direct quotations
Direct quotations come directly from the text you are analyzing. They are the best choice when it comes to proving your thesis statement because they come directly from the source. The thesis statement is the topic sentence for the essay. The textual evidence should be used to support the thesis statement. The author's biography and a summary of the plot may not be useful at all depending on the thesis statement. Paraphrasing the text can be considered evidence, but not textual evidence since it is not specifically from the text.
