The Quote That Lost Its Comparison
A student is drafting body paragraph 3 of an essay arguing for a protected bike lane on a city street. Rules: at least one direct quotation and one paraphrase, and no more than eight sentences per paragraph. Her source, a city transportation study, states: “Cyclist injuries fell 22% on the protected lane, though reported injuries also fell 9% citywide that year.” Her draft sentence reads: “According to the study, protected bike lanes cut injuries by 22%, which proves the lanes are the cause of safer riding.” The paragraph already contains a paraphrase of a business-owner survey, a sentence about lost parking spaces, and a closing sentence - seven sentences so far.
1. Identify what the draft sentence does to the source, then rewrite it so the quotation is used fairly.
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Three problems:
- The comparison is dropped. The lane's 22% and the citywide 9% belong in the same sentence; the lane's advantage over the background trend is roughly 13 points, not 22.
- Association becomes causation. “Proves … the cause” is a claim the study does not make.
- The inference is misattributed. “According to the study” covers a conclusion the study never draws, so the reader is told the source said something it didn't.
Model rewrite: “On the protected lane, cyclist injuries fell 22% - a steeper drop than the 9% decline citywide - which is consistent with, though not proof of, a safety benefit from the lane.”
Why it works: the number survives, the comparison the source supplies is restored, and the inference is made in the writer's voice and labeled as an inference.
2. The paragraph is at seven sentences and still needs a paraphrase of the study. What do you cut, and what does the choice cost the argument?
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Don't paraphrase the same statistic - a paraphrase of the 22% figure would repeat the quotation and waste the sentence.
Best move: paraphrase a different part of the study. The study contains a caveat worth having: injury reporting rates vary by neighborhood. Paraphrasing that gives the paragraph a concession it currently lacks.
What to cut: the lost-parking sentence is the most expendable, or it can be compressed into a clause attached to the business-owner sentence, since both concern local costs.
The trade-off, stated honestly: the paragraph loses a concrete cost to residents and gains a limitation on its own evidence. That is usually the better trade in an argument essay, because the concession is what keeps the central claim standing when a reader pushes back.
3. A classmate says that adding “though reported injuries also fell citywide” hands ammunition to the opponent. Respond, and explain how the comparison should be framed.
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The objection assumes the 9% undercuts the claim. It doesn't - it calibrates it. A citywide decline of 9% in the same year is the background rate; the lane's 22% is the difference the argument is actually about. Framed as a contrast, the number strengthens the case, because it shows the writer accounted for the obvious alternative explanation (something else was making cycling safer everywhere).
Framing rule: put the two numbers in one sentence with a comparison word - “steeper than,” “compared with,” “roughly 13 points beyond.” Never let the 22% appear alone, and never let “proves” appear at all.
What the classmate is right about: a bare statistic followed later by the citywide figure looks like a concealment. Adjacency is the whole defense.