Making Inferences Bringing Your Knowledge to the Text

What Is an Inference? An inference is an informed guess you make, based on evidence, about something you read or observe. Evidence in the text + Prior knowledge and experience = An inference

How to Make Inferences Step 1: Look for evidence in the text. • What details are related to important ideas or events? • What surprising or unusual information jumps out at you? • What vivid, memorable word choices get your attention?

How to Make Inferences Step 2: Think about your prior knowledge and experience. • What do you already know about the topic? • What other things have you seen or read about related to the topic? • What experiences do you have that are similar to the important ideas and events in the text?

How to Make Inferences Step 3: Draw an inference that combines evidence from the text with your prior knowledge and experience. • What “big idea” ties your knowledge and experience to the text’s major ideas and events? • Does your inference contradict ideas in the text? If it does, work through steps 1 and 2 again, and draw a new inference.

Two Kinds of Inferences Two common kinds of inferences are conclusions and generalizations. • Conclusions are specific ideas drawn from general evidence. They generally explore ideas specific to the text you are reading. • General Specific • Generalizations are broad statements based on specific evidence. They usually extend beyond the text to the world at large. • Specific General

Let’s Practice Read the passage below, and make an inference about the status of women during Wollstonecraft’s time period. My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt. from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

Let’s Practice Evidence in the text Prior knowledge and experience An inference Wollstonecraft wants to treat women as rational beings, not as children. In the past, women had few rights and were considered less capable than men. Women in Wollstonecraft’s time period were considered irrational, childlike, and weak both physically and mentally. She wants them to acquire strength of body and mind. She doesn’t want them to be objects of pity or contempt. + Women had to fight for equal rights and to prove their abilities. =

On Your Own Make an inference about Queen Elizabeth’s character after reading the passage from her famous Tilbury Speechº. I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king—and of a king of England too—and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm. To which, rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. °A speech given in 1588 before news of the Spanish Armada’s defeat reached England. Elizabeth’s goal was to rouse her land forces to defend England against Spanish invasion.

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