When you want to know or give more details and be more specific…
Elaborate
“Can you elaborate (tell me more)?”
“Tell me more about…”
“In other words, …”
Support with evidence
X X X X
“Where does it say that in the
text?”
“What evidence do you have to
support that?”
“What is a real world example?”
“On page ______, the author
writes…”
“For example, …”
When you want to say it another way...
Paraphrase
“Do you know what I mean?”
“In other words, you’re saying..”
“What do you think?”
“It sounds like you think that…”
“Is that clear?”
“To put it another way…”
When you want to add to the conversation...
Build on
“How can we add to this?”
“What are other points of
“What do you think, ______?” view?”
“Building on what you said, I
“Do you agree?”
think…”
When you want to bring it all together…
Synthesize
“How can we bring these ideas
together?
“We can say that…”
“What have we discussed”
“It boils down to…”
“We can agree that…”