Making an inference: reading between the lines of a source
History · GCSE · The School
Stated versus implied
What a source STATES is on the page in plain words. What it IMPLIES has to be worked out from tone, word choice, what is included, and what is left out. A soldier's letter home that mentions the fighting only once, briefly, before writing at length about food and weather, implies something about what he was and was not willing to tell his family — even though he never states it.
Anchoring an inference to evidence
A good inference always points to the specific detail that supports it. "The writer seems worried" is weak on its own. "The writer's repeated question 'how are the children, really?' suggests genuine anxiety they are trying not to show directly" points to the exact words the inference comes from. An inference with nothing to point to is a guess, not an inference.
The inference the source cannot support
An inference must be a reasonable reading of what is actually there, not an idea imported from outside knowledge the source itself gives no hint of. Inferring "the writer secretly opposed the war" from a letter that never mentions politics at all is not supported by the source, however plausible it might otherwise sound — that is bringing in an assumption, not reading one out.
A 1940 letter states: "The bombing was bad last night. Tell Aunt Edith her parcel arrived, the biscuits were lovely." STATED: bombing happened, a parcel arrived. WEAK INFERENCE: "the writer was scared" — plausible, but nothing specific points to it. STRONGER INFERENCE: "the writer moves from the bombing to biscuits in the very next sentence, suggesting a deliberate effort to sound normal and reassure the reader rather than dwell on danger" — anchored precisely to the abrupt change of subject in the actual text. The second inference could be written down, pointed to, and defended if challenged; the first could not.