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Common Core LiteracyGrades 11–12Science & Technical

RST.11-12.1: Citing Evidence and Finding the Gaps

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.1 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 29 Grades 11–12 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts, attending to important distinctions the author makes and to any gaps or inconsistencies in the account.

Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Reading: Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RST.11-12.1 Means in Plain English

Juniors and seniors quote the exact lines of a lab report or journal article that support their analysis, then notice the distinctions the author draws and where the account has gaps or contradicts itself. A bottled-water study claims plastic in every bottle while its own results disagree.

Ninth and tenth grade (RST.9-10.1) cited evidence while attending to the precise details of explanations and descriptions. Grades 11-12 ask what the text fails to account for as well. This is the last band of the line, the scientific reading that college and career readiness expects.

RST.11-12.1 I Can Statements

  • I can quote the exact lines that support my analysis of a study.
  • I can explain a distinction the author draws and why it matters.
  • I can point out where a study’s account has gaps or contradictions.

RST.11-12.1 Worked Example

The study is invented for this page. Its abstract promises more than its methods and results deliver, and only the strong answer quotes the lines that show it.

Read the Story
Abstract. We filtered 30 bottles of water from six brands and counted the particles left on each filter. Every bottle contained plastic, averaging 240 particles per liter, and we conclude that bottled water is a major source of the plastic people swallow.Methods. Each sample passed through a filter with 1-micrometer pores, so our counts include microplastics, from 1 micrometer to 5 millimeters across, but not nanoplastics, which are smaller and slip through.A dye that clings to plastic made particles glow under a fluorescence microscope, and every glowing particle was counted. From each bottle, 50 glowing particles were then checked with infrared spectroscopy, which identifies what a particle is made of.Results. Of the particles checked by spectroscopy, 82 percent were plastic, mostly polyethylene terephthalate, the plastic the bottles themselves are made of. Four of the 30 bottles had counts below our detection limit.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Does the evidence support the abstract’s claims? Cite the lines that matter, including any distinction the authors draw and any gap or inconsistency in their account.
Not Yet“The study supports its claims. The abstract says ‘Every bottle contained plastic, averaging 240 particles per liter,’ and the team used infrared spectroscopy, so the results are scientific and reliable.”It quotes the abstract as if it were evidence for itself and treats the word spectroscopy as proof. It misses the result that contradicts “every bottle,” the line between micro and nano, and the missing comparison behind “major source.”
Meets the Standard“Only part of the abstract holds up. The methods draw a key distinction: the counts ‘include microplastics … but not nanoplastics,’ so the smallest particles were never counted. Yet the 240 figure may also be too high, since ‘every glowing particle was counted’ but only ‘82 percent were plastic’ when checked, so some counted particles were not plastic at all. The two problems pull the number in opposite directions, so it is neither a floor nor a ceiling. The results also contradict the abstract outright: ‘Four of the 30 bottles had counts below our detection limit,’ which cannot be squared with ‘Every bottle contained plastic.’ Finally, ‘a major source’ is a comparison, and the study measured nothing to compare against, no tap water, food or air.”It quotes the exact lines, uses the authors’ own distinction to limit the claim, finds the contradiction between abstract and results, and names the comparison the study never made.
Question Stems to Use
Which sentence states the conclusion, and which lines are the evidence for it?What distinction does the author draw, and how does it limit the claim?Does any line in the results contradict the abstract?What would the authors have needed to measure to support this word?What does the text leave out that a skeptical reader would ask about?

Common Mistakes with RST.11-12.1

Quoting the abstract as proof

“The abstract says every bottle had plastic, so every bottle had plastic.”

Try this: Have students find the line in the methods or results that supports each abstract claim, and mark any claim with no such line.

Skipping the author’s distinctions

“The water had 240 pieces of plastic per liter, so that is all the plastic in it.”

Try this: Ask what the author’s defined terms leave out, like particles smaller than the filter, and rewrite the claim so it says only what was measured.

Treating technical words as evidence

“They used infrared spectroscopy, so the results are reliable.”

Try this: Have students say what each method actually checked and on how many samples, then judge the claim against that number, not the method’s name.

Where RST.11-12.1 Fits

Comes BeforeRST.9-10.1Cite evidence from science texts, attending to the precise details of explanations and descriptions.
AlongsideRI.11-12.1Cite strong, thorough evidence and decide where an informational text leaves matters uncertain.WHST.11-12.9Draw evidence from science and technical texts to support analysis, reflection and research.
Comes NextRST.11-12.8Evaluate a study’s hypotheses, data, analysis and conclusions, checking them against other sources.

Practice RST.11-12.1

Quick Check

  1. What distinction do the methods draw, and what does it leave out of the count?
  2. Which result contradicts the abstract?
  3. What gap lies behind the claim that bottled water is “a major source” of swallowed plastic?

RST.11-12.1: Other Names

RST.11-12.1CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.1

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.