The teacher gets a note delivered from the office. She reads it and looks at you. The principal wants to see you.

You are sitting there on the other side of the principal’s big desk, and she asks you, “Did you see the fight in the stairwell this morning? Someone said you were there. We are trying to find out what happened.”

The following thoughts fly through your mind:

• This morning the stairwell was crowded.
• People were shoving and pushing to get to class.
• I forgot my science book in my locker, and I had to go back and get it.
• I didn’t have much breakfast.
• I heard Sheila say, “Move it!” in a loud voice to someone.
• I was worried about my fourth-period math quiz.
• Actually, I think I did OK on the math quiz.
• I saw Carla throw down her backpack.
• Two guys I know, Brad and Amir, grabbed Carla after she hit someone.
• I’m going to try out for football next year.
• Carla said, “Let go of me. She hit me. Let go of me.”
• What’s on television tonight?
• Am I in trouble?
• What should I say?

OK, that last thought is what you need to consider. What should you say?

You know that not all of these thoughts are going to help the principal find out what happened this morning in the stairwell.

Some of these thoughts are relevant, and some are irrelevant. In other words, some of these thoughts connect with the question on the principal’s mind (i.e., what happened in the stairwell), and some do not. Suppose the principal had asked, “What were you thinking about in the stairwell this morning?” In this case, all of the thoughts would have been relevant. Relevance depends on the matter at hand.

When you revise an expository essay, the “matter at hand” is the thesis of your essay, and within each part of your essay, the “matter at hand” is a subtopic of your thesis. When you consider the relevance of your evidence and the choice of your details, you always need to look back at the thesis and the subtopics to see if the evidence and details support those ideas. You need to connect your evidence and details to the matter at hand.

In this lesson, you will learn strategies for evaluating and revising an essay so that it contains relevant evidence and well-chosen details. You will also learn what actually happened in the stairwell.