What is an example of an inference you might make from a text?

Making an inference involves going beyond the explicit details presented in a text to draw conclusions based on the evidence provided. When you deduce motives or feelings of characters based on their actions, you are analyzing the behavior and context of those characters, which allows you to understand their underlying motivations, thoughts, or emotions that the author may not state directly. This analytical process requires you to synthesize information from the text and apply reasoning, leading to a deeper comprehension of the narrative and its characters.

In contrast, summarizing the main idea, determining the publication date, or identifying the author’s writing style are more straightforward tasks that involve recounting facts or descriptive elements rather than interpreting them. These activities do not require the same level of inference because they generally rely on explicit information presented in the text.