Connect Across the Curriculum, continued
Literary Analysis: Evaluate Informational Text
Academic Vocabulary

  • • evaluate (i-val-yu-wāt) verb To evaluate is to decide how good or useful something is.

When you research a topic, you need to evaluate the information you find to decide if it is useful to you. One part of evaluating information is recognizing the kinds of details a writer uses to support the main idea—facts, opinions, and inferences. The most useful information usually contains more facts than opinions or inferences because good writers will support opinions and inferences with facts.

Practice Together

Identify the Author’s Opinions and Inferences Read the passage and identify any opinions and inferences.

Special Olympics is an organization that serves children and adults with special needs. It helps them become healthy and productive people. Research shows that people who participate in Special Olympics become more confident and communicate better with others. Special Olympics serves over 2.5 million people in 165 countries. These numbers were reached after a successful campaign that began in 2000. It changed feelings about people with special needs all over the world.

The chart shows some opinions and inferences from the passage. Are there any facts that support these ideas? Write them in the chart. Evaluate how well the writer supported his or her ideas.

Opinions/InferencesSupporting Facts
Special Olympics helps special needs people become healthy and productive people.
The campaign helped increase its numbers.

Try It!

Evaluate Information Find an article about people with special needs in a newspaper, in a magazine, or on the Internet. Read it and evaluate how well the writer supports his or her ideas. Use a chart like the one above.