This deep dive covers 🔎 The Three Evidence Moves — and How to Deploy Each within Evidence Moves (Metaphor, Expert Citation, Statistics) for GCSE English Language. Revise Evidence Moves (Metaphor, Expert Citation, Statistics) in Writing — Persuasive Structure for GCSE English Language with 10 exam-style questions and 5 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 2 of 6 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
🔎 The Three Evidence Moves — and How to Deploy Each
There are three types of evidence available to persuasive writers. Each type does a different job. Recognising the type is the first move; the second is explaining its persuasive function.
| Evidence type | What it does | Worked example |
|---|---|---|
| Metaphor | Makes an abstract idea feel vivid and physical; sneaks an argument past the reader’s critical defences | “The high street is a patient on a drip. Every closed shop is a breath closer to the last.” — The comparison makes economic decline feel like medical crisis. |
| Expert citation | Borrows authority; makes the writer’s position feel shared by credible others | “As Dr Chioma Eze of the British Heart Foundation notes, ‘there is no safe level of ultra-processed food consumption for adolescents.’” — The named institution amplifies the claim. |
| Statistics | Grounds the argument in scale; makes individual experience feel like universal pattern | “Eighty-three per cent of young people say their schools never discussed mental health openly. That is not a minority. That is almost everyone.” — The reframe after the number is the real persuasive work. |
Quick Check: What type of evidence is this? “The government’s own data shows that one in three food-bank users is in full-time work.” What is its persuasive function?
Statistics (a specific number: one in three). Its persuasive function is to ground an emotive claim in verifiable scale, and to use the government’s own authority against it — the phrase “the government’s own data” doubles the force of the statistic by making denial difficult.
Practice questions for Evidence Moves (Metaphor, Expert Citation, Statistics)
Which of these sentences is an example of a metaphor used as persuasive evidence?
A writer includes: 'As Dr Priya Mehta of Imperial College London argues, the long-term effects of poor school lunches are indistinguishable from those of childhood poverty itself.' What type of evidence is this, and what is its main persuasive function?