how this paragraph has been extended with a second piece of evidence and some more analysis. Underneath, we’ll outline how this meets the criteria we explained above. To help you see the component parts more clearly, the point is in bold and both evidence sentences are in italics. The underlined sections are important parts of the analysis which we’ll discuss afterwards.
Throughout A Monster Calls Patrick Ness suggests that, like Conor, Grandma is struggling to cope with his mother’s illness. When she “crisply” tells Conor that his mother’s medication isn’t working, she seems like she’s “looking just over his head rather than at him.” The fact she can’t look him in the eye, or even at his head, suggests that Grandma isn’t in full control of her emotions at this point. She is trying to be the grown-up here, explaining “crisply” the facts of the situation, but her eyes betray her true feelings. This act implies that she fears, were she to look at Conor, she would start to cry, and this would only make things worse for him, and so she looks just away from him to help her keep it together. We see her struggling to cope even more clearly a few chapters later, after Conor (and the Monster) have destroyed her living room; Grandma ignores Conor entirely and, while “moaning”, “her face twisted in tears”, she sends “the only thing remaining upright in the room … crashing to the floor” with three hard tugs. Here again Patrick Ness gives us a sense of a woman on the edge, someone barely keeping it together, although this time she is not able to keep back the tears. Of course, she is dealing with something else here too – the destruction of her living room – but the fact she engages in the destruction herself suggests that there is more going on in her mind. Perhaps, like Conor, she feels helpless because she is unable to control the one thing that she most wants to: her daughter’s illness. And so, like Conor, she takes out her frustration and anger at the world by destroying the only undamaged furniture in the room. Despite her best efforts to seem prim, proper and in control of her own life, this act, even more than her inability to look at Conor, reveals just how much of a struggle her daughter’s illness is for Grandma.
You should be able to see from this example that the analysis is doing the following things:
The second evidence starts with a linking phrase so it flows naturally.
It explains the reasoning. It says why that piece of evidence suggests that Grandma is struggling to cope with Conor’s mum’s illness.
It builds on the first bit of evidence by showing a further loss of control – this is in part because the evidence comes from later in the text.
It also includes several links back to the first part of the paragraph – see the underlined sections for where this is happening.
It links back to the point clearly at the end.
Example 2
This was our example PEA paragraph for Lord of the Flies. In the box below you can see an example of how this paragraph has been extended with a second piece of evidence and more analysis. Underneath, we’ll outline why this is an effective extension of the paragraph. To help you see the component parts more clearly, the point is in bold and both evidence sentences are in italics. The underlined sections are important parts of the analysis which we’ll discuss afterwards.
At the start of Lord of the Flies William Golding presents Ralph as quite a cruel boy. In chapter one, when Piggy tells him his nickname for the first time, Ralph “shriek[s] with laughter” before saying, “Piggy! Piggy!” The fact Ralph takes such delight in others’ cruelty – the bullying Piggy had to endure at home – suggests that he too has a cruel streak. To emphasise this, Golding uses the verb ‘shrieked’ to describe Ralph’s laughter, implying it lacks warmth or mirth, and is pure nastiness. Furthermore, Golding uses exclamation marks in Ralph’s speech to convey how enthusiastic his cruelty is. It is later in the chapter, however, during the boys’ first meeting that Golding shows the full extent of Ralph’s cruelty when he betrays Piggy’s trust in front of the other boys, “cr[ying] … ‘his real name’s Piggy!’” when Jack calls him “Fatty”. Here again we see Ralph’s cruel streak, though this time it is worse: he is not just delighting in the cruelty of others; he is engaging in cruelty himself. Once again, Golding uses a verb (‘cry’) and another exclamation mark to convey a sense of Ralph’s enthusiasm as he mocks poor Piggy for a cheap laugh. Ralph is not a monster, though, as Golding makes clear in other parts of this chapter, as well as elsewhere in the novel. It’s just that he is overtaken here by the social pressure to win others’ approval and to join in, in this case with Jack, who is a much nastier individual. This is one of the many flaws in human nature that Golding wishes to illuminate in his novel – that even basically decent people, like Ralph, can behave with real cruelty in the right circumstances, like when status and power are at stake – which is why he makes Ralph quite cruel at the start of the novel.
This analysis is a bit more sophisticated than the analysis in Example 1, with methods and big ideas brought in, but you should be able to see that it’s doing all of the same things we saw in the first example:
The evidence starts with a linking phrase so it flows naturally.
It explains the reasoning. It says why that piece of evidence suggests that Ralph is quite a cruel boy.
It builds on the first bit of evidence by showing a worse example of cruelty – this is in part because the evidence comes from later in the text – and also by linking Ralph’s cruelty to big ideas about human nature.
It also includes several links back to the first part of the paragraph – see the underlined sections for where this is happening.
It links back to the point clearly at the end.
Is it okay to extend a paragraph with contradictory evidence?
This is a question that students sometimes ask. They wonder if it’s okay to take a kind of ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ approach in a paragraph, or in an essay as a whole, offering both sides of an argument. The short answer to this question is no.
You should not be undermining your argument by presenting an opposing argument that you do not challenge. You should believe that your point (and your thesis) is correct and therefore you should want to argue for it, not against it. If you think the situation or the character is more complicated than your point suggests, then you should change the point, not provide evidence that disproves it.
The only situation in which you might include some evidence that seems to contradict your point is if you intend to explain, in your analysis, why this seemingly contradictory evidence in fact proves your point, or at least doesn’t disprove it, in which case it’s not really contradictory evidence, so it’s fine.
Summing up - key things to remember when developing your argument with more evidence and analysis
You should aim to include at least two bits of evidence in every analytical paragraph, and probably no more than three, though if the analysis of your first piece of evidence is massive, it’s okay to just have a PEA paragraph.
When choosing an additional piece of evidence it needs to be complementary to but distinct from the previous bits of evidence.
Any additional evidence should come from later in the text.
Your additional evidence sentences should flow naturally from the earlier parts of the paragraph, with some kind of linking phrase.
Your additional analysis needs to build on the analysis from earlier in the paragraph – saying something new.
Your additional analysis should link back to the analysis from earlier in the paragraph.
You should clearly link later analysis back to the point before you finish the paragraph.
You should not add additional contradictory evidence – it must be complementary.