Within the world of college essays, quotations rarely "prove" anything. What good quotations usually do is support a particular interpretation. Yet one of the most frequent mistakes college writers make is to say that a particular quotation "proves" some claim. Here are some verbs that persuade better than prove:
suggests
implies
testifies to
indicates
argues (that, for)
shows
demonstrates
supports
underscores
Suppose for instance you're writing an essay on women in the workplace, and you find a damning quotation from some CEO: "Women just don't make good bosses, and I don't want them messing up my company." Here are the wrong and right way to comment on this choice bit after quoting it:
ORIGINAL
REVISION
This quotation proves that women encounter rampant discrimination in the workplace.
Smith's comment suggests how much resistance women still face in the workplace.
The original tries to get too much from the quotation. It's just one comment, after all, not data on the workplace at large. Stylistically, notice the change in attribution, from This quotation to Smith's comment, a change in keeping with the Nuts and Bolts principle of attaching actions to real actors）.
suggests
implies
testifies to
indicates
argues (that, for)
shows
demonstrates
supports
underscores
Suppose for instance you're writing an essay on women in the workplace, and you find a damning quotation from some CEO: "Women just don't make good bosses, and I don't want them messing up my company." Here are the wrong and right way to comment on this choice bit after quoting it:
ORIGINAL
REVISION
This quotation proves that women encounter rampant discrimination in the workplace.
Smith's comment suggests how much resistance women still face in the workplace.
The original tries to get too much from the quotation. It's just one comment, after all, not data on the workplace at large. Stylistically, notice the change in attribution, from This quotation to Smith's comment, a change in keeping with the Nuts and Bolts principle of attaching actions to real actors）.