What counts as evidence?

Each disciplinary community has its own criteria for determining what counts as evidence of knowledge in their academic field. The criteria influence the ways that a community's knowledge is created, communicated, and evaluated. Situating reading, writing, and language instruction within the content areas enables teachers to explicitly instruct students what counts as evidence in each disciplinary Discourse. The Common Core State Standards call for readers to use text evidence to reflect their comprehension of the texts they read. This article presents what counts as evidence when analyzing and evaluating literary, social studies, and scientific texts, as well as hypermedia.